OUR ACTIONS CAUSED BUT WE ARE STILL DOING WHAT WE WANT TO DO

OUR ACTIONS CAUSED BUT WE ARE STILL DOING WHAT WE WANT TO DO
BY ROBERT HALFHILL

Try this thought experiment. If our desires were merely physical processes in the brain and the outcome of what we decided to do was merely the outcomes of what these conflicting desires, i.e physical processes, impelled us to do, as determined and mathematically calculable as the sum of forces moving an object in different directions results in the object moving in a certain direction, then we would still think we were acting according to what we decided to do and would think we were acting on free will.

If our actions were completely random, i.e. if the results of our conflicting desires were random and could not be predicted from the desires we had, we would still think we were acting freely or had free will, though with no way to predict what we would do next, we would be worried about what we might do.

Whether the outcome of our conflicting desires were causally determined and predictable, or non causally determined and random, or somewhere in between with our actions being partly caused and partly random, we would still think we were doing what we freely decided to do. And we would still think we were doing what we freely desired whether these desires were merely physical processes in our brain or something non material.

When people are confronted with the idea that our actions are causally determined and predictable, they think it is like being confined to move down a narrow track in a certain direction and that they could not deviate no matter what they wanted or desired. Since their experience is obviously not like this, they reject the contention that their will is not free as an offense to common sense and contrary to direct experience. But of course, if what they wanted to do was the result of previous causes, their desires could not be other than what they were and it would still seem like they were acting freely, by free will.

In fact, there is no difference in our experience between a world in which our actions are causally determined and a world in which they are "free," and since there is no difference, I conclude that this free will is a meaningless concept. Though I started out this argument by saying IF our actions WERE determined, this was merely a way to get readers to see that everything would seem the same even then. Our actions ARE determined by previous causes, we eat because there is a physical process in our brains which IS the desire for food or hunger, and this physical process was brought about by a physical process in our stomachs and the rest of our bodies, which... Causal determination does not mean we can't do what we want to do so there is no reason to concern ourselves further. And if there is someway in which quantum indeterminancy on the microscopic level of electons and other particles introduces a degree of non causality and randomness in the actions of our bodies on the macroscopic level, it still seems like we are acting freely, in fact there is no way to see how things would seem any different if we WERE not acting freely. Hence there is no meaning to this cincept of not acting freely and we need not worry about it even though our actions ARE causally determined with perhaps a little indeterminancy because of quantum uncertainty.

I also want to deal with the concept that our having a self means that there must be something immaterial. I am aware of being aware of sensations, desires, emotions, thoughts, ect and I am aware of being aware of these things. I can infer that other people have this same awareness through their behavior. But there is no reason to conclude that this awareness or consciousness must be nonmaterial. The existence of a self is another idea that got thrown into this mishmash but, after disentangling the confusion, there is no proof left for anything nonmaterial.

Robert Halfhill rhalfhill@juno.com RobertHalfhill@gmail.com