McCulloch wrote:Will that is somehow, "unconstrained by external circumstances". I do not agree with that claim. I believe that our will is, itself, caused in complex chaotic ways just as our emotions are. Our will is affected by our intellect, our emotions, our circumstances, social pressures and all of the things that affect our emotions. You have not been able to demonstrate free will.
scorpia wrote:But people can refuse to let external circumstances affect them. Wouldn't they be unconstrained by external circumstances? What external circumstances would that be? Intellect? People ignore that. Social pressure? People can ignore that too. Genetics? That can be ignored. Same with emotions. Wouldn't this show that show that will isn't necessarily constrained?
No, people cannot refuse to let external circumstances affect them. People can choose to refuse to allow certain external circumstances from affecting a decision that they may have made. The decision, however, was made based on external circumstances.
A Christian, for instance, has decided to obey the precepts of Jesus Christ. This decision was made for a number of reasons, all external circumstances. Intellect (being convinced intellectually that the Christian theology is true), emotion (fear of eventual annihilation, feelings of guilt/need to feel forgiven, need to feel special, chosen), social pressure etc. Even if you believe that faith is a gift from God, that is an external circumstance. God, a being external to self, grants faith to the penitent. The Christian, then may choose to ignore other external circumstances; intellectual, social, emotional etc. which may act to go against that decision. Why? Two possibilities. First, that the Christian in question has a characteristic ability, we call free-will, to make decisions completely unaffected by external circumstances. Second, that the Christian in question is in a state where he or she believes, that it is in his or her best interest in the long run to remain faithful based entirely on the external circumstances which led to the original conversion and subsequent factors in that person's life.
I favour the second hypothesis since it does not add to our world-view the unproven existence of soul, the carrier of this alleged free-will. This is Occam's Razor.
I assert that every observable event is either caused or random or can be broken down into sub-events which are either caused or random. And it turns out that the only truly random events happen at a quantum level. Caused events, all follow deterministic rules. Random events all follow probabilistic rules. The concept of free-will posits a third type of event, a decided event. Something which happens not randomly and not deterministically caused.
You have raised the example of John Nash choosing to ignore hallucinations. You seem to assert that he chose to ignore hallucinations because of some free-will that is neither random nor caused by external factors. I assert that he chose to ignore hallucinations because of a combination of external factors; his intellect, his emotions and the support of those around him.
Social pressure? People can ignore that too. Genetics? That can be ignored. Same with emotions. Wouldn't this show that show that will isn't necessarily constrained?
