Reply To: Free anything never mind free will
We are not in a position yet to claim that free will does not exist nor that it is impossible…let alone with a reasonable level of certainty. We barely have an accepted model/understanding of cognition. The so called test which shows that our mind makes decisions before we are aware of it is deeply flawed and yet still remains one of the key arguments anti-free-will philosophers make. Such a test is bound to fail because a decision is the culmination of many smaller decisions made before we are even presented with a choice (to hit a button or not) and no tests that have been done has ever dealt with the amount of variables involved. As Raymond Tallis has argued in several books: That fact that you agreed to do an experiment is but one of the many variables that play a fundamental part in making a decision (made during the experiment)…but we do not record any data during that moment one agrees to take part in an experiment and thus we lack pretty important information on how the decision is ultimately formed (made?).
There are several reasonable tentative theories of how free will is possible without invoking an Aristotilian/Aquinas-like soul and still deterministic (weak or strong). Daniel Dennet and Mark Blaguer have both presented their own (rather different) tentative theories and have thoroughly criticised every notable argument that supports the “impossibility of free will”.
Here Dennett responds to Sam Harris’s little book on Free Will. Here is a rather scant summary of Mark Blaguer’s work on free will. And a small article on Hofstadter (I cannot find a better or more detailed article on him that isn’t excessively long).
I am always surprised by those who say with such confidence that there is free will or that free will cannot exist…considering the sea of ignorance we are stranded in per cognitive-science (including neuroscience) and considering how tentative all relevant theories are (tentative theories of free will or tentative theories on the impossibility of free will).
On free will…we are still in the stone age.
