Do You Know That You Have NFW? ( ie. 100% GED )

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It isn't.

That isn't my question. I said "supernatural and/or a subjective experience", bracketing them together in contrast to the objectively "real".

I suppose that an objectively real free will would also produce a subjective experience too!

But I believe that the only kind of free will that "exists", and which most people are referring to when they talk about free will, is purely subjective, an illusion, an "experience" which we describe as free will. I think that it has something to do with our brain structure "perceiving" some of our behaviour/actions as being "bad"/not in our "best interests" ( as makuranososhi put it ). I think it is something about the human faculty of "judging"/valuing/labelling which creates the illusion; it creates the illusion of another possibility.
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Last edited by ouinon on 22 Dec 2009, 3:46 am, edited 2 times in total.

Will implies action or intent; thus the importance of decision/choice... Free will is the ability to act, choose or respond; that doesn't exclude genetic, environmental, experiential or any other form of influence or limitation - but that does not mean that there is agency within that structure. Free will is cognitive entropy, in a way...

It's isn't the acronym, it's the phrasing:

"Do you know" presumes that what follows is indeed factual; 'yes' is implied to be the correct answer, a 'no' showing ignorance. It does not so much ask a question as written... more in the vein of "have you stopped beating your wife?" - which is why I don't find it inviting to conversation but more combative.


M.

Okay, I see that. I did wonder whether to put "believe" instead of "know" but it seemed odd in the context of an, ( imaginary but supposedly "real" for the purposes of the analogy ), diagnosis. And I do stand by my belief that free will is only a subjective thing/an illusion, with no objective existence, and the "NFW" was intended to sound as objective as a diagnosis is. So I put 'know".


"Where" is the "agency" located, what is its "medium", if it is not within that structure, ( of genes, environment, or experience )?

I was thinking about what I have "experienced"/believed to be "free will" in the past, ( and experience even now, despite not believing in it anymore, because mental habits die very hard ), and I believe that free will is an illusion produced by language. Language, words, create the illusion of an alternative version of events, in which we didn't or don't do x. "If" ... requires language.

Language makes us think that there really is/was another possible reality, ( or many "possible realities" ) which we could have "had" if we had just done x.

Without language ( creating a "film" in our heads with the special effects we call words ), we would have no conception/vision of another reality. We would "choose", as determined by our genes and environment, incuding experiential influences, but without experiencing the loss of other options ( the "loss" which trad CBT teaches us to accept that there inevitably is in "choice" ).

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I don't know that you can look at a map and say "See here? This is agency." - the technology doesn't exist, and the understanding of physiology certainly does not. Perhaps free will is the catalytic event in chemistry, where once activating agent is added to the mix it begins to react. Perhaps it resides in the realm of the temporal - we have free will, but the passage of time prevents exploration of more than a single avenue. I don't need language to see that if, at a fork in the road, that I will have two different experiences depending on the route I choose. Those options continue to exist, regardless of whether I see them, acknowledge them, or explore them. I find it curious, as the sort of fatalism you propose is quite frowned upon by much of Christianity; it's a curious thought process, indeed.


M.

Me. It is frustrating and liberating.
All I need is to find the right environment and I will flourish in it. But how on Earth can I find it?