[MD] Free Will

[david buchanan]

Steve said:
...Sure, but the free will question is about HOW choices are made.


John replied:
Is it?  I thought it was *whether* choice was made or even possible. Whether it's possible to choose, to freely decide.  ...I believe individuality is itself a choice, and thus we don't make choices, choices make us.  And yes, I think that is the exact opposite of determinism.  I guess I have no real bone to pick with you.  It's that Sam Harris guy I find ridiculous. ...

dmb says:

Yes, of course the question of free will is about whether or not we have any free will. Knowing something about HOW choices are made can inform your opinion as to whether we are determined or free, but that certainly is the question. This seems to be just of one of several ways in which Steve has confused that question.

One of the biggest problem in this months-long thread is that Steve keeps trying to make Sam Harris's determinism compatible with the MOQ's reformulation and the result is not pretty. Take a look at these lines from Harris's blog and then tell me if you don't think he's a classic SOM determinist.

Sam writes, "...You seem to be an agent acting of your own free will. The problem, however, is that this point of view cannot be reconciled with what we know about the human brain. All of our behavior can be traced to biological events about which we have no conscious knowledge: this has always suggested that free will is an illusion. 
...The truth seems inescapable: I, as the subject of my experience, cannot know what I will next think or do until a thought or intention arises; and thoughts and intentions are caused by physical events and mental stirrings of which I am not aware. Of course, many scientists and philosophers realized long before the advent of experimental neuroscience that free will could not be squared with an understanding of the physical world. 
...If the laws of nature do not strike most of us as incompatible with free will, it is because we have not imagined how human action would appear if all cause-and-effect relationships were understood.  ...we cannot help but let our notions of freedom and responsibility travel up the puppet’s strings to the hand that controls them. ...Decisions, intentions, efforts, goals, willpower, etc., are causal states of the brain, leading to specific behaviors, and behaviors lead to outcomes in the world."

That's enough. You get the idea....