Compassionist wrote:No, I have failed to clarify what I meant. I will try again now. I mean that the choices we make are dynamically determined every nanosecond by the dynamic and constant interactions of the forces of causality. Because we are sentient biological organisms, genes, physical environments, nutrients and subjective experiences are the key macro-level (as opposed to nano-level) ingredenients behind each and every choice dynamically determined (not pre-determined). If we were cybernetic sentient beings, genes and nutrients would not be in the picture. Instead it would be hardware, software, electricity and subjective experiences which would be the dynamic interactors behind each and every choice made by the cybernetic sentient being. The distinction between pre-determination of conscious choices by a deity and dynamic determination of conscious choices by causality is subtle but profound.
Sorry Compassionist, I think you are confusing yourself based on semantics. Let me make try and express it the following way instead of a passage.
a. Causality = for effect there is a/many cause(s) i.e. for event there are a/many causing events
b. Humans are governed by causality
c. A human's sentience or noesis depends upon his nutrition, etc, etc, etc
d. An act of making a decision, md, at a given point in space-time, pst, depends upon causes - human's sentience, hs, and environmental events leading upto pst, ee.
If you say there is no free will, you are saying that 'md' is deterministic immaterial of whether its chief influencers 'pst', 'hs', 'ee' (in fact pst can be moved to second level cause because pst influences hs and ee directly) occur one minute before, one nano-second before, one year before, or one trillionth of a second before the act of 'md' is done.
1. In other words, the human could not have made a different decision - that is what you are proposing when u say free will does not exist.
2. I infer that given '1' your definition of free will necessarily means that free will and causality are mutually exclusive
3. But you argued later that your definition of free will is within the confines of causality
4. If a human is governed entirely by causality i.e. the deterministic causality then I don't see any way how free will can be part of such an existence without it rising above causality
My personal view is that free will exists. the ability to choose is not deterministic or entirely based on causality. Immaterial of my nutrition, etc, etc at any given point in time I have the ability to decide something that potentially trashes determinism. I may not decide so, but I have the ability to decide so, and in deed every human being does decide so.
What you are saying is that a human could not have decided in any way...that is pre-determined immaterial of whether the 'pre' is dynamic as in nano-second or ultra dynamic as in one gazillionth of a second. It is not real-time coz if it the decision is happening in real-time then it necessarily means the human's mind has the ability to decide differently.
