RE: ODP: Free will/consciousness/ineffabili

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 16:06:29 -0700 (PDT)

My intuition doesn't tell me whether or not I would have a 'feeling' of
free will if I were aware of my subconscious decision processes; but it's
pretty clear that I could be completely un-conscious and still behave with
'free will'; whatever it is.

What if your subconscious decision processes became known to you *after*
you had made your decision and 'felt' that free will. Would you feel
something different then?

Brent Meeker
 "The human mind did not evolve in order to create a race of
  philosophers or scientists"
                --- Bainbridge

On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Charles Goodwin wrote:

> It seems unlikely that it could be otherwise. Presumably the impulse to make a decision has to originate from a lower level,
> assuming that consciousness is supported by layers of unconscious processing? However the decisions in question were to do with when
> to perform a simple action - pressing a key, or something similar. What about conscious decisions that are arrived at by evaluating
> evidence, weighing possibilities, etc? Presumably they are also supported by unconscious layers which know how to evaluate evidence
> etc... Surely the feeling of free will comes from us not being aware of these underlying processes.
>
> Charles
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Brent Meeker [mailto:meekerdb.domain.name.hidden]
> > Sent: Wednesday, 24 October 2001 9:34 a.m.
> > To: rwas
> > Cc: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> > Subject: Re: ODP: Free will/consciousness/ineffability
> >
> >
> > Whatever free will is, it is very doubtful that it depends on
> > consciousness. See Daniel Dennett's dicussion of the Grey
> > Walter carousel
> > experiment. This experiment shows (although there is a
> > little ambiguity
> > left) that free will decisions occure *before* on is
> > conscious of them.
> >
> > Brent Meeker
> > The freedom of the will consists in the fact that future
> > actions cannot
> > be known now.
> > --- Ludwig Wittgenstein
> >
>
>
Received on Tue Oct 23 2001 - 16:06:01 PDT