StrictlyLogical

Question: Is your question answerable (provable?) within the realm of the application of sound (proven?) philosophical principles alone (not mere speculation), or does an answer to the particular problem of free will require evidence, observation, empirical experiment, etc.... i.e. does it fall within the realm of philosophy or the special sciences?

Right, but they are asking you to deny the certainty and primacy of existence "out there", i.e. independent reality, as opposed to some kind of consciousness thing whether an individual, collective, or spiritual/godlike consciousness being primary or the only type or existence. My point only was that the conclusions we reach from a mountain of evidence is not to be thrown aside in face of a claim which amounts to little more than a groundless maybe.

I not think the unconscious generates a feeling of free will. I do not believe humans experience free will as a feeling. I believe humans experience the performance of free will as a sort of action, one upon reflection which is such that "I could have chosen otherwise".

The totality of self-experience, all of it, from your earliest moment to your experience of being and choosing in the very moment, all of it amounts to an understanding of your subjective experience and your free will. Some philosophers have said do not trust that existence exists, perhaps it is all illusion, but they fail to see they are asking you to ignore everything you have ever perceived, experienced, felt, indeed everything you know. The answer is to reject such a call to complete and utter ignorance with no evidence forming the basis for such abandonment, as groundlessly silly. Just as denying existence runs contrary to everything you know, so too attempting to deny the introspective truth of free will is an attempt to persuade you to choose not to believe in free will. Such is asking you to evade everything about your life... morality, choice, meaning, without providing any real reason or evidence to do so, simply put we do not understand nearly enough about the universe to come anywhere near proving free will does not exist, and in the absence of said evidence, entertaining such a notion is tantamount to a groundless, baseless abdication of life... all of it. Knowing this full well, how could anyone take such musings, such an invitation to self abdication, self immolation... seriously? As for the unconscious, it seems odd that an unconscious would evolve to create a feeling of free will. Such a mechanism would imply something like an attempt (by the unconscious) to cause the self or consciousness to act or refrain from acting a certain way, but if the self or consciousness was already determined wholly, such an additional urge by feeling... to feel choosy... would be wholly superfluous, and in the end ineffectual. In a predetermined universe the unconscious would not ever need to create a feeling of free will.

"arguing that free will has to exist or there will be consequences" That is not the "argument", and even if it were, it would NOT be any kind of proof of the existence of free will.

You ask: "Does free will exist, or are our choices predetermined by prior causes?" "Free will" defined properly, exists. Our choices are influenced by prior causes, primarily and importantly the chooser's identity/nature. Rand's philosophy of "being" is wholly predicated upon identity, and as such no action or cause in nature proceeds in contradiction with identity. No thing is supernatural, everything is natural, including people, brains, and yes minds. As a property of mind, one of the things a brain "does", any proper definition of free will must take that (identity, non-contradiction) into account. You are who you are at a time of choice, all your memories and tendencies, your mood, your body, everything is part of your nature/identity of what you exactly are at the time of choice, and one cannot evade these important facts when thinking about free will. Free will and the choice made by it of course depend upon and are influenced by one's identity/nature. If one defines free will as simply (and properly) "one could have chosen otherwise" then that freedom becomes bounded ... the different possible outcomes are specific (otherwise you would not be you... you would be able to be anyone), and moreover, in order to not be deterministic the actual outcome cannot be pre-determinable or even theoretically knowable with certainty. Without fully understanding why or how, identity plus "freedom" to choose, is functionally describable in probabilistic terms... a probability function of all possible choices (which probabilities all add up to 1) describes the outcome of the system. Proof is not necessary to embrace free will. It is an introspective truth. Moreover, it would be pointless to assume free will does not exist... i.e. nothing is gained from it. There are two possibilities, either free will does not exist or it does. (Assuming you choose to ignore introspection) you NOW have a choice to reject or embrace free will. IF free will does not exist, in a very fundamental way whether you "choose" to reject it or not is meaningless, not only is it not up to you in that your choice was not free and was predetermined anyway, in such a universe all choices are morally and existentially inconsequential, we and all things being tinkertoys of mechanistic certainty. IF free will DOES exist, choosing to reject it risks abdication of (or negligence in the use of) your ability to choose in very important and meaningful or otherwise morally and existentially important moments in your life and the lives of those around you, potentially causing suffering when you could have chosen otherwise creating happiness/peace, or pursuing your values etc. and of course IF free will DOES exist and you choose to embrace it, really exercise your ability and responsibility to guide your actions and affect your life and the lives of those around you, then you maximise your potential for meaning, happiness, and attaining your values in life. In essence one does not "prove" free will exists. One understands, accepts, and "proves" it would be utterly pointless (in academic philosophy and in life) to choose to believe and act as though free will does not exist.

I second that. "Publish" it here in a new thread, they seem to be unable or not willing to block your access to this site.

How is it that they are failing, absolutely and completely failing, to keep you quiet on this forum? If they can't silence you here, surely you must be able to send all your work, formulas, theorems, simulations, documentation to Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, or Russel Brand, or Alex Jones / Info Wars to ensure it gets public? What is stopping you?

So it is about science. But is it ever really just about the science? What kind of discovery was it? In what industry? How lucrative is it? Would BiG Money make a lot of money from the science? I assume, if you had not really solved it they would not have been interested in you at all. Their noticing you means they would have had to have seen that you did (past tense) actually solve it, not just claimed to have solved it. I assume then that the science was published, otherwise how would they know that you had solved it, so the "solution" is now (and has been since they discovered your solving it), out there. That said, after discovering that you have let the genie out of the bottle why do they care about you anymore, shouldn't they be chasing the genie? Or implementing it for their own gain or power? If you have more information they don't want published, why do they let you post here? Perhaps they secretly just want your information. Why not just upload and post all your work for everyone to see, access, apply, it does not seem that anyone is stopping you from doing that. If it is important people will discover it and find it useful. I suspect, if you really want it, once you have posted whatever they want, they will leave you alone, they cannot risk being discovered, and will go back into the shadows.

Why are the terrorists bothering with you? Are you rich? Do they want to take your money? Are you highly powerful or influential over a large group of people or geographical area of interest to them? Why did they target you in the first place and how is it worth it to them to do so?

I think many in the world are pivoting away from old conflicts defined in terms of polar opposites which are not at play right now as they once were. When the world is seen as filled with mostly "good" cultures and societies which generally value peace, autonomy, family, life, happiness, for everyone... the philosophical quibbles over just what the good is and why, and how best to achieve it can be real and indeed can be very contentious and stark: Atheism versus Religionism, Capitalism versus Socialism, but in the end they are not existentially and urgently crucial. Christians have been quite harsh on "heretical" or "heathen" thinking for quite some time and the vehemence with which the Atheists "rebelled" against Christianity, religious and mythical thought is quite breathtaking. But over recent times I think many feel that the animosity between generally good people over these issues is rather small potatoes. For the world is now seen as having a sort of "thing" working in the background, of people whose motive is sheer political and economic power, whether governments and bankers or oligarchs and powerful families etc. or all of them... it possesses an unmistakable "evil" culture which does not value peace, autonomy, family, life, happiness, for everyone... instead valuing those for some: personal friends and family, and are happy to "pay the price" of consigning everyone else to their antitheses : war, authority, isolation, misery and death. What point is there to fight over just exactly what good is and how to get there when a faint but clear harbinger of cultural evil.... atheist non-moral anti-human post-modern evil that is arising. Whether or not consciously emerging from the nexi of power, or whether unconsciously emerging in the psychology of culture which has lost the basis of its morality and has not discovered objectivism, the inhuman evil is now at work here. It makes sense for those that hold humanity, human life, individual life and liberty in high esteem to band together for humankind. It has been happening. Craig Biddle debated with Denis Prager a few years back putting forth the position that they should not fight... Prager at that time was stuck in the mind set that he must scare people back into religion with the bromide "without religion morality is impossible"... as if membership in the good camps was more important than sheer numbers of good people. Richard Dawkins has announced that he is an "Atheist Christian"... quite a claim to unpack but nonetheless one which is symbolic of a real spiritual and mental alliance ... good people who still value humanity and life on earth as free individuals with peace, autonomy, family, life, happiness, for everyone, NOT just some people, should and will come together. Of course the "thing"'s activity in sowing divisions is accelerating, men against women, blacks against whites, left against right, atheism against religion, Christian against Muslim... Christians citing Objectivism and Objectivists reaching out to good religionists is a good thing and all individual human loving people need to come together.

Excellent responses by all, not much to add. My one observation is that the main problem is not so much a conflation of identity and value... sure, these concepts are not to be conflated, but if such an error were made, it should be easily remedied by one familiar enough with each concept, and secondly, such a conflation, even if believed, cannot form the foundation for the "primacy of consciousness view". Even if value can be created in things by sheer subjectivity, the things themselves to which this magical value attaches cannot be created ex nihilo. Neither do we observe the magical consciousnesses (ghosts?) at work absent the physical brains/bodies by which they are manifested. With the conflation they can perhaps get to things "enchanted" or "haunted" by consciousness... but they cannot get to primacy of consciousness. I think you will find that rather than some small conflation enabling or leading to such a conclusion (which is far out of reach), in fact the "conclusion" is an existing presumption, an entrenched pre-existing premise which motivates the person to try to find evidence or reasons (perhaps even the conflation ... not knowing that it is erroneous) which can be used to support that presumption. Here they are starting at the end (primacy of consciousness) which is not rationally justified by the means to arrive there (no pun intended).

In addition to what I said above here is something to think about: Old school mailboxes at the end of the driveway are a nice example of the interplay between things, causation, information, and knowledge. If you have outgoing mail, you ensure the flag is up, the outgoing mail is in there and the mail carrier is supposed to put it down and take your outgoing mail. If you see the flag down, it should be an indication the carrier took your outgoing mail and dropped off any incoming mail. BUT that assumes the carrier knows the convention, she could have opened and closed the box without taking your mail (thinking it incoming mail from yesterday). She could have lowered your flag out of spite, and not done anything with your mail. You can't even be sure if she came, the flag could have failed... a mechanism finally rusting through, a branch from a tree may have fallen on it, or a squirrel or a racoon could have fiddled with your box... or a mischievous neighbor or child in your neighbor hood is playing prank on you... or in some cases (depending on the mechanics) some snooping person may have merely opened the mailbox and closed it again. If you see the flag still up, it should be an indication the carrier did not take your outgoing mail nor dropped off any incoming mail. BUT again that assumes the carrier knows the convention, she could have opened and closed the box took your outgoing mail and dropped off your incoming mail and put the flag up again. If the flag is "still" up you can't even be sure nothing happened with the flag since you last put it up, although that is your assumption. So, if you see the flag up, you literally have no certain information, although statistically you can draw inferences... and If you see the flag down you are certain only about causality, something or someone (including failure) caused the flag to move, although statistically you can draw inferences. In the end, you behave as though the carrier does what was supposed to be done and generally nothing else interacts with the flag, and statistically speaking you end up use that information as efficiently as possible, even if thing sometimes surprise you.

Pretty much. In the real world you can gain that knowledge from things by observing the thing directly (in any way through a causal chain without intervening third parties). You can also gain knowledge from information which has been generated by third parties observing the thing and essentially telling you about it. This information is recorded in any symbolic form of communication or record keeping and it represents the referent to which it is directed. We also use the term information to identify the representations conveyed by nonliving causal intermediaries between the thing and our minds... e.g. eyes, provide the information we know... video recording provide information about what the camera was aimed at...the photons travelling from galaxies give us information about the galaxies. Both knowledge and information are about or refer to things, they have referents in reality. Knowledge is in your head, information is encoded in some, any medium, or causal intermediary. You can get knowledge about referents directly or from information. Both knowledge and information is valid when there is both a causal connection to the referent and when they identify the referent or whatever is relevant about it,without contradiction with that reality.

Our brains use physical means in order abstract and to form abstractions. Do you contend our physical brains CONSIST of abstractions? If you contend information exists as a physical part of any physical system, does it exist independently of, over and above , or in addition to, all the other physical characteristics we can observe but traditionally have not identified as "information" as such? What happens to physical system we observe when the information is removed from the physical system? What is the distinction between a first universe where we merely identify and perceive information about a physical thing, the information existing only in our minds as and because we create it by thinking of and referring to those things, and a second universe where the information is in the things themselves? Specifically, what is different about those things themselves which we observe in those two universes?