Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Why must you ask that when you’ve had explained to you that emergent phenomena don’t have or need anything to “determine” or to “drive” them? 

But your attempted explanation fails to define what causes and drives our thoughts.

Emergent phenomena only exist as an entity in an external observer's conscious perception.  Outside that perception they are just individual elements reacting with each other.  And you have yet to define what comprises thoughts and how they can possibly emerge from material reactions.  Any emergence can only exist if it can be generated from the objects it emerges from.

No you’re not. To the extent that it’s only A reality no-one disputes that, just as to the extent that thinking you actually touch the keys in front of you is only A reality, no-one disputes that either. What’s disputed of course is that in both cases these realities are useful narratives, but nothing more – the explanations for what’s actually going on are very different.   

And over 99% of the human population think they actually touch things too. See, that’s the problem when you commit the basic fallacy of the argumentum ad populum – truth isn’t a popularity contest; it’s hard won with the tools or reason and evidence, not the way things happen to feel in the moment. But then again you knew this didn’t you because the ad pop mistake has been explained to you many times. Why then have you just ignored the explanation and committed exactly the same mistake once more?

You keep quoting this trivial example of fingers touching a keyboard.  What is under discussion is the ultimate cause of human acts of will - not the trivialities about how forces get transmitted from one object to another.  The simple fact is that the movement of the finger causes the key to be depressed.  This is the reality which I would hope everyone would agree with.

[Alan Burns]

I'm just asking about choices where all of the options are acceptable but only one can prevail - when you consider a restaurant menu you don't order everything, so on what basis do you choose?

This is a situation I'd imagine we've all faced, so stop trying to portray this as some kind of highly unusual set of circumstances - so, and to borrow the name of a very good racehorse of a few years ago, is it beef or salmon, Alan (and on what basis)?

What I am saying is that human free will is capable much more than choosing options from a menu.  It is not just about our freedom to choose - it is what you use to drive all your thoughts, words and actions.  You will use it to choose your ultimate destiny.

[Gordon]

What I am saying is that human free will is capable much more than choosing options from a menu.  It is not just about our freedom to choose - it is what you use to drive all your thoughts, words and actions.  You will use it to choose your ultimate destiny.

Super - but if you can't explain how choice operates when it comes to simple everyday scenarios, such as preferred varieties of acceptable nuts or selecting items from a menu, then I'm wondering why on earth should we accept your more florid assertions

[Sebastian Toe]

What I am saying is that human free will is capable much more than choosing options from a menu.  It is not just about our freedom to choose - it is what you use to drive all your thoughts, words and actions.  You will use it to choose your ultimate destiny.

What you are doing though, is avoiding actually answering the question.
Scared?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But your attempted explanation fails to define what causes and drives our thoughts.

FFS! What the hell is wrong with you? It’s been explained to you over and over again that emergent properties DON’T REQUIRE a “driver” – the phenomenon works bottom up, NOT top down. Bees for example don’t construct combs because the queen bee turns up with a set of blueprints and tells them what to do – the combs emerge from countless but consistently performed and interacting simple actions. YOUR ABSOLUTE, FUNDAMENTAL MISTAKE HERE IS JUST TO ASSUME THERE HAS TO BE A “DRIVER” WHEN THE EXPLANATION DOESN’T REQUIRE ONE.

Now write that down.

Do it 100 times if it helps.

Have you got it yet? EMERGENT PROPERTIES DON”T NEED DRIVERS, so the next time you do your demented speak your weight machine routine of “so how does the driver work then?” go back to this post until it finally sinks in.     

Emergent phenomena only exist as an entity in an external observer's conscious perception.

Absolute bollocks. If every “observer” died tomorrow but the bees survived, the combs would continue to be constructed.

Outside that perception they are just individual elements reacting with each other.

Absolute bollocks squared. Emergent phenomena are universal, not something that pops into being only when people happen to be looking at them.

And you have yet to define what comprises thoughts and how they can possibly emerge from material reactions.  Any emergence can only exist if it can be generated from the objects it emerges from.

Your total and desperate ignorance of how emergence works as a generalised principle is showing. I’ve pointed you to books on the subject before now but, predictably, you’ve just ignored them. Why are you so terrified of learning something?
 

You keep quoting this trivial example of fingers touching a keyboard.  What is under discussion is the ultimate cause of human acts of will - not the trivialities about how forces get transmitted from one object to another.  The simple fact is that the movement of the finger causes the key to be depressed.  This is the reality which I would hope everyone would agree with.

Look, it’s really not my job to educate you but when I do could you at least have the basic decency to listen? The experiences of “free” will and of objects touching are ANALOGOUS. For you to understand this though, you need to know what the word “analogy” means. In an analogy concepts THAT ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT are used to illustrate a common underlying idea, argument or principle. That's the point - the objects HAVE to be different. Here’s an example:

“Finding a good man is like finding a needle in a haystack.”

Now you presumably would say, “but a man is a hugely complex living organism, whereas a needle is a simple metal object used for… therefore" blah blah and absolutely miss the point that the analogy depends not on similarities between its objects (men and needles), but rather on the underlying principle that both objects are hard to find.

Can you understand this?

If you can, can you now finally understand that the different properties of fingers touching a keyboard and of an “ultimate cause of human will” have got absolutely fuck all to do with the force of the analogy?

Something?

Anything at all?   

The POINT of the analogy ISN’T about the comparative triviality or the importance of its objects. The POINT is the common underlying principle – in this case that 99% of people believing something to be true tells you nothing about whether it IS true. And as presumably even you can grasp this by reference to fingers not actually touching keyboards (despite 99% of people thinking they do), presumably too even you can grasp that the same generalised principle can apply to anything else. 

And THAT is why your basic mistake of an argumentum ad populum IS a mistake.

Clear now?

See, the problem with you committing mistake after mistake after mistake and never owning them by engaging with the explanations you're given for why they are mistakes isn’t just that it tells us about your dishonesty. No, the bigger problem is that this behaviour means you’ll never LEARN anything. And what THAT means is that you’re condemned to keep repeating EXACTLY THE SAME MISTAKES.

So why is that where you want to be exactly?

[torridon]

What I am saying is that human free will is capable much more than choosing options from a menu.  It is not just about our freedom to choose - it is what you use to drive all your thoughts, words and actions.  You will use it to choose your ultimate destiny.

But you cannot even describe how you make simple choices such as that.  I've asked similar questions of you more times than I've had hot dinners but we never get any straight answer indicating that you don't understand how your own thought processes work.  If you cannot describe choice at the simplest level, how much credence can we put in your take on more complicated choices, such as 'destiny' ?

[Alan Burns]

But you cannot even describe how you make simple choices such as that.  I've asked similar questions of you more times than I've had hot dinners but we never get any straight answer indicating that you don't understand how your own thought processes work.  If you cannot describe choice at the simplest level, how much credence can we put in your take on more complicated choices, such as 'destiny' ?

Can you not see the profound difference between making a simple choice about your preferred food and the infinitely more demanding task of guiding your own thought processes?  They are both examples of the reality of what human free will does.  You seem fixated on concentrating on presuming the simple task of choosing being driven by some form of subconscious reaction and extrapolating that to explain the far more demanding task of driving your thought processes.  As I have said before, I do not profess to know how human free will works, but I know it exists because of what it does, which is currently producing the words in this reply.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

FFS! What the hell is wrong with you? It’s been explained to you over and over again that emergent properties DON’T REQUIRE a “driver” – the phenomenon works bottom up, NOT top down. Bees for example don’t construct combs because the queen bee turns up with a set of blueprints and tells them what to do – the combs emerge from countless but consistently performed and interacting simple actions. YOUR ABSOLUTE, FUNDAMENTAL MISTAKE HERE IS JUST TO ASSUME THERE HAS TO BE A “DRIVER” WHEN THE EXPLANATION DOESN’T REQUIRE ONE.

Now write that down.

Do it 100 times if it helps.

Have you got it yet? EMERGENT PROPERTIES DON”T NEED DRIVERS, so the next time you do your demented speak your weight machine routine of “so how does the driver work then?” go back to this post until it finally sinks in.     

Absolute bollocks. If every “observer” died tomorrow but the bees survived, the combs would continue to be constructed.

Absolute bollocks squared. Emergent phenomena are universal, not something that pops into being only when people happen to be looking at them.

Your total and desperate ignorance of how emergence works as a generalised principle is showing. I’ve pointed you to books on the subject before now but, predictably, you’ve just ignored them. Why are you so terrified of learning something?
 
Look, it’s really not my job to educate you but when I do could you at least have the basic decency to listen? The experiences of “free” will and of objects touching are ANALOGOUS. For you to understand this though, you need to know what the word “analogy” means. In an analogy concepts THAT ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT are used to illustrate a common underlying idea, argument or principle. That's the point - the objects HAVE to be different. Here’s an example:

“Finding a good man is like finding a needle in a haystack.”

Now you presumably would say, “but a man is a hugely complex living organism, whereas a needle is a simple metal object used for… therefore" blah blah and absolutely miss the point that the analogy depends not on similarities between its objects (men and needles), but rather on the underlying principle that both objects are hard to find.

Can you understand this?

If you can, can you now finally understand that the different properties of fingers touching a keyboard and of an “ultimate cause of human will” have got absolutely fuck all to do with the force of the analogy?

Something?

Anything at all?   

The POINT of the analogy ISN’T about the comparative triviality or the importance of its objects. The POINT is the common underlying principle – in this case that 99% of people believing something to be true tells you nothing about whether it IS true. And as presumably even you can grasp this by reference to fingers not actually touching keyboards (despite 99% of people thinking they do), presumably too even you can grasp that the same generalised principle can apply to anything else. 

And THAT is why your basic mistake of an argumentum ad populum IS a mistake.

Clear now?

See, the problem with you committing mistake after mistake after mistake and never owning them by engaging with the explanations you're given for why they are mistakes isn’t just that it tells us about your dishonesty. No, the bigger problem is that this behaviour means you’ll never LEARN anything. And what THAT means is that you’re condemned to keep repeating EXACTLY THE SAME MISTAKES.

So why is that where you want to be exactly?

But the fundamental flaw in all this is your presumption that our conscious awareness and all its capabilities are an emergent property of material reactions, and as such are entirely defined by material reactions.  It is a presumption without substantial evidence, because the only evidence that science can produce is correlation of conscious awareness with material activity in the brain.  Correlation alone cannot be deemed to be causation.  Our conscious awareness is perception of brain activity - not the activity itself.  You are not a reaction.  You are a conscious entity of perception.  You are God's amazing creation which perceives and interacts with this material universe.

[torridon]

Can you not see the profound difference between making a simple choice about your preferred food and the infinitely more demanding task of guiding your own thought processes?  They are both examples of the reality of what human free will does.  You seem fixated on concentrating on presuming the simple task of choosing being driven by some form of subconscious reaction and extrapolating that to explain the far more demanding task of driving your thought processes.  As I have said before, I do not profess to know how human free will works, but I know it exists because of what it does, which is currently producing the words in this reply.

Yet another evasion from the king of the side-step.  Do you really think I don't know that complex choices are going to be harder than simple ones ?  We approach difficult problems by breaking them down into easier more manageable ones, and I and others have given plenty of examples from our own experience of how we resolve choice but you never enjoin in the discussion, preferring to kick up some or other smoke screen as above. 

If you've absorbed anything at all from the thousands of posts on this topic it should be that nobody is arguing that people don't make choices but rather it is about the contradictory meaning of 'free' in the claim of 'free will' and you really ought to know by now that merely observing that we make choices is not evidence that our choices are free in any sense other than being free from external coercion.  I am free to write this post now because there are no constraints obstructing me, but that doesn't mean I am free from the past or free from influence or free from myself, because those freedoms would produce meaningless random noise.

[torridon]

But the fundamental flaw in all this is your presumption that our conscious awareness and all its capabilities are an emergent property of material reactions, and as such are entirely defined by material reactions.  It is a presumption without substantial evidence, because the only evidence that science can produce is correlation of conscious awareness with material activity in the brain.  Correlation alone cannot be deemed to be causation.  Our conscious awareness is perception of brain activity - not the activity itself.  You are not a reaction.  You are a conscious entity of perception.  You are God's amazing creation which perceives and interacts with this material universe.

Sorry, but explain why is it a fundamental flaw to follow evidence ?  The alternative is to ignore evidence ?  That consciousness arises from a functioning brain is what the evidence suggests and in the absence of any other interpretation then we are safe to presume causation and not just correlation.

Conscious awareness is not perception of brain activity. I am conscious of the laptop screen in front of me now; I am not conscious of the workings of my perceptual system. I am not conscious of the macula at the back of my retina, I am not conscious of the fluid in the posterior segment of my eye; I am conscious of my laptop screen, consciousness arises out of the workings of my perceptual systems but i have no consciousness of the working parts of the system itself, that would be pointless. Perception evolved to give creatures the benefit of awareness of their immediate surroundings; it did not evolve to give them awareness of their perceptual systems.

[Stranger]

But the fundamental flaw in all this is your presumption that our conscious awareness and all its capabilities are an emergent property of material reactions, and as such are entirely defined by material reactions.  It is a presumption without substantial evidence...

Seriously Alan, are you lacking so much in self-awareness that you can't see the jaw-dropping double standards you're applying. You are asking us to accept self-contradictory magic, basically for no reason at all except that you assert it. Not the slightest hint of any sound reasoning or evidence.

Our conscious awareness is perception of brain activity - not the activity itself.  You are not a reaction.  You are a conscious entity of perception.  You are God's amazing creation which perceives and interacts with this material universe.

More childish foot-stamping.

Why do you keep completely ignoring all the counterarguments and refusing to address the multiple problems with what passes as your "argument"?

• Too dimwitted to understand?
• Too scared to think about it?
• Too arrogant to think about it?
• Not paying any attention at all?
• Think you're getting brownie points in heaven for your foolish repetition because you're "spreading the word"?

What is it?

And where is the "sound logic" you said you had?

That requires a set of premises that everybody can agree and clear and valid logical steps to your conclusion.

Have you got that or will you admit that you have no sound logic?

[Gordon]

Can you not see the profound difference between making a simple choice about your preferred food and the infinitely more demanding task of guiding your own thought processes?  They are both examples of the reality of what human free will does.  You seem fixated on concentrating on presuming the simple task of choosing being driven by some form of subconscious reaction and extrapolating that to explain the far more demanding task of driving your thought processes.  As I have said before, I do not profess to know how human free will works, but I know it exists because of what it does, which is currently producing the words in this reply.

This is just more hand-waving evasion, Alan.

In your rush to get to your 'I can't understand this, therefore God' comfort zone, with the addition of reified nonsense such as the 'ultimate destiny' you mentioned yesterday, you are deliberately ignoring what is being said to you.

Moreover you are portraying everyday choices, such as choosing what to eat, as being somehow trivial when such choices can involve all the elements that would apply in any other choice: if you knew what you were talking about you could explain how your scheme works, and it seems you can't.

[Alan Burns]

Seriously Alan, are you lacking so much in self-awareness that you can't see the jaw-dropping double standards you're applying. You are asking us to accept self-contradictory magic, basically for no reason at all except that you assert it. Not the slightest hint of any sound reasoning or evidence.

More childish foot-stamping.

Why do you keep completely ignoring all the counterarguments and refusing to address the multiple problems with what passes as your "argument"?

• Too dimwitted to understand?
• Too scared to think about it?
• Too arrogant to think about it?
• Not paying any attention at all?
• Think you're getting brownie points in heaven for your foolish repetition because you're "spreading the word"?

What is it?

And where is the "sound logic" you said you had?

That requires a set of premises that everybody can agree and clear and valid logical steps to your conclusion.

Have you got that or will you admit that you have no sound logic?

You along with others are part of a tiny minority who believe that their ability to think things out leads to the inevitable conclusion that human free will is a logical impossibility.  What you and these others fail to acknowledge is that without the gift of free will, you would not have the freedom to even start the process of thinking things out.  Perhaps you could try starting from the premise that our freedom is an unquestionable reality and use this God given freedom to see what different conclusions would arise.

[Stranger]

You along with others are part of a tiny minority who believe that their ability to think things out leads to the inevitable conclusion that human free will is a logical impossibility.

Straight in with an argumentum ad populum. What is it with you and fallacies? When people tell you that you're using a fallacy, what goes through your mind? Do you think they don't apply to you? Don't you care? We're back to this list again:

• Too dimwitted to understand?
• Too scared to think about it?
• Too arrogant to think about it?
• Not paying any attention at all?
• Think you're getting brownie points in heaven for your foolish repetition because you're "spreading the word"?

What you and these others fail to acknowledge is that without the gift of free will, you would not have the freedom to even start the process of thinking things out.

That's because it's an utterly baseless assertion. This is just one of the things that's been pointed out many, many times and you totally ignore it and just go on mindlessly asserting it.

Perhaps you could try starting from the premise that our freedom is an unquestionable reality...

Well, for starters, your assertions about it contradict each other and you never address the contradiction. Why should I abandon logical reasoning - especially as you claimed to have sound logic to back it up?

Your idea of "freedom" is not only questionable, it's actually nonsensical.

...and use this God given freedom to see what different conclusions would arise.

Something else you've totally ignored is that I've already pointed out that even if I were to accept your contradictory assertions about freedom (assume that there was a way to resolve the contradiction), it still doesn't get me to your conclusions.

[Gordon]

You along with others are part of a tiny minority who believe that their ability to think things out leads to the inevitable conclusion that human free will is a logical impossibility.

Straight in with an ad pop, and of course you have no idea how many people have considered 'free will' philosophically beyond making everyday choices.

What you and these others fail to acknowledge is that without the gift of free will, you would not have the freedom to even start the process of thinking things out.

Of you go on the fallacy funfair again: 'gift' implies a giver, so you are begging the question here, and you end with a mix of incredulity and ignorance.

Perhaps you could try starting from the premise that our freedom is an unquestionable reality and use this God given freedom to see what different conclusions would arise.

Perhaps you should avoid equivocation and define your terms with precision, and perhaps you should try putting the horse before the cart for a change. All you are doing here is showing that bespoke versions of theism, such as your own, can render an otherwise intelligent person incapable of critical reasoning where their faith beliefs are concerned.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But…

No, you’re not going to get away with that with your usual slipperiness.  I just corrected you on two issue, namely that emergent properties don’t require “drivers” and that the argumentum ad populum is false reasoning. These are both mistakes you just made, and you’ve now been corrected.

So before you just slide off to a different “argument”, own the ones that have just fallen apart. Your choices here are either to attempt arguments to show that emergent phenomena do require “drivers” and that the argumentum ad populum is sound reasoning, or to say something like, “thank you for correcting me on these matters – I now understand where I went wrong, and I won’t therefore make either mistake again”.

And once you’ve done that we can move to your next mistake and so on until eventually you’re left either with nothing, or with an argument to justify your beliefs that isn’t wrong.

[Outrider]

You along with others are part of a tiny minority who believe that their ability to think things out leads to the inevitable conclusion that human free will is a logical impossibility.

See, that's politely phrased, but it's still an ad hominem attack - if you think the conclusion is wrong then point out where the logical flow deviates, don't malign the people presenting the argument.

What you and these others fail to acknowledge is that without the gift of free will, you would not have the freedom to even start the process of thinking things out.

Except that you can't cite 'free will' in your argument until you overcome the inherent contradiction in the definition and actually demonstrate that it's a thing.

Perhaps you could try starting from the premise that our freedom is an unquestionable reality and use this God given freedom to see what different conclusions would arise.

Did that.  First issue I came across is that the idea of freedom obviates the concept of will, and vice versa.  Second issue was postulating this unevidenced concept of a 'god', and I didn't take it far enough forward for it to run aground on the shores of evidence to the contrary...

O.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

No, you’re not going to get away with that with your usual slipperiness.  I just corrected you on two issue, namely that emergent properties don’t require “drivers”

I agree that emergent properties do not have "drivers", which is precisely why I can't accept that they can be emergent properties, because it is obvious that there is something driving your thought processes to even contemplate the concept of emergence.

and that the argumentum ad populum is false reasoning.

I was not using this as an argument for the reality of human free will.  I was just pointing out a possible reason why I am apparently fighting a lone crusade on this, because the vast majority of people do not believe there is anything to contend.

These are both mistakes you just made, and you’ve now been corrected.

Sorry but I cannot accept these as corrections - see above.

[Alan Burns]

Except that you can't cite 'free will' in your argument until you overcome the inherent contradiction in the definition and actually demonstrate that it's a thing.

Of course it is a thing.  It is the thing that enables you to start looking at the possibility of inherent contradictions  And the fact that you need to use it to perform such consciously driven contemplation is surely sufficient evidence to envisage it as a reality rather than a contradiction.

[Gordon]

I agree that emergent properties do not have "drivers", which is precisely why I can't accept that they can be emergent properties, because it is obvious that there is something driving your thought processes to even contemplate the concept of emergence.

Perhaps then you need to review your a priori assumption that there must be a 'driver'.

I was not using this as an argument for the reality of human free will.  I was just pointing out a possible reason why I am apparently fighting a lone crusade on this, because the vast majority of people do not believe there is anything to contend.

Perhaps it is just you, Alan, and that the 'vast majority' of people either don't care about 'free will' and just get on with their lives, or if they do they don't have the additional personal need that you have to squeeze 'God' into the mix.

[Sebastian Toe]

Of course it is a thing.  It is the thing that enables you to start looking at the possibility of inherent contradictions  And the fact that you need to use it to perform such consciously driven contemplation is surely sufficient evidence to envisage it as a reality rather than a contradiction.

A biological brain, using entirely deterministic principles is the thing that enables everyone to start looking at the possibility of your inherent contradictions  And the fact that you need to use it to perform such contemplation is surely sufficient evidence to envisage  that as a reality.
No magic, logic free soul required

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I agree that emergent properties do not have "drivers", which is precisely why I can't accept that they can be emergent properties, because it is obvious that there is something driving your thought processes to even contemplate the concept of emergence.

That you don’t accept emergence because you think something is “obvious” is irrelevant. What you actually did was to dismiss it because I couldn’t tell you anything about the “driver” for it. That’s wrong. Arguments for emergence stand or fall on their merits, not on whether someone can explain the “drivers” for them. You may as well assert that rainbows can’t be naturalistic because I can’t tell you about leprechauns. If you want to argue against emergence as an explanation using another argument (eg, that consciousness necessarily must have a “driver”, therefore it can’t be an emergent phenomenon) by all means try, but your dismissal of it as a generalised principle for lack of explanation for its “driver” was a mistake.         

I was not using this as an argument for the reality of human free will.  I was just pointing out a possible reason why I am apparently fighting a lone crusade on this, because the vast majority of people do not believe there is anything to contend.

No you weren’t. You were clearly implying that the popularity of a belief had something to do with its validity. What relevance could it have had otherwise? That was a mistake. You’ve now been corrected on that, so you have no excuse for trying it again. 

Sorry but I cannot accept these as corrections - see above.

Then you should. See above.

[Stranger]

I was not using this as an argument for the reality of human free will.  I was just pointing out a possible reason why I am apparently fighting a lone crusade on this, because the vast majority of people do not believe there is anything to contend.

Let's not forget that you have set yourself up as somebody who has thought about it deeply and have come to conclusions that you claim are the result of "sound logic" and a "logical analysis". Not only is logic conspicuous only by its absence in your posts but most of the population are making no such claims and I suspect that most of them haven't given it a second thought - just like most people probably don't understand that they never actually touch anything.

Given all that, what the hell do you think is the relevance of mentioning it if it wasn't an attempted argumentum ad populum?

Of course it is a thing.  It is the thing that enables you to start looking at the possibility of inherent contradictions  And the fact that you need to use it to perform such consciously driven contemplation is surely sufficient evidence to envisage it as a reality rather than a contradiction.

Back to the childish foot-stamping.

No Alan, you have established no connection at all between our your contradictory assertions about "freedom" and what human minds actually do.

Why do you just keep on with mindless, thought-free assertion? What do you think it's going to achieve? Obviously you think this claim self-evident and, just as obviously, others do not. So, do you carry on pointlessly stamping your little foot in the hope that they'll change their minds, or do you examine why you regard it as self-evident and either re-evaluate your own position or provide us with the logical reasons why you think it to be true?

Yet again: you have claimed "sound logic" - just asserting something over and over and over again, does not fall into that category.

Either you can logically defend the proposition that your assertions about "freedom" (could have done differently and no randomness) are necessary to normal human thought and reasoning, or you can't and you should withdraw your claims about logic.

[torridon]

Of course it is a thing.  It is the thing that enables you to start looking at the possibility of inherent contradictions  And the fact that you need to use it to perform such consciously driven contemplation is surely sufficient evidence to envisage it as a reality rather than a contradiction.

There is no evidence for free will though, and here you are blithely citing free will in support of your claim of free will. I'm beginning to wonder if you really still do not understand the issue even after all this time.  That we think is not evidence for free will, it is evidence that we think.  No one here denies that we can think.  That we resolve choice is not evidence for free will it is evidence of decision making.  No one here denies that people make choices. To substantiate free will you need to show evidence for thinking and choosing that is free of the deterministic principle of cause and effect.  So for instance, looking back to a recent decision, could you demonstrate that you could have chosen differently for no reason without implying randomness.  And of course you can't, not only is it impossible in practice, it is also meaningless in concept. So you can't keep claiming free will when it is impossible to substantiate the claim.  All we can say is that we all have an intuition of free will, but we can never verify it, and so many of our intuitions are wrong, anyway.

[Outrider]

Of course it is a thing.

And here's where we get the rub - you're suggesting that free will is a valid concept, and that's been challenged in a number of ways.  Until and unless you address those concerns, any attempt to just ignore the criticism and continue as though everyone accepted free will as a valid concept just makes you look disengenuous.

It is the thing that enables you to start looking at the possibility of inherent contradictions.

That's not free will, that's a brain capable of abstraction and language.

And the fact that you need to use it to perform such consciously driven contemplation is surely sufficient evidence to envisage it as a reality rather than a contradiction.

Except that given it's not a thing and I'm still doing that, it manifestly isn't needed... you see how that failing to support anything just turns this into 'he said, she said...'

If you want to base something on the concept of free will you need to demonstrate free will, not just claim it.

O.