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Old 01-30-2015, 07:25 PM   #57 (permalink)
John Wilkes Booth
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Join Date: Jul 2013
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imo the debate is in how the choice happens and who is really in control. that is why i asked you to define "you" as an agent or entity. certainly you must think of yourself as having some type of agency. it is actually kind of tricky to define our own agency which is why i was asking you to do so.

if "i" am jwb, the organism, then i am responsible for a whole range of tasks including producing the red blood cells in my veins to transport oxygen etc. but to me, anyway, it seems like these are just things that happen in my body. "i" don't do them. at least not "i" in the sense of the agency i was speaking of above.

you can apply the same logic to a lot of the work that your brain does, really. when you think of yourself as an agent you are most likely referring to the stream of consciousness that your brain produces.

so questioning free will to me is questioning whether that stream of consciousness is the actual captain of the ship that is your mind, or if it is just an interface for your brain to deal with the external world in a macroscopic way
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