descriptive=/=prescriptive

And the chemicals in your brain are your brain unless you think that the mind and the body are distinct.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's magic. Free will would be the ability to choose a desired outcome. That would depend on the cause and effect relationship of the universe because there would be no meaning to choices if they had no affect. Just because it's influenced doesn't mean they aren't still YOUR will at the end of the day. It's literally what separates you from a rock that has no choice in how it reacts to something. It has no desired outcome. That would be why free will isn't an absolute like you guys argue it as, and it would be a spectrum depending on your ability to comprehend how things influence you and how you can influence other things. Of course you're not completely free and you'll always be limited by varying factors. Even going with the neurological thing, that wouldn't disprove free will. It only proves that how you process influencing events to determine what choice you want to make would be dependent on the cause & effect relationship of the world.

Exactly. Pointing out that who you are is just a natural part of the reactionary way the universe works doesn't exactly disprove free will as much as it proves my take that free will needs cause & effect to exist.

Meaningless.

Then you're agreeing with me that "choice" is a poetic description of reaction to stimuli.


Yeah you're literally describing a flowery poetic description of just not having a gun to your head when making decisions. What you're describing still relies on scientific equations deciding your responses. You're just desperate for a more magical reality where you aren't a biological robot.

Yeah that's not free will unless free will is a poetic flourish that has no real world meaning. You keep describing exactly what I'm talking about but insist on interpreting it in a poetic way that has no real world meaning because it would make you feel bad.

It's not poetic.

See, it literally sinks down to attacking somebody personally because you lack comprehension.

And I could say that you just don't like acknowledging how much control you actually do have over your situation because it makes you partially accountable for your own misery and it's easier to tell yourself you don't have any true meaningful power.

For me it's honestly less comforting because I can't just blame everything but myself for my situation and puts the responsibility on me to try and influence an outcome in my best interest.

It's okay to be confused. What I meant was that being able to describe a process doesn't mean that it was dictated.

Yep. Just like how reaction to stimuli is a clinical description of the word "choice." I've never disagreed with the idea that reaction to stimuli is what constitutes consciousness, I just think that being able to describe something isn't evidence against its existence—quite the opposite really.

I don't really ride for the phrase free will since it's based in the religious condemnation of man so no argument there. The word consciousness works just as well.

You're the only one who introduced magic here. Maybe looking into what the words consciousness, choice, etc mean would be more useful than displacing them from their definitions but I'll let you take whatever approach you prefer. Pop scientists have made bank on your take.

Yeah you're still just obsessing over your own agency because that's what everyone obsesses over their own life all the time no matter who you are. It's terrifying to accept but you still feel like a human being and it it still allows for the narcissism of centering your worldview around you and your "choices". It's just the center of human consciousness. Except it's also ****.

The simplest ****. But you have no intention seeing past it so I'm just talking to a wall.

If you were really that evolved then you'd just agree that free will was indeed just a nonsense descriptor of people feeling like they have choice. Your resistance to the idea of free will being an illusion paints you as a smart but still delusional moron who's searching for philosophical comfort you can use to paint what you want

I don't use the phrase free will and view choice and consciousness as terms to describe aspects of reaction to stimuli. You're just mad that language exists lmao.