Can Free Will Possibly Exist?

[warpus]

I don't see what's not to get. Consciousness does not stop. Everywhere, always, it is. All-pervasive. Surely you are at least casually familiar with the idea that the universe may be infinite? It is like that.

Everywhere? Is your consciousness in my bedroom right now?

Everytime? Was your consciousness around in 4000BC?

I see clear boundaries of existence here.

Why should it be an organ at all?

Because every single thing that I feel and sense has been shown to occur in the brain. It is the central nervous system.. When I look at something, signals from my eyes are sent to the proper area in the brain for processing. If my consciousness doesn't reside there, where are these signals sent after they've been processed? We've never detected such a thing. Therefore they must remain in the brain, and that's where consciousness must be.

Why must it have an origin at all?

Because everything does?

What does it mean to alter consciousness?

Smoke some weed and you'll find out...

and where does the THC go when you smoke weed? The Brain!

Beyond that, as aneeshm points out, this would no more indicate that the brain is the interface through which consciousness operates than that the brain is where it originates.

Got any proof that any data at all is sent from our brain to another location, where the consciousness resides? No.. it all happens in our brain. Conclusion: obvious. A different conclusion: requires proof.

I'm not sure why you are so certain the brain must originate in somewhere at all, let alone an organ. Quite frankly, consciousness feels like it's in your head because that's where the bulk of your senses are. You think "you" are behind your eyes, nose and mouth and between your ears. You can "move" this residing feeling of consciousness from the head, if you're so inclined.

You can train your brain to make you feel whatever you want.

Why must consciousness originate somewhere? That is not the question to ask here.. Why would it not have an origin? Why not look to the most obvious place, the brain?

 

[punkbass2000]

Everywhere? Is your consciousness in my bedroom right now?

Everytime? Was your consciousness around in 4000BC?

I see clear boundaries of existence here.

I guess you're not ready for this idea.

Because every single thing that I feel and sense has been shown to occur in the brain.

Well, it has been shown to correlate with activity in the brain, at any rate. This still does nothing to disprove aneeshm's assertion. Beyond that, consciousness is not sense and feeling.

If my consciousness doesn't reside there, where are these signals sent after they've been processed? We've never detected such a thing. Therefore they must remain in the brain, and that's where consciousness must be.

Consciousness is everywhere. The signal does not need to be sent.

Because everything does?

Can you prove that? Empirically?

Smoke some weed and you'll find out...

I've done so. My consciousness is not altered by it. My thoughts are a bit altered by it.

and where does the THC go when you smoke weed? The Brain!

Which is the organ used for detecting thoughts, yes.

Got any proof that any data at all is sent from our brain to another location, where the consciousness resides? No.. it all happens in our brain. Conclusion: obvious. A different conclusion: requires proof.

Since when does "Conclusion: obvious" hold up as an argument in rational discourse.

You can train your brain to make you feel whatever you want.

Quite true. You can even feel outside your own body.

Why must consciousness originate somewhere? That is not the question to ask here..

That you cannot answer a question is not a reason to not ask it. It is a reason to discard your preconceptions about the answer.

Why would it not have an origin? Why not look to the most obvious place, the brain?

It seems obvious to you, now, yes. This does not inherently make it so.

 

[warpus]

Punkbass, so your hypothesis is that consciousness is everywhere and that our brains are interfacing with it, giving us the illusion that we control these bodies.

So basically we are one being controlling billions of bodies? Why don't we realize that we are the same consciousness, then?

Occam's Razor applies here.

 

[punkbass2000]

Punkbass, so your hypothesis is that consciousness is everywhere and that our brains are interfacing with it, giving us the illusion that we control these bodies.

The interfacing thing is it a bit more aneeshm's line of thought than mine. I would just say that the senses, as we know them, are the universe's way of interacting with and experiencing itself.

So basically we are one being controlling billions of bodies?

Yes. You understand Science as well as I do. You know that there simply cannot be the kind of separation we envision. The quarks a call 'myself' have no line between them and the quarks I call 'not-myself'.

Why don't we realize that we are the same consciousness, then?

We don't want to know. We do, in a way, want to know, but we chose to forget. Think about it. Do you really want to know the future, for example? No, you don't. You want to experience life. You want to learn. You want to experience time and not-knowing.

I'm sure you've heard of the Milgram experiment, where 66% of the subjects gave the "learner" 450 volt shocks by the end of it. Almost everyone thinks they would have been in the minority who did not take the shocks to their limit. Haven't you ever wondered whether or not you would have done so? Of course, you can't know whether or not you would have, since you're already aware of the experiment. In order to find out, you would have to forget the experiment. What we call life is something like that. You have chosen to forego knowledge of everything in order to discover what it is you would do.

Occam's Razor applies here.

Perhaps. I think this is quite a simple explanation, even if not a commonly held one at this time.