Thread: Freewill

I think it's important to note that there are many things which we do are not in themselves selected for by natural selection. A good although partly hypothetical example is music, something which Stephen Pinker describes as 'auditory cheesecake'; there's something special about it which resonates in some way with the specific implementation of something which is selected for, namely our auditory system. The same is likely true of many of our cognitive faculties, such as our rationality. There are various epiphenomena do not emerge out of selective pressures.

Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

I guess I'm saying that an 'agent' with conflicting parts contradicts agenthood, at least regarding its ability to identify with one course of action that makes its will "free".

I don't really know... is that really the human experience, of discrete and separate entities? Isn't our experience of choice making rather as a single something which sits above these desires (I guess Freud would call it a super id), weighing each?

What would it mean to make a choice if there were not conflicting benefits? Surely by definition there must be conflicting parts for a choice to be made.

As for the definition of "free", I suppose it would be the ability for the agent to choose what it wants unrestrained by other influences, but when the human being is a multitude of "wants" its agency seems kind of silly, let alone its freedom.

So by freedom you essentially seem to mean a dualistic conception of the soul; a bundle of uncaused actions. I don't find it very concerning that such a thing doesn't seem to exist... of course, everything we do is the result of what went before. Action wouldn't make much sense otherwise.