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RE: There Is No Such Thing As Free Will
All life is aware of itself through electrical stimulation within its own physiology. If all life is conscious then it is redundant to use them term interchangeably with other concepts such as free will.
You can place a plant in a pot and it will believe that its roots taking the shape of the pot it is its own free will. Same applies to humans. You can place a human in our world and believe that his choices and his and not of the pot that he exists.
Then we are talking about different concepts. To me reacting to stimuli from the enviroment (regardless if the source of it is external or external) hardly qualifies as being aware of one's self. To go beyond a "simple" electrical reaction an entity needs to be able to form concepts or abstractions from the perceived reality to the point that it can say "I am this" "That is that" and so forth. An argument can be made that most of the actions of the majority of humanity does not satisfy this condition. In that sense if you cannot determine what reality is (including one's self) then you are a slave to that reality and therfore have no free will.
By gathering knowldege of reality a conscience entity can obtain a degree of freedom to act upon that reality but there is a limit to that freedom. The more we know the more we are aware of our ignorance.
However stating that the existence of consciousness cannot be proven is kind of a stretch. The fact we are having this conversation implies that at least one of us is "real" and can respond to abstract notions. Unless if we are both just a couple of sofisticated AI.
not really that wow. it is just your own way to expresses electrical signals. plants have different way. how do you know your way us superior or that it makes you more "conscious"?
having this conversation does not make us more real than two plants exchanging pollen.
I don't have a way of knowing if there are plants that are aware of themselves. But that is not the argument. The point is that being able to interact with the enviroment is a pre-condition to obtain awareness but it's not enough.
Agreed. It doesn't make us more real but it does show that we can have an abstract conversation (in other words that we have awareness). Unless of course if we are a pair of automatons.
You don't get to call the shots what is enough if you don't understand how other living things perceive themselves. It is rather arrogant to do so.
We are more or less automatons. Much like a bird will dance to attract its mate in its own special abstract way it also follows a pattern by its species. We do the same. We use the same language yet we make similar alternations. Nonetheless, we fall into the same crevices.