Q&A: Free Choice
Free Choice
Question
In your article on free choice, you didn’t mention the brain research in which they applied electrical currents to certain places in the brain, causing patients to make intentional movements, and the patients even had a feeling of wanting to perform the action.
This is proof that the “will” does not come via some deviation from the laws of physics; rather, the will is programmed according to the laws of physics.
Answer
That is really not proof. I think I addressed this there, and wrote that it is also possible to cause people to think they see something in front of them when it isn’t there. Should we therefore give up trusting our vision? What does one thing have to do with the other?!
Discussion on Answer
It seems to me that you didn’t understand the question either, not just the answer. Read it again carefully.
Rabbi Michi, you’re clinging to excuses that are right on the border of reason in order to convince yourself that this doesn’t prove it.
The fact that there is an external device that causes you to see things that do not exist proves (as much as one can say “proves” about an observational event) that it is not you who freely controls your visual system.
And the fact that there is an external device that causes you to choose and to experience exactly the same experiences you have during an ordinary act of choosing proves that it is not you who chooses.
The fact that we rely on the visual system comes from experience. If we had such a device constantly connected to the brain, we would stop relying on vision.
And the fact that we rely on choice comes from experience that our past choices were correct, and not because choice is free.
Decisor, if cause B can bring about result C, does that mean cause A cannot bring about the same result? Not every sufficient cause is necessary.
I noted in parentheses that this is not fully necessary.
But from the standpoint of common sense, when it comes to examine things without ulterior considerations, it will accept that this is indeed sufficient proof. In order to prove that there is free choice, one has to come with stronger evidence, not with evidence of the type of “that’s what I feel.” That’s ridiculous. It’s not even an argument. There is no difference between such an argument and the argument of a child who believes in Santa Claus.
The Last Decisor, your entire recognition that the reality in front of you is real is based, all in all, on intuition. In the end, intuition is the source of all thinking.
The reality in front of you is a mental reality. For example, the colors you see do not exist in physical reality, but only in “the reality in front of you.” Intuition is basically just a feeling at the base that has undergone a certain sophistication. Proofs based on intuition are emotional proofs, and that is what I said: a child also has an intuition that Santa Claus really exists.
Not true. The child has an intuition that there is a person standing in front of him dressed the way he was taught Santa Claus looks. You’re confusing intuition with emotion—I think deliberately.
I didn’t understand the Rabbi’s answer. The research shows that when a system in the brain is activated, the body acts; that means the body acts according to a system that determines things without choice.