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Dreams as a weakness to your argument for free choice

שו”תDreams as a weakness to your argument for free choice
asked 1 month ago

In a dream, I feel like I’m choosing freely. And it’s clear that I’m not choosing anything, and these are just brain transmissions during sleep.
 
So why not conclude that the strong intuition that I feel a choice when I am awake is an illusion as well?


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מיכי Staff answered 1 month ago
right. Likewise, in a dream you think you see, so why not conclude that everything you see during your waking hours is also an illusion?

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שרון replied 1 month ago

Draw a conclusion about what is stopping you. After all, everyone can draw a different conclusion. What's the problem?

אחלום לנצח replied 1 month ago

I can objectively examine my vision of the real world and know whether it is an illusion or not.
For example, from a sample of other people who see what I see.

Not only can I not objectively examine the feeling of free choice, but I also know that there is no evidence for its existence, and science has never found anything that indicates free choice. And even stronger - from the point of view of physics itself there is no place for free choice, according to some scientists.

I still feel that the dream argument I brought is a good argument against the “intuition for free choice” argument.
Is there another stronger example that you can think of beyond vision?

מיכי Staff replied 1 month ago

There is, but I won't give it because there's no need. The example is excellent and shows that your question doesn't exist.
Now you raise other questions, and they don't even begin. The feeling of choice is common to all of us just as different views are common to all of us. On the contrary, we experience choice in the most clear and immediate way. Of course, one can doubt everything, and skeptical claims have no answer, nor should they. I expanded on all of this in my books on the sciences of freedom. There I also showed that choice is the only mechanism that we experience in an immediate way, neither causal nor random.

אחלום לנצח replied 1 month ago

I didn't understand how your example is good if I explained exactly why vision is something objective that I can always judge in the most rational/logical/scientific way. I can't understand what's not clear here that your example is simply not good.

Everyone also experiences free choice in a dream, and when we wake up it's clear to all of us that no one chooses a dream at all.
Therefore, it cannot be concluded that even if we all experience free choice in reality (not in a dream) it doesn't mean that it necessarily exists.

דוד-מיכאל אברהם replied 1 month ago

With such a level of lack of understanding, it's difficult for me to discuss. I suggest ending here.

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