You assume that the brain is like an input-output computer and draw conclusions from that,

I didn't understand why not to assume that.
How does free choice suddenly arise!? Out of nothing?

With God's help I will read the article you sent.

Thank you for the response.
1.
I would be glad if the Rabbi could elaborate and explain more briefly in the article you sent, in the section: "1. What is judgment" (that whole section is just a few lines)
You say there that the materialist is sawing off the branch he is sitting on. I didn't quite understand which branch (as an analogy, of course).

2.
I understand from your words
that the reality of will / soul is actually the rational thing for explaining the feeling of free choice.

That way it also answers the principle of causality and also is not problematic from any other angle.
Just as we accept quantum theory because of the cognitive necessity created by the experiments.

3. You wrote that David Hume proved that determinism is not an a priori assumption without empirical basis.
I would be glad to know why.

4.
Does the Rabbi agree with me that one can speak of several kinds of cognition,
for example,
sensory cognition and logical / intellectual cognition.

Why not say that the cognition that the principle of causality is true overrides the cognition that we have free choice?

1.
Judgment is deciding what is right and what is wrong. That is different from calculation, which is a completely mechanical process and therefore contains no judgment.
Someone who thinks a person has no judgment is basically saying that a person's conclusions have no validity, since they are not the result of decision and judgment but of mechanical calculation imposed on him. In that way he is sawing off the branch he himself is sitting on, because that conclusion too has no validity. It too was derived by his mechanical tools.

3. I don't remember writing such a thing. I argue that determinism is an a priori assumption with no empirical basis. I explained that there. The burden of proof is on the one who claims the opposite, namely that there is empirical proof. What proof is there for it?

4.
There is no such thing as logical cognition. Logic is not cognition but thinking. Cognition is an interaction between a person and reality. Thinking happens entirely within our intellect.
The principle of causality does not arise from cognition but is our a priori assumption (that is what Hume argued, and rightly so). Free choice, on the other hand, is the result of our immediate perception of ourselves. Therefore, if I had to decide which of the two to give up, I would prefer to give up causality. I experience my free will in the most immediate way, whereas the principle of causality is a speculation of reason.
But in fact there is no need for that, because as I explained there, when deciding between these two contradictory claims, in my opinion the most reasonable thing is to proceed by way of lex specialis, that is, in a way that preserves both of these assumptions as much as possible. The optimal way is to say that indeed the principle of causality is valid except at the points where the will influences the brain. Any other solution will force you to give up one of the assumptions entirely, and that is unreasonable.

Thank you very much for the response

1. Regarding judgment,
isn't it possible to say that evolution developed judgment?

4.
"Free choice is the result of our immediate perception of ourselves."

One could say that free choice is not only not an immediate product of ourselves with ourselves, but that it is not even an emotion.
That is, free choice is basically just our a priori assumption that such a concept exists. Because every time we see that we act in a different way.

Isn't that so??
Or at best it's only a feeling…
It is not necessarily like the understanding created by one of the senses, where you *see* the table in front of you and have no interest in claiming it's an optical illusion.
Here you only *assume* that you have free choice.
?

5. A continuation of 4.

I don't understand why you say that the principle of causality is valid except for the influence of the will on the brain.
After all, the moment you assume a dualistic concept of will, you are not really giving up any principle.

Not only that, but it also resolves other problems, like how emotions arise from chemical substances, etc. etc.

Let me begin by saying that you keep repeating that one can say X. Indeed, one can say anything. The question is what is reasonable, not what can be said.

1. No. Evolution cannot deviate from the laws of physics, and those are deterministic.
4. Indeed one can say that. But one can say the same thing about what you see. You have a feeling that what you see is really there. Alternatively, it is basically just your a priori assumption that it is there.
5. I explained it in the article.
There is no explanation whatsoever for how emotions arise, and certainly not for how they arise from chemical processes. That is one of the hardest problems for the materialist view.

Thank you for the responses so far!
1.
I think I didn't ask properly.

I agree that someone who claims there is no free choice agrees that judgment is deterministic, and so is the whole course of thought.
But,
it is still possible that evolution caused the person's judgment to indeed be correct,
and not merely accidental.

Isn't that so?

I think this question may also be connected to the fourth notebook. The proof from cognition.

It seems to me that I addressed that too (if not in the article then in the book). That indeed could be, but you have no way of knowing it. Bottom line, the decision is yours, and the decision that your perceptions and judgment are correct was also made using those same tools. Therefore even if it is true, you certainly cannot assume it and know it.
The proof from cognition is based on the fact that we have judgment. Without that there is nothing.

Hello Rabbi,
I saw that new studies have already come out saying they found the veto power that Libet found.
And they too precede the cognitive awareness that 'you' are imposing a veto.

Doesn't that mean there is no free choice, in a proven way?

Hello Kobi. I don't know which studies you are talking about, but as far as I know the opposite is actually true. Recent studies show that a person does indeed impose a veto consciously. In any case, as I explained in my book Science of Freedom (in the chapter on Libet), even if there were studies as you describe, that would prove nothing.

If so, assuming Libet's studies are indeed correct and we only have the possibility of imposing a veto,

1) How can one punish a person for neglecting a positive commandment, or for prohibitions such as circumcision / leavened food, etc.
(after all, he could not have gotten to that at all)
or in general punish someone for violating a prohibition, where it is possible that his brain did not even calculate that it was forbidden.
(since he never even thought about refraining)

2)
I didn't understand what the difference is between a simple act like moving a hand and a complex act.
Why should there be a difference between them?

It is not true that we only have the option of imposing a veto. Libet's experiments deal with meaningless actions. I discussed this at length in my book in that chapter, and it's hard to expand here.

Okay, I'll have to get the book somehow..

Is there an experiment that confirms this? That we also have the ability to carry things out. Not only to impose a veto, I mean.

No. As far as I know there is no decisive experiment one way or the other. Moreover, as I explained there, it also does not seem that such an experiment is possible in the foreseeable future.

Why isn't that merely a skeptical claim?
You wrote that you expand on it in the book, but you do know anyway….
Maybe you could add that part to the article 🙂 or as a comment?

Thanks in advance

I didn't understand the question. What is a skeptical claim?

That he is sawing off the branch he is sitting on.

B.
Doesn't the Rabbi see some problem with adding a variable of "will" (which includes soul / dualism in it), a totally non-physical variable that we do not see in the reality before us,
on the basis of intuition alone? Without an actual sense that detects it or a logical necessity.

??

No. And there is also a logical necessity. In the prologue to my book I explained that the existence of the soul and the will precedes the existence of the body. It is the soul that understands that a body exists. This is Descartes' cogito principle.
Schopenhauer wrote that my soul is the only thing I encounter in itself and not merely its appearance to the senses (following Kant's distinction between the thing-in-itself and its appearances).
Beyond that, trust in the senses is also a result of intuition.