Plaupius said:
It's a definite maybe because I don't know enough of brain research and cognitive psychology to give a definite answer either way :) But, my point is that if you want to go to the (sub)atomic level, you need to change your definition of free will. And because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and the quantum effects, you can never go to the (sub)atomic level and then construct the system back from there. In other words, precisely because free will is not (or can't be proven to be) different from matter, it needs to be looked at as a system, not as a singularity. So the question is: does the system, as a whole, have free will as per your definition? And remember, a system is, by definition, a collection of dependent elements so it does not matter how the system functions in the inside. I don't know if I can explain what I mean well enough. I'm just working with your definition of free will, and that definition combined with what we know of the brain and our consciousness leads me to the conclusion that our consciousness can be autonomous and independent. That the internal processes are both deterministic and random does not matter based on that definition. |
I would say "no". The fact that there even is a system means that the free will isn't free but is directly dependent on that (unimaginably complex) system.
So, in a way, I guess that the free will has just as much evidence, to support its existence, as God and the flying spaghetti monster, as I see it.