Man probably has freewill

Introduction My opponent appears to derive justification of his position from plain human perception. His arguments rest on the unjustified presupposition that our immediate perception is a correct depiction of actuality,….this is a blatant case of Mind Projection Fallacy. In addition to this, he also presupposes Dualism without justifying it first. Rebuttals The problem of fatalism Unless I am mistaken, Pro is using the consequence of a truth as evidence against its validity. It is obvious that Determinism results in almost all necessary truths. However, unless my opponent can demonstrate how this violates logic, all his argument reduces to is “Determinism does not sound right”. This reasoning is tenuous at best. Self-Defeating Determinism My opponent conflates probability with believability. The likelihood of a theory being true has no bearing on the likelihood of it being believed. Through making such an argument my opponent appeals to human bias rather than the factual merit of the theory. Furthermore, he claims that Determinism undercuts rationality, giving us no basis to support it. However, a careful look at what necessity entails would suggest the opposite! Determinism tells us that our thoughts and actions are subsequent necessary reactions to prior events. This is isn’t non-rationality, this IS the essence of rationality. In the process of reasoning, logic is the causal law. If our thoughts are spontaneously generated from nothing or uncaused then they would be non-rational. Outside of thought, logic still governs everything in the form of mathematics. So, if one is rationally deliberating, his sequence of thought is determined by logic,….else he is not rationally deliberating. Other thoughts that occur to us are still not free. The sheer act of speaking or thinking of what to say is a reference to memory. We do not choose what words reach our consciousness first, the process of memory retrieval is a determined one. “Successful and accurate remembering depends on the interdependent relationship between encoding and retrieval processes in the human memory system”(1) Sometimes brain damage leads to forgetfulness,…whereas if the mind was independent and uncoerced in the manner my opponent supposes, this would be impossible. The evidence of a necessary causal link between the conscious thinking process and the physical events within the brain is tremendous. We cannot think without a brain to cause us to think, and that brain itself is ruled by a causal chain of events bound by physical laws. The Argument for Libertarianism My opponent’s whole argument presupposes Dualism. That is why he considers the mind a separate substance…and hence not subject to be determined. However, no compelling empirical evidence suggests that the mind is a substance and a thing independent from the body. What I propose is a monistic explanation of the mind and the body - meaning that all seemingly mental phenomena can be fully explained and accounted for by physical neuronal events (i.e the conscious conception of pain is simply from the firing of c-fibers in the brain (2)). The concepts of reasoning, choosing, and qualia all fall under this category. If Dualism is false, then as is my opponent’s whole argument for Libertarian Free Will. I have demonstrated that the mind is really a physical sensation. Now my opponent must justify that it isn’t. Also, if evolution is true, then the conscious human being evolved from unconscious things. Given that the laws of the Universe are constant, and we have demonstrably evolved only in the form of matter. Our consciousness could only have arisen through physical matter. Unless of course some spiritual entity endowed us with it somewhere along the way,… in which case my opponent holds quite an enormous BoP to prove that such exists. Kane’s Freewill This is a disappointing argument. Behind the argumentum verbosium is a massive assertion. My opponent suggests that we seem to have alternate possibilies,…and we seem to make self-formed choices,..therefore that is the reality of the event. Libet’s experiments along with the other studies demonstrate these perceptions as an illusion. My opponent has yet to demonstrate that it isn’t an illusion.ConclusionPro's argument does not pass muster as a concrete employment of facts. He relies on immediate human perception to justify things that require us to escape it. Like the Earth is not flat simply because it appears flat, Man does not have freewill and possibilities and choices simply because he thinks he does. If this issue is seen from such a narrow perspective, Pro's argument would seem naturally correct, but the nature of the debate requires a more objective view. With that, I await Pro's response. Sources 1. http://suite101.com... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org...