Quote:
Gnosital wrote
Every neural substrate is a system in flux. Predictable flux, if we could know all the physical influences on each of a 100billion neurons in the trillions of cell assemblies and had a computer big enough to do the processing of EPSPs, IPSPs, and APs at each synapse. It's be easy.
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Whether it is, itself, deterministic or not, the inaccessibility of the subconscious and our inability to control it in any meaningful way means that our conscious decisions are completely determined and are not free.
We can know that a system is determined without knowing all of the factors that determine it.
When we cannot predict an outcome for lack of information about the relevant causes, often we can examine the outcome afterward and discover what its causes were.
Only by postulating an uncaused causal element can behavior be non-deterministic and then, it still is not intentional. Random intentions is an oxymoron.
Even the desire to make a free choice will have been determined.
