lol. I do not see my brain as an adversary because - I am my brain, even if I am not consciously aware of all the decisions it (I? we?) may be making. The semantics get tricky.
Brain as adversary, lol, tequila can cause that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc5iTNVEOAg
How can we discuss terms without first reaching consensus on what we mean by those terms?
Right, we can't.
Hence the link to my older thread embedded in that paragraph.
I watched about half the Metzinger video. I don't know what's being said. "Phenomenal self" as experiential in the first-person seems like just another way of saying consciousness and awareness. A "self-model" seems to beg the question of what's being modeled. And first-person experience doesn't address what's specifically doing the experiencing. Explain or correct me if I'm wrong.
If you want to say soul or self is a process as with your digestion example that's fine. It doesn't make it any less real to say it's not a physical "thing". Particles are things, waves are actions or processes, and I think there are even physicists who say all particles are actually waves. After all, is life itself a thing or a process? We can tell when a plant, animal or human is alive or dead, but when it's dead, has some "thing" left it? I don't know. We can measure that some life processes have ceased, but that certainly doesn't mean life isn't a real thing. I think it's important to remember anyway that digestion doesn't exist for the sake of stomach; stomach exists for the sake of digestion.
The programming analogy works; it is just that the programming is a result of millions of years of evolution. See the video below- he is not saying that the neurones exercise will.
His programming analogy deals with the idea of avoidance. I understand how that would be important in the history of evolution, but in our actual lives it seems avoidance would comprise a tiny fraction of daily human decisions. The computer may be programmed to avoid checkmate, but cannot choose to quit playing, or throw the game, or to take a break and choose a pizza or a hamburger. As he said, it can't go into a snit either. The analogy is just too tiny to be a good analogy for human conscious will I think.
As I understand it, our will is constrained in a manner that still allows for us to be held accountable for our actions, and does not require anything outside of our current understanding of physics/chemistry/biology.
I would hate to try to condense hundred of hours of reading, video, and podcasts into a forum post, but you can listen to him explain it here:
(go to 24 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cSgVgrC-6Y#t=2296
Hate to sound so dismissive, but I watched the whole thing, and I can't find where he says anything relevant to free will. The last person to ask a question in Q&A has completely misunderstood him, and he responds by just saying free will and determinism are compatible, without having given any evidence or argument in the previous hour how that could be. That's what I often get out of compatibilism. I think you sort of agreed with me in an earlier post that it's an either/or situation. It's either determinism or something which seems like magic. You could build the most complex system of mere motor neurons imaginable (or Lego toys for that matter), the size of the galaxy and you will not get one iota of will out of them or the thing you've built.
He seems to want to emphasize some avoidance traits being naturally selected for but, AFAIK, we're the only living things that can commit suicide. Not suicide for the sake of the colony or tribe, but just suicide for its own sake. Suicide would seem to put the lie to the idea that avoidance for the sake of survival could be the basis of our will.
