Thank you for sharing the intriguing article by Mascolo and Kallio.
It was a difficult but inspiring read, though I do not agree with how the “three perennial problems” that need to be addressed are presented: 1.) the dualism of the mental and physical, 2.) that it’s problematic that people argue for the existence free will, 3.) the role of consciousness. My thoughts are, in short, 1.) we are physical beings, 2.) there is no reason to doubt our conscious agency that we minute by minute witness, and 3.) consciousness is not the measure of autonomy because many free acts are accomplished without reflection and even Libet disagrees with the determinist interpretation of his experiment.
I am guessing that my primary difficulty here, and with your subsequent blog, is that I do not agree that the concept of determinism is compatible with the laws of physics. Meanwhile, despite claims by determinists, free will can exist in a material world and is compatible with the laws of physics. Determinism is a claim about the future, so it is unobservable, unrepeatable, and untestable, and there is useful evidence for doubting it.
The premise of the essay by Mascolo and Kallio is; “While consciousness contributes to the production of novel action, it cannot do so autonomously.” (p454-455) This is claimed to be true because “…consciousness is itself an emergent product of nonconscious processes.” But what if consciousness can get in front of the nonconscious processes from which it emerges? What if a “non-autonomous” consciousness chooses to have experiences that alter the biological nonconscious processes from which the consciousness emerges? What if this newly biologically altered “non-autonomous” consciousness then decides to have more experiences that then alter the whole of the embodied biological emergent processes? At what point can one be considered an autonomous agent making free conscious choices that continuously manipulate one’s biological nonconscious processes that in turn manipulate the embodied emergence of one’s (biological) consciousness? In other words, if we are free to alter the environments that alter our biological functions, are we not equally as free to consciously alter the interior environment of our(biological)selves? I am not positing here that there needs to be a specific goal in the alterations, but that even change itself can be a goal.
Again, thank you for all that you share.
Peter Lloyd Jones
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562-209-4080
Sent by determined causes that no amount of will is able to thwart.
FYI, I put up a blog today that combines Mascolo and Kaillo’s paper with Jordan Hall’s concept of sovereignty:
I think the combination provides a nice, useful picture of self-conscious agency and responsibility.
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