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Introduction

That humans have freedom of will demonstrates that there is an immaterial aspect to humans. It implies that there is a nonphysical aspect to humans, thus, humans aren’t fully physical beings. I will use the Ross-Feser argument on the immateriality of thought to strengthen that conclusion. But before that, I will demonstrate that we do indeed have free will. Then, the consequence that we have free will will then be used to generate the conclusion that we are not fully physical beings. This conclusion is, however, justified by arguments for many flavors of dualism. I will then conclude by providing a compelling case against the physicalist, materialist view that seeks to reduce human beings to purely physical entities—because this claim will be directly contested by the conclusion of my argument.

CID and free will

I recently argued for a view I call cognitive interface dualism (CID). The argument I formulated used action potentials (APs) as the intermediary between the mental and physical realms that Descartes was looking for (he thought that this interaction took place at the peneal gland, but he was wrong). So free will using my CID can be seen as a product of mental autonomy, non-deterministic mental causation, and the emergent properties of mind. So CID can accommodate free will and allow for it’s existence without relying on determinism.

The CID framework also argues that M is irreducible to P, consistent with other forms of dualism. This suggests that the mind has a level of autonomy that isn’t completely determined by physical or material processes. Furthermore, when it comes to decision-making, this occurs in the mental realm. CID allows for mental states to causally influence physical states (mental causation), and so, free will operates when humans make choices, and these choices can initiate actions which aren’t determined by physical factors. Free will is also compatible with the necessary role of the human brain for minds—it’s an emergent property of the interaction of M and P. The fact of the matter is, minds allow agency, the ability to reason and make choices. That is, humans are unique, special animals and humans are unique and special because humans have an immaterial mind which allows the capacity to make decisions and have freedom.

Overall, the CID framework provides a coherent explanation for the existence of free will, alongside the role of the brain in human cognition. It further allows for a nuanced perspective on human agency, while emphasizing the unique qualities of human decision-making and freedom.

Philosopher Peter Van Inwagen has an argument using modus ponens which states: If moral responsibility exists, then free will exists. Moral responsibility exists because individuals are held accountable for their actions in the legal system, ethical discussions, and everyday life. Thus, free will exists. Basically, if you’ve ever said to someone “That’s your fault”, you’re holding them accountable for their actions, assuming that they had the capacity to make choices and decisions independently. So this aligns with the concept of free will, since you’re implying that a person and the ability to act differently and make alternative choices.

Libet experiments claim that unconscious brain processes are initiated before an action is made, and that it precedes conscious intention to move. But the original Libet experiment nor any similar ones justify the claim that the brain initiates freely-willed processes (Radder and Meynen, 2012)—because the mind is what is initiating these freely-willed actions.

Furthermore, when we introspect and reflect on our conscious experiences, we unmistakably perceive ourselves as making choices and decisions in various situations in our lives. These choices and decisions feel unconstrained and open, we experience and feel a sense of deliberation when making them. But if we had no free will and our choices, were entirely determined by external factors, then our experience of making choices would be illusory; our choices would be mere illusions of free will. Thus, the fact that we have a direct and introspective awareness in making choices implies that free will exists; it’s a fundamental aspect of our human experiences. So while this argument doesn’t necessarily prove that free will exists, it highlights the compelling phenomenological aspects of human decision-making, which can be seen as evidence for free will.

Having said all of this, I can now make the following argument: If humans have the ability to reason and make logical decisions, then humans have free will. Humans have the ability to reason and make logical decisions. So humans have free will. I will then take this conclusion that I inferred and use it in a later argument to infer that humans aren’t purely physical beings.

Freedom and the immaterial self

Ronald Ross (1992) argued that all formal thinking is incompossibly determinate, while no physical process or a function of physical processes are incompossibly determinate, which allowed him to infer that thoughts aren’t a functional or physical process. Then Ed Feser (2013) argued that Ross’ argument cannot be refuted or coukd be refuted by any neuroscientific discovery. Feser then added to the argument and correctly inferred that humans aren’t fully physical beings.

A, B, and C are, after all, only the heart of Ross’s position.  A little more fully spelled out, his overall argument essentially goes something like this:

A. All formal thinking is determinate.

B. No physical process is determinate.

C. No formal thinking is a physical process. [From A and B]

D. Machines are purely physical.

E. Machines do not engage in formal thinking. [From C and D]

F. We engage in formal thinking.

G. We are not purely physical. [From C and F] (Ed Feser, Can Machines Beg the Question?)

This is a conclusion that I myself have come to, through the fact that machines are purely physical and since thinking isn’t a physical process (but physical processes are necessary for thinking), then machines cannot think since they are purely physical and thinking isn’t a physical or functional process.

Only beings with minds can intend. This is because mind allows a being to think. Since the mind isn’t physical, then it would follow that a physical system can’t intend to do something—since it wouldn’t have the capacity to think. Take an alarm system. The alarm system does not intend to sound alarms when the system is tripped. It’s merely doing what it was designed to do, it’s not intending to carry out the outcome. The alarm system is a physical thing made up of physical parts. So we can then liken this to, say, A.I.. A.I. is made up of physical parts. So A.I. (a computer, a machine) can’t think. However, individual physical parts are mindless and no collection of mindless things counts as a mind. Thus, a mind isn’t a collection of physical parts. Physical systems are ALWAYS a complicated system of parts but the mind isn’t. So it seems to follow that nothing physical can ever have a mind.

Physical parts of the natural world lack intentionality. That is, they aren’t “about” anything. It is impossible for an arrangement of physical particles to be “about” anything—meaning no arrangement of intentionality-less parts will ever count as having a mind. So a mind can’t be an arrangement of physical particles, since individual particles are mindless. Since mind is necessary for intentionality, it follows that whatever doesn’t have a mind cannot intend to do anything, like nonhuman animals. It is human psychology that is normative, and since the normative ingredient for any normative concept is the concept of reason, and only beings with minds can have reasons to act, then human psychology would thusly be irreducible to anything physical. Indeed, physicalism is incompatible with intentionality (Johns, 2020). The problem of intentionality is therefore yet another kill-shot for physicalism. It is therefore impossible for intentional states (i.e. cognition) to be reduced to, or explained by, physicalist theories/physical things. (Why Purely Physical Things Will Never Be Able to Think: The Irreducibility of Intentionality to Physical States)

Now that I have argued for the existence of free will, I will now argue that our free will implies that there is an aspect of our selves and out existence that is not purely physical, but is immaterial. Effectively, I will be arguing that humans aren’t fully physical beings.

So if humans were purely physical beings, then our actions and choices would be solely determined by physical laws and processes. However, if we have free will, then our actions are not solely determined by physical laws and processes, but are influenced by our capacity to make decisions independently. So humans possess a nonphysical aspect—free will which is allowed by the immaterial mind and consciousness—which allows us to transcend the purely deterministic nature of purely physical things. Consequently, humans cannot be fully physical beings, since the existence of free will and the immaterial mind and consciousness suggests a nonphysical, immaterial aspect to out existence.

Either humans have free will, or humans do not have free will. If humans have free will, then humans aren’t purely physical. If humans don’t have free will, then it contradicts the premise that we have free will. So humans must have free will. Consequently, humans aren’t fully physical beings.

Humans aren’t fully physical beings, since we have the capacity for free will and thought—where free will is the capacity to make choices that are not determined by external factors alone. If humans have the ability to reason and make logical decisions, then humans have free will. Humans have the ability to reason and make logical decisions. So humans have free will. Reasoning and the ability to make logical decisions is based on thinking. Thinking is an immaterial—non-physical—process. So if thinking is an immaterial process, and what allows thinking are minds which can’t be physical, then we aren’t purely physical. Put into premise and conclusion form, it goes like this:

(1) If humans have the ability to reason and make logical decisions, then humans have free will.
(2) Humans have the ability to reason and make logical decisions.
(3) Reasoning and the ability to reason and make logical decisions are based on thinking.
(4) Thinking is an immaterial—non-physical—process.
(5) If humans have free will, and what allows free will is the ability to think and make decisions, then humans aren’t purely physical beings.

This argument suggests that humans possess free will and engage in immaterial thinking processes, which according to the Ross-Feser argument, implies the existence of immaterial aspects of thought. So what allows this is consciousness, and the existence of consciousness implies the existence of a nonphysical entity. This nonphysical entity is the mind.

So in CID, the self (S) is the subject the self is the subject of experience, while the mind (M) encompasses mental states, subjective experiences, thoughts, emotions, and consciousness, and consciousness (C) refers to the awareness of one’s own mental states and experiences. CID also recognizes that the brain is a necessary pre-condition for human mindedness but not a sufficient condition, so for there to be a mind at all there needs to be a brain—basically, for there to be mental facts, there must be physical facts. The self is what has the mind, and the mind is the realm in which mental states and experiences occur. So CID posits that the self is the unified experiencer, while the self interact is the entity that experiences and interacts with the contents of the mind through APs.

So this argument that I’ve mounted in this article and my original article on CID, is that humans aren’t fully physical beings since it’s based on the idea that thinking and conscious experiences are immaterial, nonphysical processes.

Conclusion

So CID offers a novel perspective on the mind-body problem, arguing that APs are the interface between the mental and the physical world. Now with this arguments I’ve made here, it establishes that humans aren’t purely physical beings. Through the argument that mental states are irreducible to physical states, CID acknowledges that the existence of an immaterial self plays a fundamental role in human mental life. Thus immaterial self—the seat of our conscious experiences, thoughts, decisions and desires—bridges the gap between M and P. This further underscores the argument that the mind is immaterial and thus so is the self (“I”, the experiencer, the subject of experience) and that the subject isn’t the brain or the nervous system.

CID recognizes that human mental life is characterized by its intrinsic mental autonomy and free will. We are not mere products of deterministic physical processes, rather we are agents capable of making genuine choices and decisions. The conscious experiences of making choices along with the profound sense of freedom in our are immediate and undeniable aspects of our profound sense of freedom in our decisions are immediate and undeniable aspects of our reality which then further cements the existence of free will. So the concept of free will reinforces the claim and argument that humans aren’t fully physical beings. These aspects of our mental life defy reduction to physical causation.