Graham Priest has several books on the topic which challenges Aristotle's Law of Non Contradiction

Do they also not challenge Aristotle's Law of Non Contradiction?

(Note: this comment is a reply to this comment. Sorry for any confusion.)

Sereboi, I think once again we're miscommunicating. You seem to think I'm looking for a compromise between free will and determinism, no matter how much I deny this. Let me try an analogy (stolen from Good and Real).

When you look in a mirror, it appears to swap left and right, but not up and down; yet the equations that govern reflection are entirely symmetric: there shouldn't be a distinction.

Now, you can simply make that second point, but then a person looking at a mirror remains confused, because it obviously is swapping left and right rather than up and down. You can say that's just an illusion, but that doesn't bring any further enlightenment.

But if you actually ask the question "Why does a mirror appear to switch left and right, by human perception?" then you can make some progress. Eventually you come to the idea that it actually reverses front and back, and that the brain still looks to interpret a reflected image as a physical object, and that the way it finds to do this is imagining stepping into the mirror and then turning around, at which point left and right are reversed. But it's just as valid to step into the mirror and do a handstand, at which point top and bottom are reversed; it's just that human beings are more bilaterally symmetric than up-down, so this version doesn't occur to us.

Anyway, the point is that you learn more deeply by confronting this question than by just stopping at "oh, it's an illusion", but that the mathematical principle is in no way undermined by the solution.

The argument I'm making is that the same thing carries through in the free will and determinism confusion. By looking at why it feels like we have choices between several actions, any of which it feels like we could do, we learn about what it means for a deterministic algorithm to make choices.

I don't know whether this question interests you at all, but I hope you'll accept that I'm not trying to weaken determinism!

Any shown tangible research that an agent can manipulate and control with little effort their subconscious mind.

It's that "little effort" part that makes this an entirely different question. I don't use the term myself but "Free Will" is not always used to imply that things are easy.

Please just show me a shred of evidence, supporting the fact that we have real control over our subconscious minds in order to make choices freely.

Under your definition of free will, then what observations, if true, would be evidence for its existence? That is, what would free will (as you understand it) actually imply about empirical reality, and what would its absence imply?

@ orthonormal

you said- I agree. But I think that there is actually some feature of the (deterministic) act of choosing which leads a person to falsely believe that their choice is nondeterministic, and that by analyzing this we learn something interesting and important about cognition.

Very true. so what do you make of reconciling the two? Do we castigate them both in hopes of finding something out that is hiding in the shadows? The nexus of the matter is "belief" and in order to have a sound belief one should know as many facts about the subject as possible. I listened to a long discourse given by Dennet who is a avid compatibilist, he presented an extremely weak argument with nothing to back up his claims, now when i read "the illusion of free will" by wegner its nothing but proof.

Now of course we can poke holes all day in theories derived from test studies. But by what else can we as humans deduct solid reasoning if we don't take what evidence is available to us. To me discussing this topic is not about fascination, its about getting the truth. I might be that crazy to think it's available.

@Thomblake sorry about the message thing. Im still getting used to how this site works..

You substantiate analogies with proof. Basically im saying that your analogies don't hold water perhaps i'm using confusing vernacular.

Let me say one thing before moving on. I hate debating just to debate, for me when i involve myself in a debate it is to gain more insight. So i am totally open to your point of view if it sheds some light on this subject, the bottom line is if someone has a solid angle that i'm missing than i welcome it.

Ok that being said. it sounds like your actually mostly agreeing with me.

You do however trail off with more questions. Like

"If the things we perceive as "choices" are "not really choices", then what is really a choice? What do we mean by "choice"? The problem i have is that if you hold a firm position on compatibilism then you should be able to explain it to a laymen by using real proof.

My question to you is how is proof that our "will" is not really controlled by us as ideal conscious agents irrelevant?

It's absolutely relevant.

"free will" then becomes some untestable enity that is open to all kinds of conjecture and speculation. Reason and philosophy but they can only go so far when answering real life questions. So i stack up the data the best i can and make an intelligent decision based on those facts and my own empirical life evidence that i have lived through, but i will stay out of personalizing the problem.

Please just show me a shred of evidence, supporting the fact that we have real control over our subconscious minds in order to make choices freely.

Thanks.

Ok i finally get the etiquette thing of this system. :)

Sorry i am a straight shooter. I will work on my wording, however i still stand by my claims of conjecture vrs facts.