JP, you are free to believe in ghosts if you wish. That is your
choice.

Given that you are the questioning type, I'd suggest a great
book written by neuroscientist VS Ramachandran, called
"Phantons in the brain". It deals with various neurological
disorders.

Explain to me this too, as you might even know about it. Patients
who have had limbs removed, commonly feel intense pain in their
phantom limbs, after they are removed. They can feel that pain in
that limb, even though the limb is gone. No matter what their
so called free will tells them.

I don’t understand you Yabby. You say that I am “free to believe”, “if I wish”, and “that is my choice”: yet you deny that we have free will.

If we have no free will then I am not free to believe whatever I want and I cannot act according to my choices. Whatever I happen to do is purely a consequence of the physical state of the universe (which includes my brain) at any particular time.

Beliefs, wishes, and choices have no affect whatever on what happens.

Pain from phantom limbs is one of those things that happens just like everything else that simply happens to occur.

If materialism is correct we are essentially puppets of a mindless universe.

There is nothing mystical about Phantom Limbs. Being a vetran I have a few mates with limbs missing. They tell me that if they have an ichie little finger they can scratch it on their stump & they can move their thumb & forearm sometimes. Another mate tells me that if he bumps his leg stump in a particular spot it the same as if he has kicked his little toe. Apparently all the nerve endings are still there in the stump & the brain, for some time afterhaving the leg/arm removed, still thinks the limb is still there. The neural pathways are still there. Some remain forever, some fade away in time. A purely natural physiological situation. No great mystery un less you want to make it so. I am missing the top half of my thumb & I sometimes get sensual pleasure from rubbing it unknowingly because the nerve ending in my thumb give a nice sensation when rubbed. Other hobbiests who have the fingers missing tell me they experience the same sensation.

What's this got to do with people committing sucide? Unless they are frightened by evil spirits etc,in which case they're DH's & can "go jump."

Jayb – this has everything to do with people committing suicide. If people are incapable of making genuine free choices, as Yabby seems to believe, then there is nothing that can be done to help them or to influence what happens.

Of course, if there is no free will then none of our apparent choices are real and nothing else can make any sense either.

*yet you deny that we have free will.*

JP, the evidence suggests that your will is not as free as you think.
Just how free, remains to be seen, as the evidence comes forward.

At the end of the day, you are a product of your genes and your
environment. Yes, a certain part of the brain has the ability to
weigh things up and react accordingly. My dog can do that too.
How much happens at the subconcious level, is the question.

We know that hormones affect behaviour. We know that neurotransmitters
affect behaviour. We know that if people have sections of their
brains damaged and live to tell the tale, it can change their
personality in quite dramatic ways. Clearly they are not so free to
do much about it.

So is it possible that some people evolved to be more anxious,
religious etc, as a result of brain function? Sure its possible,
there has already been plenty of speculation about which spot,
just not yet enough concrete evidence. It will happen eventually.

*There is nothing mystical about Phantom Limbs*

Well that was my point Jayb. The mind is what the brain does.

If there is a feedback loop malfunctioning, which lowers serotonin
levels, people are going to suffer from depression, purely due
to brain chemistry, which has a genetic input.

The debate over free will will probably never be decided, no matter how ambitious the scientific community's quest for a theory of everything.
Everything does indeed link to something else, but there's more to cause and effect than that. Indeed it could be argued that at a certain level of complexity a phenomenon ceases being derivitive, in fact 'transcends' its formative development.

I'm bound to say, Jayb, I find your reasoning rather crude, and I'd suggest a ritual book-burning of the texts you mention above. Indeed the whole positive thinking industry is reprehensible.

I think people have good reason to be depressed and your kind of bracing logic, however 'ostensibly' useful in some circumstances (like in the army), implicity backs the sick culture that is for my money to blame.
Whether you like or acknowledge it or not, there is great mystery at the centre of life that can't and shouldn't be blown off with bravado.