Read 'em and weep! 
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It seems as if you are concerned about how consciousness forms or is embodied, and that’s a great question for which I don’t pretend to have an explanation. But once it is present, the conclusion about my ability to act and make choices self-evidently follows.
For the sake of my own sanity, I’ll review it later.
On this one only a human judge is needed to see that I am being misrepresented. MarkD initially said an infinite number of things cannot exist, because infinity is not a number.
My comment to Terry: If I understand you correctly, you are not saying an infinite number of universes exist, but you still think it’s a possibility for there to be an infinite number of them.
MarkD’s response: Of course there can’t be precisely an infinite number of universes since that isn’t an actual number. Regardless, from our POV, it is an indeterminant number and quite possibly in flux. We should pursue empirical questions that are in our weight class.
I thanked him for stating the obvious and agreed there cannot be an infinite number of objects in space or events in time.
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I doubt this will help you clear up your confusion about who said what when and what their words meant. However, in the off-chance that it may, I will say this:
- I agree, more or less, with this portion of what MarkD initially said, i.e. “Of course there can’t be precisely an infinite number of universes since that isn’t an actual number. Regardless, from our POV, it is an indeterminant number …”
- Reason for my agreement: “precisely an infinite number of things” is, IMO, unintelligible because “an infinite number” is not a precise, determined OR determinable number. If anybody believes otherwise, start a new thread and enlighten me, please.
- For me, “an infinite number of things” focuses my attention on the quantity of the things, not their quality.
- However, the impossibility of counting an infinite number of things does not, IMO, preclude the possibility that there are an uncountable number of things in a boundless cosmos, infinite in volume and duration.
- As for your last sentence, “I thanked him for stating the obvious and agreed there cannot be an infinite number of objects in space or events in time”, I say your thanks were premature, because I am confident that you didn’t understand what he said and, therefore, couldn’t possibly be agreeing with what he said because, if you had understood what he said, you wouldn’t have agreed with him.
- As for your attempt to make me seem silly, you need to get another horse, because the one that you insist on riding is dead. However, in a possibly futile attempt to deconfuse you, tell me: which you prefer:
- Do you believe that the terms: “the cosmos”, “the universe”, and “the world” are synonyms or not? Because, if you believe they are synonyms, then I say there is only one and that it is boundless, being infinite in volume and in duration. And I’ll let you tell me what subsets of “the One Cosmos/Universe/Wprld” there are; and moreover, I’ll tell you that I believe there are an infinite quantity of those subsets; and there is no proof whatsoever that there aren’t.
You don’t make yourself look silly exactly. Maybe this does though:
I understand perfectly well what he said about how there cannot be an infinite number of universes.
What he said about there being an indeterminate number, I took to mean it’s an unknown number, but indeterminate could also mean indefinite or unknowable by nature, and that is having it both ways and impossible to understand.
It doesn’t follow at all. Neurochemistry is changing which completely contradicts your conclusion.
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or as an illuminating metaphor
It seems as if you are holding onto the possibility the neurochemistry is causing a person to act, and the person is mistaken into thinking they are the one acting.
You are claiming that conscious decisions do not involve changes, and you are ignoring a very, very real possibility that conscious decisions do involve neurological changes. Of course, your brain is part of you, so it is you acting even if it involves changes in neurochemistry.
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Think of it this way.
You snap your fingers, neurochemistry changes, nerves signal your muscles to contract, and your fingers move.
Apparently the question you have is whether you can act.
Or… and if I’m not mistaken this has been seriously considered… quantum indeterminacy affects neurological chemistry, which then causes a person to snap their fingers.
No, that’s not the question. Here is what you said before:
“I can almost agree with that about an uncaused cause. No where is it observed, and the notion of something affecting change without changing is a difficult concept to wrap your mind around, and yet that is what a person is with their ability to act.”
The question is whether the ability to act involves change, not whether we can act at all. It would seem rather important to consider neurological changes and how they relate to conscious decisions.
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Hmmm… another way to to look at the question is whether a person can act as a first cause. How’s that?
Current research is starting to look into that question:
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So you are holding onto the possibility the neurochemistry is causing a person to act, and the person is mistaken into thinking they are the one acting.
I can only imagine what they find when they hook my brain up to that machine.
All it takes is a single instance of a person acting for this view of determinism to be false.
I’ve also noticed in choosing a random series of numbers, that the task starts to become boring and, as a kind of metaphor, the numbers start to choose themselves.
And as you say our brain’s process is our process. Our great advance is the ability not to act instantly and instinctively. It buys us time to weigh alternatives and language gives us a way to represent those to others. But what would it mean for us to be an uncaused cause? Would we really want to be unmoored from our experience and from any cultural milieux? I don’t think so and I don’t think you would either. Hey Mike, what about you?
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There’s a load of meaning in our being contingent, and in our ability to determine our actions.
I’ll probably come back to expand on this comment.
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That is what happens when someone denies objective evidence. (What might St. Peter ask you at the gate, I wonder. ; - )