Oh god I think Ireland just melted
On topic: this just got more boring than a sitcom. I prefer when Xant is discussing the impossibility of free will in a causal world.
Wait, are you referencing some actual argument I've had here or is that an example of a discussion that I might have? Because my stance has certainly never been that free will is impossible in a causal world.
In fact, I find the whole free will argument naïve and, if you'll allow me to be so frank, retarded, one of those useless things where philosophers bicker over definitions for 25 years and never bother looking at it pragmatically. The strongest and most logical argument in favor of "free will doesn't exist" assumes in a childlike manner that most people think human consciousness exists on some spiritual level beyond the physical realm, and the personality is formed by itself in a vacuum. The anti-free-willers, then, go "a-ha! But you chose strawberries because when you were six years old, your grandmother bought you red pajamas that you really liked! Q.E.D, free will doesn't exist", as if it's an Insight. It's an example of how far removed from reality many of the philosophical arguments are. Personalities, persons, are shaped and formed by past experiences, among other things (like genetic predispositions), this isn't news to anyone. Almost no one thinks they come into this world as the person they are at 30. It also has nothing to do with free will, it's not what the two words are used to refer to in concept space by most people.
Free will, common sense version: do you believe you can make decisions?
It's reminiscent of the "consciousness is an illusion!" argument. Utter hogwash, of course, but at the root of both that and this (free will) is certain people's inability to deal with the fact that "mere" physical reactions could be the source of personality, of free will, of decisions, of consciousness. Yeah, all events are determined by physics.
But you are physics.
I wish I could find the quote from one of the psychologist-philosophers claiming consciousness is an illusion I read a year or two ago, it was very illustrative of the mindset: basically, he wrote a paragraph on why consciousness is an illusion, and his proof was that it was created by mere interactions of particles in the brain. Funny, because all you had to do was remove the word
mere and the paragraph read as proof that consciousness is
not an illusion.
Nothing is 'mere.'
- Dick Feynman.
Poll