RE: Do you believe in free will?
March 27, 2012 at 9:53 am
(This post was last modified: March 27, 2012 at 9:57 am by NoMoreFaith.)
(March 26, 2012 at 8:10 pm)whateverist Wrote: But don't you see, you will either cool down or not and agree on the usage of terms or not, exactly as your enviro-/experiential/DNA dictates. There is no need and no possibility of deciding differently. If you'd been born with all the factors that have gone into determining Genkaus' perspective, then you'd have no choice but to argue his side. If you're right about determinism then you can't win. Reasoning is futile. Those thoughts which confirm or undermine your position are just more 'givens'. If you have no free will, you have no reason to give more credence to your thoughts than to Genkaus'. If you can see through the illusion of your apparent free will then why stop there? Why accept the thoughts and opinions that are given to you to think? Why suppose that what seems reasonable or rational to you is any more reliable than the illusion of your free will? In short, if you don't have free will, can you possibly have 'free thought'?
Apologies, I completely missed your post the first time around.
It does not follow that we do not reason if we are determined, what follows is that our reasons are causally produced and then causally acted upon.
Your argument states that reasons are NOT caused, then I would like to ask for your evidence that reason is separate from being caused.
Let me provide an example of why your reasoning is faulty by equating free will and a soul;
"The materialist claims we have no soul, but if we have no soul, then the materialist would be incapable of love, and emotion, and is dead inside. Are you dead inside? Are you incapable of emotion? Then you must have a soul."
The thing is, like the soul, things like love, and emotion can be explained by things other than a soul. Likewise our reason can be explained by things other than free will.
Criticism of something so ingrained in what we believe to be true, such as free will, will bring out the most absurd reasoning to deny it or redefine it.
However, free will is a positive claim, a claim that your reason is not caused by factors outside of control (with the exception of the compatibilists who enjoy word games).
Self-authenticating private evidence is useless, because it is indistinguishable from the illusion of it. ― Kel, Kelosophy Blog
If you’re going to watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo. That show was so cool because every time there’s a church with a ghoul, or a ghost in a school. They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The f**king janitor or the dude who runs the waterslide. Throughout history every mystery. Ever solved has turned out to be. Not Magic. ― Tim Minchin, Storm
If you’re going to watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo. That show was so cool because every time there’s a church with a ghoul, or a ghost in a school. They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The f**king janitor or the dude who runs the waterslide. Throughout history every mystery. Ever solved has turned out to be. Not Magic. ― Tim Minchin, Storm
