Determinism, Free Will and Paradox

[bennyboy]

No no no, I am not injecting "the experience of time into a philosophical model..." Rather, motion. Do you think motion is dependent upon experience in such a way that when "The Reality(ies)" ceases for the experiencer, it renders all of the universe static in relation to itself?

No, not renders. I'm suggesting that if the entire universe's existence in time is immalleable from start to finish, then it's like a tunnel through which we move-- we see things "changing" around us, but in reality it is only our perspective which changes-- everything else is just sitting there. Remember when you were a kid, drawing little falling-man stick figures in the margins of your textbooks and flipping through them to see him "fall" ? Does your page-flipping "render" the motion of the man? No, because he is not actually moving.

Otherwise, I'm not sure why we would simply grant that motion---and hence everything we experience---is an illusion. It puts us back in the shoes (or sandals) of the ancient Greeks.

It is in fact YOUR contention that free will is an illusion, due to the laws of determinism, so I find your statement a little ironic.

We as human agents see the universe as a framework in which we may choose to act, and in which our actions have consequences. We constantly make decisions, and watch their real effects. And yet, despite all this, you find determinism sufficiently convincing that you see all this active expression of the agency of self as an illusion. That paints the self as merely an observer in the inevitable, and entirely predictable, unfolding of the universe through time. Have I mistaken your position, in saying these things on your behalf?

I totally accept the absurd when that is what the evidence of reality reveals itself to be; but when you have to deny the evidence of reality, and say that motion is a created illusion of mind, unnecessary for dynamic existence (period), when nothing indicates that "the ultimate reality" is a "oneness at rest" (i.e. god, death, and the death of god---or do you also include a black hole?), then an obscure thought that doesn't really buy you much of anything---certainly not "free will" in the sense that people think is worth debating---it sounds quasi-theological, and not in a good way.

I didn't say motion is an illusion of the mind. I said that in determinism, time is a dimension along which all events are arranged-- like frames of a movie or scenery along a roller coaster. Let me ask you, when you are riding in a car, do you not have the sensation that the trees outside the car are "moving" past you?