(August 6, 2013 at 1:40 pm)HalcyonicTrust Wrote: If you honestly think the that chance and mere indeterminism=libertarianism then you do not understand so-called "free will". If it's all chance where does the willing come in? Will=willpower=willing=determining something (yourself, in part: your motivation, the part that you will (determine) yourself with).
How can you will something to be if it's all chance? It's a contradiction.
Chance=free in the sense of unrestricted by determinism. It does not mean free in the sense of being able to freely use your own WILLPOWER (free will) which is NOT chance.
Ok, finally, I ask you this: If Libertarianism truly=chance... how do you explain hard incompatabilism/pessimism the view that Arthur Schopenhauer Albert Einstein and myself subscribe(d) to?
*I decided to reply because I felt in the mood and I like changing my mind*.
Its not a question of what I think because I haven't given my own view of free-will. You seem to be taking the close-minded view that somehow you have stumbled onto the right definition of free-will - that you understand what the concept means and that is the only possible view and if that form of free-will does not exist, then no form of free-will can exist.
I'll explain this as simply as possible: In this discussion, we accept the existence of "will", i.e. the mental faculty that directs our actions. For understanding "free-will" the question is what is this mental faculty supposed to be free from? Libertarians, determinists and other assorted incompatibilists give the answer "causal determinism". Basically, if your will is causally determined, then you don't have free-will. If it isn't, then you do.
Once again, this isn't my opinion, it is the libertarian view of free-will. Which means that yes - within the Libertarian view, indeterminism = free will.
Yes, in this sense, chance does not mean "free in the sense of being able to freely use your own WILLPOWER (free will)" - but that is NOT the libertarian definition of free-will. That is your definition. Something you came up with and something that has no place in in a discussion presuming the Libertarian free-will.
As for pessimism - their view is that the Libertarian view of free-will, that is, the view that you have free-will is your will is free from causal determinism, is incorrect. My answer to that is - nothing. I'm not a Libertarian. I do not subscribe to their view of free-will. So I don't need to spend my time defending it.
