RE: Soft Determinism, Hard Determinism, Necessitarianism, Fatalism...Huh?
January 11, 2014 at 2:17 pm
OK, I usually follow along and don't have much to say in the free will/determinism conversations. This has mostly been due to me trying to sort it out for myself and attain a certain level of understanding before chiming in. I may need some help continuing this process at this point. This may get lengthy.
I think I now have a decent understanding of the basics and if forced to choose (there's a free will joke in there somewhere) would consider myself an uncomfortable compatibalist. What I don't know is if I conclude this for rational reasons or I am still clutching onto the idea of being in control as part of some type of wish fulfillment.
Recently I dropped any reservation and accepted the fact that my conscious me is far less in control of my choices than what I previously and intuitively thought. I was reluctant at first because I didn't immediately equate my subconscious as also being me. Now this seems a little childish, but when first confronted with the concept it appeared for a bit as if someone else was in here with me and I had no insight as to what the fuck he was doing, or more importantly what he could or would be willing to do.
Jonathan Haidt has a great analogy of an elephant and its rider applied to emotional/rational components of thought and decision making. I like to apply the same to subconscious/conscious decision making keeping in mind that I am both the elephant and the rider.
As a materialist I am sympathtic to the idea of determinism and is something that I can't outright dismiss, but cannot yet accept the idea that I am not really choosing among availabe actions as in the Garden of Forking Paths model (or am I, remembering that my subconscious is still me). Dennett's attempt to remove inevitability from determinsim feels right, but I can't say that I agree with the argument and this is where I'm stuck right now. I know I would like determinism not to equal inevitable, only because it's counterintuitive and immediately uncomfortable and not because all of a sudden I would hitch a ride on the good ship Narcissist (I'll come back to this later or in another post). Perhaps I just don't understand enough to flush out and articulate what I feel is wrong. I'm fine with more work; I just hate being stuck.
I would like to say I'm a determinist, but can't yet fully escape what my everyday experience suggests. Dennett may be closer to the truth, but all I see ahead of me is a paradox; a deterministic universe that resulted in our evolving into a being that experiences the events of the universe through a series of perceived choices.
I think I now have a decent understanding of the basics and if forced to choose (there's a free will joke in there somewhere) would consider myself an uncomfortable compatibalist. What I don't know is if I conclude this for rational reasons or I am still clutching onto the idea of being in control as part of some type of wish fulfillment.
Recently I dropped any reservation and accepted the fact that my conscious me is far less in control of my choices than what I previously and intuitively thought. I was reluctant at first because I didn't immediately equate my subconscious as also being me. Now this seems a little childish, but when first confronted with the concept it appeared for a bit as if someone else was in here with me and I had no insight as to what the fuck he was doing, or more importantly what he could or would be willing to do.
Jonathan Haidt has a great analogy of an elephant and its rider applied to emotional/rational components of thought and decision making. I like to apply the same to subconscious/conscious decision making keeping in mind that I am both the elephant and the rider.
As a materialist I am sympathtic to the idea of determinism and is something that I can't outright dismiss, but cannot yet accept the idea that I am not really choosing among availabe actions as in the Garden of Forking Paths model (or am I, remembering that my subconscious is still me). Dennett's attempt to remove inevitability from determinsim feels right, but I can't say that I agree with the argument and this is where I'm stuck right now. I know I would like determinism not to equal inevitable, only because it's counterintuitive and immediately uncomfortable and not because all of a sudden I would hitch a ride on the good ship Narcissist (I'll come back to this later or in another post). Perhaps I just don't understand enough to flush out and articulate what I feel is wrong. I'm fine with more work; I just hate being stuck.
I would like to say I'm a determinist, but can't yet fully escape what my everyday experience suggests. Dennett may be closer to the truth, but all I see ahead of me is a paradox; a deterministic universe that resulted in our evolving into a being that experiences the events of the universe through a series of perceived choices.
