(December 13, 2008 at 4:01 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: I agree with Dan Dennett that whether the future is determined or indetermined, its still going to happen. There's going to be a future. We don't know what that future is - there could be many many possibilities in fact - but there's still a future. We can't change the future either way so even if you believe the future is determined that doesn't mean you don't have free will. In the sense that you can still avoid bad things or try to reach the good things, etc. You can still have free will whether you believed the future is determined or not. Either way A future is still inevitable but what that future is we do not know. So you still have free will. It doesn't make sense to think "If the future is determined that mean is inevitable so there's nothing you can do about it". Yes, the future is going to happen regardless of what you do. Whatever happens, that is the future. You still have free will in the sense there's still evitability. It doesn't mean you can "change the future" whatever you do the future's still going to happen.It is not clear to me what you mean here. Of course, that there is going to be some future is inevitable, but the question is whether a specific future is inevitable. We like to think so but the laws of nature seem to indicate otherwise. They indicate that our 'choices' are not choices at all but inevitable results from the state of the universe prior to our 'choice'. Prior to our 'choice' the neurons in our brain were firing as they were firing, and only by that precise way the were firing our choice would result. There is no choice on this level (the level of neuron firing in the brain). There is no litttle man in our head, making decisions and making the neurons go that way or another.
I suspect that the free will question misadresses somehow the relation of choice on the human behavourial level and the processes on the microscopic level underlying human decision making.
"I'm like a rabbit suddenly trapped, in the blinding headlights of vacuous crap" - Tim Minchin in "Storm"
Christianity is perfect bullshit, christians are not - Purple Rabbit, honouring CS Lewis
Faith is illogical - fr0d0
Christianity is perfect bullshit, christians are not - Purple Rabbit, honouring CS Lewis
Faith is illogical - fr0d0