(September 3, 2014 at 9:49 am)bennyboy Wrote:(September 3, 2014 at 8:11 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: James believed in free will, or as he calls it "novelty." What he calls a quagmire of evasion is my position, that "free will" (a refined definition of it) and determinism can be reconciled.Do you see this as a semantic reconciliation? I don't see how you can use normal definitions of determinism and free will and have them work together. If you say something like, "Free will is the experience one has of one's brain's decision-making process," I wouldn't be able to work with that definition.
I'm not sure what else you could mean by free will that isn't spontaneous and almost willy-nilly. As I see it, an act or even a will must be an event or object that is a link in the chain of causes or a new chain itself. If a new chain, how is that created or initiated "freely?" That doesn't seem to be the freedom free-willists want either.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
