RE: Richard Dawkins' Faith In Free Will Is As Blind As A Christians To God
July 2, 2010 at 12:03 pm
I have never heard of Dawkins declare belief in free will at all. In fact all I've heard him say on the matter is "I'm not interested in free will" and how it's a philosophical problem and not a scientific one. He's uninterested in it and doesn't seem to be bothered either way if it exists or not.
What have memes got to do with free will?
I myself do care. I think resentment and pride, and any genuine ultimate "deserving" of anything makes no sense at all if there is no free will.
I think the compatibilist definition of free will is completely devoid of any meaning or value at all since it's merely the blatantly obvious fact that some people are more coerced or less coerced in what they do than others. I think that the kind of free will that is incompatible with determinism and is supposed to make us will ourselves freely - when we are already in the process of 'willing' and we'd have to be the cause of ourselves in order to do so - is utterly ridiculous and completely lacking in any evidence to back up such ridiculousness (as far as I know). I subscribe to hard incompatabilism/pessimism on the free will matter - I don't believe in free will whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic.
I think free will Vs determinism is an obviously false dichotomy since whether actions are determined or undeterminded where does the free will come in? If the future is completely fixed you are unfree but if physics are more random and probabilistic how does that give you any more freedom whatsoever than if they were fixed? Is a lottery free because it is random?
If free will isn't true (and as I said, I don't believe it is) we obviously still need to lock up dangerous criminals, etc.. Because things would be even worse if we just let them all roam around free whether they are really free or not.
It's a good thing Hitler didn't win the war whether he really had free will or not! Etc.
EvF
What have memes got to do with free will?
I myself do care. I think resentment and pride, and any genuine ultimate "deserving" of anything makes no sense at all if there is no free will.
I think the compatibilist definition of free will is completely devoid of any meaning or value at all since it's merely the blatantly obvious fact that some people are more coerced or less coerced in what they do than others. I think that the kind of free will that is incompatible with determinism and is supposed to make us will ourselves freely - when we are already in the process of 'willing' and we'd have to be the cause of ourselves in order to do so - is utterly ridiculous and completely lacking in any evidence to back up such ridiculousness (as far as I know). I subscribe to hard incompatabilism/pessimism on the free will matter - I don't believe in free will whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic.
I think free will Vs determinism is an obviously false dichotomy since whether actions are determined or undeterminded where does the free will come in? If the future is completely fixed you are unfree but if physics are more random and probabilistic how does that give you any more freedom whatsoever than if they were fixed? Is a lottery free because it is random?
If free will isn't true (and as I said, I don't believe it is) we obviously still need to lock up dangerous criminals, etc.. Because things would be even worse if we just let them all roam around free whether they are really free or not.
It's a good thing Hitler didn't win the war whether he really had free will or not! Etc.
EvF
