(January 18, 2015 at 8:49 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I've used this one before. When we watch a magician "pull a rabbit out of a hat" we understand that it's not actually happening the way we see it. That it's an "illusion". To call it such does not imply that the magician isn't doing anything, or that the magician and the rabbit, in fact, aren't even there.
Suggesting that "free will" -as the unmoved mover of mind- is an illusion is to suggest something entirely similar. That what we experience might not be an accurate representation of the reality of whats happening. Not, that we're having an experience -about nothing-. It's suggesting that "free will" is potentially misleading terminology (with tremendous baggage) regarding a subject for which we have limited onboard means of perception, not that the the subject itself is an empty set. Something's happening regardless of whether or not we have the description right, wouldn't you agree? The magician and the rabbit and the hat exist, even if the magician isn't actually pulling a rabbit out of the hat.
There's definitely something going on. Sometimes i think the whole free will/determinism argument is a false dichotomy. But I have no idea what we might call a third alternative, or how we would determine what it was.
