RE: Free will/evil/punishment
June 15, 2015 at 12:19 am
(This post was last modified: June 15, 2015 at 12:21 am by Thumpalumpacus.)
(June 14, 2015 at 9:08 pm)Nestor Wrote: Free will is not an illusion simply because human beings are subject to the laws of physics. Everything, including these discussions, including threats of punishment, including actual consequences inevitable or merely imposed by society, shapes our wills, by and through which we are free to act so long as the boundaries of a 'self'---however defined---are not coerced into action contrary to the will.
This is my guess as well, although you've worded it much better than I could have done ... but I'm not educated enough in these matters to back it up with brute fact.
(June 14, 2015 at 9:25 pm)bennyboy Wrote:(June 14, 2015 at 8:27 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: Only if your fate allows such a recourse.
I think you've hit the nail on the head, at least for me. It seems to me that if one's fate (by which I assume you mean determined outcome of a deterministic universe) has brought one into contact with the belief that free will is an illusion, then that person's behavior should be expected to change, if the idea is strongly believed.
However, I do not know of anyone who doesn't act as though they have free will.
I may well be the victim of my own illusion, but I cannot escape my perceptions in the matter. If as you say I am right here, I can only reply that I wish it weren't so.
