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[Poll #1058418]
(No, "something"-made-it-happen ain't an option. I already said that no thing made it happen.)
Edit: Note that the scenario described involves causal indeterminism, not predictive indeterminism.
I raise this hypothetical for a simple reason: one of my fellows in my PHIL282 class just told me that he believes it would not be random. And that, for me, finally makes free-will libertarianism make sense.
See, in class, we've basically just started talking about the second half of what these individuals must prove. For the record, people holding this position state two major claims: that determinism, were it true, would imply that no free will exists; and that indeterminism, which is true, allows free will to exist.
In fact, the naive example of the libertarian position (which does not make it false, only naive) is simply that free will looks like the hypothetical in the poll.
Many people, of course, balk at this - in fact, there's a name for the noises they make when they do: the Luck or Arbitrariness Objection. This counterargument, in fact, is barely more than pointing at the scenario and saying, "that's not what a free choice looks like". Further, a lot of philosophers - e.g. Daniel Dennett (whose stance I prefer), Robert Kane (whose textbook is assigned for this class), the professor - are inclined to accept the force of this objection. Some of them - Kane - choose to argue around it. But until I talked to this guy from my class, I had no gut knowledge that a person could simply reject it.
"Yeah, that is what free will looks like," these people say. "If it were caused by anything - if anything made it so the other one didn't happen - it wouldn't be free," these people say. And however you cut it, that's it - there's nothing left to say.
(No, "something"-made-it-happen ain't an option. I already said that no thing made it happen.)
Edit: Note that the scenario described involves causal indeterminism, not predictive indeterminism.
I raise this hypothetical for a simple reason: one of my fellows in my PHIL282 class just told me that he believes it would not be random. And that, for me, finally makes free-will libertarianism make sense.
See, in class, we've basically just started talking about the second half of what these individuals must prove. For the record, people holding this position state two major claims: that determinism, were it true, would imply that no free will exists; and that indeterminism, which is true, allows free will to exist.
In fact, the naive example of the libertarian position (which does not make it false, only naive) is simply that free will looks like the hypothetical in the poll.
Many people, of course, balk at this - in fact, there's a name for the noises they make when they do: the Luck or Arbitrariness Objection. This counterargument, in fact, is barely more than pointing at the scenario and saying, "that's not what a free choice looks like". Further, a lot of philosophers - e.g. Daniel Dennett (whose stance I prefer), Robert Kane (whose textbook is assigned for this class), the professor - are inclined to accept the force of this objection. Some of them - Kane - choose to argue around it. But until I talked to this guy from my class, I had no gut knowledge that a person could simply reject it.
"Yeah, that is what free will looks like," these people say. "If it were caused by anything - if anything made it so the other one didn't happen - it wouldn't be free," these people say. And however you cut it, that's it - there's nothing left to say.
no subject
As a humanist, a certain faith in free will is necessary. As a hobbyist-scientist, I understand that the more we know about the universe, the fewer accidents and coincidences there are. Reconciling these two has been a challenge.
At the moment, the notion of free will rests upon the idea that it's impossible for us to know everything, to perfectly predict what will happen next. We can't, for example, predict the weather patterns in Boston two years from now, because we're missing too much information, both in the way weather patterns work now, and in the way they've worked throughout history. How, then, could we possibly understand the combination of events throughout a person's life that contributes to the decisions they make? You would have to have a total knowledge of that person -- their history, their genetics, the influences of their environment. At the moment, science says that's impossible. So, free will?
But, what if it were possible? What if you could look at someone, and know them better than they knew themselves, to the point that you could predict every decision that they were about to make before they made it?
Well, just because you're able to predict their decision, doesn't mean that they aren't making one. It's still free will; that person still has the ability to make a decision, for themselves. That decision will be based and influenced on everything about that person leading up to that moment, but it's still a decision.
I think that's partly the nature of consciousness, too. A person can be aware of the things that influence their decisions, they can be aware of the fact that they are making a decision, and they can choose to change their decision. Maybe you could predict that, too, but they're still making that decision themselves.
no subject
no subject
It means not being ultimately responsible for your actions, but I can live with that.
I don't agree with that.
no subject
no subject
I'm also willing to accept a lot of mitigating circumstances surrounding a choice.
You killed a person. That's bad.
That person was about to kill my daughter.
Well, OK, then.
Or,
You're addicted to drugs.
I was born into it before I knew any better. I can't just stop.
Well, OK. But you have to try.
no subject