Quote:
Originally Posted by mszlazak 
Free-will, in the sense of having moral choice, is either complatible with determinism or it's not. If it's not then this leads you to the irrational position that your actions are independent of your desires, feeling or beliefs! It's only through determinism that you can have a free-will worth having. You'll have to resolve is if materialism, naturalism or mechanism is adequate to fully explain consciousness. I think they are!
|
mszlazak I asked you a question regarding determinism in the other thread which you never responded to:
You said that if determinism is
not true that would mean you couldn't run the exact same processes exactly the same way over and over again. And above you say that should determinism
not be true then our actions would not correspond to desires, feeling or beliefs.
So it must follow that the definition of determinism is simply
not random. And therefore indeterminism means intrinsically random (rather than apparently random).
You agree then that the metaphysical truth of independent agency -- that is to say, although subject to various influences, it is my self
per se which decides upon a course of action -- is wholly in accord with determinism? Note that the metaphysical truth of independent agency need not necessarily entail that ones actions could not in principle be predictable.
(as an aside I did, until comparatively recently, believe that all my actions could in principle be predicted by a sufficiently knowledgeable being. However, after reading about
Newcomb's paradox, I decided that this leads to a logical paradox. Hence I now believe that one can make an entirely arbitrary -- albeit not random -- choice to behave in a given way).
But if determinism is wholly compatible with free will as everyone understands this concept, why then is there a debate about it?