Well, Squirrel_fu and the robot have a rather depressing view. This article was such a happy read until them.
Here is a problem I have with your arguments gentlemen
@RoboticUndertones
You define free will as, "I have control over ALL my own actions"
ALL actions is rather bold. For examples, I must work and pay taxes. These are a means to an end. Money and taxes are pathways to self-control. I pay for taxes so I can have access highways, doctors, and police. I work for the money, not the pleasure. That does not make me a prisoner. Animals scavenge for food, that does not make them a prisoner to their hunger. Work is the same for me. Work is a means to providing for myself.
Just because you sacrifice some control does not make you devoid of free will. We all must make sacrifices for the community.
What do the rest of you think? Does free will exist?
The free will debate is resilient because it is stuck in a spin cycle of (1) term refinement, (2) migration into compatibilism, (3) dissatisfaction with compatibilism's semantic revisions.
Here's that spin cycle in diagram form:
Here's the underlying systemic/memetic problem with the debate:
Selection gravity is especially powerful on internet forums where all posts have equal visibility (participants have no way of voicing approval/disapproval that affects content visibility for others), and where chatter keeps threads alive and on top, whereas "solution" threads fade into obfuscated oblivion.
I've been involved in this debate countless times on MTGSalvation, and it's always the same spin cycle, and whenever folks become finally convinced of compatibilism, the thread dies and disappears into the void, never to be seen again.
I don't see how "free will" has any meaning in a naturalistic universe. Your choices are based off of the chemicals in your brain, and nothing "magical." Any nonsense about "reversing time" is pointless since that creates a million other problems about what it means to reverse time and it would still just come down to however the chemicals in your brain work to make a choice.
I know. The solution is compatibilism. We refine the definition of things like "choice," "free will," "responsibility," etc. to work with the reality of how we make decisions: Deterministic processes.
Here is a problem I have with your arguments gentlemen
@RoboticUndertones
You define free will as, "I have control over ALL my own actions"
ALL actions is rather bold. For examples, I must work and pay taxes. These are a means to an end. Money and taxes are pathways to self-control. I pay for taxes so I can have access highways, doctors, and police. I work for the money, not the pleasure. That does not make me a prisoner. Animals scavenge for food, that does not make them a prisoner to their hunger. Work is the same for me. Work is a means to providing for myself.
Just because you sacrifice some control does not make you devoid of free will. We all must make sacrifices for the community.
What do the rest of you think? Does free will exist?
Here's that spin cycle in diagram form:
Here's the underlying systemic/memetic problem with the debate:
Selection gravity is especially powerful on internet forums where all posts have equal visibility (participants have no way of voicing approval/disapproval that affects content visibility for others), and where chatter keeps threads alive and on top, whereas "solution" threads fade into obfuscated oblivion.
I've been involved in this debate countless times on MTGSalvation, and it's always the same spin cycle, and whenever folks become finally convinced of compatibilism, the thread dies and disappears into the void, never to be seen again.