On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 5:58 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > ? On the contrary. It was your argument against determinism which I took as > incompatible with science or scientific attitude. But third person > determinism does not entails first person determinism, nor do determinism in > general prevents genuine free will. People believing that determinism per se > makes free will impossible confuse themselves with God. > But now I am no more sure what you are saying. Are you OK with hard > determinism? Are you OK with block-multiverse, or block-mindscape?
I think your position rests on an invalid conflation between the fact that it posits multiple *actual* futures, all of which *will* occur - and the "folk" intuition that there are multiple *possible* futures, and that it is *ultimately* our conscious experience of making a choice which determines which one of those possible futures becomes actual. You say the former, but in doing so you allude to the latter. Which is true of all compatibilist positions...and that's why compatibilists insist on redefining existing words like "free will" and "choice" and "responsibility". Because if you don't re-use those words - retaining their flavor without their substance - it becomes impossible for compatibilists to connect to their traditional meaning in any convincing way. Using less misleading terms would make it obvious that compatibilism has nothing to do with free will at all. Compatibilism is about building a world view that makes it possible for society to continue largely as before while accepting determinism. "Dr. StrangeDennett: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Determinism". Repurposing the term "free will" is a propaganda move, to make the medicine go down easier. Rex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
