On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 6:35 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On 13 Jun 2012, at 10:44, R AM wrote: > > I know that you and Bruno are compatibilists. I'm not attacking your > notion of free will. I agree that free will is a social construct. I'm > going even further: free will doesn't even deserve a name. Deep down, free > will is not something people have, but just a social definition of under > what conditions or situations we will be considered responsible (and > punishable). > > > > You can do that. But would *that* not be a reductionist view of reality? > > No, because I'm just exposing a false belief. > You are saying that free-will does not exist because it is a higher level > description of complex aggregations of simple processes. > Not really, all I'm saying is that belief in free will is like belief in flat earth: false. And this is not based on physical reality being deterministic or random but on subjective experience: - Introspection shows that most of our thoughts and decisions are unconscious (try not to think on anything for 30 minutes and see what happens) - The idea of "I could have done otherwise" is silly. If you try to imagine yourself in exactly the same conscious situation, you will have to conclude that you would not have done otherwise (at least, not consciously). Otherwise, you would already have done it. Dan Dennett says most of these things much better than I could, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKLAbWFCh1E -- 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.
