--- In [email protected], turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > My reluctance to get involved in Yet Another Discussion > About Free Will is based on a belief in the value of some- > thing that those trying to get me to become involved seem > to lack: pragmatism. > > One of my favorite quotes in recent years is, "In theory, > there is no difference between theory and practice. But, > in practice, there is." That kinda nails my pragmatic > approach to life, to philosophy, and to the discussion > of both. Many people try to lure others into arguments > or discussions that are abstract and purely theoretical, > as if such discussions had a value other than the mental > masturbation I see them as having. Me, I like to limit > myself to discussing things that seem to have an actual > relationship to a concept I call "real life."
Actually, the current discussion of free will you're semi-obliquely referring to involved that very concern: how does the issue affect "real life"? In fact, both articles that were cited as a basis for the discussion were focused on applying the concept that there is no free will to reforming the justice system. It doesn't get any more pragmatic than that. The pragmatic question has, moreover, been central to every discussion of free will we've had here. <snip> > My suspicion is that if we were to ask either of these > "correctors" (Specifically, Dan Friedman and Richard Nelson) > what they believe about the issue of Free > Will, they would claim that it doesn't exist. For the record, my suspicion is exactly the opposite. <snip> > So here's what doesn't compute for me with this theory. Talk about confirmation bias! You keep saying it doesn't compute while completely ignoring the explanation you've been given multiple times by several different people. <snip> > My particular confirmation bias, as a firm believer in Free > Will, is that they are not only complete failures in their > attempts to CHANGE the behavior of people they don't like, > they're also complete failures at walking the talk of their > own beliefs. They claim not to believe in Free Will, but > spend hundreds of words trying to get those who they claim > *have* no Free Will to use it, and CHANGE. Your take actually *is* confirmation bias. You completely fail to see the gigantic logical fallacy it embodies: If there is no free will, it applies across the board; the "laws of nature" dictate both the walk and the talk. You have no choice, at present, but to defend free will; we have no choice but to argue against it. You have no choice about how you behave at present; we have no choice but to try to get you to behave differently henceforward. And if you were to change your behavior tomorrow, or in the next instant, you wouldn't have had any choice about that either. Nor would we have any choice about gloating that you had done what we had urged you to do, even though we had nothing whatsoever to do with it. ;-) Those who fail to understand (or, like you, refuse even to examine) the implications of the premise that free will is an illusion will inevitably fall into the sort of psychotically incoherent reasoning you've just demonstrated. Which is why, as I argued in an earlier post in the current free will discussion, I'm leery even of introducing the concept into the justice system, where it appears that it could be applied pretty straightforwardly: because it would be likely to seep out into other areas of social interaction and create utter chaos. We have to continue to play the hand we've been dealt, even if we've had a good look at the dealer's cards.
