Difference between revisions of "User:Woozle/Free Will"
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The '''difference''' between (a) "hard-wired" criminals and (b) epileptics, autistics, etc. is that the "defects" of the latter do not pose a serious danger to others merely by their existence, while the "defect" of criminality clearly ''does''. (I'll note that epileptics may pose a threat if they have a seizure while operating heavy machinery -- which is why we generally don't let epileptics have drivers' licenses unless they have their condition under control. The idea of selectively preventing behaviorally-caused harm due to brain "defects" is not a new one.) | The '''difference''' between (a) "hard-wired" criminals and (b) epileptics, autistics, etc. is that the "defects" of the latter do not pose a serious danger to others merely by their existence, while the "defect" of criminality clearly ''does''. (I'll note that epileptics may pose a threat if they have a seizure while operating heavy machinery -- which is why we generally don't let epileptics have drivers' licenses unless they have their condition under control. The idea of selectively preventing behaviorally-caused harm due to brain "defects" is not a new one.) | ||
===It's an Illusion=== | ===It's an Illusion=== | ||
| − | + | Without even reading the argument in defense of this claim, there's a problem with it: | |
<blockquote>Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.</blockquote> | <blockquote>Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.</blockquote> | ||
| − | + | Saying that "thoughts and intentions emerge from [things] over which we exert no conscious control" implies a couple of things: | |
* our consciousness has a will (which is simply not able to express itself through our actions) | * our consciousness has a will (which is simply not able to express itself through our actions) | ||
* conscious control is required for "free will" | * conscious control is required for "free will" | ||
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| + | <blockquote>Free will is actually more than an illusion (or less), in that it cannot be made conceptually coherent. Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.</blockquote> | ||
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| + | Finally we start to get to the argument behind Harris's thesis. This is an obvious [[false dichotomy]]. Why can't our wills be the end product of ''both'' prior causes and chance? Less trivially, even if our wills were entirely the product of prior causes, how does this contradict the idea that we have free will? He's right that FW!SH is conceptually incoherent, but that does not mean it cannot be defined in a coherent way; he has simply failed to do so. | ||
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| + | <blockquote>The popular conception of free will seems to rest on two assumptions: (1) that each of us could have behaved differently than we did in the past, and (2) that we are the conscious source of most of our thoughts and actions in the present. As we are about to see, however, both of these assumptions are false.</blockquote> | ||
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| + | I'll be interested to see his arguments for both of these. | ||
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| + | <blockquote>Seeming acts of volition merely arise spontaneously (whether caused, uncaused, or probabilistically inclined, it makes no difference) and cannot be traced to a point of origin in our conscious minds. A moment or two of serious self-scrutiny, and you might observe that you no more decide the next thought you think than the next thought I write.</blockquote> | ||
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| + | How does this contradict the idea of free will? (Or, in other words, "so what?") | ||
{{draft}} | {{draft}} | ||