Quote:
Originally posted by Danny_C
Punkworld:
It's a complex and interesting debate. It reminds me of the Cartesian idea that I could be nothing more than a brain in a vat. This could all be a dream. So we can't prove anything through real-world experience, because it could be that none of it is real. But any good pragmatist will point out that this kind of pontification is useless in the real world, and gets us nowhere. Humanity, they would argue, can only move forward if we utilize our senses (flawed and fallible as they are) as tools to guide us toward truth. Just as in this debate, there is room for both sides to be perfectly legitimate. Descarte was right - we could be dreaming all of this. Our senses could be deceiving us. But until we have something better than our own senses to work with, it would be stupid for us not to trust them.
This is the same kind of argument. Any number of arguments can be levelled against the concept of free will, but where will that kind of pontification get us?
I mentioned the "illusion of free will". Although I call it an illusion, that perception of free will is what pushes us forward as a species. It's what gives us motivation and spurs creativity. Pragmatists would argue that the only definition of reality we have is the reality we perceive - because that's the only reality that does us any good.
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Well, while I agree with that to a certain extent, I think it is important to note that assuming the absence of free will would lead to a logical contradiction, simply because mankind can not look into the future and thus will always have to make choices without knowing beforehand what those will be. That also means that - ironically - the theory of absence of free is about as unscientific as possible. It doesn't make predictions, but only explains things after the fact, much like religions do.
Free will might be called an illusion when looked at it in terms of atoms, molecules and causality, but in my opinion those are in an entirely different domain. They can co-exist, as long as you make a clear distinction between the domains.