Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Johannes--Climacus t1_j8u1ul9 wrote

Reply to comment by dankest_cucumber in Free Will Is Only an Illusion if You Are, Too by greghickey5

What set of philosophers are you defining that leads you to your conclusion?

Not a gotcha, just trying to understand your position.

1

dankest_cucumber t1_j8u6q6a wrote

Basically, people who contribute to the philosophical “canon.” You could get a phd in Phil and study Plato until you’re the foremost expert, but you will only have learned philosophy, not become a philosopher. Kant put forth that all human experience is phenomenal, which would make “free will” a concept of phenomena. Since Kant, no refutation of this philosophy has stuck that wasn’t a rehashing of enlightenment rationalism. All lasting contributions to the canon have added onto Kant’s philosophy.

1

Johannes--Climacus t1_j8uq3uh wrote

Okay, I can work with that.

I think a problem here is that saying that free will is phenomenal is not the same as saying it’s “illusory” or not real. Phenomena is real, it’s just real as phenomena and not as noumena. Space, time, and causation are also “merely” phenomenal, but I don’t think we’re going to deny that they therefore don’t exist. If free will turned out to be “as real” as cause and effect, then I think almost just about any believer in free will would feel vindicated.

1

dankest_cucumber t1_j8ushly wrote

But if all experience is necessarily phenomenal, then free will is a moot point, is moreso what I’m trying to point at. Certainly decisions are made by freely acting entities, and if saying that makes me a “compatibilist,” then fine, but every “decision” made is a synthesis of opposed phenomena playing out their dialectical relationship through the mechanism of human perception. The “decision” is but a phenomenon we experience, which is pretty antithetical to the traditional understanding of free will.

1

Johannes--Climacus t1_j8uton7 wrote

What’s bothering me here is that the statement that “‘certainly decisions are made by freely acting entities’ but nonetheless, free will doesn’t exist” seems to imply as confusing a notion of free will as any.

I think you and I are actually pretty close in what we think is going on, we just disagree about what “free will” is. I do not think free will describes anything about the likelihood of a given decision, but rather the mechanism by which it came to be. If I make the decision to hug my mom instead of punching her 100% of the time, I would say I’m more free than a scenario where whether I give my mom a hug or a punch is not predictable (I say this because sometimes I hear free will libertarians say they are free because their behavior is unpredictable, which is strange to me).

So if an event occurs because my self existed (in whatever sense it does exist) to order things in that way, then I’m satisfied I made that decision freely. I believe this is a pretty mainstream position among compatibilists.

Perhaps you’re thinking “this is such a strange understanding of freedom”, but I think the stranger understanding is the one where freedom requires power over the movement of atoms in the Big Bang

1

dankest_cucumber t1_j8uvp4c wrote

I think my focus on freedom comes more from a perspective of trying to conceptualize decision-making from a timeless perspective. The notion of time being phenomenal, and its linearity being a human mental construct, is fundamental in understanding the odd state of free will that has it seemingly existing and not at once. If you don't consider time as necessarily linear, then the notion of a decision being an "experience" that a being cannot opt out of becomes more clear. I think "will" is a stratified concept, and the same way an aware entity, such as a dog, sees an insect or plant as less free, a layman sees a dog as less free, and a rich man sees a layman as less free, and an enlightened thinker sees the rich man as less free, and the man surrounded by supportive community sees the enlightened thinker as less free, and this implies a degree to which freedom is simultaneously relative to and a guarantee to any entity, but in a way that is fundamentally tied to its level of understanding. I find that the language of "free will vs. determinism" distracts from the more important metaphysical fact of the oneness of human-kind through our common thread of perception, since the highest known form of freedom is that afforded through social cohesion.

1

Johannes--Climacus t1_j8uxv9g wrote

You know I think we actually agree on a lot here, to the point that I’m not sure we disagree on much. I definitely agree that “free will vs determinism” reflects and promotes a confusion about the notion of freedom, the only thing I’m struggling how you’re not a compatibilist — “free will is real but not how you think” is still a way of believing free will is real!

1

dankest_cucumber t1_j8wcdbd wrote

I probably would be considered compatibilist, I was just being cheeky at first because free will vs. determinism vs. compatibilism is such a played out college philosophy debate that doesn’t hit on particularly presient issues.

1