Quote:
Originally Posted by to_hobbes  Quote:
Originally Posted by Og What exactly is "free" about the "will" component of the decision making process? | That's exactly my point: it is NOT "free", it is completely deterministic. "Free will" is just a fancy name for it.
Thats what I meant when I said in this post that free will is just a feel-good term for our decision making process.
And then I confused Romansh by using my definition of "free will" without clarifying my definition. But I think if you are going to talk about it at all, you need to understand that it is really not free. If that is understood, then I believe in "free will".
But how else could "free will" be defined? Is it some magical hand or a part of your soul that causes you to make decisions without any regard for what is happening in your mind? If that's what you mean, then I definitely don't believe in free will. Any definition of "free will" that doesn't make it deterministic and not-free simply doesn't make any sense.
Like I was saying in this post, the only way you can have any discussion of "free will" is to re-define it as not free. |
It just seems confusing to me to use the term at all. Why redefine it? The notion of free will is intimately tied into the notion of an authoritative god that is separate from you and me (i.e. western religion). If we are something separate from God then the church structure can control our behavior by talking about punishments for actions.
Free will is the notion that your actions originate entirely from you and don't correlate with outside influences on some basic level. This is clearly false.
I don't see how it's at all useful to use Free will in a sentence when you don't mean anything that is "free" in this concept. EVERYTHING is dependent in its origination. Every action and object is dependently arising from all other thing.
Nothing is free. All is an expression of everything else and vice versa.