This Dinosaur Comic is for Alex

[€uroMeinke]

Not to go down this path - I guess I go with the phenomenological and pragmatic approach when looking at free will.

Metaphysics almost always reduces down to some point of unknowablility, that are perceptions, even those enhanced through science still fail to reveal the true nature of reality. Honestly, ther is no way I can really know if other consciousnesses exist a priori - so I have to either accept that they do, or reject it. The former seems to give me a better go at living my life, the other appears to lead to insanity and ostracism (not that it matters if you don't believe others to exist anyway)

Likewise, free will is how I experience the world. It makes sense that I can prioritzie my desires and calculate to indulge one while denying another. It seems to me that is what consciousness is. Rejecting free will reaaly does nothing to enhance the pragmatic aspects of your life, unless you wish to shirk responsibilities.

It may well be that free will doesn't exist, but I think I live a better life if I live it as if it were true - for at it's core it's unknowable - and honestly, I'm not sure how I'd live my life otherwise, if I plan to hold people responsible for their actions and decissions as I take responsibility for my own.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

It may well be that free will doesn't exist, but I think I live a better life if I live it as if it were true - for at it's core it's unknowable - and honestly, I'm not sure how I'd live my life otherwise, if I plan to hold people responsible for their actions and decissions as I take responsibility for my own.

Which is exactly what Alex said.

[Alex]

That said, there are some fringe ideas for the core nature of reality that, if proven true, would do away with the possibility of free will.

If, for example, we were ever able to prove the existence of the infinite multiverse (while there are thoeries supposing such a reality none have yet found a way to test the hypothesis) this would remove the possibility of free will.

[blueerica]

This thread delivers!

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

That said, there are some fringe ideas for the core nature of reality that, if proven true, would do away with the possibility of free will.

If, for example, we were ever able to prove the existence of the infinite multiverse (while there are thoeries supposing such a reality none have yet found a way to test the hypothesis) this would remove the possibility of free will.

As would the omniscience of God

[Alex]

Not necessarily. Just because God has already experienced the entirety of time and therefore knows the decisions everybody made would not necessarily mean that the entitities within time were excluded from having choice.

[tracilicious]

Damn, I love the free will threads.

[Prudence]

Dammit, thanks to this conversation I now have a Rush song in my head. And I hate Rush.

[SacTown Chronic]

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice, Pru.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Not necessarily. Just because God has already experienced the entirety of time and therefore knows the decisions everybody made would not necessarily mean that the entitities within time were excluded from having choice.

But that then perverts the nature of time (though who knows what time's true nature really is?) - and perhaps even the omnipotence of God, if in his omniscience he is incapable of changing the inevitable outcome of time