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@Fallaneze
I have a preference for breathing.
free will
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@Fallaneze
However they arose, my preferences are my preferences, not anyone else's. It seems that some people insist that free will has to be independent of any influence whatsoever (ie taking an extreme interpretation of 'free') because it makes it easy to dismiss free will on semantic grounds.What if your preferences are installed by determinis tic forces beyond your control?
It's patently obvious we don't make choices free of influences. the most ardent supporter of free will does not deny our choices are influencedy by external factors and internal states such as preferences. Indeed a form of 'free will' independent of desires would be wotrh having,or wanting. That would indded be indistinguishable from 'random behaviour'.
But there are entities in the world - such as leaves blowing in the wind - that do not have freewill in any meaningful,sense and entities that do have free will such as DA posters.
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@Mopac
Critters that do not prefer breathing have few offspring. Natural selection has ensured everyone is born with a preference for breathing pre-installed.I have a preference for breathing.
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@Fallaneze
What if they are installed by a magic invisible man in the sky? Neither scenario guarantees or even suggests freewill.What if your preferences are installed by deterministic forces beyond your control?
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@keithprosser
What does it mean to you personally if you do not have free will?
What does it mean personally if you do have free will?
Please answer these questions even if you think they are irrelevant.
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@secularmerlin
What does it mean to you personally if you do not have free will?
What does it mean personally if you do have free will?
Please answer these questions even if you think they are irrelevant.
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@Mopac
What does it mean to you personally if you do not have free will?What does it mean personally if you do have free will?Please answer these questions even if you think they are irrelevant.
I will answer only because you said please.
There is no detectable functional difference between freewill and no freewill. That is among the reasons I withhold belief.
Since it is impossible to tell the difference free will needs to be somehow independently demonstrated and I have no idea how to formulate and carry out such a test.
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@secularmerlin
It seems to me that it is just as much a leap of faith to "withhold belief" in free will as it does to accept it, as our experience makes it intuitively true that we have free will. Because of that even, it may even be more of a leap of faith to deny freewill than it is to accept it. I don't think that disbelief in freewill is necessarily the default position. Denial of free will implies belief in something else that overrides that intuition.
Do you really see no functional difference though? You don't think that belief in one or the other would effect your outlook or psychology?
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@Mopac
It seems to me that it is just as much a leap of faith to "withhold belief" in free will as it does to accept it,
This is incorrect. Skepticism is the default. You need a reason TO believe something. To withhold belief only require that there is no particular reason to believe
I don't think that disbelief in freewill is necessarily the default position.
Skepticism is always the default position. That is why in arguing that skepticism is not the default you are trying to give reasons TO believe in freewill.
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@secularmerlin
Skepticism is certainly your default.
And that is your choice.
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@Mopac
What does it mean to you personally if you do not have free will?What does it mean personally if you do have free will?
I don't get the 'personally' bit.
Answering both questions together, I would not be 'I' without my free will. It would be a strange life if I prefered tea to coffee yet had no power to choose between them. If I didn't have free will, I might choose tea every time, coffee every time or bounce betwen them at random, but that isn't the case. In reality, I choose the one I prefer, which is most definitely not 'random'!
Anti-freewillers are, allegedly, predetermined by conditions at the big bang to challenge me by pointing out my preferences are not under my control. I agree with that, but I wonder if that's a useful idea. Ofcourse ultimately everything is made of atoms and subject to cause and effect, but one can be over-reductive and say there is no difference between, for example, a statue and a person - after all, they are both 'only' collections of atoms and subect to cause and effect.
But the ways statues and people are the same is less important andless interesting than the ways they are different. I'dsay the thing applies to things that do have free will (eg people) and things that don't (eg leaves in the wind).
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@Mopac
Skepticism is always the default position. That is why all arguments for positive claims are an attempt to give reasons TO believe.
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@secularmerlin
What do you mean by your "position"?
Are you familiar with the term "solipsism"?
What do you mean by your "position"?
In regards to what please?
Are you familiar with the term "solipsism"?
Yes in fact I consider myself a soft solipsist.
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@secularmerlin
Is there an agreed definition of 'soft solipsism'?
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@secularmerlin
Skepticism does not meet what I would consider a position, more appropriately an approach, or a way, as I would normally understand. I'm wondering what you meant.
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@keithprosser
Is there an agreed definition of 'soft solipsism'?
lol, who knows?
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@keithprosser
There is my definition of my own soft solipsism.Is there an agreed definition of 'soft solipsism'?
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@Snoopy
It is true that skepticism is not a positive claim of any kind. All I mean is that it is never rational to believe something if you have no reason to believe. In fact not just any reason is sufficient to guarantee a rational position.Skepticism does not meet what I would consider a position, more appropriately an approach, or a way, as I would normally understand. I'm wondering what you meant.
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@secularmerlin
Well, let's hope I'm a good guesser!There is my definition of my own soft solipsism.
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@secularmerlin
It is true that skepticism is not a positive claim of any kind. All I mean is that it is never rational to believe something if you have no reason to believe. In fact not just any reason is sufficient to guarantee a rational position.
Aristotle said "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”. I think he had a point.
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@keithprosser
I can entertain the thought of freewill. I'm just not sure how to detect/measure it.
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@secularmerlin
You are conflating skepticism with disbelief.
The best argument for free will is that it's impossible to rationally accept that free will does not exist.
It's not impossible to rationally accept that free will DOES exist.
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@Fallaneze
I think its possible to define 'free will' in a way that it does exist and in another away that it doesn't exist.
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@keithprosser
Yes. Compatibilism vs. Libertarian free will.
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@keithprosser
My soft solipsism, like my atheism, is a natural consequence of my skepticism. I do not know how to tell the difference between reality and a persistent convincing illusion so even though I am perfectly willing to accept reality at face value for convenience sake I have no illusions about ever being certain that it is real.There is my definition of my own soft solipsism.Well, let's hope I'm a good guesser!
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@Fallaneze
Please explain how being skeptical of a claim differs from not believing in that claim
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@secularmerlin
"Not believing" encompasses (1) mere non-belief and (2) disbelief which are two different things. Colloquially people refer to "not believing" something when what they really mean is that they believe the claim is untrue (which is disbelief, a subset of non-belief).
Skepticism is your level of confidence or doubt about whether a claim is true or untrue.
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@Fallaneze
Belief is dichotomous. One either believes or disbelieve. You seem to be confusing claims of disbelief with claims of the knowledge of falsehood.