Free Will’s Absurdist Paradox
How Camus’ Absurdism unifies Compatibilism and Incompatibilism
Daniel Miessler
That’s always my point: how far back does determinism go? Okay, we don’t hold other animals responsible for what they do because their behaviors are propelled almost entirely by biological imperatives beyond their control. The same with human beings who are afflicted with brain tumors or crippling mental illnesses.
But “somehow” the brains of healthy human beings are presumed to be different. With them [God or No God] everything revolves around responsibility. And even though we can imagine that perhaps everything is beyond our control as well we certainly do not presume to live our lives as though that is case.
Basically, my own point as well. Only it is always difficult to capture this [philosophically or otherwise] because we can never be sure if the attempt itself either is or is not beyond our control. We then take these existential leaps of faith to one frame of mind or another. But how is that not also embedded in the paradox? Again: how far back does determinism go? Especially given that the universe itself had been around over 13 billion years before the matter that became human beings came on the scene.
I don’t understand your confusion… Which makes it hard to offer a helpful explanation
Why does “free will” matter?
You seem rather hung up on responsibility only being possible in a world were we COULD have chosen different.
But I don’t know why you think those two things are linked…
It seems to me like saying “I can’t be anyone else, therefore I can’t be responsible for my thoughts and actions”
That does not follow at all… so how did you arrive at this conclusion?
I don’t understand why it is you think being able to choose who you are is so important to whether or not it’s “fair” or “reasonable” to acknowledge that who you are is what causes you to do and think what you do…
Maybe it’s a semantic thing…
So far as I know, all being responsible means is being the cause, the reason, something happened the way it did.
Determinism does very much include you being a causal factor in how events unfold… you are therefore responsible for the consequences of your actions and choices…
Someone else would have made different choices and taken other actions if placed in the exact same situation… but you being you, could only think and act the way YOU would… and so it seems fair to say YOU are responsible.
Yes, you are responsible for posting the above. But – click – from my frame of mind it makes all the difference in world if, on the one hand, your brain compelled you to post it because your brain is wholly in sync with the laws of matter resulting in the one and the only possible reality and, on the other hand, “somehow” when lifeless matter configured into biological matter here on Earth configured into us after billions of years of evolution we “somehow” acquired autonomy and are in fact able to freely opt among alternative assessments.
Back to the hypothetical aliens in a free will region of the universe observing us interacting in a determined region. Yes, things happen down here. They see us choosing different behaviors. But they note that we were never able not to choose them.
Or when we dream. In my dreams, I think and feel and say and do things such that in the dream it’s as though I’m not in a dream at all. It’s no different from how I react in the waking world. Only I wake up and realize that I didn’t really think and feel and say and do those things at all. It was my brain chemically, neurologically, electrically creating the entire “reality”.
Only I’m the first to admit that given what I have no capacity to fully understand about this…
…sure, my thinking here may be completely unsound.
I can tell it makes a difference from your perspective, but what I don’t understand is WHY it does.
You didn’t explain WHY it makes all the difference… and if you did, I did not understand the explanation… I might need some help.
Do you think it invalidates our choices? our beliefs? the fact that we could not have chosen to believe anything different?
That in and of itself doesn’t…
If we are like machines, programmed to process information a certain way, to learn and adapt, that does not mean what we learn is wrong, even if we could never have learned a different lesson from the same data.
But it does mean we can never be certain what we learned was correct… new data could always prove us wrong, force us to change everything, a paradigm shift. In short, we can never be certain… but that’s true of any creature that lacks omniscience, whether autonomous or not. So I don’t follow how that’s a problem unique to determinism…
The point of some particularly hard determinists is that “why?” – “why [b][u]any[/b][/u]thing?” – is inherently/necessarily subsumed in the only possible reality.
Their point as well.
Whereas if “somehow” the human brain did acquire autonomy – God or No God – someone could ask you why you believe what you posted here and of your own free will, you could sit back and ponder it. Think it through and post one thing rather than another.
Again, the same thing. At least to me “here and now”. Some brains may be compelled to think it does, other brains that it doesn’t. But all of our brains are being compelled to think, feel, say and do only that which the laws of matter necessarily sustain into the only possible future.
How can anything that could only ever be, be wrong? Think of, say, the terminator. Sarah and Kyle sitting him down and explaining to him why killing her is, what, immoral? irrational?
We simply “think this through” – compelled to or not – in different ways.
Back to compatibilists arguing that even though Mary could never have not aborted Jane, she is still morally responsible for doing so.
That, to me, is completely nonsensical. Only, as I understand determinism “here and now”, it could never have been anything other than that to me.
In other words, he doesn’t have any reasoning for his thinking other than “my brain compels me to think this way.” He can’t tell you WHY his brain compels him to think this and not that, he cannot introspect on his thought process and describe the train of thought his brain compels him to think. He can just tell you the conclusion, and the fact that the conclusion follows from what his brain compels him to think.
Other brains usually are capable of offering some sort of insight into the train of thoughts that end with a particular conclusion, but this particular brain that we call Iambiguous compels those particular fingers to not type anything along those lines.
Free Will’s Absurdist Paradox
How Camus’ Absurdism unifies Compatibilism and Incompatibilism
Daniel Miessler
Come on, did Camus really believe that ultimately we are not in control of anything in our lives? And yet if we do live in a determined universe as some understand it then, ultimately, we aren’t. There may be the psychological illusion of free will, sure, but we don’t call things illusions for nothing.
What’s crucial from the perspective of the existentialists is that in regard to our moral and political value judgments, “existence is prior to essence”. There does not appear to be a God or an “intrinsic meaning” we can anchor our thoughts and feelings and behaviors to. We create our own meaning by living our lives along a particular subjective/subjunctive trajectory. The part I explore here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529
And, of course, our “choices and actions” can have a profound impact on others around us. And theirs on us. But given some measure of free will that too, in my view, is rooted existentially in dasein and in the Benjamin Button Syndrome.
Right, whatever that means. For all practical purposes, say? Instead, the profoundest of all the mysteries here still pertains to the mind-boggling conundrum that is the human brain itself. Matter like no other matter there has ever been.
Confession of a Reformed Philosopher: Why I Am a Compatibilist about Determinism and Moral Responsibility
BY JOHN C. WINGARD JR.
Here of course [for some] there are two discussions. One revolves around compatibilism as many scientists and philosophers pursue it…somehow reconciling determinism and moral responsibility philosophically and scientifically. And then for those who take a leap of faith to the Christian God…somehow reconciling God’s omniscience with human autonomy.
Of course the Christian incompatibilists insist that the absence of free will as the hard determinist encompass it is wrong because, well, back to God, right?
On the other hand, at least the Christians are able to point to a God, the God, my God as the explanation for autonomy. And the scientists can note that they continue to pursue the quandary experientially, experimentally, empirically. And the philosophers? What do they have offer if not by and large their definitions and deductions…their “worlds of words”.
So, one way or the other, free will is compatible with an omniscient God because, well, when you are blessed with “mysterious ways” there really isn’t anything at all that you can’t pull out of the hat.
We certainly seem to have our fair share of them here. Though again, in my view, their arguments are comprised of the circular logic I’ve come to expect from those who predicate their conclusions on deductions derived from definitions. Definitions connected by and large to other definitions. Words defending other words.
And, in not being a brain scientist myself, that includes my own set of assumptions here. But at least I own up to it.
For Whom Does Determinism Undermine Moral Responsibility? Surveying the Conditions for Free Will Across Cultures
From Frontiers in Psychology
See what I mean? Philosophers [and scientists] have long debated this question. And, to the best of my knowledge, these truly learned men and women have not exactly come to a truly learned consensus of opinion.
So, what are the odds that any of us here have finally arrived at the optimal conclusion?
Still, the question is so fascinating [and important] most of us will never really let it go.
“No”, I believe. Here and now. But then [for me] straight back to this:
All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was ‘somehow’ able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter ‘somehow’ became living matter ‘somehow’ became conscious matter ‘somehow’ became self-conscious matter.
So, sure, I’m the first to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the correct answer is “yes”.
Then back to the enigma that is the human brain itself. How could matter in a No God world naturally evolve from the Big Bang into us?
For Whom Does Determinism Undermine Moral Responsibility? Surveying the Conditions for Free Will Across Cultures
From Frontiers in Psychology
That’s one way to assess it when all you have at your disposal are words that define and defend other words.
I do the same thing here…
Then what?
Another “thought experiment”?
Which brings me back to my brain compelling me to react to that thought experiment just as Frankfurt’s brain compelled him to think up that thought experiment in the first place. Once you conclude that the human brain itself is just more matter in thrall to the laws of matter it makes no difference what you think, feel, say and do. It’s all that you were ever able to think, feel, say and do.
Thus to challenge another’s assessment of moral responsibility in a wholly determined universe might be called ingenious…but what does being ingenious mean in a world where you are never able not to challenge it other than as your brain compels you to?
Though, sure, I’m the first to admit that I am not thinking this through correctly given a free will world.
Even though both terms refer to the unfolding of the laws of matter as an inevitability, fatalism denotes a certain resignation that what one does will not influence the outcome of what has already been determined, therefore there is little or no attempt to change it. Sort of like giving up beforehand.
[i]Fatalism is the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable.
It is also defined as a submissive attititude toward events, resulting from a fatalistic attitude.
Philosophers usually use the word fatalism to refer to the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do.
The word fatalism is commonly used to refer to an attitude of resignation in the face of some future event or events which are thought to be inevitable.
Peacegirl isn’t that a slippery sloped argument of basing the incalculable primary attitude? The onto genesis of that argument begins to fork exactly at the inception of that argument, agreed?
… and in case wondering, the idea is that the further on you move from an equally distributed progression of deciding on one attitude or the other, a point is reached near the middle, where interpreting the language , in itself becomes more probative, and convincing, as more objectivity is required in the formation of choice , and fatalism is reduced accordingly, albeit inversely proportionally., to parellel toward lessening determination.
Again to reiterate, more objectivity = more appearent free will( but subject to the diminishing returns rule-
Whereas a downward slope presents an ideological problem, of a grossly divided choice ( either yes or no) to an ontologically biased preference forming attitude- with more control mechanisms kicking into an increasing fatalistic, determinate process.
Free will, the Holocaust, and The Problem of Evil
David Kyle Johnson
That’s exactly what it is. And the “skeptical theists” among us merely have to believe this. Either because they were indoctrinated as a child to accept it or “on their own” they thought it up and it seemed to work best for explaining away the horrors that have existed throughout human history. Both man-made and as a result of Nature thumping us up one side and down the other.
Again, here, the key is not what you can demonstrate that you believe is true but that in believing it, it comforts and consoles you. That may well be the most important component of the human condition. It certainly is for those like me unable to believe it anymore.
Actually, none of us can really refute skeptical theism because none of us can demonstrate unequivocally that a God, the God does not exist. God is, after all, one possible explanation for why existence itself exists. And if He does exist, what can we utterly insignificant mere mortals on this utterly insignificant planet in this utterly insignificant galaxy given the staggering vastness of the universe…
"When we look in any direction, the furthest visible regions of the Universe are estimated to be around 46 billion light years away. That’s a diameter of 540 sextillion (or 54 followed by 22 zeros) miles." BBC
…possibly know about His “Ways”.
This, of course, is what we are reduced down to noting. Better to attribute the Holocaust to God. Then, one way of another, it it is ultimately a good thing. Or we are left with…what exactly? That in a No God world it “just happened” given the “brute facticity” of an utterly indifferent universe? And that if the fascists manage to prevail in a world where that can hardly be ruled out these days, it can happen again?
Then the next extinction event wipes out the human race and it is as though we were never around in the first place?
Or some determinists arguing that if it does happen it happened only because it could never have not happened in the only possible “human condition”?
For Whom Does Determinism Undermine Moral Responsibility? Surveying the Conditions for Free Will Across Cultures
From Frontiers in Psychology
Then the part where philosophers, scientists and theologians have for centuries discussed and debated whether or not this is true for all matter…except us.
For the theologians, we are the exception because God created mortal man and woman with free will. For the philosophers the endless arguments revolving around one or another world of words in which human autonomy comes down to how the words in the arguments are defined. And for the scientists grappling with actual functioning brains in order to pin down how chemically and neurologically it might be possible for biological life to have evolved into matter here on planet Earth capable of embodying volition in the things that human beings, at the tail end part of it [so far] think and feel and say and do.
Thus me typing these words in my now [t1] and you reading them in your now [t2] are merely inherent manifestations of the only possible reality.
The sort of thing that intellectuals like to say instead of, “I made a salad for lunch instead of a hamburger going all the back to the Big Bang or whenever matter and its immutable laws came into existence setting into motion the only possible reality.”
And that’s what some here tend to focus in on. The fact that even in a determined universe we “cause” things to happen. Had we not “chosen” to do what we did then the consequences of what we did would never have transpired. This [to me] still encompasses a no less compelled distinction made between “internal” and “external” factors in our lives.
These types of sentences are incomplete and thus lack an unambiguous meaning to people who might be interested in your thoughts. I’m not sure if you care, but just in case.
When I chose to commit a crime, or not commit a crime I make a decision. The decision is based on a nexus of causalities which include all antecedent conditions including my motivation, volition, physical and mental needs, education, socialisation, experience ad infinitem. It might be difficult for another to predict my choice. But that choice can only make sense if it is the sum of those causalities, the things that make me who I am. There are laws that might deter me, or encourage me. but it is not free in an absolute sense that I am free of the deterministic condition of the universe, the laws and cause and effect which cause my decision to be made of necessity to the conditions at that moment. It is an inescapable truth that I am determined to act thus, and in the full knowledge of the consequences and the responsibility which is wholly mine, I make the choice. Free will is illusory, such choices are determined or would be meaningless. I am that agent of determinism compatible with causality and the exercise of my will.
But apparently, God gives us free will. And about that, we have no choice, because he insists upon it. Unless you are a Calvinist, then you don’t.
