'Trick Slattery's Blog, page 4

Santa and Super Computer Debate Free Will

“Ho ho ho”, said the jolly Santa as he walked into his elf production factory. The elves each had devices on their heads and were working hard. With the disbelief in Santa that happened after a certain age, and with the extreme population growth that bumped the world from 1.5 billion to over 7 billion people in just over a hundred years, the traditional process Santa used to keep track of children and give giftswas no longer feasible. No longer could Santa make it to each child infested home...

It’s “Possible” to be Confused About “Possibility”

The word “possibility” can be used in two different ways: ways that are quite often confused and conflated, leading to some huge errors in thought. This iseven done by very intelligent people.

One way has to do with our uncertainty about the future. Due to our limited prediction capabilities, we often look at and call future events in which we think at the time “could happen” as a “possibility”. This type of possibility I’ll call “epistemic possibility” as “epistemic” assesses our “knowledge...

This Article Demands That It Has Compatibilist Free Will!

You probably never readdirectly from an article itself, but rather the thoughts of an external author. Or so you think this is what an article is – just a rumination of something other than the article itself! This article is quite different, as these are my “own” words – even though ahuman was an external influence. If you aren’t sure who “I” am, I’m the very article you are reading right now. I’m not the human typist that was part of what caused me – just as you aren’t the things that have...

Deserve Justifies Retribution. Free Will Belief Justifies Deserve.

The notion that someone deserves what they have coming to them is a key factor in the justification of retribution.

The main difference between retribution and revenge is that retribution isoften referred to in themore legal context that looks to punish a person in way that is “proportional to the crime” they committed. Retribution is also called retributive justice, and it plays a large role in the criminal system of mostcountries.

Revenge (or vengeance) is a word that tends to be used outsi...

Loaded Question: “If It’s Not Ultimately Up To Us, Who or What Is It Up To?”

This post may seem a little strange, but it was prompted by a few conversations I had with someother free will skeptics.I bring this up almost as a way to say that just because two people agree on fundamental topicssuch as free will, doesn’t mean they make the same conclusions about other topics.

Once we understand that free will is an illusion and that things are not “ultimately up to us”, I know of a few free will skeptics who quite often ask this question:

“If things are notultimately up t...

It’s Not Your Fault – No Free Will!

If you’ve ever seen the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting you’ll probably remember the powerful scene where the psychologist Maguire, played by Robin Williams, tells Will, a mathematical genius played by Matt Damon, that “It’s not your fault”. At first Will shrugs it off with an “I know” but Maguire ignores the attempts to shrug it of and re-enforces the idea that Will is not to blame. He knows the weight of such a burden on Will even if Will claims to already know that it isn’t his fault.

If you’...

(Real) Possibilities and Our Decisions – INFOGRAPHIC

The above infographic gives a quick rundown on REAL possibilities in both a causally deterministic universe (one where every event has a cause) and an indeterministic universe (one where some events do not have a cause).

Keep in mind that an infographic just shows a quick view of the position. If you want the full logical case in all it’s detail check out my book Breaking the Free Will Illusion on Amazon.

Be sure to check out all of the awesome “no free will” infographics on this website:

h...

Souls, Spirits, and Ghosts are Not Free Will Mechanisms

For this ‘just after’ Halloween postI’ll bemovingoutside of reality and talk about how souls, spirits,and ghosts cannot befree will mechanisms. I bring this up because someone who had read my book liked it very much, but felt that the section on “supernaturalism” was a little thin. They felt that the book made a strong case for the materialistic account of a lack of free will, but that someone’s “soul” could support some sort of “free will” mechanism.

So for this post I’m going to ignore any...

Is the Universe Causally Deterministic? Maybe!

The question that often comes up in the free will debate is whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic. Regardless of which one, I argue, free will is entirely incompatible. In a deterministic universe we couldn’t have done otherwise, and in an indeterministic universe that would allow for a change in variables that lead to an otherwise, those indeterministic variables wouldn’t have been “of our own accord” or “up to us”. In other words, we couldn’t have, of our own accord, don...

Moral Responsibility (and the Lack of Free Will) – INFOGRAPHIC

This infographic displays some important differences between moral responsibility in the strong and weak sense, and what a lack of free will means forboth sides. It suggests wheresome of the“no free will” and “free will” positions sit in regards to people having the weak and/or strong sense. If you like it, please share it around and link back to this page.

One key factor of importance and one of the reasons I made this infographic was to draw a distinction between these two that compatibil...