'Trick Slattery's Blog, page 5
October 12, 2015
Free Will Compatibilism vs. Skepticism – SHOWDOWN!
This post is going to be about some of theproblems withfree will compatibilist (re)definitions thatcertain philosophers (which is different than layperson compatibilist intuitions) have. So what is “free will compatibilism”? It’s basically the idea that free will is compatiblewitha causally deterministic universe (and that indeterminism doesn’t account for free will). For compatibilist philosophers this is accomplished through aredefinition offree will. It’s basically a way to say that, even...
October 5, 2015
The Free Will Machine – A silly cartoon about “libertarian” free will
I interrupt my normal blog posting time to give you a silly little cartoonthat illustrates the absurdity of “libertarian” (not to be confused with the political position) free will, also known as “contra-causal” free will. The idea that “randomness” could in some way make a decision more “free” is one that baffles the best of us, yet there are some people who believe that indeterminism or randomness in some way helps grant some sort of free will.
This mistake most often comes from the “Free...
September 28, 2015
Could Have Done Otherwise (Free Will Comparison) – INFOGRAPHIC
The above infographic lays out the more common positions of the philosophical compatibilist, philosophical libertarian, which can be compared to layperson intuitions about free will. What can be recognized is that the layperson intuitions, which most often have both compatibilistic as well as libertarian thinking, do not mesh with the philosophical versions. For example, for the philosophical libertarian, they believe that causality is incompatible with “otherwise” notions of free will, wh...
September 21, 2015
Mental Causation – A Case for Mental Causation
Some people believe that there is a separation between the causal events of the world, and the consciousness that happens or that arises from such. In other words, even if the mental may becaused by the physical or is in wayscorrelated to it, they’dsuggest that the mental has no causation back to the physical.This rejection of mental causation most often stems from either:
A) A certain type of dualistic notions of consciousness – meaning that the mental is something different than the physica...
September 14, 2015
A Free Will Story: The Floomps and Moomps
The floomps areacreature not too unlike us (but much furrier). They live in their little floomp village and work together in a civilized fashion. The floomps believe in free will. They believe that any other floomp has multiple options to choose from, and more importantly that all of those options are real possibilities. In other words, whenever a floomp does something that another floomp doesn’t like, that onethinks that not only should the other floomp not have done that, but that it actua...
September 7, 2015
5 “Free Will” Abilities You DON’T Have! – INFOGRAPHIC
Click here to read about 10 benefits of not believing in free will!
FIVE “FREE WILL” ABILITIES YOU DON’T HAVE!
The ability to have, of your own accord, done otherwise: If everything has a cause, you could not have done otherwise than what that causality dictates. If some events do not have a cause, those events could never have been “of your own accord”. There is no third possibility. The ability to choose between more than one (really) possible option, in which that choice is “up to you”...August 30, 2015
Semantic Shift Day – August 31st
That’s right, I’m creating a much needed holiday. Today, August 31st, is officially “Semantic Shift Day“!
It’s the day where we change the definitions of words around for everything that doesn’t exist so that we can officially, only for oneday a year, say it does exist!
So for example, on Semantic Shift Day we would define “free will” the same way thatcertain philosophical compatibilists,such as Daniel Dennett, do. We cansimplysay tha...
August 24, 2015
Brain Implants Aren’t as Scary as they Seem
People often associate the idea of brain implants / microchips with some dystopia where some evil overlord controls the masses by implanting chips in their brain to take over the world with an army of people who are controlled by this mastermind. They fear any hardware that might control, to any degree, the thoughts and feelings of a person. They may even use the term “free will” here,suggesting that such an implantwould take away someone’s “free will”.
At first this fear seems reasonable (wi...
August 17, 2015
No Free Will Mind Training: Remembering 1 – Physical Reminders and Writing
* NOTE:The ‘No Free Will Mind Training’ (NFWMT) articles do NOTmake thecase against free will, nor is that their intention. This training isonly for those who already understandfree will does not exist andwho want their psychology, feelings, thoughts, and actions to align with this understanding due to the various benefits. The use of the term “free will” for these training articles are always using this definition: FREE WILL, not acompatibilist definition (used to evade). If you don’t know...
August 10, 2015
5 Straw-man Fallacies by Compatibilists (When Addressing Free Will Skeptics)
Straw-man fallacies are interesting because they are almost always intentional, though sometimes they can be unintentional. I tend to think, when a compatibilist (a person who thinks free will is compatible with determinism) uses a straw-man fallacy, that most of the time they don’t do them intentionally – or at least I give the compatibilistthe benefit of the doubt. Rather, I think it often comes from a profound misunderstanding or assumption of the free will skeptics position.
So what is a...
