...please read the article below. And if you don't get it the first time, read it again, paying extra attention to "P". An incremental increase in my good will toward the world has resulted merely from the fact of its publication in an American newspaper. I would love to hear comments, too. No one has talked to me for a while.
The weight of the evidence is against the concept of free will and even the realness of the conscious mind these days. Descartes has been debunked. Still, the whole problem is rarely described with the lucidity of the following:
By GALEN STRAWSON
Published: July 22, 2010
Logic tells us free will isn't possible. Then why do we feel responsible for what we do?
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3 comments:
All models are wrong, but some are useful.
- George E. P. Box
I think the article wraps up the value of a perception of choice as it relates to societal responsibility well. For the individual, believing she has freedom of choice and that she can impact the world, not just the other way around, helps deal with that little combination of self-awareness and its relation to death.
While the concept of "ownership" is not strictly required for flourishing society, understanding the relevant patterns in the world to its members is. Through this collective pattern detection and subsequent plans of action (e.g., tiger jumps out = run), the shared genes of the group increase their ability to make it one more replication.
So the model of free will, while wrong, is quite useful.
Well said, sir. Agreed that, while the absence of free will may be True, knowledge of this truth may not be right for society. Accordingly, as you rightly point out, ignorance to this truth may be adaptive.
"Everything simple is false. Everything which is complex is unusable." Paul Valéry
I'm not eloquent, but you want your readers to talk to you, so I will say I hated this article all the way to the end where I felt relief at Ian McEwens quote. Maybe that means I'm a control freak, and while I can't find fault with the argument against the existence of free will, I certainly want all of us to feel responsibility. I think society can have no order to it otherwise. Thanks for the very interesting read.
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