No, it's a silly philosophy. Why would it matter to me whether my decisions are completely deterministic or not? As a materialist, I don't believe in some metaphysical soul - I am the machine, and therefore the decisions that machine makes are my own. That's free will.
If you are the machine, then the decisions are your own, but they're not free. You need the free part and the willed part to have free will (free will being freely willed thoughts).
Our next thought is determined by the conditions in the prior moment and the laws of physics, so our thoughts can never be free (uninfluenced by anything), and there is no free will.
No, this is really just missing the point. Free will is the ability to make decisions. Those decisions will always be in response to certain conditions. That doesn't make them illegitimate. Like, what kind of definition of free will is "uninfluenced by anything"? That's nonsense.
That's actually my point; free will as a term is nonsense, an incoherent concept like a square circle. It's an ability people want to have that isn't actually possible. We want our next thought to be influenced by us, and also uninfluenced by anything; it's a case of wanting to have our cake and eat it too. And decisions being 'legitimate' or not wasn't the question, it was 'free' or not; if your decision this moment is determined by the conditions of the previous moment + the laws of physics, it's not free.
And I'd say the 'ability to make decisions' is the same as the 'ability to have or form freely willed thoughts', without which surely there'd be no free will. Thoughts would just be the fundamental objects capable of being 'freely willed' or not, which is why I bring them up. Which simplifies things; if you can demonstrate that thoughts can be freely willed, then free will exists, if not and thoughts can't be freely willed even theoretically, then there is no free will.
It comes through the ignorance of the grand scope of the environment you’re in.
If I did not know that I would get thrown in jail for smoking a blunt, I’d pop a blunt, that’s my own thought due to the vacuum of information I possess at that moment.
But you need to show it was both your own thought and a 'free' thought: not knowing some information doesn't actually mean the thought arose freely (I can say your thought that moment was still determined by your brain state the moment prior).
In the casual or weak sense, if I say I'm 'free to' or 'can' decide to destroy my laptop in the next minute, I mean given my limited knowledge of my brain and the environment right now, it's still a possibility this thought will pop up so far as I can tell.
But this is different from saying it's actually possible, that I actually can choose to punch a hole through my laptop. If we had full knowledge of my brain and the environment, we would be able to say with certainty whether this mental event would happen or not in the next minute, and there's (basically) no 'can' to speak of. The only actual 'can' or 'freedom' here would be the tiny amount of randomness within the laws of physics that we also have no control over.
No, it's a silly philosophy. Why would it matter to me whether my decisions are completely deterministic or not? As a materialist, I don't believe in some metaphysical soul - I am the machine, and therefore the decisions that machine makes are my own. That's free will.
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If you are the machine, then the decisions are your own, but they're not free. You need the free part and the willed part to have free will (free will being freely willed thoughts).
Our next thought is determined by the conditions in the prior moment and the laws of physics, so our thoughts can never be free (uninfluenced by anything), and there is no free will.
No, this is really just missing the point. Free will is the ability to make decisions. Those decisions will always be in response to certain conditions. That doesn't make them illegitimate. Like, what kind of definition of free will is "uninfluenced by anything"? That's nonsense.
That's actually my point; free will as a term is nonsense, an incoherent concept like a square circle. It's an ability people want to have that isn't actually possible. We want our next thought to be influenced by us, and also uninfluenced by anything; it's a case of wanting to have our cake and eat it too. And decisions being 'legitimate' or not wasn't the question, it was 'free' or not; if your decision this moment is determined by the conditions of the previous moment + the laws of physics, it's not free.
And I'd say the 'ability to make decisions' is the same as the 'ability to have or form freely willed thoughts', without which surely there'd be no free will. Thoughts would just be the fundamental objects capable of being 'freely willed' or not, which is why I bring them up. Which simplifies things; if you can demonstrate that thoughts can be freely willed, then free will exists, if not and thoughts can't be freely willed even theoretically, then there is no free will.
You can have “free will”.
It comes through the ignorance of the grand scope of the environment you’re in.
If I did not know that I would get thrown in jail for smoking a blunt, I’d pop a blunt, that’s my own thought due to the vacuum of information I possess at that moment.
But you need to show it was both your own thought and a 'free' thought: not knowing some information doesn't actually mean the thought arose freely (I can say your thought that moment was still determined by your brain state the moment prior).
In the casual or weak sense, if I say I'm 'free to' or 'can' decide to destroy my laptop in the next minute, I mean given my limited knowledge of my brain and the environment right now, it's still a possibility this thought will pop up so far as I can tell.
But this is different from saying it's actually possible, that I actually can choose to punch a hole through my laptop. If we had full knowledge of my brain and the environment, we would be able to say with certainty whether this mental event would happen or not in the next minute, and there's (basically) no 'can' to speak of. The only actual 'can' or 'freedom' here would be the tiny amount of randomness within the laws of physics that we also have no control over.