Posts Tagged with Free-will

Free-will & Premortalism

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This is a bit of my episode with Dr. James Spiegel in which we discuss his article on the Premortalist Free-will Defense. Hear the whole episode below. Enjoy. -P

Dr. James Spiegel: . . . The free will defense is the other major response. And it says that a God would want human beings to have genuine relationships with one another and with God himself, and in order for that to even be possible, we must have significant moral freedom. Otherwise, we are automatons or robots or our actions (or potential behaviors) are so restricted that we can't really genuinely have loving relationships with one another. So God granted us a certain moral freedom, and as it happens, we have abused that freedom. And that's where all of these horrible things like murder and genocide and rape have come from. We've abused what was originally a good gift for a good end, and so it's our fault, not God's. That's the free will defense.

Penjammin: How is the premortalist modification to the free will defense- how is it different?

Penjammin grew up in a labyrinthine cavern. Later he ran with the wolves and lived every moment marinated in the sweet scent of his game, until pirates landed and… (see “About”). Get his eletter at penjams.com/subscribe.

Letter to Two Terrans

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Hello everyone. I beg your indulgence. This letter is to two very specific terrans. I got into a discussion on the twitter again. (I know. I know.) I keep hoping such things will go well. Anyway the jury is still out on this one, so let's say, if it sours, then this letter is just for you my dear readers.

Full disclosure, I’m not from around here, and while I love it, I’m still new to terran philosophy, so please feel free to let me know if you see a mistake somewhere. That said, please allow me to return the favor in advance.

About questioning, I'm afraid I was misunderstood. Yes, honest questions are great. It's the outright denial of the most basic realities that I can't endorse. That gets bad for the soul, and I've seen it. I’ve seen many a man sink lower and lower from their natural greatness into a depraved beastliness. I've watched abyss-talk foster and then speed the decent of men unto the inhumane.

It’s reckless to go denying one's eyes without good reason. So, why jump to conclusions against the senses on matters both more immediate and more important? Denial of free-will? of God? And without giving ideas like molinism a fare shake? That's insanely premature. (By the way, how is it that I’ve been in your world for less time, and yet even I’ve heard tell of molinism???) Reckless.

Life is rough. Those we care about kind of need us at our best. So, unless one's goal is to neglect their own in order to become a monster, they better make sure sure sure those notions aren't the poisons they seem before imbibing them (both of them!?!) to their ruin.

While science gone awry can blow up cities, philosophy gone awry gets even worse, and I wish you both the best.

-Pen
Ti 30, 7382

Free-will and Baldness

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Greetings from far far away. I gotta tell ya. It’s been crazy. We got halflings stuck in treasure chests. Dirt tracked everywhere. Beaten tables enduring the further abuse of dwarven slobber. It is not a pretty sight. Weefolk night: not a good idea. Fortunately, I’ve got Gerard Casey’s book Libertarian Freedom to keep me busy. I mean Libertarian Anarchy.

My bad on that title screw up up there. Just, last I was able to manage a bite of the book, Casey was going on about libertarian freedom in that metaphysical free-will sense. No complaints really. Actually I rather enjoyed it. And it reminded me of Tim Stratton, that free-will chap Jeff likes. (Said chap has a video on this subject with some big name called JP Moreland. JP seems like a fun guy. Tim however. I have great difficulty trusting bald men because intentional baldness amounts to an active assault on nature. It’s like, being a manscaper. (I cringe even writing the word.) No. Sean Connery had it right as did that manhood exemplar second only to Jesus Christ: Chuck Norris. To his credit, Tim does allow his God-given manliness a place on his face. Maybe it's the secret of his powers.)

Anyway the free-will stuff was interesting and shocking. Casey talked about dominoism. Dominoism? No. That’s not quite right. Well it was something like that. Whatever it was, it involved the idea that humans are just parts of a huge universe of dominos. (You know, like one thing causing another, causing another, and so on?) Anyway, on that view, a person’s thoughts would amount to mere domino’ery as well. And who would trust that?

So domino people having thoughts and trustworthy ones, doesn’t make much sense in general, and that goes for thoughts about dominoism too. Casey thinks this situation is self-stultifying for the wouldbe domino man. That seems right to me, and dominos is a boring game anyway. But it got me thinking. If free-will is necessary for ideas to avoid being self-stultifying, then that applies to ideas about liberty. Now, it never made much sense to blame folks what they could not help, but it makes even less sense for domino people to do it. This is an interesting line of thought. Casey mentions the futility of debating ethics when the whole conversation has the rug pulled out from under it. I can think of other things that would make it ridiculous. Besides funny hats.

Well, I better get. I don't intend on being here when it's time to clean up this mess. Besides, I have plans. The hunt was good, and the wife is cooking the kill, and if I don’t hurry, it could be gone before I get back. Daylight will be gone soon, too. Have a good weekend, terrans.

-Pen
53 Fi 7380

Stay free

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Good day, terrans. I hope things are well, despite the ever-negative news over there. As for me, I worked on a long-standing project and then ran a few errands for someone in the inn. So now, I’m paid, refueling my belly, and thinking. Recent conversations on free-will are on my mind, and I like it, even if some of the banter was a bit awkward.

Yes, awkward. It’s strange for me, hearing free-will denied publicly. For a long time, whenever I heard that denial, it operated as an excuse, used to justify one's behavior. The criminal cited fate at the thought of reform in order to justify his staying the course. A scrooge said the stars of the poor couldn’t really be changed so why bother? The idea uglied its confessor and embarrassed him in polite conversation.

Frankly, it isn’t a trivial mistake either. Free-will is part of what makes us special, more than animals, so determinism gets it wrong bigly. It mocks us and not just us. The dull mechanistic outlook paints everything dull and mechanistic. It grey-washes out all the humanity, love and magic.

It's bad for you, too. The more one believes they aren’t free, the more it’s kind of true for that person. People who believe they are wed to their course are less likely to muster the will to change it. Believing all your choices amount to influence, has a yielding to influence… influence, and that opens one up to manipulation. But it dehumanizes in another way too. Steps toward animalizing people are steps to getting them treated like animals. The police don’t need any help in that, and society falls apart fine on its own without help in the process.

So yeah, it wouldn’t be good if a popular holy book were thought to teach such stuff. Such an unfortunate situation would render contrary (and legit) readings golden. (Why set the book against the essence of humanity if you don’t have to?) That's part of why I like this molinism thing. It’s interesting and all yes, and it has the added perk of rescuing vital good sense from the nefarious clutches of a misreading.

I could go on but not now. The day is getting on, and I’m going to explore the realm a bit. Maybe get a cookie. Thanks for the fun conversation terrans.

-Pen

A World of Difference

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Hey terrans, I've got something on my mind, so pardon the abruptness. I'm going to get right into that “Human Freedom” book I've been reading.

Something about it bothers me. The guy starts his historical survey with that Augustine guy, and actually, I get it. Really I do. It makes sense. Da big Au-G. He seems like something of a bridge in your world, right? a human segue from classic thought to that of his ages and then to thought of ages to come. Maybe landmark is better analogy? referring back to all the antecedent thought he drew upon? something of a culmination? Eh. Maybe that's too far. Either way, I get it, but I'm disappointed (to no fault of the author!). I'll explain.

The debate on human freedom is very different on my world. (My original world, I should say. There have been a few.) There, this freedom talk or free-will talk was all about our paths, our yet-to-be histories. It was about whether a person was free or bound to their path. 

Here, on Terra/Earth/whatever, freedom is more thought of in terms of the ability to will (whether to operate apart from external determination or just without interference or something like that). That simply IS freedom. There, people did make similar points, say, about prior material conditions determining their every step, but that wasn't the bondage, itself. It was an excuse, a way of claiming they were bound to their bad path.

So, in my world, human freedom talk is more course than causation. The point is, I was hoping maybe your ancients had contributions to that conversation as well. I guess I’ll have to wait and see, Right now, it's time to cram. and get some things done before it's time for that Monday Masto-Mac-n-Cheese.

– Pen