Re: A defence of determinism


Dave Smith wrote:

You slip in the word "freely" here, suggesting again, perhaps, that you
are not really arguing for indetermism so much as for free will. I
don't see why investigations of decision-making would be futile if
determinism is true. Why should a determinist think that people don't
make decisions?

If your decision was predectable by a Laplacian intelligence from the
time of the big-bang in what sense did you weigh the options and
actually make a choice?

The goal of much psychological research in fact is to make people more
free. How can we get people to see past the illusory options and make
better choices?

Think of your own discussion of nuclear power in Britain. If the
outcome is foreordained and completely determined why should you worry?
But you do worry, and you seek better information and you try to make
the best decision believing that it will make a difference.

Unlike you, I can't think of any theory more discouraging of human
action (and science is a kind of human action) than the theory that we
are just living a charade in which all the options have already been
decided - we just have to live out the fake choices as though we were
really making them.

Lance

.