Free Will and Determinism Part 1

Psychology 305, Moral Psychology, University of Alberta.

[matthewstroud]

Interesting introduction. Do you later get into the idea of hard determinism being self-refuting?

By that, I mean the presumption from determinism that if all of reality is unfolding in a singular pattern that could only happen the way it will happen, then our own thoughts about free will are included in that determined reality. In which case any deliberation about free will inside the mind of say, Sam Harris, is the only thing he could have thought. Has his conclusion therefore got any claim to objective truth? He could certainly claim that he is trying to be objective and he is looking at evidence, but then that again is a predetermined outcome.

Perhaps the conclusions of a determined mind are no more valid than walking along a beach, picking up a stone, cracking that stone open and finding a mineral pattern that looks like the words "Free will is an illusion".


Free will opponents such as Harris certainly seem to be making truth claims, implying that their process is an attempt at objectivity. Yet their own theory is telling them that they couldn't do or think any different to what they have. Is that following an objective system of thought and does determinism allow their mind to make a truth claim?

I have heard this described as " the fallacy of self-exclusion".

[oabh]

Free will would literally mean that we are NOT bound by cause and effect, which would be IMPOSSIBLE.

[oabh]

Quantum mechanics has not proven anything, quantum physics is still a deterministic theory, lmfao xD