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Nonsense, neuroscience favors free will being nothing more than an illusion while plebs still eat up the nonsensical belief for breakfast on Sundays.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
If free will really is an illusion, then you can’t help believing what you do, and they can’t help believing what they do.
- trowaway7642 5y ago
  Of course some are predestined to be plebs for however fate has it written in stone but the same argument could’ve been made towards the earth being the center of the universe. Gratefully, academics can push society forward by helping the plebs get the resources to learn free will is an illusion and have a healthier life with that knowledge. Although still destined by predeterminism.
  - bencollier49 5y ago
    "Plebs" - this arrogance is also characteristic of the cast of scientists who think they can do philosophy.
    - trowaway7642 5y ago
      Pleb - an ordinary person, especially one from the lower social classes. That’s generally where majority of believers in free will fall into. Besides the few that came from such families and got out of that lifestyle. Anyhow I believe you wrote arrogance unfairly when it’s simply honesty. Sure, a few great compatibilist exist in philosophy but their definition of free will is nothing of the sort like what the plebs believe.
bencollier49 5y ago
Don't fall for that. Firstly, they've defined free will incorrectly, and secondly, the whole movement to deny agency stems from the complete inability of anyone to address the hard problem of consciousness. "We cannot understand it, therefore it does not exist".
- trowaway7642 5y ago
  You basically wrote what a person that believes in God argues against atheists and although I’m agnostic I still find such an assertion illogical.
  - bencollier49 5y ago
    I don't know which bit you're referring to. If it's the hard problem, then no, we haven't cracked it, and redefining the question to try to ignore it doesn't work. This approach typically comes from enthusiastic scientists (biologists in particular seem to be common) rather than actual philosophers, and often the premises were discussed and dismissed hundreds of years ago. If it's the claim that you can't explain the universe with logic, then we're perilously close to things like Tarski's Undefinability Theorem, and that has me convinced.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago

If free will really is an illusion, then you can’t help believing what you do, and they can’t help believing what they do.

trowaway7642 5y ago
Of course some are predestined to be plebs for however fate has it written in stone but the same argument could’ve been made towards the earth being the center of the universe. Gratefully, academics can push society forward by helping the plebs get the resources to learn free will is an illusion and have a healthier life with that knowledge. Although still destined by predeterminism.
- bencollier49 5y ago
  "Plebs" - this arrogance is also characteristic of the cast of scientists who think they can do philosophy.
  - trowaway7642 5y ago
    Pleb - an ordinary person, especially one from the lower social classes. That’s generally where majority of believers in free will fall into. Besides the few that came from such families and got out of that lifestyle. Anyhow I believe you wrote arrogance unfairly when it’s simply honesty. Sure, a few great compatibilist exist in philosophy but their definition of free will is nothing of the sort like what the plebs believe.

bencollier49 5y ago

Don't fall for that. Firstly, they've defined free will incorrectly, and secondly, the whole movement to deny agency stems from the complete inability of anyone to address the hard problem of consciousness. "We cannot understand it, therefore it does not exist".

trowaway7642 5y ago
You basically wrote what a person that believes in God argues against atheists and although I’m agnostic I still find such an assertion illogical.
- bencollier49 5y ago
  I don't know which bit you're referring to. If it's the hard problem, then no, we haven't cracked it, and redefining the question to try to ignore it doesn't work. This approach typically comes from enthusiastic scientists (biologists in particular seem to be common) rather than actual philosophers, and often the premises were discussed and dismissed hundreds of years ago. If it's the claim that you can't explain the universe with logic, then we're perilously close to things like Tarski's Undefinability Theorem, and that has me convinced.