🚀 go-pugleaf

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 13:03:12 GMT
FREE WILL 1: Compatibilism sucks.

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|   This posting is part of a series of monomaniac diatribes.  Please   |
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[I posted this to talk.Philosophy.misc, and didn't cross post.  Sorry, I'm
still getting into this.]

  Compatibilism (the thesis  that free will  and determinism are  com-
patible, ie. that  both can be  simultaneously true) is  crud.  If  we
define determinism as:
    
    `The theory that the state of a system at some time and the  rela-
  tions governing the  time development of  the system determine,  un-
  ambiguously, the state of  the system at any  later time.  (In  time
  reversal invariant theories,  the state of  the system at  some time
  and the relations governing time  development give the state of  the
  system at _any_ time.)'
  
  And further is we define voluntarism (the thesis that we have  `free
will') as:
    
    `The theory that a person is free with respect to same act if they
  both can perform it and refrain from performing it.'
  
  Then the conflict is manifest.   The fact is that  determinism holds
that there is _one_ actual future, the properties of which are already
fixed.  Voluntarism hold that  our ability to choose means  that there
are a number of possible futures, only one of which will eventually be
the case.  Determinism  and Voluntarism are only  compatible if 1 =  x
where x > 1.  [one is equal to a number greater than one.]
  
  At the  risk of  labouring the  point, the  issue can be represented
diagrammatically:
  
     o----------------------------------------------o
     |          Determinism:                        |
     |                                              |
     | Past ------------------ Actual Future        |
     |                                              |
     |                                              |
     |          Voluntarism:                        |
     |                                              |
     |               _________ Possible Future `a'  |
     |              /                               |
     | Past -------<                                |
     |              \_________ Possible Future `b'  |
     |               \                              |
     |                \_______ etc...               |
     o----------------------------------------------o
  
  To quote William James:
    
    
    To [the indeterminist] view, actualities seem to float in a  wider
  sea of possibilities from out  of which they are chosen;  and, some-
  where, indeterminism  says, such  possibilities exist  and even form
  part of truth.
    
    Determinism, on the contrary, says they  exist _nowhere_, and that
  necessity on the  one hand, and  impossibility on the  other are the
  sole  categories  of  the  real.    Possibilities  that  fail to get
  realised are, for  determinism, pure illusions: they were never pos-
  sibilities at all.
  
  The question, therefore, is _which_ of  the two is true.  The  prob-
lem, therefore, is to look into  the credentials of each doctrine.   I
suggest that determinism is rather unattractive, but that  voluntarism
is difficult to make intelligible.  Any thoughts? [especially a really
_good_ `proof' of compatibilism, or reflections on which of the two is
true.]
  
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| David Spurrett, department of Philosophy |  `I have seen the truth, and |
| University of Natal, Durban              |   it makes no sense.'        |
| email: spurrett@superbowl.und.ac.za      |              - OFFICIAL!     |
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