FREE WILL DISPROVED
Main Points - "I choose" is to be redefined as "I wish therefore I do". Whether you are free or not that is all that matters - the theory of freedom is nothing compared to that. Free or not it is only wishing that counts. If free will is important and good then it is more important to be regarded as free than to be free or to be treated as free than to be free.
Could it be that free will, the existence of which is taken for granted by
nearly all religions and by the state, does not exist? Could billions of people
who accept its reality be wrong?
“You may choose to act the way you wish, but you do not choose the way you wish
to act” Barbara Smoker. Another way she puts it is, "While we may choose to do
what we prefer, We cannot chose what we prefer to do".
COMMENT, You cannot control how you will feel about things. If you fall in love
or are depressed there is nothing you can do about it. If you try and help
yourself out of depression, it only works not because of you but because there
were other feelings that were there to deal with them and they too were feelings
that happen to you but which you didn’t make. How we feel about things causes
how we act and the “choices” we make. If you really love your child you will not
be able to kill her because of how you feel. Even if you have free will you
cannot use it for your feelings control it and it is because they do that that
you think you feel free! To correct Smoker we must have, You may “choose” to act
the way you wish, but you do not choose the way you wish to act. The choosing to
act the way we wish is only an illusion. We can do other than what we do because
of the way our feelings control us. No matter what we do it is in response to
some feeling that cries for gratification. Sometimes that feeling cries for a
painful gratification such as when you admit you stole $400 though you don’t
have to admit it.
Another way to put what Smoker said is to say, That you cannot do other than
what your nature makes you do. It is objected that nobody believes this for a
paedophile for example has the nature of a paedophile and yet it makes no sense
to say that he cannot help abusing children. But it is possible to have the
nature of a paedophile who will abuse or the nature to have a paedophile nature
that does not draw one to abuse. So we are back where we started.
In the absence of proof or evidence for free will, we are entitled to deny it.
The burden of proof is on those who say we have free will.
Barbara Smoker argues that free choice is often confused by philosophers with
free will. What can she mean? She says free choice means you are not forced by
other people or what is outside of you. Free will is the idea that you are not
programmed by past and present circumstances to do what you do now.
The logical disproof of free will
Determinism means that our will is caused by our past and present and so just as
cutting somebody’s head off kills them so we cannot do other than what we do.
Indeterminism means our will is uncaused by anything but then if we don’t cause
it then it is not our will!
Do we cause our choices as compatibilism, the view that free will and
determinism are compatible says? One interpretation of this view says that
determinism is absolutely true but mistaken in saying that because what is in
our minds makes us do what we do that this means we are not free (page 159,
Ethics: Key Concepts in Philosophy). In other words, even though deterministic
forces made me feel I freely chose my coffee this morning I am free though I
couldn't choose any different. This is simply pretending that an unfree action
can be called free.
If we cause them we need no other causes. And if we cause them without other
causes then that is indeterminism. Confused? Good. you should be for
compatiblism makes no sense.
How can we be free when the two options, indeterminism and determinism have no
room for the concept of free will? How can compatibilism defend free will when
the two components, determinism and indeterminism are mixed to create it and
deny it themselves? They cannot any more than water and wine can make cement.
For compatibilists to hold that being caused to do something by your past and by
your present environment agrees with free will is believed not because it is
possible but because they think or want to think we have free will and they
cannot deny causation so they hold the two in paradox and call the result
compatibilism though there is no need for the paradox for there is no proof for
free will or evidence. To say we are free because of the consequences of denying
freedom is like saying that a paedophile priest never touched children for his
family would never get over it if he was guilty and convicted. But that’s the
nature of the evidence that is used for compatibilism for it makes no sense and
has to be mere wishful thinking.
When you see that it is a matter of I wish therefore I do that you don't call up the wish it is just there that explains why you are programmed and why you feel free. Also, free will makes no sense which forces us to accept determinism.
BIBLE QUOTATIONS FROM:
The Amplified Bible
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