> Whether free will is barred by determinism depends on what free will IS,
> doesn't it? I don't think they are incompatible at all. Why should they be
> incompatible?
Because determinism says that all of our actions are determined without
remainder by factors completely beyond our control. It's not possible that
we be morally responsible for actions that are completely determined by
things beyond our control.
With traditional materialistic (v., say, theological) determinism, you can
add that all of our action is ultimately completely non-rational, as well.
(Of course, one can re-define "free" and "rational" to fit materialism, but
this just shows the flexibility of language, not the strength of
materialism.)
>
> > However I thought
> > Christians were supposedly free to choose God or reject him, to choose
> good
> > or evil. It is difficult for me to understand a god who urges people to
> > follow a certain course, but then leaves them no choice about the
> decision.
> > (I do not in any way intend this as a criticism, merely a failure on my
> part
> > to understand.)
> >
> > As an agnostic, my acceptance of free will and design have nothing to do
> with
> > god. It merely seems the most obvious. To decide what appears to be
> reality
> > is really an illusion seems tortious reasoning to me. The
> universe looks
> > designed to me (as well as to Dawkins)
>
> CC
> I don't think Dawkins said that the UNIVERSE looked designed, but
> only that
> living organisms look designed -- and devoted a whole book to showing why
> the conclusion that they ARE designed is objectively unfounded.
>
> > and I have no desire to wonder if it
> > is an illusion or speculate about the nature of any designer. I
> personally
> > experience free will, and not being constrained by materialism, have no
> > reason to decide it is an illusion.
>
> Actually, whether you have free will (even in your sense of free will) is
> independent of materialism,
No -- see above.
> since, regardless of whether the mind is
> matter-based or based on something else, the same questions arise
> as to how
> it functions. If there actually exists something that is non-matter in the
> sense of being neither dependent on matter nor on whatever basic substance
> matter is based on or made of, then, it, too, must exhibit the same basic
> causal laws as does anything else: What it IS logically specifies what it
> DOES, because, ultimately, what it does simply IS what it is.
This seems to me like a series of implausible assertions with no reasons
given to believe them.
John