IJesusChrist a dit:
If you believe you have free-will, and if you actually have free-will, are exactly the same. Regardless if your belief is incorrect.
Exactly. Whether free will is an illusion or not, we won't notice. If there was no free will, we would have no choice in the matter as to what we believe, one way or the other, even though we would feel we did.
Free will is an essential part of the western religious moral code (an eye for an eye), without free will this sense of justice and morality collapses into a heap. And although our society is more secular nowadays, Alan Watts is so correct in pointing out that the modern movement away from monotheistic religion is still very much a part of it, we've taken Yahweh and Jesus out of the equation but our belief system and way of conceptualizing reality is essentially the same, when it isn't purely reactionary
I've read some pretty bad junk philosophy attempting to prove free will exists by using a pop culture understanding of quantum indeterminacy to claim the future cannot be predicted.. essentially claiming that random==free will (yeah right)
Perhaps there's a happy medium, free will does exist but on an extremely limited basis--limited by our own personal awareness, psychological hangups, issues, and limitations, place in society, education, etc. Ironically, in that sense you could still represent the choices one might make in terms of probabilities. For example a kid born in a lower-class segment of society, with little education, growing up as a gang member for example, has been born into a certain marginalized section of the population, will probably never fit in, much less understand other sections of the population. It is much more likely that a person raised participating in violent criminal behavior will repeat that behavior, than Joe the spoiled rich kid who stays home all day playing Wii, stuffing his face with chips. Suddenly you realize both examples (stereotypes that do exist for sure) may have some sort of free will, but operate within a very predictable window of behavior. Joe will never understand what it is like to be poor and will grow up a rich libertarian, with zero empathy for the less fortunate. And hence the power structures that have existed in society for centuries continue in some form or another.
When you look at humanity as a large, constantly evolving structure, you start to notice that much like any closed biological system humans have evolved to fill every possible nook and cranny.. It's almost eerie how human behavior can be represented in terms of probabilities. There are times I see us as just a continuing part of the processes going on in the universe, and less as some magically empowered free agents that can somehow operate outside the typically predictable parameters of the observable, known universe.
But this doesn't mean I'm going to give up on life and the people I care about, and quit my job or anything. I still feel pain, I still empathize, I cry when my friends are suffering, I laugh, I still really enjoy the creative process, I still love. It's my choice (or illusion thereof)
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