Amanda Marcotte has up a post shooting down the idea of free will. I tend to disagree but although I enjoyed her argument. Mainly I just wanted to drop a quick post on how much I enjoy the Pandagon comment threads. They raise all the points I’d want to make and a few I haven’t thought of.
Anyways, my main response is that free will at this point is a bundle of concepts, some useful, some outdated. I think the general shape of this bundle is actually pretty well determined: are we a blank state? are we controlled by our environment? can we control our own fate? is there a soul or a mini-me making decisions? is human behavior deterministic or random? To which I say meh. Some of these are interesting, some are not. Bundling them together just makes it harder to discuss it nowadays without getting into centuries old arguments with no real grounding in science. This bundle can work out alright theologically or dramatically but outside of those contexts it obscures more than it reveals.
So I’m laying down my arms in this fight. This bundle is not worth fighting for or fighting over. As one of the commentators put it, "free will" isn’t falsifiable.
I’d say the same thing is true when talking about whether religion is a good thing or a bad thing. I think that tends to be the wrong unit of analysis. Better to focus on concepts that show up in some religions as well as some secular movements, such as "those who do not share my doctrine deserve punishment." I think it’s safe to say that said idea has caused much more harm than good and that it’s possible to get along fine without it. There’s a reason things legal codes tend to be based on actions and not beliefs. That said, I’m not looking to punish people who hold such a doctrine.
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