That is, they think all of their decisions were preordained, and then use this to claim that they can’t be held responsible for anything they do.
There’s an episode of the Good Place where they discuss this exact thing (well, replace “immoral” with “romantic”, but still), and I’m pretty sure the motivations are the same. They don’t actually believe in determinism as much as they claim, but they don’t want to be responsible for their actions and determinism is a good excuse they can use. You can’t use logic to get them out of this belief, because it wasn’t logic that made them believe it to begin with.
Tell them they should have factored the consequences into their predetermined behavior.
They should also understand why consistent enforcement is necessary to prevent others from making the same preordained decision.
Even if the choice is only illusory, it’s indistinguishable from free will in every other respect… So we will treat it as such
“Even if the choice is only illusory, it’s indistinguishable from free will in every other respect… So we will treat it as such”
I like that!
“Yeah mate you’re just being a cunt. You do you tho and see how far that takes you”
It really is too bad the universe forced me never to talk to you again though.
Punch them in the mouth, it’s not like you have a choice.
“What have I done? What have I done some more?? What have I continued to do??”
“Guys, we’re in some big trouble here…”
“It’s like knuckle sammich day at the buffet and we’re all out of bread!”
Any claim that is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Any claim can be inverted, so lacking evidence in either direction, this applies to the inverse as well.
I personally prefer more psychologically rooted arguments that lean towards at least compatibilism. If a belief in free will, regardless of the actual fact, is sufficient to affect one’s actions, is that not evidence against hard determinism?
Nah. It just extends down. Your belief, and any changes over time, are also predetermined as some sum of your inputs.
Sure, but the compatibilist view is, in my understanding, that determinism is true, but we still have free will. The mind is so complex its deterministic function can’t be fully predicted, so the outcome of particular inputs over any meaningful duration cannot be computed. Thus actual free will and the illusion of free are essentially functionally identical.
This is all just pointless speculation.
Dismissing a claim is not equivalent to asserting the negated claim.
Right, but lacking any physical evidence in either direction, is it not reasonable to then turn to purely rational explanations if we want to arrive at some sort of belief?
Why would we want to do that? Why believe things for which there is no rational basis?
You can have a rational basis for a belief without empirical evidence (Russell’s teapot, for example). The reason you’d want to do that is to simplify the model of reality you’re working with in order to reduce the number of contingencies you need to account for.
Disown them.
Smack em, assert the same statements. If they argue, smack em again and repeat.
… that’s a paddlin’…
You punch them in the face, and then tell them they can’t be mad about it, because it’s not your fault, it was preordained.
Let him read the following dialog between God and a mortal considering determinism. It’s actually not very theistic, but merely presenting the free will problem in a logical manner.
It’s by logician Raymond Smullyan and it shows how untenable the position of extreme determinism is, without polarizing.
It’s one of the things everybody struggeling with the free will vs determinism should read.
https://web.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTaoist.html
I was preordained to not read this.
Not really, you’re just being obtuse, that’s ok.
It was just a joke my friend (I actually did read it).
Then the seal of paradox is broken, let all weep at what shall come.
That’s ok too
There is a difference between free will and agency. I don’t think humans have free will, that requires the supernatural to be a thing and I don’t see evidence of that. Agency clearly does exist or else you would have to maintain that a billionaire and a slave have as much control over their life. Your friend is confusing the two.
“Damn that’s crazy bro”
There isn’t, someone set in their ways like that won’t change so don’t bother trying.
Just pitty them because anything they accomplish was not because they tried.
Well, they can’t seriously be that stupid. It’s proper 8-year-old shit in a veneer of “this philosophical thing I heard about once” - it’s 100% the Simpsons bit “I’m just going to windmill my arms and keep walking forward and if you get hit, it’s your fault”. Laughing at it seems like a good option and I personally would probably hang out less with whomever.
A good response to someone who believes something is to tell him what you believe. Then maybe talk about it or maybe not.
What’s the best response? The best response is to laugh in their face and go find someone else to talk to.
The person you described is an idiot. Can you tell whether a person actually has free will by observing their actions? Like just by looking at them, can you predict exactly everything that they’re going to do?
(This is actually almost identical a famous problem in philosophy called the “philosophical zombie.”)
If the answer is “no”, and it is, then it doesn’t make sense to base your actions based on whether you have free will, because it doesn’t actually have any effect in your daily life, other than to irritate other people with your pseudo intellectual babble.
