henry quirk wrote:Alpha,
It's my experience that I'm mired in countless causal chains, most which I have no control over. I, as individual, am a link in many of those chains. It's also my experience that I'm the intitator of causal chains and the director of causal chains. That is: I am both caused and a cause; I am acted upon and I act upon.
I'm an agent, not (just) a domino.
Again: deterministic is not the same as determined or pre-determined.
Also (and, again): 'free will', a placeholder, keeps getting in the way of the event it stands in for. Conversations like these would go better for every one if 'freewill', as placeholder, were taken off the table. There are so many better stand-ins: self-direction (self-director), self-determination (self-determiner), agency (agent), the will (the willer), etc.; none of these carry nearly as much baggage as 'freewill'.
henry, you're presuming that my problem is with the word "freewill" and not what it represents. this couldn't farther from the truth. my position is that everything in existence must either be caused (determinate) or uncaused (indeterminate/random). there's no third conceivable (logical) possibility. this means that our will (choices, decisions) is either caused or uncaused. when you say you're "
the initiator of causal chains and the director of causal chains" this can either mean that you were caused to initiate/direct these causal chains, or you weren't caused to do so. if you were caused to do so, then everything you do (even what you think and feel) is determinate. if you weren't caused to do so, then what you do is random and indeterminate. as you can see, neither can entail any true accountability, no matter what "placeholder" you use. the fact of the matter is that you/we only think that we initiate and direct causal chains, but since it's logically impossible for us to causelessly initiate or direct anything, the only possible alternative is that we were caused (by countless forces) to initiate and direct stuff. in essence, we are very complex (and conscious) dominoes.
and another thing, deterministic is exactly the same as determined and predetermined (i'm not talking about any god).