...a variation of Pascal's Wager?Burning ghost wrote:It is quite a simple logical sequence. If you’re wrong you’ve been a passenger to your own laziness. If I’m wrong it makes no difference. Morally speaking the logical way to live is as if you have free will.
The problem with this approach is the abandonment of finding 'real' truth in favor of finding "feel-goodness". Should I continue believing in Santa Claus, so as to maintain the feel-goodness of this belief?
The search for truth is not about satisfying or justifying feel-goodness, it is about finding 'real truths' (good, bad, or ugly!).
Djacob7 wrote:It's entirely possible that, even though free will doesn't exist, we can pretend that it does.
To the contrary, the logic is very clear and irrefutable of the impossibility of free-will. It is the psychological acceptance of this logical truth that most struggle with.Burning ghost wrote:This is what gets me. It is the absolutism of the position. You cannot know that it doesn’t exist.
Firstly, in essence you are saying here, life without free-will would be very ugly, so we should continue to falsely believe in free-will. E.g. life without Santa Claus would be very ugly, so we should continue to falsely believe in Santa Claus.Burning ghost wrote:If you hold to the idea that free will doesn’t exist (as in making choices in life) then it simply leaning toward fatalism of some kind, nihilism and shifting toward a life where what you do and say doesn’t matter or make a difference. It is vacuous to live such a life - or rather such a “life” is not a life at all, it is to live denying your own limit choices in your own life.
Secondly, ugliness is not a determiner of truth.
Thirdly, your fear of a reality without free-will is overplayed (though admittedly maybe a bit more 'initially' traumatic than finding out about no Santa Claus).
The ultimate satisfaction of knowing the 'real' truth is much more palatable than living in a delusional fantasy. And again, life without free-will is not as bad/ugly/fearful as you portray it above.
The flaw in this hypothetical analogy is assuming that we would "act differently" in one case over the other.Burning ghost wrote:As a simple hypothetical take this one ... you can save a million children by assuming free will exists or let them die in agony. Or you can save a million children by assuming free will doesn’t exist or let them die in agony.
If you act like you have free will then the choice is easy in both cases.
Our actions would be the same in both cases. If we possess compassion for saving a million children we would save them, in both cases. It is the compassion (internal desires) that make us do as we do, ...not free-will, or the lack of free-will.