Did I Have to Post This?

By | April 19, 2011
2 Comments

Did I have any choice in posting this video?

 

 

Did I have any choice in naming this blog The Speculist?

There’s the liberating way of looking at it: every bad career, financial, relationship, or other move I ever made was hardwired in. The problem is, I don’t believe that.

Even if they can somehow prove that free will doesn’t exist, won’t we all continue to have an overwhelming subjective experience that tells us that it’s real?

The delusion that my choices shape my life — if it is, in fact, a delusion — is one I intend to hang on to.

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com dantealiegri

    At 2:40 the whole video loses any credibility it could have, as it goes and says “it may be impossible to predict a person’s behavior, but that doesn’t mean it’s not predetermined”. The problem being their whole argument was that since you could perfectly predict everything, it was, pre-determined.

    Does anyone not bother with logic anymore?

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Phil

    I think the problem arises from two different POVs related to making the prediction. When they say that everything is “predictable” the assumption is some near-omniscient POV that takes every variable into consideration. When they say it may be impossible to predict a person’s behavior, that speaks more to what we are likely to ever actually achieve.

    Not necessarily a failing in logic, but they could have been a lot clearer.