New Apologetics Glenn Montgomery
You wrote:
I will say that I do have the subjective experience of making choices like everyone else, but I don’t see that as evidence that the choice is really happening.
We reply:
Unless there is a good reason to think this experience is illusory, we should take it as evidence that there is free will. Direct experience always trumps lesser modes of evidence unless there is some “defeater” for the belief that the experience is veridical. The mere possibility of doubting its veridicality is not, in itself, a reason to doubt it.
You wrote:
I have the subjective experience of “green” as well but you won’t find “green” anywhere out there in the world if you looked for it, because it really isn’t “out there” at all. It is all just “appearances” and “seemings”.
We reply:
But the sense data really does say something about the “external” world. Namely, it says that this thing which appears green is different in its nature from something that appears red. The green and red appearances are caused by real differences in the things experienced. Similarly, the experience of making free decisions is an indicator of a qualitative difference from non-free actions. We can directly experience what it is to be *compelled* to act. We can directly experience a free action (albeit ours is a diminished freedom). This freedom is not the same as simply doing what we want, as the experience directly presents the possibility of acting against even very strong desires. This data is evidence that there is a qualitative difference between actions that are compelled by physical law and those which originate from a free act of will. It is possible that this experience is illusory, but there is no reason to think so. It is also possible that our experience of there being a physical world is illusory, but there is no reason to think so.
You wrote:
You can always choose do to whatever you want, but you can’t *choose what you want in the first place*. The “wants” are what make the choices for you, and you didn’t choose the “wants”. Your life experiences did.
We reply:
We largely agree on that. We would only disagree that we can always choose to do whatever we want. Our freedom is injured for a few reasons, and we can’t do the good we want to do. It is not destroyed, but it is not quite what it should be. This, too, is something accessible to direct experience.
You wrote:
Could you instantly decide, on the spot, to completely reverse your beliefs about something based on nothing at all but a “choice” you made intentionally? For instance, to prove it is possible, can you “choose”, right now on the spot, to start believing Harry Potter is non-fiction, and really believe it as *true*, down to your core?
We reply:
No.
You wrote:
My statement about Superman stands. I could never just “choose” to believe he was real, because I really believe he is fictional and in order to change that, other beliefs I have would need to be changed first in order to predispose me to that belief-switching act. I could never just intentionally force myself to believe to be true today something I thought was false yesterday, without something else, evidence or facts or arguments or sensory experience first coming into my mind and changing the way I think…
We reply:
We agree.
You wrote:
My beliefs are cross-linked. I know about comic books, and fictional characters. I know about Jerry Siegel at DC comics. I know that humans have never found alien life, or inhabited exoplanets. His super powers conflict with my beliefs about physics and causality. The town he lives in doesn’t exist on any maps. None of the things he did ever happened.
How can I start believing Superman is real as long as I have these other beliefs as well? Because of the cross-linked belief structure, many things would have to change across the board for me to invert my beliefs, and I could never simply “choose” to start believing he was real as long as I also believed he was created by Jerry Siegal in 1933, because you cannot believe something is true and false at the same time.
We reply:
You can’t just choose to believe something you think is probably false.
You wrote:
How can I *stop* believing that Superman was created by Jerry Siegal in 1933, in order to start believing he is real? I can’t “choose” that belief either… Something would have to enter my mind that convinced me Jerry Siegal didn’t create Superman at all, and what would *that* be, and would I be able to choose *that*? Where in the process do I start “choosing” what I believe? We just continue to dive further and further back in a causal chain that seems subjectively like “choice making” but never actually is, anywhere along the process.
We reply:
You can’t choose what you believe. Some people can lie to themselves quite adeptly for a long time. We all do it to some degree. However, this ultimately is not the same thing as “belief”. You’re right. When reality becomes the focus, our beliefs are not readily choosable.
You wrote:
Also, if people really do make “free choices” that are not influenced by environmental and genetic factors, how is it that predictions in sociology work so well?
We reply:
Our choices are influenced by environmental and genetic factors.
You wrote:
Why are a vast majority of people the same religion as their parents?
We reply:
It is because our choices are influenced by environmental and genetic factors.
You wrote:
Why do people share cultural values and wants and priorities in geographic groupings? Why are there fleeting and ever-changing social and fashion trends?
We reply:
Same as above.
You wrote:
A teenage girl “choses” to be infatuated with Justin Beiber… Strange that it happened at the same exact time that 100,000 girls “chose” the same thing. They must have all made a “free choice” at coincidentally simultaneous timing?
We reply:
We would say that this is likely not an example of the use of freedom, but is almost 100% social influence.
June 2, 2013 at 12:32am · Like