(2020-11-09, 03:03 AM)Smaw Wrote: I THINK he is coming from determinism/randomness along with things like nature/nurture.
Let's say there are two, equally appealing identical chairs next to each other for you to sit on. In the past you might have walked down the right side of a path and kicked your toe on a rock, you might be left handed so you prefer left more, you might drive on the left side of the road so it is more inherently appealing. All those influences from your environment affect your decision, even if it's between two identical objects, so how could your decision be free? I think Paul is asking where the un influenced decider comes in, how can there be an agent free of events that push them towards a certain option.
But it seems Paul is saying even if there is a God who created all of reality, and governed all causation, that even then not only could that God not give the gift of free-will BUT this God itself could not have free-will.
In any case I still don't get why these past influences have to fully determine your decision? Or, on the flip side, why if they don't the decision has to be random?
I feel like this sort of thing is what we talked about in that 75 page thread...
This is why it's better for Paul to just give us some kind of argument for why all events have to be either random, determined, or some combination of the two.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
- Bertrand Russell
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