In defence of free will: Difference between revisions

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Now, by basic logic (the law of excluded middle) and syntax it is easy to see that "deterministic versus indeterministic" is a genuinely mutually exclusive dichotomy, however, a little insight leads to the conclusion that the dichotomy "necessitated versus random" is not. It has a gap in it - a gap into which a third option compatible with free will slots. Something has gone missing in translation.

That missing third option covers those events for which we can say that although the event happened due to some cause, it did not "have to" happen because of that cause; it simply "did" happen because of that cause. A suitable term for this third option, borrowing from its definition in logic, is "contingent". In logic, a proposition whose truth is "contingent" is one which, while true, is not true ''necessarily''; it "just so happens" to be true. Here, we apply "contingent" not to logical propositions but to causal relations. Note that we specifically and explicitly exclude the ~~ordinary~~ sense of "contingent" as "subject to chance". Indeed, we contrast our use of contingent ''against'' that concept, especially insofar as it refers to the same arbitrary "randomness" of the above argument, which is typically understood to represent an event ''without'' a cause: our "third option" of contingency explicitly ''requires'' that effects have causes; those causes, however, simply do not ''necessitate'' their effects.

That missing third option covers those events for which we can say that although the event happened due to some cause, it did not "have to" happen because of that cause; it simply "did" happen because of that cause. A suitable term for this third option, borrowing from its definition in logic, is "contingent". In logic, a proposition whose truth is "contingent" is one which, while true, is not true ''necessarily''; it "just so happens" to be true. Here, we apply "contingent" not to logical propositions but to causal relations. We also borrow from the everyday sense of "contingent" as "dependent [on something prior to it]". Note that we specifically and explicitly exclude the everyday sense of "contingent" as "subject to chance". Indeed, we contrast our use of contingent ''against'' that concept, especially insofar as it refers to the same arbitrary "randomness" of the above argument, which is typically understood to represent an event ''without'' a cause: our "third option" of contingency explicitly ''requires'' that effects have causes; those causes, however, simply do not ''necessitate'' their effects.

We might make the following analogy:

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 Now, by basic logic (the law of excluded middle) and syntax it is easy to see that "deterministic versus indeterministic" is a genuinely mutually exclusive dichotomy, however, a little insight leads to the conclusion that the dichotomy "necessitated versus random" is not. It has a gap in it - a gap into which a third option compatible with free will slots. Something has gone missing in translation.
-That missing third option covers those events for which we can say that although the event happened due to some cause, it did not "have to" happen because of that cause; it simply "did" happen because of that cause. A suitable term for this third option, borrowing from its definition in logic, is "contingent". In logic, a proposition whose truth is "contingent" is one which, while true, is not true ''necessarily''; it "just so happens" to be true. Here, we apply "contingent" not to logical propositions but to causal relations. Note that we specifically and explicitly exclude the ordinary sense of "contingent" as "subject to chance". Indeed, we contrast our use of contingent ''against'' that concept, especially insofar as it refers to the same arbitrary "randomness" of the above argument, which is typically understood to represent an event ''without'' a cause: our "third option" of contingency explicitly ''requires'' that effects have causes; those causes, however, simply do not ''necessitate'' their effects.
+That missing third option covers those events for which we can say that although the event happened due to some cause, it did not "have to" happen because of that cause; it simply "did" happen because of that cause. A suitable term for this third option, borrowing from its definition in logic, is "contingent". In logic, a proposition whose truth is "contingent" is one which, while true, is not true ''necessarily''; it "just so happens" to be true. Here, we apply "contingent" not to logical propositions but to causal relations. We also borrow from the everyday sense of "contingent" as "dependent [on something prior to it]". Note that we specifically and explicitly exclude the everyday sense of "contingent" as "subject to chance". Indeed, we contrast our use of contingent ''against'' that concept, especially insofar as it refers to the same arbitrary "randomness" of the above argument, which is typically understood to represent an event ''without'' a cause: our "third option" of contingency explicitly ''requires'' that effects have causes; those causes, however, simply do not ''necessitate'' their effects.
 We might make the following analogy: