Reading Time: 9 minutes Online panic about AI models like ChatGPT follows a well-travelled path set by impoverished understandings of evolutionary theory. Can we reclaim human agency?
determinism
Posted inPhilosophy
Libertarian free will doesn’t exist, and moral responsibility can’t exist
Reading Time: 7 minutes The free will argument is what got me into this whole thing years ago—it is the argument that lit the fuse to my love affair with philosophy. And, after all these years, where so many others have, my conclusions about libertarian free will have not changed. Definition o’clock: I define libertarian free will as follows: […]
Posted inCritical thinking
What is essentialism, and why is it utter crap?
Reading Time: 3 minutes As a teacher, I encounter and attempt to debunk essentialism whenever I see it in the minds of my students, in the world, and in myself. Here’s why. Essentialism is, briefly, the attribution of fixed, unchanging essences to people, places, and things. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy describes it as the attempt “to distinguish between […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Living without free will: How does it affect my life?
Reading Time: 9 minutes It is true that a stopped clock is right twice a day. It is also true to say that some of my more, how do I say, problematic commenters say something worthwhile once…a year? Perhaps that is too generous. In this case, the interesting comment came in the form of a question. For Jonathan and […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Verbose Stoic on my Free Will Chapter (II)
Reading Time: 3 minutes In a previous post, I detailed how theistic commenter here, Verbose Stoic (VS), has critiqued a chapter of mine on free will commissioned by John Loftus for his book Christianity in the Light of Science. In the first piece, we looked at definitional issues and laid the foundations. In my chapter, I used this example to […]
Posted inGeneral
Chauvin, Causality and JL Mackie’s INUS
Reading Time: 9 minutes You could be mistaken for thinking that this post was about free will. It can be, but I am more concerned with the general idea of causality in the context of Derek Chauvin’s court case to decide whether the death of George Floyd was homicide or not. Let me first introduce you to or remind you of […]
Posted inUncategorized
It Turns out the Whole Unfairness of Evidence Apportioning Boils down to “Free Will”
Reading Time: 9 minutes Who knew. The background: Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong and I have been arguing about the unfair distribution of evidence for God in the world and over time. This has been a somewhat protracted argument due to too much time spent erecting straw men and not enough time doing the legwork. I obliged, and developed an […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
Hard-Incompatibilism vs Hard-Determinism
Reading Time: 3 minutes As I have mentioned, I am presently reading a book by Gregg Caruso and Daniel Dennett called Just Deserts: Debating Free Will [UK]. Sometimes I wonder what to label myself as in terms of the free will debate because it all depends on what you define by the term “free will”. However, I think this passage from Gregg […]
Posted inUncategorized
Free Will: Just Deserts
Reading Time: 2 minutes I am really excited to have received in the post (from Bookshop.org, the competitor to Amazon that reimburses local bookshops with 30% of the value of the book) my friend Gregg Caruso’s book with Daniel Dennett. It’s a debate book over free will called Just Deserts [UK], and this idea of just deserts looks to be the […]
Posted inScience
C Peterson on Quantum Indeterminacy
Reading Time: 4 minutes I recently had a discussion with C Peterson here about his understanding of quantum physics in the context of whether there is a deterministic framework underpinning reality, as this is part of a chapter for a book of my own previous and original writing, title as yet decided upon. Now, QM is a vociferously argued […]