Does the dictionary rule out determinism?
This is part of an ongoing discussion on determinism... (Paul, me, Paul)
Regarding defining choice, it seems defining the noun choice is highly dependent on the verb choose. But Paul’s sources define choose roughly the way mine did. So the dictionary definitions and common sense understanding of the terms do seem to rule out determinism.
My objections to Kane are as I stated. While Kane in some ways represents the common understanding of choice, in some ways he does not. Paul’s case seems based on the ways in which he does not represent the common man. As for LFW appearing to imply counter-intuitive aspects, the counter-intuitive aspects seem to be based on avoidable mistakes.
As for Paul’s assertion that the alternative is possible even if choosing the alternative is not, if determinism is true, given the causal forces at play, neither choosing the alternative nor the alternative are possible.
As for the Hebrews not having American dictionaries, the problem is that all the commentators, translators and lexicon compilers that did have access to such dictionaries translate the terms bâcha, and eklegomai choose. Further, extra biblical sources clarify what the Hebrews thought:
Sirach 15:13-20 The Lord hateth all abomination; and they that fear God love it not. He himself made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his counsel; If thou wilt, to keep the commandments, and to perform acceptable faithfulness. He hath set fire and water before thee: stretch forth thy hand unto whether thou wilt. Before man is life and death; and whether him liketh shall be given him. For the wisdom of the Lord is great, and he is mighty in power, and beholdeth all things: And his eyes are upon them that fear him, and he knoweth every work of man. He hath commanded no man to do wickedly, neither hath he given any man licence to sin.
Comments
I understand your goal of showing the common and ordinary understanding of “free will” is libertarian. I was discussing the nature of choice with John Martin Fischer and he said that a determinist could (and would) make a distinction between having a choice and making a choice. The determinist will claim that we **make** choices and act freely, which is misleading for some people because it sounds at first blush like they do believe in free will as ordinarily understood. But what gives them away is to press them further and see if they believe that we EVER HAVE A CHOICE. This their view does not allow for, this they will argue against. And yet this is what the ordinary understanding of free will is based upon. The normal person when speaking of free will means not only that they make choices but that in making the choice they **have** choices (i.e., you have a choice when you can actualize more than one possibility, if you must do what you do if your action is necessitated and it is impossible for you to do an alternative possibility then you do not **have** a choice). I think we need to press the determinists on this as it will get them out in the open where their radical view can then clearly be seen.
If you say to people that you make choices, no one will bat an eyebrow. But if you tell people that you never ever have a choice, that you may believe that you can actualize different possibilities, but this belief is ***always mistaken***, then they will, if they have common sense, look at you strangely and laugh at you as a skeptic of obvious reality. This is the place where the exhaustive determinist finds himself: he’s got to argue the universal negative that we never ever have a choice. Universal negatives are notoriously difficult to prove. He’s got to explain away everybody’s universal experience of having and then making choices. He’s got to explain away or reinterpret clear bible passages where the text suggests a person truly **has** a choice. He’s got to explain away ordinary language utterances (both his own and every one else’s where people presuppose they have a choice, talk about their available alternative possibilities, urge that one choice be made rather than another (including pastors at calvinist churches), etc. etc. etc.).
And not only must he explain away a lot of things, he also has to explain why he himself talks and acts as if he sometimes **has** choices. As Thomas Reid said of skeptics of inescapable realities: “But it sticks fast, and the greatest skeptic finds that he must yield to it in his practice, while he wages war with it in his speculation.” So in his philosophizing he will present all sorts of contrived and weak arguments against us ever **having** choices, but watch how he talks to his wife (“Honey, do you want to go to X restaurant or to Y restaurant tonight?”) and kids (“you can have this candy or that candy but not both, now which do you choose.”). Sometimes it gets quite funny to watch other wise intelligent people trying to argue against inescapable reality. Skeptics of reality can be quite entertaining at times.
“My objections to Kane are as I stated. While Kane in some ways represents the common understanding of choice, in some ways he does not. Paul’s case seems based on the ways in which he does not represent the common man. As for LFW appearing to imply counter-intuitive aspects, the counter-intuitive aspects seem to be based on avoidable mistakes.”
Kane says that neuronal activity results in our intentional actions. But the guy on the street takes a much simpler and truer route in explaining his actions: “I did it,” he says. And the “I” he refers to is his immaterial soul which works together with his material body (including the neurons in his physical brain) to produce his intentional actions. And that “I”, that soul, is perfectly capable of considering different alternative possibilities and then selecting one for reasons, and then actualizing that action (because God **designed** us to be capable of doing our own intentional actions). We do this all the time, with hardly a thought, until the skeptic comes along not believing that we have a soul, believing that our brain activity alone (not the activity of our immaterial soul) results in our actions.
And regarding the “counter-intuitive aspects” some determinists try to present the “luck objection” (that if the prior history is exactly the same and we can still choose more than one possibility then supposedly luck is involved in our action). But our intentional actions are never luck. We do them for reasons and can often tell you exactly what the reasons were that we acted upon. Luck does not involve intentionality or reasons. If we say “that was Lucky”, we mean that it was not intended by the person, it was not in the control of the person, it just happened apart from their efforts and apart from their intentions. And the guy on the street who makes his choices for reasons, never believes that his intentional actions are a result of “luck.” (he will tell you the obvious: “I did that because I wanted to do that,” “I did that for reasons . . .”) But philosophical types come along and claim that indeterminism must involve luck.
“As for Paul’s assertion that the alternative is possible even if choosing the alternative is not, if determinism is true, given the causal forces at play, neither choosing the alternative nor the alternative are possible.”
This is funny and an example of the humor when skeptics of reality argue. If an alternative is possible for me to choose, then I could actually choose that alternative. If an alternative is not possible for me to choose, if it is impossible for me then it is not a possibility for me (something IMPOSSIBLE for me is NOT A POSSIBILITY for me, right???). It is playing with words to claim that “the alternative is possible even if choosing the alternative is not”. When the guy on the street says that I could do X, Y, and Z. He means that those alternatives are accessible to him, available to him, possibilities for him, choices that he could make if he chose to do so. If the guy on the street knows that a particular alternative is not possible for him to choose, he has enough common sense to know that and say that he can’t make that choice.
Again, we have to remember what the determinist is claiming when he claims *****we never ever have a choice*****. That means that we only do what we were predetermined to do. What we do is not only possible it is **necessitated**, we have to do it and it is **impossible** that we do otherwise. We may think that we could either raise our arm or not raise our arm and ask the professor a question (but if exhaustive determinism is true and we never have choices, then one of those options is an illusion, an impossibility, something we absolutely cannot do). If ED is true, then we live in a world of illusion (or delusion would be a better word for it) in which we constantly believe that we could do this or that, but we are constantly wrong and mistaken in this belief. If ED is true, then God is also playing semantic games with us (as the compatibilists do) as he has everybody in the bible (including Jesus) talking about having choices and being able to do otherwise) when in fact its all a sham and we never ever have a choice and can never do otherwise. This does not say good things about God’s character if ED is true (which is another argument against Calvinism) and yet He himself misleads us by talking like the common man with the ordinary and libertarian understanding of free will throughout scripture. On the other hand, if we do in fact sometimes have choices, then ED is false, calvinism is false, and God is not misleading us but speaks truly in scripture about the choices people had and that we have.
Robert
Indeterminists have made the same point. Robert's cheating, as usual. Indeed, the objection was famously given in seed form by (then) libertarian Peter van Inwagen! It's part of what made him hold to libertarianism. The strength of Robert's posts are that he always conceals any harmful data. Remember that, Dan. Take better care to be a scholar.
Furthermore, all his points about the bible's use of the word 'choice' has been defeated by my Muslim-counter.
That would apply to brain events as well: a choice or decision might be caused, but that cause cannot be easily identified--so again determinism does not seem that justifiable, if it's "this choice was caused, but we don't know what the cause was" (even if a brain scientist says, that was some neuron firing ,etc). Some degree of compatibilism then seems needed as a pragmatic explanation: human brains and neurology are unique, and not merely thermostats or CPUs, yet at the same time, while even proximate causes are often impossible to identify, decisions and choices are limited, constricted: X can't choose to not drink H20 or eat food (unless perhaps he wants to kill himself--further evidence of liberty, however odd).
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Theological determinism presents a competely different situation. The necessitarian-catholic (or catholic-calvinist) usually assumes but does not prove G*d's perfection and omniscience (and other attributes). So given his traditional assumptions, determinism would seem justified (be it either physicalist, or spiritualist of some sort). At the same time, omniscience does not seem resolvable with apparent Evil, or the appearance of freedom. Posit a monotheistic G*d as all knowing, all-powerful, incapable of error, and He appears far more King-like, the Henry VIII on high (or perhaps Tamerlane to the 20th): and thus responsible for all evil (and everything), and ah suggest, inseparable from evil.
Ergo, a slight manicheanism -- considering the possibility that G*d is at war,imperfect, or possibly non-monotheistic, or even absent--however unsettling allows for some unforeseen events, chance, accidents, and the common man's belief in liberty.