Is Freedom an illusion? : A reply to Thomas's comment on my entry

Thomas's comments are in italics, mine (Jason's) are in bold. To read Thomas's comments to my original entry, click comments and scroll down to bottom. However, I posted most if not all of his comments on this current entry.

First, let me preface by stating that you did not directly address my argument as regards to freedom being an illusion. You have not demonstrated that my argument is invalid or the premises are untrue. You only seem to have problems regarding my definition with the term, “reality”. Also, I was not giving a full-blown defense of freewill vs. determinism; I was only giving an argument (giving counterexamples) against the claim that freedom, as a metaphysical concept, is an illusion.

Your entire argument is weak because your definitions/understanding of real and reality are inadequate. A "Reality" is any form of energy that can be experienced, be it physical, mental, or emotional. "Real" means that it is being experienced in present time. Thus, a reality is anything that exists. Real means it is be experienced. A reality may be real or not real at any given time and from any given Point of View.

Your statement above seems incoherent. You claim that, "real means that it is being experienced in present time". However, immediately after that, you state that, "reality is anything that exists". These are two different and opposing claims. If reality is anything that exists, then it EXISTS regardless of anyone’s experience of it. For instance, if the Andromeda Galaxy exists, and no one experienced it a billion years ago, it still exists. Are you claiming that things only come into existence once we experience them? If so, then that view has a host of philosophical problems that I will be happy to point out in the next entry if you would like. Also, I am not sure what you mean when you say that, "a reality may or may not be real". That seems like a flat out contradiction.

In addition, in your comment you seem to treat the terms “real” or “reality” as nouns. That is, you indicate that “reality” is a thing. However, that is mistaken. Reality is not an object of reference, but rather it is a “state of affairs”. A state of affairs is the way things are. For instance, a mountain made of pure gold or the fountain of youth are fictional things. That is, they are non actual, and thus are not real. Other examples may be living creatures like mermaids, Leprechauns, and unicorns. They are only possible living creatures not real ones. Their "state of affairs" is one of possibility, not actuality (reality). Thus, reality is a modal term that is equivalent with actuality. It applies to objects, but IS NOT an object in of itself. Perhaps you were speaking loosely, but I am not sure how anyone can treat the term “reality” as a “thing” when it is a modal term that applies to things.

For example; your thoughts are realities - they exist. However, they are not real to me -- and vice versa-- unless you publish them here. I can then duplicate your reality by understanding your words, although that duplication in my mind is my reality and not yours.

Granted our thoughts are real to us as individuals. However, it does not follow that your thoughts are not “real” to me. Your thoughts exist, just as mine exist, regardless of whom is around. I think what you are meaning to say is that I do not have "first person" access to your thoughts, and you do not have "first person" access to my thoughts. However, that has nothing to do with the ontological status of thoughts. That is, thoughts amongst persons exist regardless of other persons existing or not. I think you are confusing the ontological status of thoughts with the concept of "first person" access of thoughts. In other words, you are committing what is known in logic as a categorical mistake.

This understanding of Reality and Real resolves millenary debates about reality in philosophy and also opens the doors to great personal power in controlling realities and one's life.

As noted above, your understanding of reality is confused at best, and incoherent at worst.

The supreme motivation of all human behavior is to control realities. This statement IS provable, but that is another line of knowledge. Back to the question free will.

There is no way to logically resolve the argument of free will, because you can always claim that the choice was predetermined by a greater and longer chain of cause and effect, all the way back to the Big Bang and beyond to the FIRST CAUSE. The question of free will is part of the greater question of Cause and Effect in the universe.

Not true, there are several reasonable resolutions to the problem of free will vs. determinism debate. These are known as compatibilist theories of freewill. Click here.

HOWEVER, we can see that a world in which free will is denied will not work. If there is no free will, then there is no personal accountability for actions. Anybody could do anything they wanted (such as steal, kill) and not be punished or held accountable because they could claim their actions were pre-determined by a Cause other than themselves, wherefore they are not response-able. Therefore, for the world to work we presume and must presume free will and therefore Responsibility and Accountability. Where there is any free will or not is both unprovable and moot.

Again, not true, see John Martin Ficher’s and Strawson’s work on moral responsibility and determinism. Also, see link on this topic (it has stuff on further reading). Click here

Furthermore, to choose and live in the reality (NEVER confuse "Reality" with "Truth" - two totally different concepts) that there is no free will, will go against one of your 3 basic Imperatives: the Imperative to Power. It is a denial of having Power = no control over your life. This will take you down into depression and emotional blackness. Not pretty.

I never conflated the concepts of truth with reality in my entry. Truth is a property of propositions and statements; reality is a modality on objects.

Overall, your response to my entry is in no way an argument against my position. In fact, it entirely misses the mark from what I was arguing. Your main gripe was with my use of the term, “reality”. However, as it turns out, your definition of reality is a bit confused, if not, incoherent, and in need of refinement. I can only hope that my articulation of the term has provided some insight.

Is Freedom an illusion?

This post is in response to our last discussion. Some were claiming that the concept of freedom is an illusion or fiction. I will demonstrate that this claim is false.

First, clarifying some definitions is necessary before we proceed.

I use the words, “negation”, “absence”, and "not" synonymously. I also use the words, “restriction” and “binding” synonymously. Thus, they are interchangeable.

I take the word illusion to mean not “real”. That is, illusions do not have ontological status. Another word people used during our discussion was "fiction". I use the word fiction and illusion synonymously since they both relate to things that are not real. Consulting any dictionary will bear this out. For example, Unicorns and Santa Clause are fictions. If I claimed that I have really seen these things, then it would be an illusion since they are not “real”.

I take freedom to mean that something is unbounded or unrestrained from something else. Freedom=X is free, if and only if, it is not the case, that some other thing Y restricts X.

This is the most metaphysically neutral definition of freedom. It does not rely on any metaphysical presuppositions or theses. It is broad enough to apply to any set of objects. For example, it can apply to prison bars and people. Prison bars restrict people from leaving their cell. Alternatively, it can apply to laws and people. It restricts people from certain actions (e.g. laws against murder). Simply put, freedom is the negation or absence of these restrictions. The notion that freedom is context relative should be evident here.

The word freedom, like many words rely on a particular context to have a clearer meaning. Although, the definition given above is general enough to capture the basic meaning, we must put it into the relevant “context” of particular things to make sense. It may have political, metaphysical, scientific, or economic contexts depending on how we use the word.

Anyway, enough of that and now onto the argument.

My argument below has the following form, which is deductively valid.

A→B

~B
______
~A

(Premise 1) If freedom is an illusion (i.e. does not exist), then there are NO instances of things NOT restricting other things. Justification: This is a substitution of the definition of freedom outlined above. That is, freedom= Y not restricting X.

(Premise 2) There are instances that demonstrate the absence of restrictions. Justification: There are innumerable examples of this being the case. Here are a couple.

The absence of prison bars restricting people is instantiated when a prisoner’s cell door opens, allowing the prisoner to leave. Similarly, the absence of civil laws restricting peoples’ actions is instantiated in some parts of the world. Particularly, Rome’s absence of traffic laws is a fine example. That is, people in Rome are “free” to drive as they please!

(Conclusion) Therefore, freedom in many instances are NOT illusions, and hence are real. Justification: premises 1 and 2, & Modus Tollens. QED

Perhaps what people meant is that we are not free as much as we think we are. That is, we think we have fewer restrictions than we actually do. Another meaning could have been that freedom in some instances are illusions. However, these interpretations are entirely different from the claim discussed during our meeting. One cannot infer the claim that freedom is an illusion from the more charitable interpretations just given. Hence, the claim that the concept of freedom is an illusion is patently false as demonstrated by the above argument.

Addendum

Regarding our previous discussions on determinism vs. freewill, it seems that freewill is the unrestricting of the will by prior causal antecedent conditions (whatever those may be). To what degree these conditions both affect our will, and how deep the effects are to our will, is the question that philosophers have been trying to answer for over two and a half millennia.

Jason

Freewill/Determinism

As an introduction to our online discussion, I thought I'd post my entire article below, since I think it's relevant to this present topic, and also demonstrates the broader social implications of the debate.

Sorry it's so long. Feel free to comment on it directly or on anything else discussed at our last meeting. Click on the title for all comments and article.