If you chose differently in such a situation, with the same knowledge and the same wants, then that would suggest your choices are being determined by something other than your own will or are simply down to true randomness and, again, not your own will.
Could have and would have are different things. We choose what we think is the best option. That’s part of what makes it our own. If we were to run the instance 1,000 times and I don’t pick the same thing consistently, despite my knowledge and wants being the same, that’s evidence that I’m not the one doing the choosing, and my choices aren’t actually reflective of my knowledge and wants.
So for Catholics the will is a power of the spiritual rational soul by which we are inclined toward something. So there must be acceptance that a person has a rational soul. Those that do not consider the rational soul likely consider only the brain and nervous systems and interaction with the environment.
The professor wasn’t being irrational?
Again, all that’s at issue with the term “rational soul” is the natural capacity to reason, make arguments, engage in abstract thinking.Wesrock:
That’s the question, was he being irrational or wasn’t he?
And no matter which way I answer that question, for it to have any merit, I have to assume that I’m rational.
True, but this would mean that rationality is subjective. What’s rational to me may not be rational to you. What differentiates a rational choice from an irrational choice if two people can look at the same circumstance and reach a completely different conclusion about whether it’s rational.
Yes, but the argument is that through rational thinking we can determine what’s true, and yet we disagree.Wesrock:
No two people have exactly the same knowledge. And sometimes our ability to reason encounters limitations.
Some consider the soul to be spiritual and other do not (material soul).
“Random chance” seems incorrect, as thst would seem to imply there’s no cause or reason to the choices we make.Wesrock:
But the question in this thread is, do we have free will? The fact that intelligent people disagree would seem to suggest that we either have an insufficient capacity to reason, or an insufficient amount of information. Either of which renders free will little better than random chance.
And what you’re proposing is absolutely counter-intuitive to your experience. You’re proposing thst you can’t propose. That you’re not actually writing any information, or making any arguments, and that what you’re writing is absent any actual reasons. You’re denying the possibility to even come to a position that there is no free will, that there is no way to even counter your intuitive experience.Wesrock:
I don’t know for certain that it’s random, I’m simply asking how one can differentiate a reasoned choice from a random chance, if that reasoned choice lacks either the capacity or the information with which to make that choice.
And it would seem that this incapacity exists, because supposedly rational people come to completely opposite conclusions on things ranging from the insignificant, to the profoundly important. Such that their choices appear as though they might just as well be the product of random chance.
The apparent rationality of others should have little to do with whether you think others are real. If you’re capable of reason and abstract thinking, then you’re perfectly capable of projecting that rationality on illusions. And the question of free will isn’t even about others, but you.Wesrock:
To be clear, here’s what I’m doing. I’m a solipsist, so I have to try to determine whether you’re objectively real, or an illusion.
A big part of making that determination isn’t about the way that you look, but rather it’s about the way that you behave. Do you behave like an intelligent rational being with free will?
When viewed individually people do indeed appear to have free will, but when viewed collectively, human behavior appears random, it doesn’t appear rational and logical. Supposedly rational, intelligent people come to completely different conclusions about things ranging from the mundane to the significant.
If it’s simply about a lack of sufficient information, then rational intelligent people should be able to agree that such a lack of information exists, and then agree to act accordingly.
Can we agree, for example, that there’s insufficient information to conclude that there’s a God? Probably not.
That appears to make logical sense. Free will in that sense does not exist. But I don’t think that the world works like that.KevinK:
If you chose differently in such a situation, with the same knowledge and the same wants, then that would suggest your choices are being determined by something other than your own will or are simply down to true randomness and, again, not your own will.
But on the other-hand the mere fact that you have an opinion on the existential status of another being presupposes that you have already reasoned that at least something exists (you for starters) so you cannot deny your ability to reason, in fact as a starting point, you cannot help being rational; although my past debates with you suggest to me that you are not always committed to the principles of rational thinking. Solipsism is not an excuse to question everything. Lacking knowledge of something is the basis for questioning and being sceptical. But some people take their scepticism to a point where they are willing to envision what they would otherwise deem impossible. Thus motives and agendas and ignorance can be a stumbling block on our way to the truth.