Tag Archives: Free will

Goodreads rating 3.76. An inquiry into language and personal experience. Bieri analyzes notions of free will, their basis or vacuousness, and their consequences. A powerful dissection of language and experience. Wille ist bedingt durch Historie. Ein unbedingt freier Wille wäre nicht der Wille der Person; er wäre unberechenbar und zufällig — nicht das, nach dem sich Verfechter eines unbedingt freien Willens sehnen. Freier und unfreier Wille sind bedingt. Bedingt freier Wille hat...

MIT Technology Review reports about the results of an experiment (arxiv.org/abs/1902.05080: Experimental Rejection of Observer-Independence in the Quantum World) suggesting that objective reality … does not exist. The experiment produces an unambiguous result. It turns out that both realities can coexist even though they produce irreconcilable outcomes, just as Wigner predicted. That raises some fascinating questions that are forcing physicists to reconsider the nature of reality. The...

MIT Technology Review reports about the results of an experiment (arxiv.org/abs/1902.05080: Experimental Rejection of Observer-Independence in the Quantum World) suggesting that objective reality … does not exist. The experiment produces an unambiguous result. It turns out that both realities can coexist even though they produce irreconcilable outcomes, just as Wigner predicted. That raises some fascinating questions that are forcing physicists to reconsider the nature of reality. The...

In his book, Julian Baggini points out that materialism, not determinism, undermines the notion of free will. He accepts that man is subject to the laws of nature but simultaneously seems to argue for a holistic model of man and human choice. He concludes that the concept of free will is consistent with predetermined causes; with unconscious choice; and that it does not require that a choice could have been different. Discussion in The Guardian.

Ted Honderich’s The Determinism and Freedom Philosophy Website.

In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Causal Determinism, Carl Hoefer suggests in the concluding section (Determinism and Human Action) that there is hope for those who want to believe in free will: There is a long tradition of compatibilists arguing that freedom is fully compatible with physical determinism; a prominent recent defender is John Fischer (1994, 2012). Hume went so far as to argue that determinism is a necessary condition for freedom—or at least, he argued that...