i mean, it's pretty convincing, this idea that we're in control. and it may seem trivial to suggest that we're bound to trivial debates. but, it's not really an argument.
every human out there has their intellectual crutches. there's really good reasons why chomsky, as an individual, is going to fight against the rejection of free will. but he's really just twisting the question around.
dj cavi
+deathtokoalas free will does not need to be disproved. it is a meaningless term. our will directs our decisions. man that is not in a prison is free... from being in prison, and that is it
deathtokoalas
+dj cavi i think you're misunderstanding the concept of free will - it refers to whether we're in control of our decisions. you claim our will directs our decisions. but, that's exactly the question to be pondered - does it really, or are we in some way controlled by outside forces? not market forces, or biological forces. that's more the question of a hobson's choice. but a hobson's choice is only a false choice in the sense that taking the other option leads to negative consequences. in that sense we're not and probably never can be truly free. but we can always choose (or seem to choose) to starve ourselves, or get beaten or be homeless or whatever other thing comes from not taking the "only" choice. i mean, i don't want to come off as a randian or something, but if you're approaching the issue strictly logically, you can't just ignore this. we are seemingly free to do stupid things that will harm us in the short or long term.
that's not really getting at the issue of free will, though. that asks a question more subtle: if we seem to choose to starve or be beaten or be homeless, did we really make that decision?
personally, i'm somewhat of a verificationist. and, in that sense i do agree that the question is rather meaningless. but, i'd take a position of agnosticism on issues of the sort. i think that's the correctly rational perspective: the evidence may lean towards skepticism, but i'm not about to take a hard position either way. i couldn't imagine a theory on free will that could be falsifiable.
but, the "nice story" i like is sort of leaning towards a fatalist conception of the universe. this huge explosion happened some time in the distant past, and the entire universe is a complicated consequence of it - inalterable, and entirely determined. that actually abolishes free will. you choose to starve because of the big bang. modern physics would argue "but there's so many random things!". well, that's not entirely clear. we know there are some things we don't seem to be able to alter. that's as easily an argument for fatalism as it is for chaos - we lack the ability to affect outcomes, and have no concept of how we conceivably might, meaning, as far as we can tell, there's only one way it can conceivably happen. and, we simply can't argue we have "controlled conditions" when we don't understand the factors that could possibly alter the outcome, so the basis of the argument for "different outcomes from controlled experiments" collapses on the point of the experiment possibly not being controlled.
but, that's not falsifiable and is likely never going to be.