scholarly journals Sizing Up Free Will: The Scale of Compatibilism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart T Doyle
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Physical Processes ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
The World ◽  
Previous State ◽  
Free Actions ◽  
The Universe

Is human free will compatible with the natural laws of the universe? To ‘compatibilists’ who see free actions as emanating from the wants and reasons of human agents, free will looks perfectly plausible. However, ‘incompatibilists’ claim to see the more ultimate sources of human action. The wants and reasons of agents are said to be caused by physical processes which are themselves mere natural results of the previous state of the world and the natural laws which govern it. This paper argues that the incompatibilists make a mistake in appealing to such non-agent sources of human action. They fail to realize that free will may exist at one scale, but not at the scales where they look. When free will is considered from the correctly scaled perspective, it does seem compatible with determinism and natural laws.

Introduction: A New Way to Read Nature

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
J. Arvid Ågren
Keyword(s):  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Nobel Prize Winner ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
The World ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Special Case ◽  
The Way

There really is something special about biology. The French biochemist and Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod described its position among the sciences as simultaneously marginal and central (Monod 1970, p. xi). It is marginal, because its object of study—living organisms—are but a special case of chemistry and physics, contributing to only a minuscule part of the universe. Biology will never be the source of natural laws in the way physics is. At the same time, if, as Monod believed, the whole point of science is to understand humanity’s place in the world, then biology is the most central of them all. No other field of study deals so directly with the question of who we are and how we got here in the first place....

scholarly journals On Determinism, Causality, and Free Will: Contribution from Physics

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-24
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Karwasz
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
The World ◽  
Principle Of Causality

Determinism, causality, chance, free will and divine providence form a class of interlaced problems lying in three domains: philosophy, theology, and physics. Recent article by Dariusz Łukasiewicz in Roczniki Filozoficzne (no. 3, 2020) is a great example. Classical physics, that of Newton and Laplace, may lead to deism: God created the world, but then it goes like a mechanical clock. Quantum mechanics brought some “hope” for a rather naïve theology: God acts in gaps between quanta of indetermination. Obviously, any strict determinism jeopardizes the existence of free will. Yes, but only if human mind follows the laws of physics and only if nothing exists outside the physical limits of space and time. We argue that human action lies in-between two worlds: “earth” and “heavens” using the language of Genesis. In that immaterial world, outside time and space constraints, there is no place for the chain of deterministic events. We discuss, in turn, that the principle of causality, a superior law even in physics, reigns also in the non-material world. Though, determinism in the material universe and causality in both worlds seem to be sufficient conditions, to eliminate “chaotic”, or probabilistic causes from human (and divine) action.

WAWASAN AL-QUR’AN TENTANG KONSERVASI ALAM

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-68
Author(s):  
Bani Syarif Maula
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Balance Of Nature ◽  
Ecological Awareness ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Western Model ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Islamic Leadership ◽  
The Universe

Ecological consciousness in the mid-20th century had a direct effect on the Muslim theological view toward nature. Environmental degradation requires the awareness of all humanity to restore the world to a normal ecological ecosystem based on natural laws, including awareness based on religious texts because Western model conservation is not always in accordance with all cultures and traditions in the world. This paper explains the values contained in the Qur'an associated with ecological awareness because the Qur'an contains the teachings about nature conservation contained in its verses, ranging from problems the creation of the universe until the prohibition of destruction on the face of the earth. The concept of balance (mizan) and the concept of Islamic Leadership (khalifah) in the Qur'an become the main principle to create social harmony and balance of nature as a foundation to form religious ethics on social life and treatment of nature ethics).

Entender el trabajo como clave de crecimiento personal

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-159
Author(s):  
Silvia Carolina Martino
Keyword(s):  
Human Subject ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Productive Activity ◽  
Crucial Issue ◽  
A Value ◽  
The World ◽  
Objective Sense ◽  
Positive Meaning ◽  
The Universe

What work is, what means man works and why man works allow us to find some keys to understand the reality of the company as a human manifestation that is not only at the service of productivity and efficiency, but first and foremost at the service of man and therefore of his development and that of society. This communication will try to explain what the work is and what is understood by the company as a productive activity. And as a consequence of this, how work links us to the essence of the universe and of other people, leads us to give reason that man is faber, he is the only one who works (Sellés, 2006, 454) and finally he is faber because he is sapiens. Work is a purely human subject. Man –any man– improves or worsens working and, also, stops working. Thus Leonardo Polo, for example, states that "at work, man becomes ennobled or debased. Here again, the first of the subjective sense of work on its objective sense is followed. Virtue is a value superior to utility” (Polo, 2015, 216). And virtue, good and norm are the three pillars of ethics. Understand that person perfects the world with his work, that person improves himself through work, this means that he is better, more ethical; and that person is linked to other people ethically through his work is a crucial issue to understand what work means and the deep connection with person and ethics. "It is understood by work that human action through which man is perfected as man while perfecting physical reality" (Sellés, 2006, 455). Work, without denying its part of effort and fatigue, has a positive meaning because it is what makes man grow in humanity. And to work is to add to the world more perfection than he offers and to perfect himself as a man. If man is to give, add, this is because as a person overcomes. The same man is not immune to what he does but in his doing something happens to him inside. In this sense man is said to be a perfecting perfector (Polo, 1994, 14), that is, to the extent that he improves the world, he improves himself; and insofar as he improves himself, he can improve the world: the former is a prerequisite for the latter.

Negative Liberty

1984 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Levin
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Human Control ◽  
The Third ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
Sufficient Cause ◽  
Free Actions ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Preceding Event

Philosophers have articulated six notions of human freedom. Four are metaphysical. According to one, a man acts freely when he is doing what he wants to; according to the second, he acts freely when he is not being compelled by outside forces; according to the third, he acts freely when the prior state of the universe was not a sufficient cause of what he is doing; according to the fourth, he acts freely when he, not any preceding event, is the cause of what he is doing. The third and fourth theories may be called “indeterministic freedom” and “the agency theory,” named only to be rejected. I reject indeterminism out of agreement with a long tradition which holds that (a) there is no reason to think that human actions are ever undetermined, and (b) an undetermined human action would not be “free” in any sense in which we desire our actions to be free and believe that they are in fact free. To appreciate (b), reflect that agents should control and be accountable for “free” actions. Now, we control an event by assembling or obstructing its sufficient conditions; merefore, an event without sufficient conditions, a random event which just happens, would lie beyond human control and, hence, the sphere of human freedom. Similarly, a man is no more responsible for what happens independently of his choices – and an event without sufficient conditions cannot have a choice as a sufficient condition – than he is responsible for the behavior of a roulette wheel.

scholarly journals The Role of the Camera in Wojciech Smarzowski’s Films

2019 ◽  
Vol ENGLISH EDITION (1) ◽  
pp. 285-298
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Taras
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Digital Camera ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function ◽  
Role And Function ◽  
The Universe

In this paper, I reflect on the role and function of the camera ’acting’ (that is, the camera placed in the hands of the protagonists of films by Wojciech Smarzowski) that appears on the screen as often as an axe, which as an item is strongly associated with this director’s cinematography. I also refute the ‘digital’ legends of his debut – The Wedding, which has not been recorded using a digital camera, but an analogue one. A camera ‘cast’ in Smarzowski’s film should not be considered an extra, but a full-fledged protagonist, a witness seeing (and therefore recording) more than can be seen by the characters holding it in their hands. This perfectly corresponds with the last shot – perhaps the most characteristic one for the author of the films discussed – the shot in which the One who reigns over the world, but does not interfere with it (since we have free will) gazes at the universe created by Wojciech Smarzowski.

scholarly journals Verdad y libre albedrío en Roberto Grosseteste

2004 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
Celina A. LÉRTORA MENDOZA
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Divine Knowledge ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

Many philosophers have dealt with the subject offreedom of human action and its relation to the natural laws and causality, as well as the relationship between Being and its knowledge. Robert Grosseteste, talking about free will in an homonymus opusculate, starts by asking if free will really exists and is specially worried, through more than half of his work, to the relationship between human freedom and the subsequent need of divine knowledge. His thinking are a step forward towards the question and can be connected to answers which have later been given, about a topic which is always valid.

scholarly journals O roli kamery w filmach Wojciecha Smarzowskiego

2016 ◽  
pp. 254-267
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Taras
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Digital Camera ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function ◽  
Role And Function ◽  
The Universe

In this paper, I reflect on the role and function of the camera ‘acting’ (that is, the camera placed in the hands of the heroes of films by Wojciech Smarzowski) that appears on the screen as often as an ax – item strongly associated with this director’s cinema. I also refute the ‘digital’ legend of his debut, i.e. Wesele (Wedding), which has not been realized with the use of a digital camera, but a film one. A camera ‘casted’ in the films by Smarzowski can be considered as an extra, but a full-fledged hero, a witness seeing (and therefore recording) more than the character whose hands it is located in. This perfectly corresponds with the last shot – perhaps the most characteristic one for the author of the films discussed – the shot in which the One who reigns over the world, but does not interfere into it (since we have free will) gazes at the universe created by Wojciech Smarzowski.

Relational Blockworld: Experience, Time, and Space Reintegrated

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Silberstein ◽  
W.M. Stuckey ◽  
Timothy McDevitt
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Time Section ◽  
The Third ◽  
Neutral Monism ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Block Universe

Chapter 8 argues that the Relational Blockworld (RBW) account naturally admits a kind of neutral monism that simultaneously deflates the generation/hard problem and explains time as experienced. Thus, the claim that the block universe is incompatible with time as experienced is refuted. The first section sets the stage, the second focuses on the Passage of time, and the third focuses on the Direction of time. Section four argues that embodied, embedded, and extended cognitive science and phenomenology support the neutral monism of RBW. The fifth section focuses on freedom, spontaneity, and creativity in RBW. Objections to the block universe picture based on free will in human action and creativity and spontaneity in the universe writ large are refuted. It is shown that RBW has all the freedom, creativity, and spontaneity anyone could reasonably hope for. Section six characterizes Presence in detail, and its relation to time as experienced is discussed.

Theodicy and Animal Pain

Philosophy ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 64 (247) ◽  
pp. 79-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Major Difficulty ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Animal Pain ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Free Actions ◽  
Perfect World

The existence of evil is compatible with the existence of God, most theists would claim, because evil either results from the activities of free agents, or it contributes in some way toward their moral development. According to the ‘free-will defence’, evil and suffering are necessary consequences of free-will. Proponents of the ‘soul-making argument’—a theodicy with a different emphasis—argue that a universe which is imperfect will nurture a whole range of virtues in a way impossible either in a perfect world, or in a totally evil one. The pain of animals is widely thought to constitute a major difficulty for both of these accounts, for if we ask whether the only evils present in the world result directly from the free actions of created agents, or contribute in some way to ‘soul-making’ of such agents, we are bound to admit that, on the face of it, much animal pain does not.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document