Tom W. Clark, director of the Center for Naturalism and author of Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses
Free will, as you know, does not really exist, and this has important implications for thinking about morality and so called "world views." Naturalism is a philosophy that addresses this seeming difficulty. The interview will be conducted by Atheist Talk Radio producer and host, Mike Huabrich. With Miked in the interview seat, Scott Lohman will host the show. Details are here.
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I find this is true only for certain petulantly absolutist definitions of "free will."
You should call in!
Seconded. I would love to have a call from you, Azkyroth. Or at least an e-mail.
Mike, have you seen how Skeptically Speaking parallels their live show with a talk/chat room thingie? It's pretty cool. A discussion gets going, often before the show starts, and the producer/director person watches for people tagging their comments with QUESTION in all caps, then tries to work those questions into the show.
Of course, with Atheist talk on so early on Sunday morning, I suspect a lot more poeple listen to the podcast on their own time...
You know, we could probably set up something like that. I will look into it.
Not only does it only apply to rather pedantically absolutist definitions of "free will," it also tends to cause a great deal of confusion in terms of psychology. This thinking lends itself to a rather fatalistic approach to life, often even for people who actually understand that concept. In any practical sense, we do indeed have the free will to make decisions that will govern our lives. That the complex weave of environmental interactions and biology necessarily governs that decision making is irrelevant and will remain irrelevant until we can actually decipher the virtually infinite variables that govern said decision making.
Of course at that point it is entirely possible that the very ability to decipher those variables and their interactions will make it a moot point, as it could well foster actual free will. And of course the tools that might actually make such an understanding are non-existent and some would argue improbable as well. I thought so just seven or eight months ago. But with the advent of parallel processing and the ability to stuff the processing power of a Cray supercomputer into a box only slightly larger than your average desktop, combined with some remarkable advances in AI makes it less improbable - though still a long ways off.