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I think that there are many good points that suggest determinism is a strong philosophical view to believe in, however, I think a flaw exists for determinism that makes indeterminism more plausible. Determinism suggests that if a person knew everything, they could predict your entire life and the future surrounding you. I do not think this is possible. I cannot see how one person would ever be able to know everything about a person and their past to be able to fully understand and even predict the future of that person. I also think that natural disasters and chance events that are seen as completely unpredictable cannot be a logical factor for determinism. These chance events can completely alter a person’s life and I do not know how a person could accurately predict that this chance event would happen and how it would affect the future of that person. This is mainly why I cannot find determinism to be completely plausible and therefore believe that indeterminism is the more reasonable view. Also, I think indeterminism plays a significant role in free will and I thought Kane had a very strong argument for free will with his newfound idea of self-forming actions, which further support the view of indeterminism.

Determinism is a pessimistic view of human life. I agree with Nagel when he writes that the concepts presented by determinism (that “everything [he] did was determined by [his] circumstances and [his] psychological condition) makes him feel trapped. There is something comforting to the idea that every day we can create ourselves through new choices as opposed to be the product of our past. One thing I don’t fully understand is when the first action takes place that is the basis for determinism. Does it happen the day a person is born? Or does is happen before that person is even born? And if that is the case, do the actions of our mothers and fathers determine our own actions too? The case for determinism is confusing, but in some ways it also makes perfect sense.

In her Ted Talk, Ruth Chang talks about hard choices. In one example, she talks about comparing the weight of two suitcases and how there are only three options. She claims that the world of value is different than the world of science because a person cannot assign a number to values such as goals or personal fulfillment when comparing two jobs, which makes that decision a hard choice. The University of Michigan admissions committee tried to do just this (assign numerical value to immaterial attributes of the applicants) by implementing a points system for their undergraduate school. While points could be given for GPA and standardized test scores, there were also sections for “Personal Achievement” and “Leadership and Service” both of which lacked concrete definitions. This is an example of how sometimes people try to take the “hard” out of “hard choices” which doesn’t exactly work because the UM admissions process was sued in the Supreme Court which eventually ruled that the process was ruled Unconstitutional.

In her Ted talk, Chang explains the methodology of how you pick between two options. She says that between the two choices one has to be greater, lesser, or equal to the other in value. If the two choices happen to be equal a fourth option arises: being “on a par.” This means that at the point when the pros and cons of both choices equal one another, and thus the choices are equal, free will can’t totally determine what option one should pick. Free will appears somewhat as an illusion. On a par means that one alternative isn’t better than another, which is why the choice becomes hard. So the choice one ends up making tells a lot about that individual’s characteristics, motives, and purposes, etc.. But because we learn all of this about ourselves, part of Kane’s self-forming theory has to apply at some point. So even if it seems like you have free will, and when you actually do have free will, a choice shouldn’t be made lightly because it defines your personality.

During our conversations in class and our readings, I tended to lean towards more of a deterministic mindset. I personally do want to believe in free will yet I feel as if determinism is more appealing, has more options for why something occurred and has a stronger basis for its actions. Yet, as someone is class mentioned, I do agree that it’s a type of cycle. I do think that at one point, free will was there to make one choice but as life goes on, both free will and determinism take place, yet determinism has more of an impact on life and causes more actions to occur rather than free will does since you grow and react from the experiences you’ve had and also learn from them. I think that the concept of Kane’s self-forming actions gives a stronger support for free will and I do think he is correct in that yet I think that determinism leads a majority of actions that one makes.

I know that during our discussion of free will we talked about the scenario – and others like it – where, for instance, a father wanted his son to jump into a lake and the child slips and falls in. The child did not choose to jump into the lake, so his father should not praise him for the action. We also discussed scenarios where someone was forced to do an action, indicating a lack of free will. This got me thinking about the Nuremberg Trials, in which the defense (many leaders in Nazi Germany) argued for lesser punishment by arguing “superior order.” They claimed that they only did what they did because they had to; it was what the higher-ups ordered. Our discussions have allowed me to see that what they were essentially saying was that they had no free will. They had to follow orders or they themselves would be harmed. While there is obviously no debating the monstrosity of their actions, it would be interesting to see what others, given that they believe in free will, think of this or simply the claim of “superior order” in general.

Nagel presents determinism as “the circumstances before an action determine that it will happen, and rule out any other possibility.” These circumstances including an individual’s sum of experiences, knowledge, etc, all contribute to this. I think this is an accurate view to believe in but I disagree with Nagel’s point that if something was determined to happen because of one’s experiences it is okay. For example, if someone grew up seeing their parents always making poor decisions, it doesn’t justify them making poor choices when they grown up. Every individual needs to think about their choices and need to understand what is morally right and wrong. If we don’t point out someone’s faults they will be inclined to make the same mistake again.

I also really liked Nagel’s idea that “free action is a basic feature of the world, and it can’t be analyzed.” But in theory everything around a person dictates the course of an action whether it be circumstances, prior experiences, or even people around. For example, ask the question why someone would steal just to steal? Clearly it may be something they can’t afford, or they may have just lost their job. But every action has to have some precursor.

I think that consciousness is a something that can easily be debated between philosophers yet I personally think that a consciousness that has grown and experienced things in a span of time in the mind is what makes a person, a person. Having a consciousness and it having evolved and had the experiences it did is what makes someone a person. Without these experiences and everything that someone experienced throughout their consciousness is what makes someone unique and able to have all the thought processes and feelings and emotions tied into being “human”. In the example we talked about in class, with a computer having the mind of someone, I still think that computer can in no way be human. It hasn’t experienced nearly half of what the person himself has. The computer hasn’t grown with the person and the experiences so it in no way can be a human. Being a human, to me relies on consciousness and the mind and it’s experiences.

Free will can be defined as the capacity unique to persons that allows us to control our actions. To many philosophers, free will is one of the most difficult questions to answer in metaphysics. Many people who are not involved in answering these questions wonder why people bother pondering or even caring them at all and the main reason is related to free action and moral responsibility. The example that the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy uses to explain free action is ” a woman owns a dog and does not want to walk the dog but knows the dog needs exercise. Even though she really does not want to walk the dog in the cold, she decides that the best decision is to walk the dog.” This is free action; the woman must decide if she is going to walk the dog before she actually walks him.  If human actions result from the rational capacities of humans, shown in this example, then we see that free action depends on free will – “to say that an agent acted freely is minimally to say that the agent was successful in carrying out a free volition or choice” (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). In regards to the relationship between free will and moral responsibility, if an agent does not have free will then the agent is not morally responsible for his/her actions. If a person was forced to steal a car, that person is not morally responsible because it was not an action of free will. The importance of free will is more easily described when relating it to free action and moral responsibility, because the importance becomes more significant.

While researching the idea of consciousness that we have been discussing in class I came across an article published this summer entitled “Scientists discover the on-off switch for human consciousness deep within the brain.” The consciousness discovered by these neuroscientists (which is still in the very early stages of research) seems slightly similar to what Chalmers would call our “inner-movie consciousness.” They discovered that when a certain area of the brain of a woman was stimulated, the woman lost “consciousness” but was still awake. Where the traditional view of consciousness might be that of being awake or not awake, this part of the brain (the claustrum) certainly points to a more philosophical view of consciousness, which is possibly being controlled by a physiological area in the brain. This discovery, which again is still in its very early stages, seems to point towards property dualism. As a neuroscience major, I hope and believe that more research like this will begin to materialize, and that even the consciousness that Chalmers describes will be able to be explained by a physical entity in the brain. It’s important to understand that brain research is essentially in its infancy, so when Chalmers says that perhaps science will never be able to understand consciousness, that is probably a bit of a stretch.

Here’s a link to the article if anyone is interested: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/185865-scientists-discover-the-on-off-switch-for-human-consciousness-deep-within-the-brain