MyJewishLearning.com has an article tracing the ways modern philosophers have dealt with the free will "problem" vis-a-vis the inescapable "mechanistic" causality of physics. Most troubling (to me) is this excerpt:
Perhaps more importantly, modern quantum physics has revealed that what is actually happening at the sub-atomic level is not mechanistic in any traditional sense. Without the presumption of simple causation, a major obstacle to our self-conception as free decision-making individuals is removed.
This is just hogwash. Semiconductors, PN-junctions, lasers, and particle colliders are all quite mechanistic. Oh, sure, you have to use matrices and wavefunctions instead of classical variables, but that does not undermine causality.
Kant may have had a point, at least, in speaking on the fundamental limitations of perception and human understanding of the world. I think Kant would have loved to know even a fraction of what is taught in a modern undergraduate course on Perception or Cognitive Science. Fundamentally, the issue of free will can only be resolved by those who have set aside their egos and their presumptions and ethical imperatives, and who approach the issue with a beginner's questioning mind.
Posted by Peter at October 22, 2003 04:56 AM