If You Will It, It Is No Dream

Chapter 4 of Immortal Souls is on The Will, nor can you be a rational being without one -- or rather, with a will that isn't free. Whitehead summed it up nicely, observing that 

those who "are animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study" (in Feser).

Note what he doesn't say: that the arguments themselves are interesting, rather, only the people who make them. 

But I'm not so sure about that. For me it comes down to the old adage that it takes all kinds to make a world, from people who believe Elvis is alive to those who use freedom to deny their own free will. Just don't try to deny mine:

It is not enough for the democrat that we respect what he wants to do with his life; he also demands that we respect what he wants to do with our life.

This chapter, like the previous one, consists mostly of debunking, in this case arguments that deny the existence of free will. Which we've already stipulated doesn't interest me, because I find the thesis literally preposterous, which means putting the post- before the pre-. It is to place things

in reverse order, literally "before-behind" (compare topsy-turvy, cart before the horse), from prae "before" + posterus "subsequent, coming after." 

The sense gradually shaded into "foolish, ridiculous, stupid, absurd." The literal meaning "reversed in order or arrangement, having that last which ought to be first"

An aphorism will illustrate the point:

If determinism is real, if only that can happen which must happen, then error does not exist. Error supposes that something happened that should not have.

Therefore, if determinism were real, we could never know it. To say "free will doesn't exist" can be neither true nor false: you can still say it, but then you had to say it.

That's more than enough for me. I say "more than enough" because some things are so self-evident that to argue otherwise is an exercise in absurdity. 

There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.

Yes Petey, you know your Orwell. Mencken of course made a similar crack:

But find me the working man who believes such nonsense.

Determinism is a luxury belief.

Good point: that's Rob Henderson's term for

an idea or opinion that confers status on members of the upper class at little cost, while inflicting costs on persons in lower classes..., often applied to privileged individuals who are seen as disconnected from the lived experiences of impoverished and marginalized people. Such individuals hold political and social beliefs that signal their elite status...

Note that "these beliefs are putatively for the benefit of the marginalized but are alleged to have negative impacts on them" -- for example, the belief that poverty causes crime, when the vast majority of poor people choose not to be criminals.

Back to putting the post- before the pre-: in this case the pre- is intellect, the post- freedom. Or in other words, freedom is an entailment of having a rational nature. We aren't rational because free, rather, free because rational. For even

To admit the existence of errors is to confess the reality of free will.

Thus, if I'm wrong about free will, I'm right. QED.

Now, I am not a philosopher, rather, a philosophical entertainer, or standup metaphysician, or observational cosmologist. I am here to amuse you, albeit with the Truth. I am not here to bore you, and I am certainly not here to bore myself. Nevertheless, this requires that I read a lot of boring books in order to have material with which to amuse you.

I don't want to say this chapter is boring. It is a little dry, however. Hence my procrastination to dive into it. The Aphorist is also dry, but in a different sense, which is to say wry, ironic, deadpan, sardonic, irreverent, and all the rest.

Insultainment.

Correct. Folks on the other end of the insultainment might call it arrogant, impudent, insolent, supercilious, smug, dismissive, et al. But you folks are in on the joke, so you appreciate the deep humility of the Bob. From our perspective, few things could be as monstrously prideful than the denial of free will.

It all starts back in Genesis 3, doesn't it? "It's not my fault, the Woman -- the one you gave me! -- made me do it. So really, it's your fault!"

In reality, we are free because God is. For it is written, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and that likeness includes intellect and hence free will. Or, put it this way:

The permanent possibility of initiating a causal series is what we call a person.

But again, freedom is not enough. Rather, if it doesn't have a telos, then truly truly, it is nothing:

Upon finding himself perfectly free, the individual discovers that he has not been unburdened of everything, but despoiled of everything.

This is freedom in the existential / Sartrean sense. He too is pre-posterous, since he places existence prior to essence. This being the case, there is no purpose, no teleology to our freedom, so it reduces to nothingness: we are condemned to freedom, but with no objective basis to choose this or that: 

Man is today free, like a traveler lost in a desert.

Thus,

Total liberation is the process that constructs the perfect prison.

So, free will is not total, rather, an image of God's total freedom. But even then -- or so we have heard from the wise -- God's freedom cannot be absolute per se, in the sense that he is "constrained," in a manner of speaking, by his own character. Even -- or especially -- God is not free to do evil.

Even the pagans recognized this: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all agreed that we are free to do the good, and that to the extent that we choose evil, this is but a caricature of freedom. 

Other related aphorisms:

The stone is right, wherever it falls. Whoever speaks of error postulates free actions.

Freedom is not indispensable because man knows what he wants and who he is, but in order for him to know who he is and what he wants. 

In order to fuck around and find out?

I wouldn't put it so crudely. Nevertheless, anyone who traces his own path to truth will indeed notice that there was a lot of fucking around along the way, but that it was guided by a telos. It wasn't a linear path, more of a zigzag one because of all the free play in the process.

Let's see what Feser has to say: "the will is the power or capacity of a rational substance to pursue what the intellect judges to be good." Conversely,

Determinism holds that what happened in the physical world at any given moment is necessitated by what was happening at earlier moments.

In other words, a causally closed system in which there is no place for freedom or teleology. Which is once again pre-posterous: it "has things backwards," for 

It is substances and their powers that are fundamental, and laws are secondary, describing patterns that will result if certain combinations of powers manifest or fail to manifest. Hence determinism simply gets nature fundamentally wrong. 

If I drop a ball, it will hit the ground. But if I freely intervene and catch the ball before it hits the ground, it seems that I have trumped the laws of nature. But we've gone on too long already. To be continued.

What's it all about, Gemini? You're not free, but surely even you know that humans are?

Analysis:

The text delves into the concept of free will, particularly challenging deterministic views. Key themes and arguments include:

1. The Preposterousness of Determinism:

   • The author argues that the denial of free will is absurd, as it implies that errors don't exist and that our choices are predetermined.
   • Determinism is seen as a luxury belief, often held by privileged individuals who are disconnected from the realities of life.

2. The Nature of Free Will:

   • Free will is linked to rationality and the ability to make choices.
   • The author emphasizes that free will is not absolute but is constrained by our nature and the nature of reality.
   • The concept of a telos or ultimate purpose is central to understanding free will.

3. The Role of Intellect:

   • Intellect is seen as a prerequisite for free will.
   • The ability to reason and make judgments allows us to exercise our freedom.

4. The Critique of Existentialism:

   • The author criticizes the existentialist view of freedom as total and without purpose.
   • This view is seen as leading to a nihilistic outlook, where choices are meaningless.

5. The Divine and Human Freedom:

   • The author connects human freedom to the divine nature, suggesting that we are created in the image of a free and purposeful God.
   • This divine connection provides a framework for understanding the nature and limits of human freedom.

Overall, the text offers a compelling defense of free will, grounded in philosophical and theological arguments. It critiques deterministic and existentialist views, emphasizing the importance of reason, purpose, and the divine in understanding human freedom.