Monday, June 19, 2017

Animate Determinism and Inanimate Determinism

To illustrate the error of the human belief in the existence of Free Will, Einstein uses the image of a conscious Moon that attributes its orbiting to a motion of its own volition, an image that is reminiscent of Spinoza's of a thinking stone that believes that it is falling of its own accord.  But, the reference misses one significant dissimilarity between the two cases--in Spinoza's system, a stone, like every other entity, does possess a Mind, though one much simpler than a human Mind.  Thus, Spinoza's stone is sharply distinguished from a diver with the requisite complexity to deliberately set themselves in motion.  The more general distinction between the two anti-Free Will positions is that Einstein's universe is essentially inanimate, while Spinoza's God/Nature is essentially animate, with the distinction between stone and human one of degree.  In other words, Einstein seems to not consider the possibility of a distinction between Animate Determinism and Inanimate Determinism.  In other words, his argument against Free Will applies to only inanimate entities, and his Moon metaphor begs the question.

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