'Trick Slattery

'Trick Slattery is the author of Breaking the Free Will Illusion for the Betterment of Humankind. He's an author, philosopher, artist, content creator, and entrepreneur. He has loved and immersed himself in philosophy since he was teenager. It is his first and strongest passion. Throughout the years he has built a philosophy based on analytic logic and critical thinking. Some of the topics he is most interested in are of a controversial variety, but his passion for the topics and their importance drives him to want to express these ideas to others. His other passions include pen and ink line art and digital artwork.

Sep 122014
 

many-worlds-no-free-will

In my book Breaking the Free Will Illusion, I have a chapter titled “Quantum Misunderstandings and Contrivances”. In it I touch upon the fact that in quantum mechanics (which addresses the smallest particles and their behavior) there are numerous “interpretations” surrounding what certain experiments show, and surrounding the mathematics used to describe this scale. These interpretations are rightly called “quantum interpretations”, and they compete with each other. Some are deterministic (meaning entirely causal), others are indeterministic (meaning some events don’t have causes), and others are agnostic on whether all events have a cause or not.

The fact of the matter is, we just don’t know which interpretation is the best model of reality. They each have their unintuitive problems. Regardless of this, I delve into why none of them can help grant free will.

One of these interpretations, however, is so un-evidentary that it really can’t be taken too seriously. Yet I’ve come across many occasion when someone will invoke this interpretation as a savior of free will.  The interpretation I’m talking about is called the many-worlds interpretation (also known as many-universes or many-histories interpretation). Though all of the interpretations are speculative, this interpretation speculates on “worlds” that are impossible to prove. A huge no-no in science.  But worse than that, not only does it not grant free will, but out of all of the processes it is the most fatalistic. Continue reading »

Sep 052014
 

Some people ask why free will doesn’t exist. They often don’t even know the very basics to these questions (or where to look to find answers). Point them to this InfoGraphic so they can get a quick visual snapshot (and then hopefully they will look into the matter more). Feel free to download and share this InfoGraphic (please do not alter it) on any website , social media, and so on. And please educate people in this important topic!

Why there is NO FREE WILL - InfoGraphic

Above is the official “basics” to why free will doesn’t exist. Of course the basics don’t entail all of the details, but such is a “snapshot” for why free will doesn’t exist to give newbies to the topic a “jumpstart”. It gives a quick overview of the definition of free will that is of importance, and why such ability is impossible. It explains that such is logically incompatible for both determinism and indeterminism, and the parts of the ability that are problematic. It also gives a brief summary of those huge topics that the belief in free will embeds itself into.

I give anyone permission to download, use, and share this InfoGraphic in it’s unaltered state. I’d appreciate a link back to this page or website if at all possible.

If you haven’t ordered your copy of Breaking the Free Will Illusion for the Betterment of Humankind, do so today! It’s in Kindle and paperback versions. And if you like what’s in it (which I think you will), I’d be grateful for a review on Amazon.com.

Thanks,

‘Trick

Sep 032014
 

possibility in a deterministic universe

If you don’t already know, I’m a hard incompatibilist. This means I think free will is logically incoherent in both a deterministic universe as well as an indeterministic universe. In this post, I just want to address if the universe is a “deterministic universe”, meaning entirely causal (all events have a cause), and what such would mean for the word “possibility”.

There are different branches of philosophy. One of these branches is called “epistemology” which is the branch that is concerned with the nature of knowledge. In other words, what we can know, how we can know it, and so on. Another is called “ontology” which is the branch that is concerned with existence (or “being”, “becoming”, “reality”). In other words, it addresses what exists, how it exists, if something cannot exist, and so on.

These two branches are more often conflated than not. People address epistemology when they should be addressing ontology, or ontology for epistemological usages of words. This is very problematic and causes great confusion.

To give an example of how these are used, the claim “rocks exist in the box” is an ontological claim. The claim that “a heavy box is probably filled with rocks” is epistemological. We may not know (epistemology) that the box is filled with rocks, but either they do exist (ontology) in the box or they do not. Continue reading »

Why the Lack of Free Will isn’t (only) tied to Naturalism

 determinism, free will, incompatibiism, naturalism  Comments Off on Why the Lack of Free Will isn’t (only) tied to Naturalism
Aug 202014
 

Free Will Illusion Fairy

Naturalism is the belief that nothing exists outside of the natural world.  Many people denote that if naturalism is true (which I believe is the case) that the laws that govern the universe are what make everything happen. That everything which happens in the universe is a physical play out through time. And that means everything single thing, including our conscious thought and decision-making. That these happenings aren’t some magical exceptions to the physics of the universe. In such a natural universe, things such as “free will” just don’t make sense. If our decisions are tied to the physical processes of the universe, then we only have a say in them in so far as the physical processes output what we will say about them. In other words, what we think, feel, say, and do are all an output of how the universe is playing out (both large scale and small scale processes).

And even if we accept that some events don’t have a cause (e.g. certain interpretations of quantum mechanics), those un-caused events are just part of the physical process that we still have no control over.

Though I agree with such analysis for various reasons, I think the incoherence of free will has a much wider reach. In other words, we don’t have to accept a naturalistic worldview to understand that free will doesn’t make any sense what-so-ever.

We just need to understand that an event (something “happening”) must either have a cause (be an output of something that already exists), or not have a cause (just happen – not the output of anything in existence). These are the only two possibilities for events. Not just “naturalistic” events, but any event. A so-called “supernatural” event simply can’t escape this dichotomy. Continue reading »

Aug 052014
 

particle-head

Click Pic for Attribution 

I want to yell this from the rooftops to all of those people who conflate reductionism with hard determinism. Determinism is not reductionistic! Okay…not literally yell it from the rooftops as (the majority) of people who aren’t into philosophy would just think “huh”? But you get the point. 🙂

For people who don’t already know, hard determinism states that since every event is causal, free will is incompatible with such. I don’t label myself as a Hard Determinist, but rather a Hard Incompatibilist (Meaning free will is incompatible in both a deterministic univerese as well as an indeterministic universe), but either way neither implies a reductionistic framework.

Reductionism, at it’s stripped away base, means that everything can be reduced down to it’s parts. And there are reductionists out there who think everything is just the “small bits” bouncing around. Some even say large scale objects don’t really exist due to this.

This is what I call “extreme reductionism”.  The rejection of what those parts make up due to being able to reduce an object to the parts. And it’s a big, ginormous, whopping mistake from what I can tell.

And some of these people not only reject free will (which they are absolutely correct in doing so), but they also reject consciousness itself and say that is an “illusion”. Let’s just disregard the fact that you can’t have an illusion without consciousness, so the illusion of consciousness is within an illusion of consciousness within an illusion of consciousness, so on ad absurdum.

But why is this reductionistic framework a mistake? Because we know otherwise. We know that parts make up wholes which have an actual effect on the parts themself. That simply isn’t possible without extending existence to the very wholes that the parts make up. Continue reading »

Aug 022014
 

hard-incompatibilism

Labels exist, and in philosophy there is way too much jargon. That being said, many people know some terms that they might label a person and are unfamiliar with others that they never will. It seems the word “determinism” is common enough for many people who have an interest in the topic of free will and some even know what “hard determinism” is. On the other hand the term “Hard Incompatibilism” isn’t as spread around as these other words. And though it has differing usages, it’s been adopted by Derk Pereboom (Living Without Free Will) and others to address indeterminism as well.

When someone learns you don’t believe in free will, one of two things seem to spring to mind. Either they think your position is a religious one, meaning that since God knows everything you can’t have free will. In other words you believe in predestination “fated” by a deity (which would be true if such an all knowing deity existed). Or they think you are a hard  determinist: that you believe every event has a cause and that due to this our decisions stem back in time to causes that precede back to the start of time. Continue reading »

What is “Betterment”?

 misc. philosophy  Comments Off on What is “Betterment”?
Jul 302014
 

betterment

If you look at the title of my book “Breaking the Free Will Illusion for the Betterment of Humankind” (now on both Kindle and Paperback) you’ll recognize two distinct parts. The first part addresses specifically free will. It denotes it as an “illusion”, and it denotes it as one that can be “broken”. The next part talks about “bettering humankind”.  But what does it mean to say something is “better”, or there is a “betterment”, or that humankind is “better off”?

Notice the book does not say “for the betterment of me” or “for the betterment of you”. I’m addressing humankind in a more general sense, and though it will most likely be better for me and you for various reasons, this is important. What is better for a general population may not be what is better for every single individual within that population. I might say that it is better for the people of a given society to stop serial killers, but for the serial killer (who is a single person within that society) – it probably wouldn’t be “better”.

Preference is often assumed in the word “better”. For me, chocolate icecream is better than vanilla icecream; for another, vanilla would be better. Some might say classical music is better than rock and roll, or vice-versa. Continue reading »

Now Out on Paperback! Breaking the Free Will Illusion

 uncategorized  Comments Off on Now Out on Paperback! Breaking the Free Will Illusion
Jul 302014
 

Breaking the Free Will Illusion for the Betterment of Humankind is now out on paperback! 345 pages worth of free will destroying material (including back material such as bio, syllogisms, bibliography, end notes, and index).

Concepts in this book are conveyed in a number of different ways. Logical arguments are made, analogies and thought experiments act as understanding pumps, illustrations are used for key concepts and to break up long text, and (at the end of many chapters) dialogues between two character, one who believes in free will, the other who doesn’t, help display many of the ideas in a conversational setting.

Take a look at a paperback copy (actual photograph):

BTFWI - paperback

These are actual photo’s I’ve taken of a physical paperback copy. The dimensions are 8.5″ tall by 5.5″ wide (very common for books of these types).
BTFWI - paperbacks

If you are an Amazon Associate, feel free to use any of the above graphics to promote this book on your own website, social media, or email!

 

Get your paperback copy on Amazon today (also on Kindle!)

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

I was told it could take from 6 to 8 weeks for other amazon sites (such as amazon.ca) to pick up my paperback book from expanded distribution and make it available. If you are in another location you can also buy my book before then from the createspace store (but you unfortunately can’t take advantage of amazon’s free shipping or things like that through the store)

All locations can currently buy the paperback book from the CreateSpace store:

Amazon CreateSpace Store

Also, if you do buy from the createspace store here is a $2 off discount code you can use to help offset some of the shipping fee: FY96GQ74

Remember, if you do buy the book, read it, and found it useful or enjoyable, please log into Amazon and give me a review (for places like amazon.ca you can place the review on the kindle version as it’s the same book). Help me get the book seen!

 

Jul 112014
 

topic_hurricane_main_194114

A confusion that often arises in the free will debate is on the usage of the word “responsibility”. It seems there are multiple ways in which this word can be used.

For example, we might say: “since free will is an illusion,  the person that does action X isn’t responsible for such an action”.

But what exactly are we saying here? The problem with such a generalized statement is with the ambiguity of the word “responsibility”. It simply has different meanings, and only one applies to the sense of that sentence.

Someone could say that the person does X therefore the person is what is responsible for X. This is similar to saying the hurricane is responsible for tearing apart that house’s roof.  It’s just a way of pinpointing the “thing” that caused the roof to be torn apart. We could also say that the hurricane is “to blame” for the roof being destroyed. But there are multiple ways in which the word “blame” is used as well.

This definition is very different from what the responsibility word surrounding the free will debate is about. Continue reading »

You don’t “deserve” what you worked hard for! – A philosophical dialogue

 determinism, free will, incompatibiism, indeterminism, misc. philosophy  Comments Off on You don’t “deserve” what you worked hard for! – A philosophical dialogue
Jun 102014
 

What do you mean I don’t deserve what I’ve worked hard for!

I mean you don’t deserve it any more than anyone else.

I worked hard for it. Of course I deserve it.

One doesn’t follow from the other.

Of course it does. Someone who didn’t work for it wouldn’t  deserve it. I did work for it!

They couldn’t have, of their own accord, worked for it, and you couldn’t have not worked for it.

Why couldn’t they have? And why couldn’t I have not?

Because causal events have led them and you to the only possibility. And if there did happen to be another possibility due to non-causal events, those would be entirely out of  theirs and your control anyway. There is no free will.

Fine, let’s assume that’s the case. So?

So basically you are saying that you deserve X quality of life because you worked hard for it, while another person doesn’t deserve X quality of life, because they did not work hard for it (they deserve Y, not X). X being a better quality of life than Y.

You better believe it. I put my hard work, sweat, and time into obtaining X quality of life. If they had as well, they’d deserve X quality of life as well.

But again, they couldn’t have and you couldn’t have not.

Fine, then they couldn’t have X and I couldn’t not have X as well.

That doesn’t mean you deserve X over them. It just means that you have X and they don’t.

What, do you think – I should give them half of X even though they didn’t work for it?

I didn’t say that.

It’s implied in saying I don’t deserve X over them.

No, it’s implied that you don’t deserve X over them, not that you should give them half of X.

Wouldn’t it be unfair for me not to give them half of X if they deserved it just as much as I do? Continue reading »