Hi, what an awesome website!

Hi, what an awesome website!

Hi, what an awesome website! I have another free will related question to add to the heap! I saw an interview with Steven Weinberg, the Nobel Prize winning physicist and, I don't remember the precise phrasing, but he said something like 'I know of no law saying that nature is here to make physicists happy.' He wasn't referring to free will, but it got me thinking about something... From what I've read and heard in papers and talks (which is certainly not nearly exhaustive), it seems that their is a tendency for those who chime in on the free will issue (even professional philosophers) to approach it from the perspective that the challenge is to show that free will does not or cannot exist. What I mean is that there seems to be a tacit presumption that since we "feel" free, the burden of proof is on those who contend we are in reality not free. I understand this perspective (and it is not unique to the free will debate), but it seems to presuppose some kind of rule that says that our feelings constitute evidence in favor of something that feelings, by nature, can't really provide dispassionate evidence for. I was surprised by how many philosophers (I'm not surprised by how many non-philosophers) exhibit this tendency (often without acknowledgement). It's not that we should discount our feelings completely even if it were possible, but to my knowledge they don't offer an initial leg up to any angle of this debate. Thanks so much for any comments!!!

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