re: "Stephen Fry Would Like to Remind You That You Have No Free Will" (The New York Times, May 3, 2021)
That was fun, what, as Bertie might say, engendering a Jeevesian rejoinder on the soundness of Spinoza.
The free will bit is interesting. The very notion is problematic; to believe that our choices are free in the way that free will advocates want is to directly deny science.
Science gives me my smartphone. Science gives me Google search, and their choices are so often so brilliantly spot on that faith in science is the only sensible choice. That means that free will is not free.
I think its the same sheer terror that confronted the establishment when Copernicus and mates proved that the Earth was not the centre of the universe 500 years ago, the same sheer terror that establishment felt when Darwin proved 150 years ago that humans were nothing specially ordained by any goddess or even by mother nature.
The exposure of the illusion of free will as a cultural tale founded on mindless evolution need distress us no more than the reality of our position in the universe and among the living on Earth. It just allows a healthier insight into our emotions and moral sensibilities. Could that be a bad thing, however scary for the fake old certitudes?
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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.
It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/03/magazine/stephen-fry-interview.html#commentsContainer&permid=112689278:112689278
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