Bahman wrote: ↑March 23rd, 2023, 8:33 am
JackDaydream wrote: ↑March 22nd, 2023, 6:09 pm
The issue of free choice is central to the issue of free will vs determinism but the nature of options are variable according to past causal processes, with some having more available options than others. These include social aspects of freedom including financial resources and past actions. For example, a person who has wealth may have more practical possible options than someone who doesn't and someone who has the education and certain experiences may have more options than someone who is in a lower position. Also, people may have more options than someone at a later stage because they are bound by circumstances from the past.
So, in that sense, your query about options is not about choice per se, but about the scope of freedom itself. The circumstances rather than simply intentional choice come into play. It may at times be like someone handing over all their money, but with a gun held to their head. The choice would have been made but it was about the constraints of circumstances, but with restricted options. In other words, options are not simply about intentionality but about options as the actual potential pathways of choice perceived to be potential pathways at any given point and given knowledge of these.
It seems to me that you agree with the existence of options. My question is how options could be real in a deterministic world in which only one outcome is permissible at any given time.
My answer to the question of how options are real is because human beings are able to make decisions on the basis of reason, which is possible on the basis of language. Other sentient beings, as far as we know do not have linguistic understanding to make such choices, so would make these choices more on an unconscious basis, on the basis of instincts.
Of course, human beings also have physical drives and instincts too, even though they may rationalise them. That is why determinism still has a strong basis on the physical level. However, human beings conscious experience can be thought of by within a bio-psychosocial framework. This entails human beings having the potential ability to think about the range of possibilities, as options.
Some would argue that the specific thoughts people have are beyond choice, but this can become a tangenital knot. As it is, a human being has an active role in the process, through the awareness of the various options of action. So, it does not rule out the underlying basis of determinism itself, but shows that it is not a passive process, with human beings having an active role in the pathways of causation.