If we have no more freedom than a billiard ball, there seems no point in trying to \u201cpersuade\u201d anybody (or in much of anything else, for that matter).
Wikimedia Commons public domain image by Mark Buckawicki<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHumans think they are free, conscious beings, when in truth they are deluded animals. At the same time they never cease trying to escape from what they imagine themselves to be. Their religions are attempts to be rid of a freedom they have never possessed. In the twentieth century, the utopias of Right and Left served the same function. Today, when politics is unconvincing even as entertainment, science has taken on the role of mankind\u2019s deliverer.\u201d \u00a0 (John Nicholas Gray, British political philosopher)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gray believes human volition and morality to be illusions.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, in that light, one wonders why \u2014 beyond the fact, of course, that he had no choice not<\/em> to do so \u2014 Dr. Gray bothered to write a book seeking to convince us that we have no free will and that moral values are illusory.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
What would it mean, if we\u2019re in the iron grip of necessity, for him to \u201cpersuade\u201d us? \u00a0Is he himself convinced of views that he cannot escape holding? \u00a0Does he think it would be \u201cgood\u201d if we were persuaded, too? Why? \u00a0How?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
And from what would science \u201cdeliver\u201d us? \u00a0Is he serious? \u00a0How can science, a human creation, \u201cdeliver\u201d us from an amoral world? \u00a0And in what would that \u201cdeliverance\u201d consist? \u00a0Can science make us free? \u00a0Can it create good and evil? \u00a0I doubt that Gray intends this, but I suppose that science can<\/em> deliver us from nihilism, amorality, and determinism . . . by vaporizing<\/em> us.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Gray writes of humans as \u201cthey,\u201d is he unconsciously seeking to exempt himself? \u00a0Does he believe that his own<\/em> consciousness is an illusion? \u00a0Does it make any sense<\/em> to believe that one\u2019s own consciousness is illusory? \u00a0How would one entertain such a delusion without being conscious?<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
So many questions!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cHumans think they are free, conscious beings, when in truth they are deluded animals. At the same time they never cease trying to escape from what they imagine themselves to be. Their religions are attempts to be rid of a freedom they have never possessed. In the twentieth century, the utopias of Right […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1014,3799,2758,12971,737,8735,2505,222,9467,740,255,4486,243,117,5000],"class_list":["post-86186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atheism","tag-atheist","tag-determinism","tag-determinist","tag-ethics","tag-free-will","tag-freedom","tag-materialism","tag-moral","tag-morality","tag-naturalism","tag-savior","tag-science","tag-scientism","tag-will"],"yoast_head":"\n
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