You appear to believe that the determined outcome of reasoning isn't related to the thing being reasoned about. Why would you assume that?
What does free will have to do with accurate reasoning? That is, if you can even describe how free will works.
~~ Paul
"The
determined outcome of reasoning. . . . .," sounds an awful lot like: "We will hang you after your fair trail."
(Or am I missing something? God knows I constantly doubt myself when discussing complex issues and a thing that might seem axiomatic to educated people, sometimes flies over my head.)
How can you arrive at a balanced decision between two competing alternatives, if you are certain there is only one pre-determined outcome available? What exactly is going on in your mind when you deliberate between the truth or falseness of a proposition. . . . . What is happening in that internal dialog when you begin with doubt and ignorance, and eventually end with a resolution? Do you patiently wait until the pre-determined light bulb goes off. . . . ? Or do you go through the motions of a mock deliberation, knowing all along that you will make the one decision you are capable of, the decision that your environment and your subconscious is fated to select ? To me, that doesn't sound like accurate reasoning - it sounds like simple discovery, or computation. I think proper 'reasoning' requires a multitude of open-ended decisions all along the way, from the very moment you choose to enter the conflict.
If you take me to dinner, and the waitress asks, "Hamburger or Fish ?", then I have to make a decision. Maybe I like both today, so I really don't care, and I just pick one for the hell of it. This is not reasoning, this is random, and has nothing to do with free will - (but it's still a decision that was not pre-determined.)
If you suggest that the fish is cheaper than the hamburger, and I should "think about it," then I will have to engage my reasoning. I'll have to ask myself : Which is healthier, which is quicker to cook, have I had hamburger already today, which is more culturally conscious, is this place famous for its fish, is Paul just being cheap........and on and on
It is true, you know, that every last one of these factors will be severely influenced by my past experiences, my education, my social awareness, allergies, taste, -- an almost infinite catalog of memories; and most of these factors will be handled mechanically, as in discovery, or computation. But the SUM TOTAL of these factors under consideration RIGHT NOW - has never ever been encountered before in the history of the universe. We could go to the same café, a hundred more times, and every last time, would be uniquely different. And so the factors in my final decision will also always be different. If you consider each factor as being worth, say, 10 points for hamburger and 10 points for fish, AND you knew ahead of time WHICH factors I was going to include THIS TIME, and which factors I was going to ignore, then you could guess with a certain probability what I was going to choose, based on past choices. . . . . But this isn't the past. This is an entirely new choice. Maybe fish was at 98 percent and then the next table orders a burger and the delicious aroma just overwhelms me.
I realize this is not 'libertarian free-will,' but I don't know anyone who argues in favor of that, anyway (except a few libertarians) But it isn't completely random, either. And it doesn't reject the notion that a determined cause will have a determined effect. Rather, I suggest that an adult human mind prior to decision making is home to a host of factors, all of which may be determined in one way or another, but the polymorphic assembly of these factors is a unique beast whose nature cannot be determined before the fact. And you cannot expect a pre-determined decision, based on an undetermined cause.