Q&A: Free Choice in Belief
Free Choice in Belief
Question
In one of the comments on the site you argued that intellectual conclusions are not deterministic. After apologizing for opening a new comment since I wasn’t able to reply there, I’ll quote what I wanted to write there:
The conclusion should be exactly the opposite. The moment you introduce the possibility of choosing what to believe, you run into a paradox. After all, if I chose to believe that 'x=1', then to the same extent I could have chosen to believe that 'x=2' and be convinced of it with the same force. (In fact, I have no way of knowing whether I chose to believe some solution to the equation or whether it was imposed on me, since it may be that even earlier I chose to believe that I have the ability to choose what to believe. So saying that there is free choice in what to believe saws off the branch it is sitting on.) Only when the result of the equation is intellectually forced on me can one (logically) accept it as reliable, since there is no possibility of thinking of another solution. What you said about freedom of thought can, in my opinion, be accepted only regarding emotional choice—that is, an emotional adoption of the conclusion—or perhaps regarding the very decision to engage the mind in discussing that particular area.
I’d be glad for your response if I’m mistaken in my reasoning.
Answer
In the future, include a link here to that thread so the discussion will be in context.
I didn’t say or write that there is a choice about what to believe. I wrote that there is judgment. In Column 35 I discussed the similarity between choice and judgment. By the way, choosing values is also not an arbitrary lottery, but a decision based on what seems right to me. So here too you can draw a comparison to deciding that X=1.
There are conclusions that are forced on us, like things we see with our own eyes. But in most important questions there is room for judgment, very similar to value questions. For example, the question of God’s existence. There are arguments for and against, and in the end a person has to exercise judgment in order to form his own position on the matter. This is very similar to the question of whether to be a capitalist or whether to be a fascist. There are considerations for and against, and in the end a person decides.