On Being Me by J. David Velleman

On Being Me by J. David Velleman

Author:J. David Velleman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2020-02-28T00:00:00+00:00


Some people have a different worry: that they are cogs in a universal clockwork that has been winding down since the beginning of time under inexorable laws of nature. Their worry is that the cosmic mechanism will make it impossible for them to do anything other than what has been destined for them since the beginning of time.

But even if that worry is unwarranted, because more than one course is possible for me to take in the future, I still worry that one of those possible courses is already the one that I am actually going to take, though God knows what it is. “God knows what it is”—exactly! So long as God could know my future, I am merely discovering it instead of inventing it, catching up with His or Her greater knowledge. I’d like to think that I can make up a life that would surprise even God.

Hubris? I don’t think so; I’m just describing what it’s like to make a decision. For when I decide to do something, I seem to be making it the case that I’m going to do it. I couldn’t be making it the case if it already was the case before I decided; but if it wasn’t already the case, then God couldn’t have known it—not because of any lack of foresight on His or Her part but because of there being no fact to know. I seem to be creating a fact where there previously was none. Unless there are gaps in the future-tense facts, to be filled in by my decisions, it would rather seem like hubris to claim that I make decisions at all.



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