morning all. late start, at festival. drippy day.
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We're back in Indonesia. I plan to go do stuff in a while. What, I'm not sure. Go shopping again maybe? We did small boat races with the Navy yesterday. We won, even after giving them a ten-second start. You don't have to mention that to Grandad [my father, a retired Navy officer]. Kind of embarrassing. Then we sat around arguing about philosophy for most of the night. Then we argued some more this morning.
The main discussion was about free will and predestination. I behaved and mostly stayed out of it, except for occasionally prodding people to fully clarify their points, plus explaining that free will does not translate to 'total lack of responsibility for your actions.' Then I asked about who Cousins thought was predetermining everything. He said it was nature, because he's atheist. Then I got everyone sidetracked by saying that Cousins was saying that nature was a god, which he was even though he said he wasn't. I suggested that God might predetermine things, but he didn't seem to care for that idea and kept insisting it was something called 'nature.' However, since I didn't start arguing for or against the main point, I stayed out of the main argument.
They didn't come to any decision except for saying that me and Cousins are way too libertarian for them. This is true, even though I did say that I believed in free will. Cousins doesn't. This took up most of the evening and morning anyway, so it wasn't a total waste of time.