I've been thinking about this bit for years. It's pretty interesting, so maybe it's worth a thread.
The question: Is every choice a person makes simply the product of countless exogenous factors (biological, etc)? Would this mean that free will is nothing more than an illusion?
What's your take on this? There's a million ways to go about it, but I've always thought it was a fun question to debate/get peoples' takes on.
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i have a dyslexia about people's names
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apparently mark wahlberg's name has a h in it, what a stupid name
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me, i'm mark walberg
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edark is the guy who is uglier than the devil's a-sshole itself in the scene i posted from 2 guns
sirius please spit into my lemon water so that i might ingest even a tiny particle of your dank philosophical wisdom
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did u guys hear about the dyslexic satanist?
....he sold his soul to santa!!
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do stupid people get to take an easier test to get into heaven, or is it the same test the intelligent people take? now there's a real dilemma
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and then we all die lol
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or are the good men to eliminate corporeal suffering by some utopian plan? i mean, i know it shouldn't have been too hard to predict that the first few attempts at communism should be a shambles, but that bit about the tower of babel is still pretty awesome for having gotten it all in. seriously, how f'ing smart were these bible dudes? smarter than asians anyway, and they're supposed to have super high iqs lol
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i mean, should we sacrifice ourselves to it that it might know some sick happiness in being tormentor?
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or why say of goodness that it is essentially equal to evil? there isn't anything else but goodness. but sure, give wrongdoers their chance. i am not god to say when they have failed. i am but a man who will protect what he loves.
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what value has evil?
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what does it mean to have agency? does it not simply mean to be independent? if one is of a soul, which is absolute, is it lessened in that it is absolute? in that given certain circumstances its goodness always shines in the exact same way? what does our cause and effect really refute? nothing. it is just method. instead where the denial of agency comes in is to unjustifiably and, imo, criminally call ourselves nothing. we say, 'ah, but this can be god; there is no need for anything but the flesh', and so we become but simple death (besides, perhaps, that some of us might still love - but then it is written in corinthians that love is even greater than faith; and, imo, i think love should bring most people to hope beyond cold mechanics anyway). and people also forget that they *must* call something 'god', for cause and effect only goes back so far - first cause debate anyone? why might not our agencies be sparks off the divine, as religion teaches? but hey, maybe they're not. or perhaps it is just wrong to think to cast out evil. thoughts?
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man would disprove his own agency by giving himself to the torrential emptiness around him. if he is sharp and cutting he is but brother to the harsh wind. if he is coldhearted he is but brother to the ice. if he kills, well, all life does, doesn't it? it's an interesting tidbit, actually - the dinosaurs. first we learn of god. it's all god god god. this is our first education - religion. we must be good. we must behave. we are bound for another place. then, however, we go to school; and what's the first thing we learn of there? dinosaurs. and no mention of them in the bible, mind you. and what's more, these are where we came from. what are we? monsters. it's amusing, honestly. as an offshoot of what projectmatt has said in this thread, it's almost like the serpent testing us in our youth, whispering to us through our primary (besides religious) education. that, or the bible slipped up big time and really should have done some accounting for those great prehistoric b*astards. what, did god just really really like watching things killing other things back in the day? but i'll be damned if dinosaurs aren't cool! ...
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i have recently been thinking of this question in another way. sure, it is hard to separate any action from determinism; it's just our way of looking at the world - cause and effect. but this still does not reduce 'free will' to nothingness, to mere nonsense. what is free will? it is personal agency. where then is personal agency refuted? in that our actions are mechanical, that they are predictable? no; this does not rob us of our agency ... or, at least, not of our independence.
to deny free will is to cast off responsibility; it serves no purpose otherwise. it's the same as the selfishness vs. selflessness debate: altruism is becoming a lie, but selfishness in disguise - to what purpose? the answer: it is psychological armouring in wrongdoing. ah, but no, to deny free will and to deny selflessness are not necessarily the same - granted. true enough, the former might not be just to cast off responsibility, but perhaps to have sympathy instead. but it also to reduce us to nothingness. what values does the man who looks upon it all as clockwork have? what values can he have? a love for all in death perhaps? where has he taken this from? this faux moralising? it is not the murderer's fault, his actions were predetermined, spare him. and what sort of world do we build on this sentiment? none. or, where, logically, does this sentiment even come from? fools playing benevolent gods over finely tuned delusions. it is but to be self-righteously indignant or just plain stupid. and it is to be hollow - there is no real appreciation for anything in it: life is given to death and illness to life; to love is nothing; virtue is nothing; beauty is nothing; we are nothing ...
what actual difference does it make if it's all predetermined / determined by random sources, independent of your conscious perception / partially determined by your conscious perception (which is then determined by what, but whatever) ?
