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I remember beating myself over this idea in college, that there is no such thing as free will. I came to believe it. Then I realized something that was even m
by Xurinos 16y ago
I remember beating myself over this idea in college, that there is no such thing as free will. I came to believe it. Then I realized something that was even more important: it does not matter if it is true. This is not a form of enlightenment that actually helps me or anyone.
Really, work through it. Congratulations: you discovered that everything you think and do is preordained by the first energy patterns of the universe. Now what? Do you second-guess your decisions? Isn't your second-guessing also preordained? Isn't your so-called enlightenment also just a part of the system? What does this knowledge really do for you?
Note that your quoted article does not oppose free will (unless you buy into the sensationalism). It points to the idea that a part of your brain figures out your next action before you are fully conscious of that decision. This does not invalidate free will; it just shows that you make decisions from multiple levels of your brain. You do not want too much decision-making power, like when your heart should next beat.
So, accepting that it is useless to believe in lack of free will, what happens if you decide to place your faith in having or acquiring free will? This opposite philosophy flows hand-in-hand with the idea of personal responsibility, the idea that you may actually be to blame for your own misfortunes and fortunes. There is a certain liberty in realizing that you have the power of Choice, that you can simply choose to leave these perceived/accepted traps and social constructs.
In other words, it would be irrational to not operate on the assumption that you have free will.
tl;dr - This philosophy does not help anyone. The opposite helps a great deal. Most people fall in the middle.
- amichail 16y agoIn other words, it would be irrational to not operate on the assumption that you have free will. Religious people might say something similar about God's existence.
- Xurinos 16y agoGiven that the choice is a form of insanity vs a way of dealing with life that may lead to greater happiness, I agree. But we are, after all, discussing "free will". :) It is also interesting to note that scientific studies may show us things that influence or make some of our choices for us, but this will not cover all kinds of choices. We are running into areas where we do not yet have the right tools to study this stuff.
- bad_user 16y agoThere are multiple degrees of "faith" one can invest in a religion. Believing in God and being a good person is miles and miles away from being a superstitious fanatic that wants to punish the infidels. Similarly, you can be aware that certain decisions you make may have external influences ... versus being a lunatic that constantly fears the whole universe is against him.
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- lotusleaf1987 16y agoIIRC it is know as Pascal's Wager.
- aidenn0 16y agoThis is very different from Paschal's wager. Paschal's wager presents a false dichotomy: either you believe in no god, or you believe in the christian God. There are a plethora of religions to choose from, and it is also possible that there is a very strange god who puts all athiests in heaven and all believers in hell. Therefore Paschal's wager breaks down. However, we have a true binary split here when talking about free will. If there is no free will then from a pragmatic point of view all philosophy is pointless, since it can't effect your decisions.
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- bitemyapp 16y agoThe veil of choice is sufficient, better to focus on what actually matters.