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So many comments pointing out the difference between luck and hard work, or saying it's all about taking opportunities when they arise etc. I can't compute. Th
by firmgently 8y ago
So many comments pointing out the difference between luck and hard work, or saying it's all about taking opportunities when they arise etc. I can't compute.
The entire point of the article was to say if you work harder, your propensity for hard work is the result of luck (or 'the sum of external circumstance and genetics that led to your being a hard worker'). If you are good at taking opportunities when they arise, the thing that makes you be that kind of person can be described as 'luck' (because if not, what is it? Where does it come from? Intuitively people put it down to some kind of magical inner 'you-ness' but that's ill-defined and wishy-washy).
If you're using the idea that your success in life is due to your personal flavour of 'free will' being 'better', you're arguing for something supernatural, causeless and which originated somewhere other than The Big Bang. I'm not saying you're wrong but you've got quite a lot of arguing to do as philosophers have been trying to prove free will exists for centuries. The best argument for it that I've read is from Daniel Dennett in 'Freedom Evolves' where he suggests free will is a kind of emergent behaviour which while not being real is 'real enough'. Obviously I'm nowhere near doing it justice as it's an entire book by a proper philosopher but it's a great read if you're interested in this stuff.
I'm not saying I like the idea that free will doesn't exist (I don't!) but I can't come up with an argument for it being non-deterministic (and if it's pre-determined then it's not free will). It's essential to our sense of self. It seems like an obvious thing when you think about it in floppy ways but as soon as you start trying to define it properly as anything other than a 'ghost in the machine', emergent behaviour of a deterministic system, it moves further and further away from you. Hence the long-standing philosophical musings!