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The understanding of free will being an "illusion" opens a few doors for approaching life. One of them being how society is structured and regarding healthcare,

The understanding of free will being an "illusion" opens a few doors for approaching life. One of them being how society is structured and regarding healthcare, housing, finances, education.. Anyway, people cast their votes by the beliefs as well and currently we're living in social systems designed from the belief of have free will. The idea of someone earned what they have, contrary to someone worse off and people aren't just destined by their life circumstances to end up homeless. Genetics, environmental factors and all proceeding moments are factored from the preceding forces. Well, when you realize the foregoing about free will is untrue and you really take the time to adapt your thinking to the understanding of free will being illusion. I assume you become more compassionate because you're actually observing reality for how it truly is awful to some and those people had no control for their misfortune. I know from my own life when I understood it took a few years to truly get "it" but after I deeply feel more empathetic and disgusted by the current systems that refuse people the medical help they need or getting someone shelter & food. Everyone is just assigned a life at birth without any say and that's the same to what happens after without any real control existing to alter your destiny. So a nihilist can say well so what?..everything is just destined. But that doesn't mean we should keep stalling people from being educated of how reality happens to be and designing better social systems that adapt to the true reality of the universe. Anyway that's my long rant/suggestion on it.

pdonis 6y ago
> when you realize the foregoing about free will is untrue and you really take the time to adapt your thinking to the understanding of free will being illusion. I assume you become more compassionate You assume wrong. The most brutal totalitarian governments in history have been built on the same understanding of humans that you describe. So that understanding can go either way: it can make you more compassionate, or it can make you much less so. Free will is best understood not as a "fact" but as a right. Every person has the right to make their own choices instead of someone else making those choices for them. And the most dehumanizing thing you can tell a person is that they are "destined by circumstances" (your phrase) to be in the situation they are in, instead of having the power to change it by the choices they make. Sure, the power to make one's own choices is not unlimited. We can't choose to not be affected by gravity. We can't choose to be omnipotent or omniscient. And, most important, we can't choose how other people will make their own choices (more on that below). But that doesn't change the fact that people do make choices, and can change their situation by doing so. The proper role of compassion and charity is to help empower people to make better choices for themselves. And the proper understanding of situations where some people are deprived of basic necessities through no fault of their own is not that it was just "destined by circumstances", but that other people made choices that created those situations. Trying to hand-wave that away and pretend that things like famines and homelessness are just accidents of nature, instead of products of deliberate choices made by particular people in power--the whole "how society is structured" that you slide by without really looking at where it comes from--only makes those problems worse.
- abellerose 6y ago
  Feel free to email me for further discussion. I have the impression you don't understand my definition of free will compared to your own definition. I will express here that the idea of making a conclusion by the past in history isn't fair or even comparable to what I could argue against people doing under the belief that people have free will. Anyway I'm not convinced by what you've expressed against my views and would appreciate a longer discussion by email if you're up to it. I fundamentally think it's morally wrong to keep someone in the dark from reality by deceiving them about their will or life outcome and especially if that person is homeless or suicidal for example.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > Feel free to email me for further discussion. Why not just have the discussion here? > I have the impression you don't understand my definition of free will compared to your own definition. I think you are trading on the ambiguity in the term "free will" to avoid having to confront the actual issues involved. That's why I used the less ambiguous term "making choices". If you don't think people can ever make choices that make a difference in their situation, then you and I have a fundamental disagreement that I don't think will get resolved by any discussion. Also, if that's your belief, I think you are being inconsistent; you talk about "designing better social systems", but that very process involves people making choices that will make a difference in their situation (as well as the situation of many, many other people). If you just think the amount of difference a person can make in their situation by making choices varies with the situation, of course I agree with that. But that's not a problem that can be fixed by "designing better social systems". It can only be fixed by being willing to call a spade a spade when people in power make choices that disempower others, so that people in power can be stopped from doing that. The biggest barrier to people being able to change their situation by making choices is restrictions put on them by other people, not some abstract claim about free will being an illusion. "Designing social systems" makes that problem worse, not better. > I fundamentally think it's morally wrong to keep someone in the dark from reality by deceiving them about their will or life outcome I think you are confusing your opinions with "reality". Telling people they don't have free will, or that free will is an illusion, is just as much of an opinion as telling them they do have free will. Neither is a statement of "reality". That's why I say free will is best viewed as a right: because in my opinion, believing that people have free will is respecting their right to make their own choices, and believing that people don't have free will is not respecting that right--which just means arrogating to yourself the power to make choices that disempower them. Respecting people's right to make choices is not a factual claim about people; it's a policy, which I think should be adopted because it will end up helping people. > especially if that person is homeless or suicidal for example I don't see how it's any help to a person who is homeless or suicidal to tell them free will is an illusion. Nor would it be any help to tell them it isn't. A person who is homeless or suicidal has much more pressing things to think about than whether or not free will is an illusion. And helping such a person has nothing at all to do with your own opinions or beliefs, much less foisting them on others in the guise of "telling them about reality".

pdonis 6y ago

> when you realize the foregoing about free will is untrue and you really take the time to adapt your thinking to the understanding of free will being illusion. I assume you become more compassionate You assume wrong. The most brutal totalitarian governments in history have been built on the same understanding of humans that you describe. So that understanding can go either way: it can make you more compassionate, or it can make you much less so. Free will is best understood not as a "fact" but as a right. Every person has the right to make their own choices instead of someone else making those choices for them. And the most dehumanizing thing you can tell a person is that they are "destined by circumstances" (your phrase) to be in the situation they are in, instead of having the power to change it by the choices they make. Sure, the power to make one's own choices is not unlimited. We can't choose to not be affected by gravity. We can't choose to be omnipotent or omniscient. And, most important, we can't choose how other people will make their own choices (more on that below). But that doesn't change the fact that people do make choices, and can change their situation by doing so. The proper role of compassion and charity is to help empower people to make better choices for themselves. And the proper understanding of situations where some people are deprived of basic necessities through no fault of their own is not that it was just "destined by circumstances", but that other people made choices that created those situations. Trying to hand-wave that away and pretend that things like famines and homelessness are just accidents of nature, instead of products of deliberate choices made by particular people in power--the whole "how society is structured" that you slide by without really looking at where it comes from--only makes those problems worse.

abellerose 6y ago
Feel free to email me for further discussion. I have the impression you don't understand my definition of free will compared to your own definition. I will express here that the idea of making a conclusion by the past in history isn't fair or even comparable to what I could argue against people doing under the belief that people have free will. Anyway I'm not convinced by what you've expressed against my views and would appreciate a longer discussion by email if you're up to it. I fundamentally think it's morally wrong to keep someone in the dark from reality by deceiving them about their will or life outcome and especially if that person is homeless or suicidal for example.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Feel free to email me for further discussion. Why not just have the discussion here? > I have the impression you don't understand my definition of free will compared to your own definition. I think you are trading on the ambiguity in the term "free will" to avoid having to confront the actual issues involved. That's why I used the less ambiguous term "making choices". If you don't think people can ever make choices that make a difference in their situation, then you and I have a fundamental disagreement that I don't think will get resolved by any discussion. Also, if that's your belief, I think you are being inconsistent; you talk about "designing better social systems", but that very process involves people making choices that will make a difference in their situation (as well as the situation of many, many other people). If you just think the amount of difference a person can make in their situation by making choices varies with the situation, of course I agree with that. But that's not a problem that can be fixed by "designing better social systems". It can only be fixed by being willing to call a spade a spade when people in power make choices that disempower others, so that people in power can be stopped from doing that. The biggest barrier to people being able to change their situation by making choices is restrictions put on them by other people, not some abstract claim about free will being an illusion. "Designing social systems" makes that problem worse, not better. > I fundamentally think it's morally wrong to keep someone in the dark from reality by deceiving them about their will or life outcome I think you are confusing your opinions with "reality". Telling people they don't have free will, or that free will is an illusion, is just as much of an opinion as telling them they do have free will. Neither is a statement of "reality". That's why I say free will is best viewed as a right: because in my opinion, believing that people have free will is respecting their right to make their own choices, and believing that people don't have free will is not respecting that right--which just means arrogating to yourself the power to make choices that disempower them. Respecting people's right to make choices is not a factual claim about people; it's a policy, which I think should be adopted because it will end up helping people. > especially if that person is homeless or suicidal for example I don't see how it's any help to a person who is homeless or suicidal to tell them free will is an illusion. Nor would it be any help to tell them it isn't. A person who is homeless or suicidal has much more pressing things to think about than whether or not free will is an illusion. And helping such a person has nothing at all to do with your own opinions or beliefs, much less foisting them on others in the guise of "telling them about reality".