by logansrun 56 Replies latest jw friends
Imagine in your mind any "evil" person: Rapist, murderer, theif, addict, terrorist...etc.
Now, if you were born with that exact DNA, had that same brain chemistry and went through the same enviornmental stimuli and life experiences as they did, you would do the exact same "evil" things.
We only think we are "free."
B.
How many angels dance on the head of a pin?
What you are saying is that a certain personality under a certain set of circumstances will perform a certain action. However, no two of us will ever have the same brain chemistry, DNA and circumstances as any of our counterparts. We define, therefore, what we will do in certain situations--no one else sets a precedence for our own actions. We are also highly inconsistent in our choices. How many times have you eaten different things under the same circumstances? We are guided by our environment and heredity, but we ultimately have the choice of what we are and what we will do. I believe we can actually change our brain chemistry by what we choose to focus on--we're not merely mechanical products of our surroundings.
There's an old story, I think it was ascribed to Zeno the Stoic.
A master had a slave who used to steal from him
The slave protested his punishment saying "I was fated to steal"
The master replied "and I was fated to beat you"
metatron
All freedom has a context.
John Doe,
Discussions like this usually are arguments about semantics.
I think of what Jean Paul Sartre said: We are condemned to be free. I take that to mean that we have no other "out" except to be conscious of the decisions we make and the implications those decisions have. The question is what led up to us making that "choice." For instance, if I choose to get up and have a beer after I type this reply I own up to that choice -- but where did it really come from? What factors beyond my control -- some unknown to me -- led to me believing that I choose to get a beer or not?
Personally, I feel that there is not only no such thing as "free will" but that the discussion is supernatural gobledy-gook. Pray tell what someone's "will" is free from? Free from the causal nexus? Free from heredity? Free from the the neuro-chemical brain states from one moment to the next? I have never heard it precisely said what free will even is.
How does one know the "choice" to do X simply does not "pop" into one's mind, as it were. I was driving past a house that I used to live in the other day and I suddenly, without any conscious volition, remembered the name of a pizza parlor my family used to go to when I was a child. I swear I haven't thought of the name "Mama Luna's" in over ten or twelve years. I didn't consciously create that memory. I wasn't even trying to remember the name. It just "came of it's own." How many decisions we make are similarly influenced by ideas and suggestions just "popping" in our head? I can't say. (No one can!)
To me, humans have this rather weird belief in "free will" simply because we are self-conscious creatures. An ape probably "knows" it is eating some termites, but we humans actually can "know" that we are thinking -- and are thinking about our thinking!
Mega,
I'm not sure what you mean. Care to explain?
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Another thought: Questions of "free will" really are questions of identity. Just who am "I" really? What is the "self"? The human brain developed the capacity for some form of self-consciousness and so we therefore have this illusion of a definite and fixed solid "self." But evolution doesn't really care if we are tricked in the process. If self-consciousness aids in the survival of the species so be it, illusions and all.
Yes, what is my "self"? My thoughts? If so, then that really means my brain. But, my brain has it's unconscious moments. Are they part of "me" as well?
I've come to the tentative conclusion that the self is incredibly too complex and we really don't have a very good idea of what it is. That being the case, I hardly think we have any good idea of why we do what we do.
B.
I'll deny it.
I think metatron is saying we should take responsibility for our actions: we all can choose whether we do something or not.
"Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power." -- Seneca
Good questions, logan. We are driven by hormones, by bodily needs of food, shelter, stimulation, relaxation, etc. In times past, slaves were restricted in how they could meet their own needs. Many people feel that freedom is the ability to meet their own needs in those areas, and pandering to them endlessly is utopia. Are they slaves of their bodies? Dunno, but it's fun.
S
