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cardboard adolescent · 01-03-2009, 03:16 PM

Oh free will. It seems to me a pretty absurd concept, what exactly does it mean for your will to be free? Some might say it's the ability to choose, you're not free to choose the situation you find yourself in but you are free to choose how to respond. But how do you choose how to respond? You have to rely on something, after all, how can a decision be purely arbitrary? You can flip a coin, but then you're just relying on physics. Playing eenie meenie miney moe in your head amounts to essentially the same thing. How most of us make our decisions is by relying on past experience or 'reason,' which is really just our past experiences in disguise. Of course, we weren't free to determine either of those things so relying on them doesn't exactly give us freedom either, we're essentially enslaved by them. We can do the opposite, and do something irrational, but then we're relying on something else, a dissatisfaction stemming from our previous decisions, or maybe just life in general. Did we generate this feeling, or did it slowly creep on us? Who the hell ever generates their own feelings? Certainly not I. So now we're a slave to our whims. Every decision is based on something, and traced backwards eventually that causal chain is completely beyond our control. So how could we possibly be free? Only if causality is a myth, and everything is purely arbitrary. But in that case our freedom means nothing, it is the freedom of a will that doesn't actually exist. After all, if there is no causal link between the person I am now and the person I will be in ten minutes then that I is just a meticulously crafted illusion.

Now, if it is said that only God possesses free will, and the rest of our fates are predetermined, then God's will must be purely arbitrary. God would be, as it were, the original nihilist. And the rest of us are his pawns in a game that is only meaningful from our ant perspective.

The only reason nihilism does not swallow everything is that none of us are free; even nihilists are still slaves to their urges and desires. But can we do the Buddhist turnabout and say that if everything is a slave to everything else, everything must also be the master to everything else? It certainly is tempting, but what does saying 'everything is absolutely free and absolutely determined' get us? We get a sort of double vision where the selflessness of Jesus and Nietzsche's will to power are superimposed. What does a morality based on schizophrenia look like? I'm not sure, but I'm willing to try it out.

01-03-2009, 03:16 PM	#1 (permalink)
cardboard adolescent ;) Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: CA Posts: 3,503	so... free will? Oh free will. It seems to me a pretty absurd concept, what exactly does it mean for your will to be free? Some might say it's the ability to choose, you're not free to choose the situation you find yourself in but you are free to choose how to respond. But how do you choose how to respond? You have to rely on something, after all, how can a decision be purely arbitrary? You can flip a coin, but then you're just relying on physics. Playing eenie meenie miney moe in your head amounts to essentially the same thing. How most of us make our decisions is by relying on past experience or 'reason,' which is really just our past experiences in disguise. Of course, we weren't free to determine either of those things so relying on them doesn't exactly give us freedom either, we're essentially enslaved by them. We can do the opposite, and do something irrational, but then we're relying on something else, a dissatisfaction stemming from our previous decisions, or maybe just life in general. Did we generate this feeling, or did it slowly creep on us? Who the hell ever generates their own feelings? Certainly not I. So now we're a slave to our whims. Every decision is based on something, and traced backwards eventually that causal chain is completely beyond our control. So how could we possibly be free? Only if causality is a myth, and everything is purely arbitrary. But in that case our freedom means nothing, it is the freedom of a will that doesn't actually exist. After all, if there is no causal link between the person I am now and the person I will be in ten minutes then that I is just a meticulously crafted illusion. Now, if it is said that only God possesses free will, and the rest of our fates are predetermined, then God's will must be purely arbitrary. God would be, as it were, the original nihilist. And the rest of us are his pawns in a game that is only meaningful from our ant perspective. The only reason nihilism does not swallow everything is that none of us are free; even nihilists are still slaves to their urges and desires. But can we do the Buddhist turnabout and say that if everything is a slave to everything else, everything must also be the master to everything else? It certainly is tempting, but what does saying 'everything is absolutely free and absolutely determined' get us? We get a sort of double vision where the selflessness of Jesus and Nietzsche's will to power are superimposed. What does a morality based on schizophrenia look like? I'm not sure, but I'm willing to try it out.