(December 12, 2015 at 3:59 pm)Shining_Finger Wrote:(December 12, 2015 at 3:23 pm)Amine Wrote: That seems to me to be different from simply wanting to believe in it. How would your choices be more limited if you didn't believe you had free will?If I didn't believe in free will, that could fairly easily lead to a Rabbit Hole where I don't make the right choice because I don't think I can.
Sure, the alternative is making bad choices to prove you have free will, so I avoid that line of thinking.
I do see what you're saying. Believing in determinism means acknowledging there are limitations. I don't try to do things that don't seem to be in my nature anymore, but maybe it would be better if I still did bang my head against that wall, in a sense. Honestly, though, I'd still have to think determinism has better consequences than believing you can do things you probably can't. We have to acknowledge the costs. The time I have saved in no longer attempting to do certain things has led me to further develop those things which are in my nature to do.
Specifically, I used to try to have a more active social life because I thought that was what should be. I kept on running into the problem of just not being interested in people, though. I never wanted to hang out. Eventually I just gave up and admitted that I was incapable of doing the same things as other people, and settled for staying home and doing what I always wanted, which is reading and writing about stuff. After so long of that, I feel I've in a sense transcended mediocrity which I would have been doomed to in all areas if I had continued trying to have much of a social life. I would have always been poor at that, and on top of that I would have missed out on the chance to develop what was really my talent. And it gets better still: once I developed my talent more, I began finding people in that particular area who I actually was interested in, thus giving me a social life that wasn't even a burden to keep.
My 2 cents on it anyway.
