RE: If free will was not real
August 17, 2016 at 5:48 pm
(This post was last modified: August 17, 2016 at 5:53 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(August 17, 2016 at 5:45 pm)Irrational Wrote: Two answers:What freedom is that, again? You see, at this point it's went beyond reassertion and become question begging.
1) To emphasize the freedom that comes with possessing a will.
Quote:More a response to people who argue that one possesses a will but that the will is not free. It's a reactionary thing.Well, is it? Isn't that what we're discussing?
Quote:2) Because will can sometimes be coerced by an external entity into choosing between certain options. If my father wanted me as a child to become either a doctor or an engineer, and I exercised my will to eventually become a doctor (I'm no doctor, btw), then I may not have exercised free will even though I did exercise my will to the extent that I chose to be a doctor instead of an engineer. As far as my perception goes, there was no direct force forcefully leading to become a doctor, but I wasn't exactly free enough with my choices either. I did it for my father, not for myself.Just sometimes? At this point we're at least considering where these things we possess may have come from....so, what things, in your head....come from nowhere but your head? What conditions or paramaters are wholly owned by you, with you as their point of origin? Which, if any, have you -not- been programmed to, regarding these parameters and conditions, by your environment and experience thereof?
In the particular example...was there no direct force leading you to becoming a doctor...because you just described a -powerful- force in human behavior and decisionmaking. The hopes and expectations of our parents. The claim appears to contradict itself as soon as it's uttered, even as you describe it.
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