I challenge anyone on this forums to change their belief or disbelief in something, anything, simply by choosing to do so.
You can't.
Example:
Let's say I think feminism is fantastic, but I decide I'm going to chose to believe that patriarchy is the way to go. Just to prove it's a choice!
The simple act of deciding you want to change something isn't enough. I would then need to go research and find things that would drive my ideology towards patriarchy. In essence, I'd be looking for something to cause me to change my mind. Cause----->effect.
But if I didn't truly desire to change my mind, or if I found the evidence uncompelling, I wouldn't be able to do it. Not enough cause....so no effect.
And I cannot choose what I desire. None of choose that. I can't decide I like Coke better than Pepsi, again, without some driving fore behind the "choice" that essentially makes it no choice at all.
No one has ever demonstrated to me that they have made a free choice, insofar as they define free as completely without restraint or acted on by outside forces. We are (hopefully, in most places today) free to pursue what you desire within the bounds of acceptable societal constructs without a gun to our heads, yes (and this is how many will define free will, or free choice, called compatibilism), but we are never free to choose what those desires are or how compelling we find them (which is the idea of Libertarian Free will). The latter is nonsense, magical thinking at its worst.
You can't.
Example:
Let's say I think feminism is fantastic, but I decide I'm going to chose to believe that patriarchy is the way to go. Just to prove it's a choice!
The simple act of deciding you want to change something isn't enough. I would then need to go research and find things that would drive my ideology towards patriarchy. In essence, I'd be looking for something to cause me to change my mind. Cause----->effect.
But if I didn't truly desire to change my mind, or if I found the evidence uncompelling, I wouldn't be able to do it. Not enough cause....so no effect.
And I cannot choose what I desire. None of choose that. I can't decide I like Coke better than Pepsi, again, without some driving fore behind the "choice" that essentially makes it no choice at all.
No one has ever demonstrated to me that they have made a free choice, insofar as they define free as completely without restraint or acted on by outside forces. We are (hopefully, in most places today) free to pursue what you desire within the bounds of acceptable societal constructs without a gun to our heads, yes (and this is how many will define free will, or free choice, called compatibilism), but we are never free to choose what those desires are or how compelling we find them (which is the idea of Libertarian Free will). The latter is nonsense, magical thinking at its worst.
“Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end?”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
