(November 24, 2021 at 3:24 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Idk Brian, it seems like we’ve figured out whether a whole bunch of what people do is freely willed or not. We don’t freely will our hearts to beat, we do t freely will to breath, we don’t freely will our base apprehensions, we don’t freely will our tastes, or our beliefs. We don’t even freely will to think.
I think it’s unclear where or what happens when the product of all of this involuntary operation becomes free, or in what sense it’s supposed to be free when we discuss the idea of free will.
It’s equally unclear why we should consider ourselves some sort of black box immune to investigation or observation.
There is undoubtedly a deep seated fear that admitting we our thoughts are a fundamentally undistinguished part of the comprehensible processes of the world that can be observed, understood, predicted and manipulated much like the steam in a steam engine would encourages the thought and desire analysis that could ultimately lead to such understanding of it as to provide for the final subjection of individual thought to outside control and management. Asserting Will is free and thus not subject to such investigation wmd control seems like a way to retarding and hopefully stopping progress towards developing such understanding of will as to allow it to be predicted and managed.
In truth, much of our concept of a free society is founded on similar strategy of freedom through ignorance or at least fact evasion applied to many areas. The problem with freedom through ignorance is one can never always keep everyone equally ignorant, and those who make themselves less ignorant than the general standard of ignorance expected out of society becomes particularly able to menipulated the society for their own benefit at the cost to others.
