Quote:
Originally posted by ARTelevision
YzermanS19, you are thoroughly correct.
Free will is a high-sounding myth.
It's one of those things we like to believe in...nothing more.
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I see where both of you are coming from. Is it the will itself that you consider a myth, or the idea of it being free?
I see that there is part of us that is 'will', our unconcious reason. Because there is always the question 'why?' to remind us that we can't conciously find a reason to do anything, unless as ART says you believe in certain things only because you like to (when is the unknown an acceptable answer?). And so we can say it is will that commands us and not only OUR actions but all other events of the universe, because we cannot apply our concept of justification to anything. So we wonder if our will is free by executing our actions and observing the results, did we succeed or did we fail? On success we sense freedom and on failure we sense otherwise. So in all events, there are these actions and opposite reactions, or so its said, but don't these 'reactions' occur simultaneously to their actions? As there is one deciding moment of the immediate outcome (the illusion of cause and effect). Aren't all things a battle of will? If we were in complete power over the universe, if our will to power was supreme over all others, then would we be free, would the will be free? Would we then need conciousness and the ego, and all things that we now call life? Could we be free as ourselves only in being what we once called god? Perhaps the will to power is a goal, and is only free when it is harnessed absolutely by something living.
It seems to me though that the will itself is not relevant to us indivdually, it is only one and it is a part of everything. And unless the exchange of energy and the transformation of forms is a goal in itself, perhaps there is none, perhaps that is the myth. The idea of a goal, of a begining and end has only been a tool to our survival. But still, why?
And on the idea of fate, the feeling that things are being determined not by you, but for you, without your concent, and beyond your ability to control. The possibility of fate is acceptable only for the weak-willed. They are right to feel a loss of control, as they choose to obey, and they must.