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Old 04-27-2010, 05:15 AM   #22 (permalink)
SecretMethod70
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Elaborating a bit on my own thoughts to add to this discussion, after posting earlier this morning I was reminded of an excerpt which I have included on my Facebook profile for quite some time that speaks directly to the subject of free will. It is from Baruch Spinoza, whose thoughts on free will have, admittedly, heavily influenced my own...

On the improvement of the understanding: The ethics ; Correspondence - By Benedictus de Spinoza

Quote:
Originally Posted by Spinoza, Letter to G.H. Schaller
Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavoring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavor and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.
Wikipedia also has a decent summary of Spinoza's view of free will, which I think is worth sharing here:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
In the last two propositions of Part Two of The Ethics, P48 and P49, he explicitly rejects the traditional notion of free will. In E2P48, he claims:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spinoza
In the Mind there is no absolute, or free, will, but the Mind is determined to will this or that by a cause which is also determined by another, and this again by another, and so to infinity.
So from this we get a strong sense of Spinoza's Naturalism, that is, that the natural and human orders are contiguous. With that being the case, human freedom of a kind which would extricate us from the order of physical causes is impossible. However, Spinoza argues, we still ought to strive to understand the world around us, and in doing so, gain a greater degree of power, which will allow us to be more active than passive, and there is a sense in which this is a kind of freedom.
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Last edited by SecretMethod70; 04-27-2010 at 05:18 AM..
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