/lit/ - Literature

>>21824379
Something something Matrix quote

>>21824379
Define free will

What is “free will”? You say it as if it’s an obvious concept everyone knows, but I’ve yet to come across a coherent definition of it.

Is it, like some contemporary philosophers define it, merely “the ability to do otherwise than one does”? That is hardly satisfactory for many reasons. What about “the ability to carry out any actions which are within one’s immediate physical capability”? This is not satisfactory either. Right now I have the physical capability to take my clothes off and run down the street shouting “fuck the Queen.” And yet I don’t do this. Why? Because I don’t desire it? Well then whence do my desires come? A man is obviously not free if someone else programs his desires, so free will would seem to imply that we have to be the authors of our desires too.

But, first of all, most of our desires seem to be subconscious, irrational, uncontrolled, and confused. Why do I want apples now instead of oranges? I don’t know; I just feel like it. Why do I like looking at pretty girls? That’s what I’ve been biologically programmed to do. Why do I act a certain way in certain contexts? Because that’s the culture I’ve grown up in, the upbringing I’ve had, the habits I’ve been taught.

Secondly, even if you define free will as only applying to those decisions we make after prolonged rational reflection, mortification of the flesh, prayer, and meditation, you still don’t get to free will. Reason is as much of a slave-master as irrational impulses are. If you act by reason, you are a slave to reason. If you do what you think is good, you are a slave to the Good. I freely admit it is nobler to be a slave to Reason than to the passions, but it’s still not freedom.

As far as I see it, a person with “free will”, if such a thing could even exist, would be totally random. He would be unrestrained by any social decorum, any end-goals, any conception of the Good, morality, law, beauty, reason, or anything. He would be a spasmodic mess, doing random things all the time, changing his mind in the middle of an action, etc..

>>21824379
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wegner#The_illusion_of_conscious_will

>>21824379
Free will in limited circumstances, if any singular entity genuinely had the capacity to go against the order of things, everything would start to break, which incidentally, happens when people have too much power, right? Hitler seems to be an example of a strong will, not really his own autonomosly, but kind of like some Wehrmacht egregore

>>21824393
the ability to go against natural instinct. all natural instinct is there so we can survive and have sex, so the monk that burned himself alive proves humans can go against all natural instinct.

I used to until I sprained my back this morning. Now my master is pain.

>>21824379
I believe what people tell me about themselves. If someone tells me they don't believe in free will, they don't have free will. You can do whatever you want to them.

>>21824478
Shankara-pilled. Not a joke, this is almost word for word what he states in Upadesa Sahasri. Non-conscious things are those things without free will which only exist for a terminating conscious subject.

Everything acts on the conditions that precede it so no

>>21824459
But was it not the natural instinct of the Monk to become a Monk?

>>21824536
So what if the will is one of those conditions?

>>21824803
The will is the undergoing of the act, not a condition itself. It's contingent on conditions.

A lot of this is an issue of semantics but "free will" is either a misconception of dividing you and your effect on the world from your consciousness or a way of interjecting responsibility.

>>21824379
I did, but I can't stop fucking eating, so I'm starting to doubt it.

>>21824379
Yes. The only arguments against free will are pure sophistry.