Sometimes I wonder: am I free to make my own choices, or is my behavior determined by my genetic code? By the chemicals in my brain? By my social environment?
Philosophers have put forth some interesting food for thought-
Do we have free will? In other words, do we act solely on our own accord? Without being forced to be influenced by others or natural law?
Or is the universe deterministic in nature? That means that every action that has occurred up to this point has its own predictable root cause, so it was all bound to happen. Therefore, our very behavior must also be deterministic.
And then there's compatibilism which argues that the concepts of free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive. Both free will and determinism can co-occur.
I like the explanation of Hume's Fork in the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy:
"Either our actions are determined,
in which case we are not responsible for them,
Or they are the result of random events,
in which case we are not responsible for them."
We probably won't land on a definitive answer during our lifetime, but we can at least take solace in our own individual pathway. As Matt Ridley points out in his book Genome, there's at least some comfort in realizing that we are at the very least each able to express our own determinism and not somebody else's.
So while I think long and hard about how I make the choices I do, I will also remind myself to enjoy the cognitive and societal freedom (or perception of freedom) to make them.
Nice post girl.
ReplyDeleteI think we will eventually see why Hume's Fork is wrong. He (and many subsequent philosophers) have forgotten that it's a three-pronged fork. The third prong is... free will!
Their argument is fallacious because it begs the question. I suppose this happens because they are unable to even fathom non-physical causal closure.
Strong physical causal closure: all physical events have a physical cause.
Weak closure: all physical events that have a cause, have a physical cause.
Monktastic ninja closure: some physical events have nonphysical causes.
I'll let you guess which one I believe.
(I also think it will be an interesting sociological exercise in the future to understand why people of our era so wholeheartedly thumbed our noses at the idea that
Shoot, comment got cut off. The finish was:
ReplyDelete(I also think it will be an interesting sociological exercise in the future to understand why people of our era so wholeheartedly thumbed our noses at the idea that we indeed have free will, and fought so hard to prove it.)
I vote compatibilism. On one end of the spectrum a person who's asleep doesn't choose their answers. They tend to have their answers chosen for them either by subtle manipulation (subliminal advertisements) or ingrained behavior and I don't find that free will. And way on the other end of the line are those who are incredibly aware and connected, and although they can watch the same advertisements and grew up like everyone else they're aware of what's happening even on a subtle level, and in my opinion are making conscious choices freely.
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