Do humans actually have free will?

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by Fido

I hope this helps the confusion.

Nope, not really.

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by boagie

Fido,

Do you have any recommended reading on this apparently historical idea, it is new to me, but fascinating. Does it fit in with a boarder understanding of relationalism?


"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and be carrying a cross." Stclair Lewis

Read some Aristotle.

[boagie]

I am going to spend sometime digesting what you have had to say, most impressive, thanks for the thoughful response, I will get back to you on this!! Thanks Mr Fight The Power, any particular works??

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by boagie

I am going to spend sometime digesting what you have had to say, most impressive, thanks for the thoughful response, I will get back to you on this!! Thanks Mr Fight The Power, any particular works??

The Metaphysics.

[Fido]

Originally Posted by Mr. Fight the Power

The Metaphysics.

If Aristotle didn't call his metaphysics, metatphysics; what did he call it, and what was the meaning of the word. I'd say Poetics. It has that lovely line I read and about destroyed my Ethics trying to find about the line between vice and virtue being one that divides all of mankind. Which is nonsense, but it sounds good. If it were possible to really divide humanity on any line, it would not be humanity as a form. Because, forms are always unitary. Ideas, forms, concepts are all one thing. Under the classification of cats there are not two cats, but one class divided only in detail, but, all are cats. They are not divided, they are distinguished, or differentiated in some detail, none of which are the opposite of the other. Am I making this difficult. It is not. Every individual example of a certain concept is like every other example of that concept in every essential detail, though it might vary in every inessential way. For example... Humans have a 99%+ equality of genes. Our essential detail might be this shared 99% of our genetic make up. Considering that the one percent we differ in may represent many thousands of potential combination effecting everything from from feet to smiles, and beyond, it is no small thing. As a group, we must also account for our differences. Thanks; Sorray to bay so longgg winded.

[Fido]

Originally Posted by boagie

I am going to spend sometime digesting what you have had to say, most impressive, thanks for the thoughful response, I will get back to you on this!! Thanks Mr Fight The Power, any particular works??

If it's my idea; you can have it. I would look at a lot of history from that angle, history of philosophy in particular, but all history as well. The great individuals who can actually move human progress fore or back, all have that fact in common. They were good at formulaic behavior. Napoleon could form a conception of the battle field and even of war to such an extent that he could win wars and battles regularly. He understood it to the extent that he could teach war in the form of history, and maxims. And I add, the military is very formal in dress and behavior. And he recognised a master of war by formula when he said at the Tomb of Frederick the Great; Hats off Gentlemen; If he were alive we would not be here. Now; do you think he could have lived with himself, or played his part in all the torture and carnage if the relationship between himself and his army were not the extreme of unequal? If he were capable of caring he could not have seen his men slaughtered for any formal gain. His first battle would have been his last.
If I were building my ideal human theys would be thus: All would have enough formal education and understanding to solve formal problems, and each would have the ability to relate, informally, give and take, push and shove, and having the desire with which to hang in there, bear the seasons, and the ebb and flow of many tides undaunted. Man, I never thought I would ever get a chance to use that word. What do you know. Few of our problems are formal, and many problems in life once surmounted will never be seen again; and yet they are no less problems for being phenomenal. The necessity for resolving moral issues and solving informal problems requires a more immediate, and lithe mentality. See. What a day for unused words. Its before noon and I think I'll crack a beer.

Hitler could compare his life to a motion picture. He was distant even from himself. Does anyone believe Caesar was less distant, or Alexander the Great? Stalin was right to compare the deaths of thousands to statistics. At some point human relationships become totally minimized to those who seek the form of government power. And it is like the two poles of human existence. Those who have relationships are happy in them and need little, and those who have forms very often need the whole world. It is why ideas are so dangerous. People latch onto a form like a life vest, and to keep it will kill millions.

[BrightNoon]

I wrote this a while ago and was going to put it in the creative writing section, but this seems like the perfect place.

On Free Will versus Automatism


These two, mutually exclusive ideas are those upon which we primarily rely when attempting to explain the passage of events. How can there be such confusion about the simplest and most fundamental element of our reality!
On the one hand, through empirical science, men have decided that, theoretically, they could predict the course of any natural event, because phenomena succeed one another in an invariable pattern. Also, they have decided that all real events are natural. Therefore, except for the practical limitations, length of the calculations, required fineness of measurements, etc, they could predict any and every conceivable event, including all the actions of all people. Scientific thought, if extrapolated in this way, arrives at the conclusion that man is not free, but that he, like all other arrangements of matter and energy in the universe, is irrevocably bound act in accordance to universal laws. Applied to the nervous system, as it would have to be, this idea would that all thoughts, however intricate and all actions, however personal or ephemeral, are the direct result, albeit through many confused passages, of the interactions of various physical properties.
The other view, that man is indeed free, supposes that this freedom of action is the result of the will, some vaguely defined, supernatural entity, existing in no specific place, yet within the man, which is responsible for said action. The idea Soul was the antecedent of this modern idea, Will. This poses a problem for modern man similar to that of the medieval theologian, who believed in the omniscience of God and also in man’s ultimate free will.
However, I call both of these ideas superstition! They jointly rest on the mystical idea of causation. The idea will, or soul, had to be invented because cause and effect are necessarily separated in causation, or vice versa. It was assumed that the body, as effect, must be directed by some cause, the will. This idea gave birth to the scientific spirit and the scientific interpretation of life; whatever the body in question, whether human, vegetable or mineral, as long as causation is presupposed, there must be disunion of action and actor. In that material world, forces are correspondent to souls and matter to bodies. This scientific/mystical interpretation seems gloomy, as it denies human free will, because the entire concept of will, in that world-view, is separated from the action; if the action, the body, does not have its own supernatural soul-cause, then it must be influenced by various external causes, like a puppet. I understand why this view is so repellent to most.
If, on the other hand, one removes the fallacious idea of causation, uniting cause and effect in single phenomena, making the actor and the action once more inseparable, neither the idea of free will nor that of scientific automatism has any weight; they become utterly meaningless. Now, will is understood in a new way; it is not the cause of one’s actions, but simply a linguistic symbol for those actions. The terms willing and acting are synonymous. Similarly, in the natural world one would unite force with matter and rename it phenomena for the sake of clarity.

[Fido]

Every effect has a cause; but not every cause has an effect. Or should I say, a specific effect; or a desired effect. If I were to drive bull pins as once I did, some times a hole is too far off, or the iron is too bound up to move, and then without a bigger beater you might as well hang it up for the day because wail away at it as much as you want with a two pound tack hammer and nothing will give an inch. Came after it with an eight pound maul and you're in business. But life is like that, where things will give, and even the earth and environment will give to a concerted effort, but will absorb anything short of that. It is one thing to look for will in all that people do; but if it were possible for people to consciously change anything, as a demonstration of will; a good place to start would be themselves. While we all want to change others, we find we are ourselves beyond change, and so as all other peoples in times passed, we change our forms to avoid personal change. We are biologically and socially determined, and restricted by ignorence, and while clearly, at least in my opinion, life is a force of will; still there is little we can do but to survive to show our will. Life and nature absorb much of our force, so that, if we could move mountains someone would only move them back.

[BrightNoon]

And what is a cause I ask?

[Fido]

Originally Posted by BrightNoon

And what is a cause I ask?

Anything in motion is a potential cause for an effect. It is just that nearly every bullet misses. And every straw breaks the camel's back. There is never a single cause, and no point in looking for a first cause. For humans to make a ripple they must concentrate all their energy, and in a sense it is a waste of life since the object of life is life, the living of it, the relationships, and all effort aimed at demonstrating will is taken from the living of life. Does it not strike you as strange that so many of our philosophers; those most interested in proving human freedom, and will -almost to a man, lived and died lonely? No one should give up the best part of any life to consider how to make all life better. Have your cake, eat it too, and bake another cake; but don't ever think you can hold on to anything for ever, or that a perfect form or formula for life can be developed. Better people demand and build better forms. If you want to improve the world, start with people, and begin that with self.

So, if I may back track: All will is free. All freedom is willed. If you prove, or improve one, you prove the other.