For a long time now I have believed that life is deterministic, that we are a result of our genetic programming and environmental programming, neither of which have we had any control over.
We don’t choose our genetics.
We don’t choose our environment in the womb, in the crib, in the living room playing with parents, the school we go to, the people in our class, etc, etc, etc.
By the time we are old enough to start choosing our environment our being has been completely determined by our previous encounters with our environment of which we had no control over.
In looking for information on this subject I came across Albert Einstein and he believed all humans are a part of the universe and the universe is run by physical laws. The rock, the vegetable, the sun, the human, are all deterministic.
I mentioned this to a friend and he said that Einstein married his cousin, so there is that
I haven’t given this much thought to say one way or the other yet.
However, I contemplate on Otto Weininger’s thoughts on Will itself.
“It is a moral demand that in every action the whole individuality of the person should become apparent, each should be a complete overcoming of time, of the unconscious, and of the narrowness of consciousness. Most of the time however, man does not do what he wills, but what he has willed. Through his decisions, he always gives himself only a certain direction, in which he then moves until the next moment of reflection. We do not will continuously, we only will intermittently, piece by piece. We thus save ourselves from willing: principle of the economy of the will. But the higher man always experiences this as thoroughly immoral. Present and eternity are connected; timeless, universal, logical reasonings have the form of the present (logic is achieved ethics): and so also should all eternity lie in every present. We also must not determine ourselves from within; this last danger too, this last deceptive appearance of autonomy, is to be avoided.”
I definitely think that Will itself is separate from autonomy, but limited still by cause and effect. That’s about all I’ve thought of it though.
welp man… you can always think and spin for a second before you take to your most logical action… or is the godforce making you do so… I don’t know…
the ultimate trick of physics is burrrp time doesn’t exist… were in a chaotic slice of ongoing change… you have free will… do as thou wilt but keep reason in mind cause the world will ■■■■ you up worse than you are if you do wrong… all the same chaos of quantum/molecular physics… and if you think that’s predetermined… you know go ■■■■ yourself because it’s the essence of chaos… and so are human beings… get over this existential ■■■■ and make a life for yourself… all born to the involuntary sandbox just like grade school my brother… you know build a castle and hope no bullies are around…
He also divorced her because he thought his work was more important. I don’t think marrying your cousin back then was seen as repulsive back then either.
Nice idea about the determinism though, I certainly agree/
Determinism disregards the choices we have in life. I don’t believe that when it was my choice whether to live in one city I liked, or one city I didn’t like as much that it was pre-detertmined before I ever made the choice. We run our own lives in many ways. Yes, obviously our choices are limited by our gender, our physical appearance, the area of the world we live in and a million other things. It just depends on your point of view of what you want to believe in. Life is not all black and white, there’s gray areas. Obviously, there’s many people on both sides of the argument.
In the middle ages, the world sank into a stagnation where the regress of society stalled. Scientific advancement stalled too Free thing was discouraged. The church emerged as the strongest influence and became the most powerful force in most of Europe.
To keep their power over everybody they kept the masses as ignorant as they could. They essentially brainwashed the population to take everything the Church said as gospel truth and did not tolerate any body disarming with them. Anyway, I’m exhausted. I couldn’t explain how to make a grilled cheese sandwich right now let alone answer the arguments you guys make about this subject.
I’ve sometimes wondered if some kind of super dedicated athlete really just has hormones in his system that make him want to train like a madman. I don’t like to think like that, though, because it takes away some of the glory the athlete gets from winning. I think we have a certain amount of choice in our lives, like the athlete pushing himself beyond his limits rather than training not as hard. I’m kind of sitting on the fence on this one. We might not have as much choice as we think, but we do have choice about certain matters. Also, you have to wonder about psychopathic serial killers. Saying they were forced by nature to do what they did takes away his responsibility for his actions.
Determinism!
After that, I believe it’s your definition of free will.
Whether it’s wanting this or that but determinism is what determines your options, you know?
I believe it’s a combination of both!
Wow so much for black or white thinking. Suck it, therapist.
If the universe is deterministic it would remove responsibility for one’s actions but that doesn’t mean we should let murderers roam free. For the protection of all of us they should still be locked away.
I believe in a combination. The Muslim faith believes you inherit good and bad traits based on what you did in past lives. I don’t believe that but found it interesting…
When you’re yourself you have free will, but if you change your free will, it’s determinism that makes you act on your changes.
Determinism I believed strongly through my delusions, that God is omnipotent, but I don’t think that’s necessarily what determinism is about.
It’s that you are chosen through genes and environment from the start to live a certain life. It’s like time Machine movies, with the space time continuum…where only a time machine can truly change what happens.
So yeah I believe in free will but I think determinism is a cooler concept, despite it fueling my delusions.
I also think determinism can help you gain an empathy for people .
Einstein mentioned that in one of his quotes, that believing in determinism made him less angry with others since they had no control over their actions.
We typically experience agency/control over our actions. Now I suppose the exclusive determinist would consider that a delusion/illusion. Yet, it is precisely breakdowns in such experience, as manifest in intrusive thoughts/thought insertion or delusions of (the lack of) bodily control, that are typically considered delusional, i.e., false belief, signs of serious pathology and highly disturbing for that matter. If these are delusions indeed, as I think they are, then I would have a hard time not thinking of their negation as non-delusional. Hence I can’t agree with exclusive determinism.
I believe some things are of the natural order yet I believe there is a supernatural grace that guides and offers evolution for us all to grow and find dharma to share
