Is Free Will an Illusion? Post Response (NoHN)

I am responding to the post here.

"if you can choose between two doors, Door A and Door B, but unbeknownst to you, Door B is locked. If you choose Door A, is that free will or was it determined that you would go through Door A? "

My answer to this is yes. The individual was destined to go through that door. Maybe they attempted to open door  and then realized it was locked and then went to door A, well, in my opinion then that was determined as well. Some previous series of events led to that door being locked and it lead to that individual attempting to open that door. It gives an illusion of free will that does not really exist.  The fact that I looked through about half of our classmates blogs before "deciding' to respond to yours was also destined to occur. Both examples are caused by past events that have caused current preferences which have lead to unavoidable actions that were bound to occur. To think that I would have responded to a different blogpost or to say that an individual would have gone through door B means that we are setting up an entirely new group of events that would have preceded the event itself. To think this way is just like saying, "I'm me, but if I weren't me (because we are the sum of our situations and events) then this would have occurred (something that couldn't have occurred without changing the premises for the argument). "

In conclusion, yes. We were determined to do whatever it is that we think we chose. We don't know that things are bound to happen, therefore we are given an illusion of choice. 


~Ama-Bemma

Does determinism exist outside of the realm of time? (NoHN)

In class we discussed that the idea of time is a human made one. Time, we said, can only be described using physical terms. i.e. time is passing us by, that time went by quickly, this assignment will take a short time etc etc. I feel as if perhaps determinism can exist outside of the realm of time. I doodles the idea in my notebook during class because it was the only way that I could explain my thoughts to myself.

I'm hoping that it makes sense to you as well. I was looking at this through a theological lens (it just helped me understand the concept a bit more) and that's how I came up with this question. If God= determinism (since religiously He knows everything that will occur and we can be judged based on things that we've done that He chooses not to interfere with) and since He exists in a timeless state then can't determinism exist without time as well and can't it already know what has occurred if time doesn't really exist?

Time with the concept of movement is a line because we think of time having some sort of movement.

figure 2

but determinism takes into account everything. So determinism surrounds our concept of time because it already knows what's going to occur. So our sense of free will has already occurred at some point in time but determinism knows what our "choices" will be, so although we think we are choosing something it's already known and it's known that we wouldn't have chosen anything else, so I guess that we're not really choosing anything.

but if time doesn't move then it could just be a point (.) that determinism knows already.

So if time is just a human made concept that we can describe with only physical terms then who is to say that time is moving at all? It could simply be a point in which everything has occurred instantaneously. Maybe people are just to slow to know that time has already happened. This is just an idea.

I had another drawing that my computer for some reason will not let me upload, but it was just a point with the same dashes as figure 2.


My conclusion is that determinism can exist outside of time. If time is a concept that is not fully understood then there's nothing to say that time and determination go hand in hand. I feel as if wondering if everything we do is by choice or not by choice is not a simple question. I also feel that we are all probably doing what we're doing because it's the only thing we would have done if our pasts, situations and circumstances are taken into account. The argument of "well, if the circumstances were different..." is not valid either because  the circumstances are also a result of past situations and circumstances. So everything is a result of something else and therefore was destined to happen. So the idea of determinism existing outside of time is possible if determinism knows everything that was going to occur without the issue of time conflicting with it.

~Ama-Bemma

The Question of How We Should Live (NoHN)

Image taken from tbclife.net

A question was posed in our textbook Who Are We? and it is, " They asked the right questions:--how should I live?...but lacked the passionate disinterested use of reason in the pursuit of truth, which is necessary in order to answer these questions." ( page 32)

This may be a silly question, but the first thing I need to answer for myself before I can answer this question is what is the truth? Who decided what it is? Normally it's whatever the larger group has decided. However, isn't that an ad populum fallacy? Just because the majority accepts something as the truth does it inherently become the truth? Unfortunately, yes. It leaves little room for disagreement or change. If I can't even discern for myself what the truth is then how can I follow Socrates' guidelines and use a disinterested use of reason to pursue the truth of how we should live? I feel as if some things are just a series of questions that can not be instantly answered. One can see the truth as being whatever one believes  but then that truth is not the truth for another person. Is the way we should live a universal thing? Is the way we should live a value? It can not be a physical trait because people live in all sorts of different places and under different living standards and practices. Is the way we should live not an is but an are, are there ways we should live? Is there more than one value, more than one characteristic? I think that there might be.

People get their values for living from different sources: the bible, family, tradition, society. The Bible says that we must live our lives for the Lord, society states that we must live our lives and achieve something, traditions use to state that some people/genders should live their lives in very specific ways. Is somebody wrong or is everybody right? Is it okay to just piece together for yourself how you should live?

The book states that Socrates saw ethics as a way to figure this out(32). I see a flaw in that. Ethical behavior is dependent on groups, and as history as shown us, some of the supposedly ethically correct things that people have done have not been ethically correct to others.


I attempted to answer that question for myself, and as you can see, all I came up with were more questions.



~Ama-Bemma