Why is Freedom So Important To Us?

[Walker]

conspiring circumstances force belief in free will

-Imp

A belief is a thought and folks are free to think anything, however thoughts of unicorns don't make unicorns real. The anything that is freely thought depends on the situation, along with the proclivities and the capacity of the thinker.

[Walker]

If this sense of agency is an illusion (and I don't think it is an illusion) then it is a most persistent one. And we'll never be rid of it.

The issue appears to be more about the source of agency rather than the sense of agency. The cause of the arrow’s one and only perfect trajectory to the target, given any particular condition, is the arrow releasing itself from the bow, rather than the Ego-Captain commanding the bow when to fire. S.D.G. assigns the glory to God and not Bach, however Bach likely sensed God’s agency as the motive force of action.

[Impenitent]

conspiring circumstances force belief in free will

-Imp

A belief is a thought and folks are free to think anything, however thoughts of unicorns don't make unicorns real. The anything that is freely thought depends on the situation, along with the proclivities and the capacity of the thinker.

if I thought I was a unicorn, according to Descartes, I'd be a unicorn... cogito ergo unicorn...

maybe not

-Imp

[Walker]

Why is Freedom So Important To Us?

Becuz we perceive ourselves, without exception, as having (or, as I like to say, as being) free wills. Each of us, including all the determinists, live as though we are the source or cause of our choices; we live as though our choices matter; and we live as though we are responsible for our choices, and the consequences of our choices.

Even those who do wrong, and who look to weasel their way out of payin' the price for their wrong-doing, live as though they're responsible for themselves.

If this sense of agency is an illusion (and I don't think it is an illusion) then it is a most persistent one. And we'll never be rid of it.

So, freedom is important to us becuz we believe we are free, we live as though we are free, and we all loath the idea of not being free.

This suggests that the agent of change must be an outsider, an external force. Those who are one with nature, such as animals, cannot be agents of change. Those who are apart from nature can be agents of change. God is the ultimate agent of change, man is the mirror of God. Man anthropomorphizes God to be an external force. It is the dualistic sense of being apart, being separate, that is the agent of change. The separate self is an outsider to nature. Change is caused by the persistence of being apart, because if like an animal one is one with nature, one does not need any change other than to relieve personal discomfort of oneself and the pups.

[Impenitent]

rain is one with nature and it can be an agent of change...

unless you like sitting around in wet clothes

Agents of Fortune on the other hand...

-Imp

[Walker]

rain is one with nature and it can be an agent of change...

unless you like sitting around in wet clothes

Agents of Fortune on the other hand...

-Imp

They do say that clothes make the man, but they were probably either tailors or the Chinese factory owners who conspired with The Clinton Philosophy of the world being a village in order to change the American textile industry, and either purposely or inadvertently crush American-made.

[puto]

Thanks for making me think. I have choices because the more I read the less I know.