LEARN. THINK. EXPLORE.
  • Home
  • class sampler
  • Summer 2023
  • Fall 2023
  • FAQ
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

Learning Outside the Box

"PHILOSOPHICALLY SPEAKING...":

12/6/2020

0 Comments

 
When it comes down to it, do we actually want to believe in free will? This article from Philosophy News (UK) argues that free will comes at a cost some of us may not want to pay:

"One of the most enduring philosophical questions concerns the tension between free will and determinism. The question of whether the future is predetermined or whether we are active agents occupies the minds of philosophers, insomniacs, bank tellers, robbers, nurses and perhaps dolphins, and it remains uncertain whether or not we have any choice in thinking of such things. ... The very idea of freedom is entrenched in our personal and moral codes: it is hardly controversial to say that we do not want to be bound by forces beyond our control, subservient to the whims of other people and of the universe. But the question of whether we should want freedom is so rarely asked. To question freedom itself is, for many, tantamount to insanity. Why wouldn’t we want to be free – especially when so many people have suffered the injustices of oppression, and still suffer them every day? But the desire for freedom is more than just a desire for liberty from oppression. It reflects an intuitive desire for self-determination, to be the author of one’s own life. For our lives to have meaning, the argument goes, it is necessary for us to have some control over what kind of people we are and the trajectory our lives will take.  ... For [Danish existentialist Søren] Kierkegaard, freedom signifies a specific kind of anxiety, or dread, relating to the infinite number of possibilities presented to us by freedom. It compels dizziness. When we’re choosing what sort of milk to buy, what sort of career we might want, and to which destination we should travel, we are plagued by the burden of freedom. ... This anxiety relates to what the French call ‘ appel du vide’ – the ‘call of the void’ (nothing to do with apples). When looking down from a great height, or sitting in an exit row beside the door on a plane, some people feel the compulsion to jump or to pull the door open mid-flight, not because they are suicidal or eager to kill people, but just because they are curious about whether or not they are even capable of bringing about such an action – whether they are capable of disobeying their most primitive instincts of self-preservation and survival. This demonstrates the dizziness of freedom. They understand exactly what would happen, but they’re unsure of whether they could bring themselves to actually do it, to test the extent to which they are free. In other words, for Kierkegaard, our existential feeling of dread or anxiety is spurred by the knowledge of what we need to do to prove that we are free. ... Clearly, free will signifies the freedom that we can freely make the wrong choices, and that there are indeed wrong choices to be made. This is the kind of freedom that some would eagerly exchange for a prison of determinism. It can be far more appealing to comfort ourselves with the tonic of ‘inevitability’. Here enters what [Slovenian philosopher] Slavoj Žižek described as the ‘temptation of meaning’ that occurs when tragedy strikes. For some people, it is better to think that misfortune is some kind of cosmic punishment than to think of it as merely a random occurrence. 'When something horrible happens, our spontaneous tendency is to search for a meaning. It must mean something… Even if we interpret a catastrophe as a punishment, it makes it easier, in a way, because we know it’s not just some terrifying blind force' (Examined Life: Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers, Astra Taylor, 2009, p.157). As Žižek explains, in the middle of a catastrophe, 'it’s better to feel that God punished you than to feel that ‘it just happened.’ If God punished you, it’s still a universe of meaning' (p.158). ... We know we can choose not to open the door or jump, but we’re unsure whether we can choose to jump or open the door. ... While many philosophers are anxious about the moral consequences of a deterministic universe, freedom itself reveals to us the horrific possibility of choosing poorly rather than wisely."
philosophynow.org/issues/141/Do_We_Want_To_Be_Free
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Blog sharing news about geography, philosophy, world affairs, and outside-the-box learning

    This blog also appears on Facebook:
    www.facebook.com/LearningOutsideTheBox.LearnThinkExplore

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016

    Categories

    All
    Biogeography
    Book
    Cartograms
    Climate
    Contests
    Cultural Geography
    Demographics
    Economic Geography
    Extraplanetary Geography
    Geography Technology
    "Global Issues..."
    Historical Geography
    Human Geography
    Language Geography
    Miltary Geography
    Out Exploring
    Outside The Box
    Philosophically Speaking
    Physical Geography
    Political Geography
    Quiz
    Science Fiction
    Scifi
    U.S. Geography
    Video/interactive
    World Geo_Africa
    World Geo_Asia
    World Geo_Europe
    World Geography
    World Geo_Latin America
    World Geo_Mid.East
    World Geo_N America
    World Geo_Oceania
    World Geo_oceans
    World Geo_polar
    World Geo_S America

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • class sampler
  • Summer 2023
  • Fall 2023
  • FAQ
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact