From samsara to nirvana… I say no more. 
What is love? Oh baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.
for a great deal of philosophy, various defense mechanisms can be subconsciously enacted (e.g., rationalization) to bring us to beliefs that are most agreeable to us, but i wouldn’t classify the philosophy of determinism as an example. i mean one doesn’t believe in determinism because it ‘feels good’ or not. in the same way, one wouldn’t believe that 1+1=2 or that atlanta is the capital of gorgia because they ‘liked’ these truths… and neither would one deny them if they didn’t find these truths agreeable. granted, determinism is not a strictly empirical philosophy, but its line of reasoning follows logically from various deductive truths upon which it is based and found. if and when one is able to follow these lines of reasoning, the conclusion is not something you can ‘argue away’ because you find it disagreeable.
fortunately, most who believe in freewill aren’t lying or playing tricks. they actually believe it is real, so we wouldn’t charge them with a philosophical crime.
but what happens is, because most simply can’t grasp the truth of determinism, they naturally suspect ulterior motives in the philosopher who endorses it… and they do this because they can’t understand a belief in it for any other reason than for the purposes of deceiving themselves and/or others. it’s analogous to one child calling another child evil because he doesn’t believe in santa claus (or santa’s clause). to the child who believes in santa, saying santa doesn’t exist is simply preposterous and unheard of.
but no… think about what you’re saying (we’ll grant your point for a moment). do you think someone who really believed in freewill could lie to themselves and pretend to believe in determinism instead because they weren’t comfortable with the truth of freewill?
if i wasn’t happy with the fact that i can’t fly, could i decide to no longer believe in gravity?
also, determinism doesn’t denote a ‘fear of responsibility and being in control of self’. instead, it changes how we conceive of the ‘self’ and the concept of ‘responsibility’ and ‘control’. ironically, it rather greatly expands the capacity of the self as well as the identity; instead of you being an isolated acausal agency, you are an expression of a much bigger matrix (or ecology) of causes and effects that speak for a wider range of forces than a meager personal ‘choice’. think of yourself not as a person, but an entire environment that interacts with countless causes and effects. that old notion of the private cartesian self ‘inside the head’ is dead, and your control extends much further than what you have the capacity to do with yourself. think of it like this; artimas is nature controlling itself through the proxy of a ‘you’.
and because of that tremendous power, you are far more ‘responsible’ than you’d ever be if you only had freewill.
you like that irony, didn’t ya? i’m pretty fuckin’ tight with the ironies, man. got a whole library of em in my head.
I know both exist, it’s just a matter of perspective and words. How can we say what isn’t possible based from a level or step of ignorance of a future understanding? Determinism is a lack of control of future/present due to past or present (environment).
Understanding is a staircase of infinity, you can only see so much unless you -choose- to take steps, which more of will is revealed as you go. Determinism sounds like slavery to/of the mind to the system to me.
Nature is controlling me by the proxy of a me? Isn’t that what the subconscious was? Instinct without a viewing of it? So can you not control your instincts? The proxy is my body and subconscious I agree but consciousness grants us a stronger ability. We have many things we have yet to do and many things we should be doing to improve our understandings of multiple facets of and in reality, this continuous eternal conquest of seeking understanding through knowledge is what reveals the will to itself, consciously… the more of which one travels the staircase to reach more complex understandings the more dangerous its traps of the mind.
I agree nature is all powerful though and it’s system but free will is conscious of which one does consent to reality by choice and it is far more complex than our being compelled of/by the attribution of value/desire or satisfaction being deemed more important than an understanding through and of struggle which leads to satisfaction only to repeat and do such again to reveal more of will. Both are temporary, what is not temporary is what we derive our of will and understanding, what we may create and push into objective existence, such is proven everyday by people who go through or have went through tremendous struggles who are now winning in life and with an understanding of reality especially.
But who’s truths are they? I can imagine many many if not an infinity of things possible of which I could choose and specifically manifest, if I sought the understanding that specific topic or manifestation of which we as a species could bring into existence, what’s limited about that?
The reason that the question of free will has never been answerd satisfactorily is not that it is a difficult question. It’s that it’s the wrong question.
Just what is the will supposed to be free from, if it’s free?
Instinct or subconscious, a no understanding of the eternal sequence of reactions creating possibilities and possibilities creating reactions. Free from nothing with the choice of also being nothing once more.
Oh. Usually it’s God, the laws of nature or causation.
The laws of nature contain an infinity even within their existence, that’s why we’re free. Knowledge comes and continues going. Our seeking to understand such is the very act of freedom, the choice to tread eternally and not be halted.
We are apart of and advocates for the very act of freedom. Of being a valued possibility within what could be nothing.
philosophynow.org/issues/49/Kan … Connection
If you get a chance, take a couple bing hits and read this, artimas. It’s a good primer and will help you understand what’s going on here. I think you’re ready to see how the big dogs handle this matter.
…the will is free when we don’t live up to others’ expectations of us, from the nature/nurture aspect of all things, and ignoring sociotel cues on when and how we should speak, walk, act, procreate, and even think, by the coercive means of others.
Thanks for that article, I will write something up to try and describe how, why, what, etc of this matter. I believe there is another answer or step to understanding it, in other words I believe I may have an idea that shows what’s going on and why/how.
Is this anything good or verifiable or new? My take in this present moment of how it all functions of which there will be more to add and be expounded upon, of that I have no doubt.
A priori knowledge is at an infinite amount of which is biologically integrated into the dna and of which builds the psyche, the present a posteriori( also contributes through present/current environment and experience of which builds or shapes the ego/provokes instinct. A priori exists integrated into psyche by and through the unconscious and subconscious of which was built of that same infinite a posteriori in one and all ancestries past(s) before one is conscious or has an ability to understand and express such consciousness/understanding upon the world.
In simpler terms or through an attempted expression/example: An existential crisis is what it is, due to an individual being an infinite amount of possibilities of both past and future confined to and in a present moment of which causes the individual to lose track or gain track of who they are as self and their suppressed being, dependent upon their attribution of value to future or past through fear/blame or acceptance/gain.
The subconscious has no differentiation between time and so it is built off of an infinity of both past and future possibilities to the conscious (understanding) mind which presents the illusion of being confined to past, present or future but in reality the individual is all three due to their psyche not being able to differentiate and being built from an infinity of objective unconscious/subconscious experiences, a sought possibility of which may seem imaginative is a possibility of which the steps do not appear due to the illusion of value attribution/satisfaction. When one understands they are the infinity of both past, present and future the will becomes free from this causal reaction of the past.
‘A man must become nothing, to become something’
In this becoming nothing one may glimpse everything.
To be or understand nothing is to see and be everything for possibilities even if seeming like imaginative impossibilities, are ladders to be climbed. What seems like imagination is due to the staircase of understanding and it’s steps being longer than what one may see or that one may value less stressful/more satisfactory in their present moment, so a very higher up understanding/step and having to be stressfully climbed possibility seems like an impossibility at the sacrifice of value for the future for value in the present.
The illusion of satisfaction/value attribution which is from a lesser point of understanding.
Being controlled by past to casually enjoy fruits of the present:
“Less work in the present moment for more value in the present but for less value in the future”
Being controlled by the future, for one may deem that the present lacks fruits/value from the past:
“More work in the present at the cost of struggle and acceptance of pain, for more value in the future”.
The mind is conditioned by a posteriori until one understands the implications and intricacies of their own consciousness and makes a choice and sacrifice to pursue being fully conscious through a priori.
Some examples that there is a non differentiation between time of, in and through the subconscious aspects of reality could be shown as instinct, intuition(future), dreams(past or future), guilt(past), etc.
The Will is never free WHEN WE GIVE TASKS A HALF HEARTED EFFORT, but the Will is always free WHEN WE FULFILL OUR TRUE POTENTIAL.
The devil can calculate for every mistake that we ever make, throwing us into a deeper trap when we fail to gleam the sunlight of true liberation. But to be Strong, to rage past the sea of chaos, tame and focus all of the stratifications being thrown our way, then we evolve, become more mightier, and absolutely indomitable to command the precipice.
There’s a glowing stream, a majestic torrent above our lines to the divine, and if we reach into this pool of all promise, then we’re showered with an all emblazoning radiance that even the devil can’t conquer, and God sets into golden highlights for us THE BEST WAY IMAGINABLE!!1
I’d like to know if this idea I wrote has already been proven in psychology or someone has written on it, I just would like to know if I should write a paper or book off of it to submit somewhere…