Hello illiades:
— Omar, we haveto put the human will in a causal chain otherwise the will loses its significance. In other words, its significance is derived from its ability to cause.
O- It is a cause which we cannot predict or else it would not be a choice.
— When you speak of its elusiveness what do you mean?
O- That the causes of a choice stem in part from the imagination, which often completes the sensible information and makes us “confused”, as we hold that the choices we’ve made are based on “facts”, but these facts, unknown to us, might just be half-imagined as we use imagination in so many features of our reasoning including apprehension, comprehension and memory.
Because of this factor, which is very intractable, a true measurement of the causal chain cannot be made. Also remember that the “causal-chain” is not emprirical but imagined as well, so that we can have “links” in the chain, so to speak, which do not belong, in fact, but seem to belong there to us. As Hume put it, we don’t observe the moment of causation, only disparate events that uniformly followed each other. The causal chain, then, is a way we interpret the world around us based on our own version of experience (I say “version” because our perspective need not be universal or even mirror the world of facts= subjectively, the sky above us is blue) but it need not be absolute.
— That the will is not there for us to comprehend
O- Every comprehension is itself an interpretation. Need I say that that is how I see it?
— or that the context within which the will operates is not ‘ultimate’?
O- The “will”…so impersonal…as if it is an object-out-there. This obscures rather than reveal to us the character of experiences, and when we talk Sartre we must remember this is his perspective. But no. The will, or our experience of reality is never the final word on that which is, as Sartre would say, “in-itself”.
— The second point i made, to which you stated hypnosis is only effective on a willing participant, i guess was not stated succintly by me. Sartre alleges we have ‘total freedom’ and alludes that we are responsible for every choice we make
O- Normally this is so. But we are not normally hypnotized, are we?
— how does this have relevance, i am asking, when an individual can be ‘influenced’ by something beyond his 'control.
O- How do you what is “beyond” or “within” your control? And what is “control” in this scenario? Does rock music influence anyone to kill other people? Or are we really already killers just looking for a good rhyme? Who knows? Certainly christians have made rock music a threat to our civilization. Others accuse religion of influencing people into killing doctors etc. I believe that an influence is only as effective as we allow it to be. Rock music pleases us, or something in us. Religion pleases us as well. When anyone SAYS that they have killed in the name of one or the other, this is a way of escaping responsibility, or as Sartre would say “bad-faith”. Were they influenced or not? Maybe. Maybe not? Let’s go back to Hume. The causal chain is a matter of listing probable chain of events. But there is no absolute where choices are concerned. Not all christians kill doctors, nor all head bangers kill people or hip-hoppters. So how do we know then if rock or christianity are part of the causal link of a murder? We do not. We choose this interpretation over other alternatives.
— For instance, a neurobiological implant, or even more simply prozac, furthermore, a placebo, which has ‘influenced’ his decision making therefore affecting his freedom.
O- Drugs can influence a decision but do not make, as if by themselves, the decision. It narrows our freedom but do not eliminate it in all possible cases. We treat it (interpret) as if drugs did indeed curtail our freedom to choose completely, but only by suppressing certain exceptions. We could say for example that Christianity will cause someone impressionable enough to kill abortion doctors. Fair enough. But now we must explain the many months, perhaps years, in which this murderer was both a Christian and aware of the existence of these doctors. Why did he kill so-and-so on this morning and not in any other morning prior to this one? Premeditation is considered a choice.
Now, to conclude here, I am not denying that there are times when our ability to choose is diminished. Take for example a man that walks in on his wife and lover. he is now in the grip of a jealous rage. What will he do? Is he without a choice? Suppose he did kill her that time and we were able to turn back the time and re-start history. Can we know for sure he will kill her once again? Probably, would say Hume, but we cannot be sure until it happens again. Every prediction carries a level of uncertainty especially where a choice is concerned. Even when we are under the effects of rage, or of drugs we cannot say that we were beyond our own ability to choose because we are not robots, our mechanism is not easily defined, or even designed by us from beginning to end for us to know it’s true capabilities and limitations nor can we claim that we have reversed engineered the human animal to the point where we KNOW beyond a shadow of doubt where a choice is possible or impossible. Drugs and anger and other emotions play a part in our making a choice but this can expressed in likelyhood, probability, but not in certain or absolute terms and when we do claim that the murderer is guilty (chose to kill freely) or innocent (was determined by his strong emotion that robbed him of his ability to choose), we are making interpretations, linking the links of a possible chain of events which we never did witness or observe. And even our choice of a narration or interpretation, will reflect on our preferences, our perspective of the world and not by necessity on the in-itself.
— There is no actual freedom, i think, just a semblance of it. A suggestion of it. As though it flirts with us without ever intending to ‘be’. We are free, damned to be free, but because we are free, we will never be free.
Am i lucid enough? Probably not, but i would appreciate if you tried to comprehend my point and offer your view.
O- First of all, when talking existentialism one can never be lucid. This is why the best philosophical explanations of existentialism is made through narratives. remember Sartre’s “Nausea” or Camus’ “The Stranger” or even Kafka’s “The Trial”?
Death does not curtail our freedom. That is how I see it. I know that I am mortal but I still have to choose what I am going to study today or what I want to become tomorrow. Should I become a teacher? A mechanic? A doctor? Death cannot aleviate the anxiety over this and other choices because it cannot make these choices for us nor can we say, if we fail, that it was the “will of death” and act as if it was out of our hands from the start because we were going to die. There are people, I have heard, that become paralysed thinking about the many ways that they can die: What we eat can kills us, a short fall, walking by the street, at home by the weather itself…but these are very few cases and do not represent what most human beings have dealt with in their lives. Even in these cases, a person still makes minor choices here and there. Should I pee on myself or hold it in? Should I drink water and eat or starve myself to death? If a person eats and cooks for themselves then even more choices are inevitable.
— So we are both free and not free, are you saying?
O- And what I think that sartre is saying.