Anybody got any reading material on Freedom vs. Free Will?
I’m not clear on the distinction . . . but I’m liking what I’m hearing about freedom.
depends what u are looking for (literary symbolisms or philosophical teachings)
but what got me started on this was reading the writings of thomas aquinas…who advocates a type of free will with an omniscient God.
there is one viewpoint on it, but there is a TON more on the subject…hard to pick a side though
we must start somewhere, I’m guessing here…
if free will = something given by an agent, then freedom (or maybe free action) = involves no governing agent? Although i have no clue on how free will works, i can observe that “free action” (i’ll use that now) is possible. given that a cause(or causes) and and effect(or effects), there will only be a relationship between these two(or more), and no outside agents involve itself in determining whether the effect will happen or not, well atleast not that I could determine from.
Maybe that’s a rough description of freedom(free action)?
but what is free will that i keep hearing about. How does that work?
The world is determinist, but since the outcome is unknown to us, we have to keep going at it like there was free-will. So the universe is determinist, but for all our purposes, has free-will. Hope that answers the question you didn’t ask but I answered anyway.
Are we really free? Do we really have freedom? I have house insurance and property taxes due next month and I don’t really want to pay but I must or face the consequence. There’s a stop sign at the end of the road and I don’t really want to stop but I must or cause accident. We are constrained by these man made laws. But we must obey man made laws or there would be disorder and chaos. There is another freedom, that is the freedom of the mind to think, imagine, dream, our thoughts have wings, can take us anyplace, we can be anything, or somebody, with the use of our mind.
It should be noted that a definition of “determinism” is teleological and anthropological. Two things at once; the supposition that there is causality and that states exist individually. But in reality neither the “whole of existence” can be experienced nor can the “connection” of eventual states be discerned.
Determinism can be considered the projection of intention onto causal relationships. But there is no intention. There is no purpose to existence. There is nothing to determine the nature of anything that has being. It is gratuitous and always is despite what is was and can be…if you follow me.
Determinism simply cannot be experienced.
Try “The Feminization of Man”… by Satyr on Essays and Theses Forum…
Excellent example.
When we are unpreferrably restricted in the world we often compensate with fantastic freedom in our mind.
It’s the great escape.
The trick in living with such imaginings, however, is to stay grounded in reality, to not thereafter imagine that such fantastic freedoms exist outside of our skin.
And better is to either accept the reality of good worldly limitations or to work hard in the real world to eliminate the bad ones.
After the rights to life and security are spoken, freedom is everything else that remains to be said, and free will is the manner in which we say it.
You can run the red light if you wanted to. You’re free. But you can’t want to.
Why does there have to be intention? Supposing that causation exists, which is the supposition underlying most human action, and that the world is a closed system (there’s some kantian word for it), all numbers in the future result from numbers in the present, which are derived from the past.
Causation means that processes like this exist: The operation 1+1 is carried out, the result stored, and then used in (1+1) * 2.
Determinism is not teleological. It’s just a logical extention of causation.