Hello everyone, this is my first post on this forum…I was very happy to find this site, I like philosophy but sadly I don’t pursue my interest enough…I hope to change that…
well now that I’m done with all the “david copperfield crap”
Do people have control over their actions? I say no.
All desicions are based on what you have learned. Everything you have learned is based on your experiences throughout life. Since you can’t control your experiences, you can’t control what you learn, and in the end you can’t control your actions.
Is there a fault in my thinking? Please tell me…I find the concept of fate very interesting.
Bluntly spoken, interpretive and simple. Very nice. I assume that you are equating “actions” with “decisions.” You are saying that everyone acts like they decide, and, can decide how they act, but that one has no “control” over either since one doesn’t “decide” what to “experience” or what they “learn” from experience. Nonetheless, actions and decisions must both be truth value “A” for the rest to work. Work out the anomalies. Could you imagine a person acting in a manner that they didn’t decide, being “forced,” and what example would you give? Also, do you think a person who didn’t know how to swim could “decide,” even with the odds against him, to save a drowning man if he never “learned” how to swim? Exactly when does one know enough about an “action” to decide to do it? And when is a decision always the source of an action? What about people who walk in their sleep? If you were in a dream, conscious of the experiences in the dream, but walking around in the kitchen while you dream about sitting motionless on the beach, did you literally “decide” to walk through the kitchen? How could this be if you were experiencing the high tide five minutes ago in the dream? Obviously “decision” and “experience” aren’t mutually conclusive in this case as a definitive of “controlled actions.”
Lastly, how would you define “control” in that statement? Being successful in an action or just an attempt, a failure but still a controled attempt, in other words? Does control mean that a course of events carry out as planned and are executive, or just as intended?
In another words, everyone is a byproduct of their upbringing and surroundings. What are the implications?
I think you brought up a good point. If I were to come up to you and punch you in the face, would you be upset at me, would you be upset at my parents, would you be upset at society, or would you be upset at fate?
I think that is another issue all together, a matter of “blaming” something for an action. We aren’t concerned yet with whether or not actions are “offensive.” I could be happy if you punched me in the face but that doesn’t answer the question I asked about the origins of action and it’s determination in contrast to actions as they are intended. What defines an action as “controlled?”
Indeed, but such a claim does not match the one stated in the topic title:
“Nobody can control any of their actions.”
Do you mean to say that the basis for decisions equates to the lack of control on the deed? That we are somehow all manifestations of what we have learned, acting as a sort of plug-and-play robot?
No, i think you are merely confusing your words. I do agree that decisions are based on what you have learned. (Keep in mind, though, that what you have learned is not always what you have been taught). I do not, however, agree that we have no power in controlling choices. Yes, we may be making decisions based on our education, which in most ways does mean that our actions are limited to said education, but i do not deduce that such an education actually controls our decision making.
You are fogetting that your experiences and knowledge are nothign without the means for them to be stored and processed. Which is the brain, which is nothing more than a Specific random set of chemicals.
So it goes even a step further into the arbitrary nature of what we think and do, it is nothing more than a set of chemicals, and uncontrollabe experiences.
So then is it fair for you to judge someone by the content of there character?
Well, if everything were utterly meaningless, you would have to consider one who believes in meaning to be in error. No, it wouldn’t be a matter of being “right” or “wrong,” but rather being “correct” in a judgement, so, in fact, there is an objective “correct” and “incorrect” dialectic with which you determine him to be in error, therefore claiming, paradoxically, that one thing has “meaning” and is not of an “arbitrary nature,” or else you couldn’t claim that someone who thought there was “meaning” was incorrect or that you who thinks the opposite is correct.
Watch out for these little self-referential contradictions.
Did I commit a logical fallacy? Hmm. Perhaps I misunderstand the definition of “meaning.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t your very statement “mean” something? Is that statement “correct” itself if it is meaningless, according to the statement. But how so is it that meaninglessness is correct and correct is meaningless?
“Meaning,” I think, should have two meanings(sorry, I don’t know how else to put it). Empirically it should simply be “what is the case,” whether right or wrong or correct or incorrect matters not; "it is the case that I believe there is a dog there, this “means” that there is a belief that there is a dog even if there isn’t a dog. Psychologically “meaning” is quite real and not illusory nor does it depend on the truth of “what is the case” in the world(the dog doesn’t exist), but what one intends, tries, endeavors to do, believes they are doing. These things are not facts like truths about events in the world, like what may “be the case,” but are projections of future possibilities and intentions that are neither true or untrue.
In other words, free will. I also say no, but I would love to say yes. In a game of chess you have choices. You as a player could play any peice you want. But once you are in check you only have three choices. Either kill the peice that is attacking your king, get the hell out of the way, or send another peice to block the attack. How quickly you can force another player to a certain number of limited actions.
As a street magician I also practice this form of social chess. 52 cards in a deck and I want you to choose one. You have a free choice, but in the envelope that is one the table there is only one card written. By the way I speak, stand and the choice of words I need to limit your choice from 52 to possibly six or seven. Afterwards I have it from there.
So if I can make you choose something and then make you believe it was out of your ‘free will’, imagine what governments and secret societies can do.
Well, you assume that since a feeble human mind thinks something has value, then it actually has value. Can something with no value asign value? Can something that has no meaning assign meaning? It has meaning because we want it to, our perspective gives said things meaning.
But, if your conceptions aren’t skewed by human perspective, then it infact has no meaning.
CrimeMasterGogo you have just summed up my present philosophy of life. smiles
(however to play Devil’s Advocate)
The nature of the universe is chaos, therefore perhaps the logic behind the decisions we make is not so simple as INPUT → OUTPUT, or Genetics+Upbringing = Morality, that there will always be an “uncertainty” factor in everything we do.
People are much more responsible because there actions are determined by upbringing and inherent qualities then if they wern’t.
Imagen you fell in love, and it was with someone wounderfull you fits perfectly in your life. You want to get married and could, if pressed, could give over one hundred reason why it was a good idea, but none why it should not be so. Now if the will was truly free, there would still be a chance you would not go through with it. Yet, luckly we are determined, and in this case determined in a proper way. It is because of this determination that we (the determined rational bags of chemicals we are) can be said to be responsible for our actions.
The mistake philosophers have made with this one is simple. We see an example such as someone being held at gun point, and see they are determined and think “Determined actions are not ones for which one can be held responsible.” But it is not that the action is determined that makes it blame free, but that it is determined in such an unusual and improper way- and cannot predict future behavior. For what do we mean by, ‘Suzy is not a criminal’ if not to say that one can trust her with a wallet?
If I ever meet anyone with freewill, I would not trust them with my wallet. How could I? There would always be a chance.
Isn’t the argument presupposing that human beings are always faced with choices where one is answerable by past experience and the others aren’t? Past experience only allows for one choice?
Incredible that the most of you took the conclusion there is no such thing as a soul (or something which can produce a thought without having a cause for it) but rather you believe only external influences which encompasses our decisions. This believe is false however it’s very difficult for me to prove it because I have no single proof that it exist. However I can show you all the power of the soul:
Ever heared yourself talking in your ‘mind’? Who is that? That’s not you! Because you are physical and only something that vibrates can make noise. Well who is hearing and speaking? Aha so! Something non-physical? Can be, can be; I have no proof. However that same voices decise; it’s like the driver of a car, the captain of a ship. Ah yes, the soul; the causer without having a cause.
when you go to a restaurant… you have to look at the menu and pick something to eat.
you can’t just sit there and expect things to develop further.
while you are looking over the menu, just before you pick, that is where your freewill is.