free will question

[chelidon]

I remember thinking of this question during a particuarly chaotic time in my life some years ago, and I thought I'd pass it on:

Start out by assuming that as human beings, we actually have free will, and that by exercising that free will, we can and do affect the course of our lives and the state of our world. If someone offered you a deal where you traded your free will for a predetermined life with the illusion of free will, and where you were guaranteed a life that would have enough twists and turns to keep you interested, but where you could be guaranteed that nothing too terribly awful would happen, would you take the deal?

Comments

[contentlove.livejournal.com]

Nah. "Nothing too terribly awful would happen" is sort of a pathetic thing to trade the Great Mystery for. Maybe if it were a more appealing offer...or maybe not.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you've hit on the fact that this is a somewhat more Thelemic version of the Xian "selling your soul to the devil" offer. What is being offered is the opportunity to be an actor in someone else's script, along with a comfortable illusion covering up that state of affairs. Of course, some would say that's what life really is (at least prior to "enlightenment" of one sort or another). I can also see the offer being drastically more appealing if the state of one's life were particularly wretched.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I can also see the offer being drastically more appealing if the state of one's life were particularly wretched.

Which seems to me to hit the nail on the head for those folks who throw themselves head-first in a new religion mid-course of their lives. Everything else has been so 'wrong' by some indefinable reasoning, and thus having someone/thing else take it over seems to be, in contrast, a welcome relief.

Then again, I see that as a cop-out. I'd rather make my own damn mistakes than let someone else do it for me, even if their decisions turned out better in the end.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

It's hard to be human. Embodiment is messy, untidy, inconvenient, and sometimes very, very painful.

I've had my share of deep sorrows, and still, I find myself throwing myself into life in ways which are often heedless of the potential pain. Is that courage, foolishness, stupidity, feckless optimism, or just a short memory? Or, perhaps, I just haven't been burned deeply and throroughly enough yet to want to give up. Certainly there are others whose lives have been far, far more painful than mine -- I was acting as a grief witness for several of them last week, and good goddess, what horrors and pains this life can hold!

But you can't turn off the pain without turning off something that makes us fully human, it's part of the bargain, I think. Hard bargain. But I can't at this point in my life think that choosing otherwise is a true way for me to live.

[ardaraith.livejournal.com]

can you explain how changing one's spiritual path mid-course relates to opting out of free will?

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I meant in the specific instance of friends around me who've "discovered" a path, which invariably seems to be one in which if they just "follow the rules" then everything will be laid out before them. Or alternately, now they're assured of getting some kinda nice piece'a pie after death. I didn't mean all changes in general--and I suppose it doesn't even have to be spiritual--just the ones powered by the wish to retreat to a state of childhood, in some ways. Let Mommy and Daddy take care of it, and just hunker down and do your chores and everything will come up roses.

I might not be explaining that too well; I'm in a bleary mental state right now.

[ardaraith.livejournal.com]

no, that was fine. i understand now what you meant. thank you.

[draiguisge.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of Pink Floyd ... Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

The midwesterner in me is hesitant to actually answer your question, though. As soon as I said "I'd prefer the risky world to the safe one," I'd jinx it and something really bad would happen to me. :P

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Heh. Just don't start any sentence with "I'd never..." and you should be fine ;>

Yes, "Wish You Were Here" captures that essential question about engaging fully with the joys and sorrows of life, or taking an easy way out, very well...always been one of my favorite songs.

[christeos-pir.livejournal.com]

Consciously, no.

But, wanker that I am, I'm even more intrigued by the question of whether you would know the difference between the two, and if not, which of them we find ourselves in currently?

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

ah, but that's a part of the deal to make it sweeter -- once the deal was made, you wouldn't know you'd made it. So how do you know you haven't? ;>

[christeos-pir.livejournal.com]

To choose to be returned to the Matrix, in short.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Ah-yup. The sequels sucked leprose pustulant bottom-boils, but I thought the first movie was a pretty decent modern retelling of that dilemma.

[morrigandaughtr.livejournal.com]

For some reason, this brings to mind instead of The Matrix a first-season Angel/Buffy cross-over episode which was melodramatic in the extreme (not that I cared). Unpacking the many layers of the offered choice and ignoring most of them, I'm picking up "blissful happiness and a short life for yourself and the rest of the world; or opening the door to other possibilites - most especially the possiblity to actually live and make a difference."

Hmmmm.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

*jumps up and down, screaming, "Door #2! Door #2!"* ;)

the play, a role, a life.

[alzm.livejournal.com]

Knowing that the kind off future I have laid doswn for myself suits me beyond anything i would not choose to allow someone else to make decisions based on how they saw me as important in regards some personal scheme of theirs.
The only way i would choose to do so is if there where something in it for me so that i could find myself in a new way in their scheme.
So in that way yes, but it would always be based on lknowing myself as well as i can and I do not think anyone else can with the same precision.

Free Will, please

[sulis-vt.livejournal.com]

Not to say that life hasn't left me feeling as if I had no choices, nor that it has all been perfect -in fact far from it...but if it weren't for those amazingly dark spots, I would not have found some of who I really am, started to relearn what it is to be happy and joyful, nor have the love of my life in my home soon to be ours.

I certainly would like to turn in August 2002 for a rewrite at times, though!

Sulis (from VT and WinterCamp)

Re: Free Will, please

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Hey, Sulis, it was great to see you at Winter Camp! I think it was Emerson who said, "When it is dark enough, you can see the stars." I wouldn't trade my dark nights, either, they make me who I am. I hear you about wishing to be able to redo a few rough spots, though!