The following is a reaction to a number of threads on free will which are currently taking place on a secular forum to which I occasionally contribute. Since I don't believe that most of the overwhelmingly anti- free-will arguments there are the result of a desire for philosophical clarity or understanding, but as a means of furthering a blatantly socialistic political agenda, I don't see any point in posting this there. I took part in a few of those threads, to the tune of some two dozen or so lengthy posts, but I'm too fucking block-headed to join the elite. So fuck it.
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I'd be willing to dispense with the term "freewill" for two reasons. First, because of its associations with religion and the mind-numbingly stupid concept of Original Sin; and second because as long as people take the term in a totally literal sense it's obvious to anyone that no living organism can be "free": no living thing is exempt from physically binding natural laws, no living thing exists without limitations of any kind. We are all subject to eventual decay, death, and a return to oblivion, not to mention all the normal boundaries, obstacles, and constraints we continuously face along the way.
This reality may be depressing to some, and some will fight tooth and nail against it by latching on to some religious or quasi-religious belief system which ignores nature and assures them that they will exist forever; still others may find reality depressing but accept it completely, though not without the feeling that it somehow renders life pointless and meaningless. I would never begrudge either type their right to believe whatever the hell they want to believe, so long as they recognize the fact that they don't have the right to try and shove their beliefs down the throats of the unwilling. If you're a theist and don't like the fact that I refuse to pay tribute to your personal god-figment, tough darts. Not tough darts for God, mind you, if She really exists; just for you. If you happen to be an atheist like me, but one who tries to convince me that my life is meaningless and pointless: Well, go piss up a tree. It's as simple as that. If you believe your life means nothing without God, or that it just means nothing plain and simple, then you're almost certainly correct. Just don't visit your self-contempt or your self-pity on me, because I don't give a damn. I'm not interested, and I'm not buying.
In case no one's noticed, what we have here isn't simply a healthy, open-minded contempt for an over-used and simplistic philosophical/theological term, it's a contempt for some crucial and important things which "free-will" is necessarily related to: the concepts of freedom and autonomy, the concept of the individual, or the "self", and the concept of "thinking" in general. We've seen a conscious, intelligent human being compared to a tree, to a rock, to a fucking toaster. We've seen the faculty of reason reduced to a purely emotional, and even a chemical, level. People aren't governed by thoughts, but by desires. And these desires are further reduced to merely mechanical drives and impulses. We don't plan and act, we respond and react to all sorts of biological and/or subconscious triggers and "motivators". We don't live, we function. We've seen "self-awareness" described like some sort of virus which threatens the collective unity and integrity of the human species. We've seen ostensibly rational people proudly claim that they don't recognize themselves as individual entities. "There is no 'I', there is no 'self'". This has been said explicitly and implicitly throughout all of these free will threads. It's been intimated that true "enlightenment" consists of sitting on the ground like a turnip (like the great Bubba). People who claim to think, to reason, to choose, to act, are simply deluded.
To insist that there is no self, that people are automata---and not significantly less so than rats or sheep---, that self-awareness is delusional and potentially hazardous, is the mark of a rational person, while those who insist on their individuality and claim to be self-motivated are called "mysterians". All this despite the fact that history has shown that tyranny depends on valuing the collective over the individual, and that religious fanatics and zealots of every stripe were, and still are, infatuated with and totally dependent upon the "mysterious" nature of God.
***
I'd be willing to dispense with the term "freewill" for two reasons. First, because of its associations with religion and the mind-numbingly stupid concept of Original Sin; and second because as long as people take the term in a totally literal sense it's obvious to anyone that no living organism can be "free": no living thing is exempt from physically binding natural laws, no living thing exists without limitations of any kind. We are all subject to eventual decay, death, and a return to oblivion, not to mention all the normal boundaries, obstacles, and constraints we continuously face along the way.
This reality may be depressing to some, and some will fight tooth and nail against it by latching on to some religious or quasi-religious belief system which ignores nature and assures them that they will exist forever; still others may find reality depressing but accept it completely, though not without the feeling that it somehow renders life pointless and meaningless. I would never begrudge either type their right to believe whatever the hell they want to believe, so long as they recognize the fact that they don't have the right to try and shove their beliefs down the throats of the unwilling. If you're a theist and don't like the fact that I refuse to pay tribute to your personal god-figment, tough darts. Not tough darts for God, mind you, if She really exists; just for you. If you happen to be an atheist like me, but one who tries to convince me that my life is meaningless and pointless: Well, go piss up a tree. It's as simple as that. If you believe your life means nothing without God, or that it just means nothing plain and simple, then you're almost certainly correct. Just don't visit your self-contempt or your self-pity on me, because I don't give a damn. I'm not interested, and I'm not buying.
In case no one's noticed, what we have here isn't simply a healthy, open-minded contempt for an over-used and simplistic philosophical/theological term, it's a contempt for some crucial and important things which "free-will" is necessarily related to: the concepts of freedom and autonomy, the concept of the individual, or the "self", and the concept of "thinking" in general. We've seen a conscious, intelligent human being compared to a tree, to a rock, to a fucking toaster. We've seen the faculty of reason reduced to a purely emotional, and even a chemical, level. People aren't governed by thoughts, but by desires. And these desires are further reduced to merely mechanical drives and impulses. We don't plan and act, we respond and react to all sorts of biological and/or subconscious triggers and "motivators". We don't live, we function. We've seen "self-awareness" described like some sort of virus which threatens the collective unity and integrity of the human species. We've seen ostensibly rational people proudly claim that they don't recognize themselves as individual entities. "There is no 'I', there is no 'self'". This has been said explicitly and implicitly throughout all of these free will threads. It's been intimated that true "enlightenment" consists of sitting on the ground like a turnip (like the great Bubba). People who claim to think, to reason, to choose, to act, are simply deluded.
To insist that there is no self, that people are automata---and not significantly less so than rats or sheep---, that self-awareness is delusional and potentially hazardous, is the mark of a rational person, while those who insist on their individuality and claim to be self-motivated are called "mysterians". All this despite the fact that history has shown that tyranny depends on valuing the collective over the individual, and that religious fanatics and zealots of every stripe were, and still are, infatuated with and totally dependent upon the "mysterious" nature of God.
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