Conscious Volition

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.

Automata

What does the "free" part of the term "free will" really mean? I think that's the crucial question. To me "free" will always meant freedom from Original Sin: freedom from being constantly at the mercy of any number of internal or external gods, angels, demons, chimeras, irrational lusts, drives and desires. It meant the ability to use the faculties of reason and rational thought as a means of establishing long term goals, of over-coming the merely sensual or emotional influence of short term whims and desires, and of doing this in a consistent fashion thereby bringing about positive results: mental and physical well-being, enrichment, and even pleasure in one's life.

But I've heard people say something to the effect that we are essentially enslaved to our desires whether we're productive, creative, well-adjusted people, or criminals. The criminal is acting according to his desires, and the entrepreneur is acting according to her desires, and that neither of these types of people are free in any sense. Furthermore, the entrepreneur hasn't exercised any greater degree of control or choice: her genetic make-up, her environment, her experiences and memories, all contributed to her living a life of achievement and success, and she had virtually no hand in the matter herself. Some would even go a step beyond that and say that there is no "herself", that "she" is just another deluded bundle of neurons and synapses walking along on auto-pilot, a bystander who doesn't make things happen, but to whom things happen.

What I've observed is that there seems to be a strong aversion to the concept of freedom in general, from hardline theists as well as certain types of determinists. The best way to abolish the concept of freedom entirely is to abolish the concept of the individual, which many people who argue for determinism seem dead-set on doing, in no uncertain terms. Observe how many people claim that there is no self, there is no "I". We are machines, automata, bystanders. Well, as anyone knows, machines don't need freedom. All they require is to be programmed and/or maintained so that they can carry out their function. Machines are never an end in themselves, they're only means to some further end. Machines don't need freedom, so eradicate the idea completely.

Teach people that they have no actual decision-making power, that reason is just another type of desire, that we are all at the mercy of our desires, that our bodies make decisions and our conscious minds find out about it later, that notions of freedom and autonomy are delusions, that to disassociate one's self from these antiquated terms with all due smugness and contempt will assure one's inclusion in the new enlightened "elite", that to entertain illusions of freedom and self-determination (or the concept of "self" entirely) is to espouse mysticism and irrationality, even though we can all look into the ancient story of Genesis and see that, in reality, notions of freedom and autonomy have been thorns in mysticism's side since the beginning.

The message in Genesis is pretty straightforward, and hardcore atheists who argue so adamantly for determinism like to believe that they are all about exposing hoaxes and hucksters, fables and myths, irrational beliefs of all kinds which hold humanity in chains, while in reality what they are doing is forging newer, stronger chains. Political ideas spring from philosophical ideas. Political ideas are philosophical ideas. Kill the concept of freedom in the Ivory Tower and eventually you will succeed in killing the concept down at street level. Kill the concept of the "self" in the halls of academia and eventually the concept will be wiped out altogether. It's only a matter of time.

Beauty and the beastly

Just two questions (lots of sub-questions, though):

First, Why Do People Do This? Who Started It? And Why? Is It Possible To Type Quickly This Way? I Say Not. It's Even More Irritating To Do Than It Is To Read. Why Do People Insist On Doing This Kind Of Thing? And Why Is It That These People Are The Ones With The High Profile Jobs And The Brand Spanking New Hummers With "Support Our Troops" Ribbons Stuck All Over Them And Those New-Fangled Fish With Nothing Inside Them? I Just Know Those Are Jesus Fish.

When Will The Gaia Fish Come Out? What Kind Of Vehicles Will The Gaia Fish Be Appended To? Old Veedoubleyou Busses? Nah. I Bet You'll See Most Gaia Fish Attached To Those Battery Operated Things That Sort Of Look Like Something Fred Flintstone Would Drive While He And His Kiss-Ass Side-Kick Schemed On How To Get Something Over On Their Wives Who Are Much Too Smart And Good-Looking (Not To Mention Tall) For Their Sorry Neanderthal Asses Anyway.

(AnD LetZ NoT EveN GeT inTO ThiS. ThiS Is SilliNEsS aNd oBnoXiCiTY TaKEn 2 uH WhoLe nUThr LeVeL.....)

My second question is, what the hell happened to all the ugly people in the world? Seriously?

Maybe it's just me, but the young people of today are just too damn pretty. Has there been some sort of trend going on, that only the pretty people have been reproducing? Have the ugly folks decided to do the right thing and keep their ugly genes out of the pool? For myself, well, I fathered two boys, but I promise never to do it again. It's too damn chancy. My first son Jared is pretty. He looks more and more like his Mom everyday, with his high cheekbones and dark-ish, half-latino skin. My second son, Jordan, well, he looks more and more like me, and it's got everyone in the family worried. So we decided I'd just keep the pony in the shed from here on in.

Whenever I go out I am simply dismayed by all the flat-out, drop-dead gorgeous people in the world. I guess it's a Western thing. I grew up in New York, the capital of ugly people. Actually that's upstate New York, which is lush and beautiful landscape-wise but apologizes for it by being the birthplace of lots of ugly folks. It's different out here in Arizona. People are taller for one thing. I'm one of the only male dwarfs I know of. Back in New York five-foot-seven is respectable for a man. Out here most of the high school girls are taller than that. Hell, just one of their legs is taller than that. I can hear them giggling as they breeze by me at K-mart, dissing me with their secret dope gangsta hand-symbols. But they are so beautiful that I actually feel honored at having the opportunity to be ridiculed mercilessly by them.

As for their male counterparts. It's just disgusting. During Spring Break you will see them stepping out of their Ford F-350s with those oversized baggy shorts that only look silly on ugly people, sandals, and shades heading into the local Safeway for their next nineteen cases of Bud Light. They have this strange caramel color to their well-sculpted bodies. A kind of orangy-caramel brownness which is the result of tanning salons, constant exposure to the sun, and good California genes. Their hair is amazing. The wind is blowing it all over, but when they get indoors they do this sudden, bird-like flicking motion and it falls perfectly back into place. It has this strange shine which is exotic and unearthly. In New York, sure, lots of guys had shiny hair, but it was only because their mothers forgot to save the water in the tub for them the night before which meant they couldn't wash their hair that month.

I haven't gone to any of the beaches here at Havasu during Spring Break since the early ninetees. My sensitive soul was simply overwhelmed with all the sheer beauty I saw unleashed around me: the pristine skin, the hair, the limbs that looked as if they had been hewn out of some rare dusky marble by Michaelangelo, the ubiquitous and unbearable presence of the human female breast. You have to realize, when I was going to school in upstate New York a girl's breast was something one saw in a magazine or on HBO when everyone, including us trailer-park folk, got a free week of unscambled mayhem and the chance to learn the entire screenplay of Porky's by heart. Also bear in mind that our idea of eye-candy, at least insofar as the female posterior was concerned, was getting the chance to see one of the cuter girls in a snug pair of Jordache jeans. A thong was something one wore on one's feet on those rare sunny days when everyone hunkered around the rusty sprinkler and laughed loudly enough to drown out the sound of Mr. and Mrs. Tallerico screaming death-threats at one another in a drunken stupor up the road.

Like Reynolds pointed out in a poem I posted recently: Americans are strange folks and like to turn things upside down or inside out. One example is that they now hang around (at least in swinging resort towns like Lake Havasu) with their eyes covered up and their asses hanging out. Just watdaphugizzubwiddat?

Yo.