The ability to choose is usually held up as the most important part of being human. That we are self-aware and can decide not just for the immediate future but plan for the yet unknown future as well. Religions often involve not just faith, but that the person choose to worship. That you exercise your own mind and beliefs to walk the line between good and evil (if such is present in your faith). It also implies a responsibility.
For myself, I have to admit I'm a dualist. Forget the pistols, dualist not duelist. I do think that free will can co-exist with fate. "What's that?!" Well, to put it simply, we are responsible for our own decisions, even if those decisions were predetermined. To put it into an example, let's look at how most people view these things.
Free Will alone usually means that you can choose your own life or way at any point in whatever suits your mood. So, if you want to go out wearing a pair of mismatched socks, you can and will.
Fate usually means that you're bound to a preset condition, regardless of how you might personally feel. So you want to go out wearing matching socks, but nothing in your drawers or closet will provide such a set.
Dualists believe that Fate and Free Will coexist. That if you want to go out wearing matching socks, you will. That if you want to go out with mismatched socks... well, you will. BUT, the decision that you intend to make has (to all purposes) already been made. It is merely that you choose to follow that path.
So, I've probably lost a few and made others out-right disagree. Let's see about providing another example. You're on a freeway, you're driving south on one of the two lanes heading in that direction. Free states that you can choose to change lanes at any point, switching back and forth at whim. Fate states that you'll change lanes 10 miles into your drive, and again another 40 miles later. Regardless of personal preference, those are the only two times you'll change lanes. Now, Dualists state that you'll change lanes X amount of times, where X is the number of times you choose to change lanes. BUT, you're only going to choose to change lanes so many times. So X is a static number, unchanging. Furthermore, Dualists state that your lane changing will come at set points. You'll want to change lanes 15 miles in because there is a slow truck in front of you. And you'll change again 20 miles in because there's a police car with sirens behind you that wants to go past. You're making those choices at those points, and responsible for their consequences, but they are also predictable and predetermined.
I'll come back to this another time. For those who wish to contemplate in the interlude, think of Rock-Paper-Scissors. It'll be relevant in the next post, probably.
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1 comment:
I agree, and I especially like the responsibility part: I think that a lot of the time, people use the idea of "fate" to mean "not my fault". Reminds me of an old "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoon where Hobbes pushes Calvin in the mud and then denies it, saying that Calvin was fated to get muddy and as such he can't be blamed. We'd be so much better off with more wise owls around the place.
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