meaning of life. bs.

Why do we always have to find a meaning for our lives? Why do we have to try and understand the bigger picture? Why should we accept that we are minuscule, infinitesimal points on a huge canvas? Why do these questions even matter and why should I even bother to answer them?

Am I being cynical in saying that there is no bigger picture and even if there is one, there is no point in even trying to figure it out? Wouldn’t proof of existence of a bigger picture be in itself a proof that there is no way we can ever understand it? Why am I asking so many questions?

me.

I miss being alone. I miss being by myself. I miss being a brooding loner. I miss being selfish. I miss being myself.

I am afraid I am alone. I am afraid of being with myself. I am afraid that I am a brooding loner. I am afraid I am selfish. I am afraid of being myself.

free will

I realized the irony of it all, when I read this interview of Galen Strawson, when Tamler Sommers asks him:

“If it’s a fact that there’s no free will, why do philosophers have such a hard time accepting it?”

when he interviewed Strawson.

The obvious answer from someone who does not belive in free will, like Sommers and Strawson, should have been – it is because that is how they are meant to be.

free will

The theory of causal determinism is very scary, but at the same time very compelling. I am really inclined towards the argument that everything we do is pre-determined and we don’t have a choice in life. I have always believed that there was no free will possible, but did not want to believe it is because everything is predetermined.

These were the assumptions I began with, before I started reading up on this:

We make our decisions based on certain constraints. If the constraints change, how likely are we to change our decision? If my decision remains the same, irrespective of how the constraints change, I would consider myself to have exercised my free will.

For example: I want to buy a car and would love to buy, say a Ferrari. But I don’t have enough resources and I end up buying a Honda Civic. Here I have not exercised my free will. But if I had wanted only a Honda Civic in the first place, and if I don’t change my mind even if I have enough money, then I will have exercised my free will.

The argument against this is that the fact that I only want a Honda Civic, no matter what, is actually pre-determined.

Going back to my assumptions, I thought that since there was no way that I could know about all possible constraints, and how they affect my decision, there is no way I could exercise my free will. I thought there might always be one constraint, which I was not aware of at that time, which means I did not know all my options and hence could not exercise my free will.

For example: There could have been a sale in central south America for a Ferrari that I could have afforded but had no way of knowing it. In other words, I picked my best option, but not what I really wanted.

The reason given by the theory to explain this is that I was aware of only those constraints which I was supposed to (which was again predetermined) and hence I cannot have a choice that I was talking about in the first place.

While initially there was a general belief that this predetermination was done by God or the omnipotent. In his Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (1814), the French astronomer and mathematician, Pierre Simon Laplace wrote:

“An intellect which at any given moment knew all the forces that animate Nature and the mutual positions of the beings that comprise it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit its data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom: for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain; and the future just like the past would be present before our eyes.”

It is now believed by most people that this is due to the “laws of nature” and not because of God.

Most of what I have written is from this write up by Norman Swartz. I somehow find his argument in support of free will a little weak.

As I get to read more on this, I hope I will be able to understand this a little more.

free will

Can you ever do anything without a reason?