Free Will

[realimposter]

Do we have it or not?

Comments

[cigfrain]

it is ordained that we do.

[goatlove]

I can't help but wonder why people find this question even modestly interesting. Would it really change anything at all if we were to definitively ascertain a yea or nay?

[cigfrain]

interesting? not really. a good excuse? for many.

[actadiurna]

I read this yesterday and what I find fascinating in the conversation is the way all the participants totalize the polemic; it is all determined or all free will. The reality is that we are very much determined by a large collection of influences both genetic and environmental, yet we can occasionally overcome this and exert a will. Most of the time we do not, but we can and all of us sometimes do

This is the key

[realimposter]

'I read this yesterday and what I find fascinating in the conversation is the way all the participants totalize the polemic; it is all determined or all free will. The reality is that we are very much determined by a large collection of influences both genetic and environmental, yet we can occasionally overcome this and exert a will. Most of the time we do not, but we can and all of us sometimes do.'

I think what this author doesn't account -- and most Thelemites for that matter -- is that both ascertaining one's Will and exercising it is something that requires an enormous amount of Work. Will isn't whim nor is it choice and I think Crowley would agree that most people actually don't possess a "Free Will" and that most of the point of Thelema is learning how to "free" it.

Re: This is the key

[lhasa7]

I’ll grant you Work if you grant me Grace.

[christeos_pir]

I was just reading Voltaire on this subject last night; to condense things, his attitude was that the question was meaningless. For him, freedom and will mean the same thing, namely, ability. Either you can do something or you can't. He apparently didn't have much patience for the Calvinist take on things.

[xeyeofhorusx]

If we do NOT have it, at least partially, how could we have any references in our experience to attach to the wordphrase? If we lacked it, if it stood entirely outside our experience, then the wordphrase would only amount to gobbledygook when someone mouthed the sounds. The fact that we can discuss it at all indicates a shared set of experiences regarding the words, and to the extent that we experience it, we must have it.