14 Jun '07 19:45>
A question if I may. Do any of you actually believe authentically and honestly that the life you have lived so far is absolutely and exactly the only possible life you could ever have lived , period. ? That in reality there was no other possible life you could have lived apart from the one you have? Do you look back at door 18 and see your name written on the staircase?
Or do you like me (because I believe in actual free will) believe that your life could have actually and really been different in at least some respects due to choices you could have ACTUALLY made but didn't or choices that you did make that you may not have actually made. ?
Do any of you have any regrets , in the sense that you really honestly feel that you could have ACTUALLY lived a different life? Or maybe real relief at the very possible life you managed to avoid?
And the big one--- do you feel fatalistic about your future or do you feel that your future can be influenced by your choices? Do you think that there is more than one possible life you can lead in the future , life x or life y? Do you really really feel that you are honestly in a door 18 universe?
As someone believing in free will and real choices (not phoney ones) I can embrace these feelings and hopes and regrets as authentic and true . They are not at odds at all with what I logically believe about the universe.
What's it like for you guys? It is not true that even if determinism was true we could never live authentically with that belief? Is there not something inside us all that cries out within us all " I have real choices to make between X and Y and both are possible!" ??
Is this not what compatabilism is all about , the desire to resolve (or fudge) the massive discrepancy between our life experience and the fatalistic logic of determinism?
Or do you like me (because I believe in actual free will) believe that your life could have actually and really been different in at least some respects due to choices you could have ACTUALLY made but didn't or choices that you did make that you may not have actually made. ?
Do any of you have any regrets , in the sense that you really honestly feel that you could have ACTUALLY lived a different life? Or maybe real relief at the very possible life you managed to avoid?
And the big one--- do you feel fatalistic about your future or do you feel that your future can be influenced by your choices? Do you think that there is more than one possible life you can lead in the future , life x or life y? Do you really really feel that you are honestly in a door 18 universe?
As someone believing in free will and real choices (not phoney ones) I can embrace these feelings and hopes and regrets as authentic and true . They are not at odds at all with what I logically believe about the universe.
What's it like for you guys? It is not true that even if determinism was true we could never live authentically with that belief? Is there not something inside us all that cries out within us all " I have real choices to make between X and Y and both are possible!" ??
Is this not what compatabilism is all about , the desire to resolve (or fudge) the massive discrepancy between our life experience and the fatalistic logic of determinism?