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by yonoataraxia
2913 days ago
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How much suffering are we able to endure before giving up? I think a lot, because most of us have the desire to live. So I agree that people in power positions should realize that they should give real choices to powerless people on their own. They have to realize that they are self-delusional when they say "Just work hard and you can become one of us". I think most of them truly don't realize how self-delusional this phrase really is because their own experiences confirm their beliefs (they were able to work hard and achieve something). So I don't think that most of them are purposely intellectually dishonest but just lack awareness. - - - > Without the capacity to make those decisions for ourselves, to be allowed to decide that truth is worth the loss of happiness, achievement, fulfillment, we are never ourselves truly human. I like the small discussion about being human, although I can't agree with the position that we're "truly human" because of our ability to choose. This is a philosophical and subjective question, but basically I think that humans can have inherent value (based on ones belief system) even if we would find all the mechanisms in their decision making process and can predict what they do. I think that humans can be "truly human" even if we find out that free will is an illusion. I believe this, because "being human" is a definition made by humans and it wouldn't be very helpful to see ourselves as worthless just because we don't have real choices (using the assumption that free will is an illusion here - this doesn't mean that I necessarily think it is). It can be that people see humans as worthless, but they don't need the "ability to make choices" as an excuse for their misanthropy, beliefs or nihilism. There are many ways to achieve that. Therefore it's likely that you'll change your definition of being human (and their inherent value) as soon as research shows us that free will and choices are mostly illusions because our thoughts are based on deterministic processes. |
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Some days I feel this charitable. Others not. Usually I suspect they're too intelligent for a lack of awareness to be a good enough excuse: there comes a point where ignorance becomes willful. Then again, this is precisely the problem we're talking about here: when our cognitive biases are so comfortable that our brains erect strong defenses to keep intruders out.
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I probably should have avoided being categorical with my comments on choice. While the capacity for such a choice appears to be unique to the human being, I am not entirely convinced it is, but that has more to do with intuitions about nonhuman minds rather than any sort of certainty. However I am incredibly cautious about the kind of research into free will that you're talking about, because, even if I doubt the inevitably of the endpoint you suggest, it remains an attempt to transform the human being into a calculation, into a process, and that reduces our affairs into mere administration. It's one of the (productive?) contradictions in my own thought that I am constantly pushing up against: my politics are such that I see the value in that kind of bureaucratic management, but my philosophy is such that I see it as dehumanizing. There is no natural equilibrium to be had here, so our duty is one of rebalancing, of maintaining the scales between the unique capacity for human choice and ensuring the conditions of life that are necessary for our biology.