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Nature vs. Nurture, an old debate. Its not talked about much in America these days - because, what philosophical issues of any weight are ever discussed much in 'Mericah these days?! 😟 But its a core issue of existence for me. Because it seems to me that no matter how much of who we are is based on our genetics vs our environment we are not in control of either. And therefore . . . . Freewill? Now its more of a mental exercise to contemplate it, because #1: our observer bias is so strong, and our egos too delicate, to contemplate not really having freewill. And #2: we can't tell the difference, so what does it matter?!

However, being the result of however much nature vs. nurture - means that anything else is from what? Randomness?

Observer-Effect 7 Apr 29
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It is a false dichotomy, anyway. Beloved by those who are looking for oversimple answers, and who do not want to address the realities of the complex ways that our cultural and natural heritages interact together.
One view or the other has always been favoured by extremist inhuman, cults and political movements, especially on the far left and right, who love to pose as the bringers of simple answers, to problems that people, who are not comfortable with themselves because of their hidden motives, do not wish to make the effort to address.

Perhaps the thinking world has simply moved on.

Though in the unthinking anti-intellectual world you can still find racist cults on the extreme right, who pedal the genetic view of human life, and see genocide as the ultimate answer. And you can still find some left wing dictatorships, where none compliance with the imposed cultural norm, still takes you down the road which leads to the death camp. The common thread being, that people who wish to pose before their followers as the final source of all understanding, have to promote oversimplified answers, because they can not allow anything which could open debate.

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Ahh, determinism. So difficult to dismiss and so bloody hard to accept 😄😄. Much easier to just not think about it and get on with chopping the wood and carrying the water.

"Much easier to just not think about it and get on with chopping the wood and carrying the water." - I like that, good way to put it! 🙂

@Observer-Effect I can't take credit for it though. It's a zen buddhist quote. "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water". Life is still there to be lived.

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This is a fun subject because, each of us being conscious critters ourselves - makes us each experts. And people all speak very definitively, saying "THIS is how it is", though in fact we don't all agree. But we each know we are right. Right? And you, you know, I mean you KNOW you have free will! Right?

I mean, here --- "Look, a blue duck! I'll bet it would taste good with small Trinitite rocks from the original Manhattan Project tests! Rubber knife! Dancing badger!". Ok that was stream of conciousness, and there is no way that wasn't an example of whacked out freewill right? But . . . I'm not so sure. I think if I had been born exactly the same, in the exact same circumstances -- 100 times, that I'd be typing this 100 times.

I think we can't be certain of the answer here, and that ultimately therefore it doesn't matter. But that our observer bias, egos, and fear, make it impossible for us to judge objectively.

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"..it seems to me that no matter how much of who we are is based on our genetics vs our environment we are not in control of either. And therefore . . . . Freewill?"

Clearly we are capable of deliberate action. That's observable and not part of the free will debate. We say we can "will" actions, and so it seems.

So then there is the question of freedom. Freedom comes in degrees, nothing imaginable is perfectly free but nearly everything has some degree of freedom. We ourselves can have a range of restraints on our freedom, some imposed by others, some by our physiological state and others imposed by our strong impetus to survive.

Everything alive enjoys a degree of freedom which inert matter (whose nature is fixed) lacks, along with a set of requirements for maintaining that life. Society provides an increase in freedom over the demands of making ones living entirely alone, by hunting and gathering, along with a set of requirements necessary to maintain social cohesion. And then intellect provides freedom to imagine possibilities independent of societal norms. But, since we should not wish to undercut the gains in freedom which society provides over raw nature, we require restraints on what we act on with that freedom. Every degree of freedom comes with restraints necessary to maintain that freedom.

We have a great deal of freedom relative to most beings but the constraints needed to maintain it place a good deal of demands upon us. There are no genies who can always have or grant a wish, and we are not genies. We have human freedom, probably the greatest freedom ever possessed by any organism on this planet but we can diminish that freedom if we do not attend to its requirements.

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