But not having free-will is not entirely a bad thing as it turns out, because of the Buridan’s ass paradox, yes folks…Buridan’s ASS!!! The assumption of this paradox is that an ass (donkey not derriere) placed between a stack of hay and a pail of water will first go towards whichever is closer to it. Now when the ass is kept midway between both, it will die of both hunger and thirst as it cannot make a rational decision of choosing one over the other. (For those who think I’m talking out of my ass (derriere not donkey) Google it, this paradox is a documented theory!).
So in a way it is amazing how lack of choice or the inability to have free-will actually pushes us into the scheme of things and saves us from dreadful inaction. For all my friends who believe in weighing the pros and cons of different choices before making a decision, come on…who are you kidding? Like the ass we all move towards the choice closest to our experience or our comfort zone.
The next time you are making a big decision in your life and you have various choices in front of you, flip a coin, throw a die or ask your wife. The only freedom is, knowing there is no real freedom. That way you do what comes your way and give a flying duck to the responsibility of making the right choice. (And yes I have the freedom to say flying duck and you have the freedom to assume that’s not what I meant to say…in reality I do not have the freedom to influence your assumptions and you do not have the freedom to stop me from saying illogical stuff).
6 comments:
Life is all about achieving anything within a given set of parameters. Choosing those parameters defines free will for me. As is the case with anything, i might choose most of the parameters, but there are always some that are way beyond my control.
After 2 and half beers, I have something to contribute to this blog.. There are very few decisions in our life that actually call for this debate of free will.. in all other cases, flipping a coin is probably the easiest way to go..We all ultimately exercise free will..it may take us a little while to understand why we did what we did..At that point in time it might not make sense to us..but our decisions are always influenced by our deepest and possibly most original ideas.. does that mean that we donot make mistakes? Well, i think that the mistake was also necessary at least at that point in life, and everything falls into place after a while..i talk in reference to the decision i made with my career, today i still believe that i had to make that mistake.. for reasons i will understand probably with time.. so yeah free will is what exists ultimately..Sometimes we can understand what we really want from our actions..maybe in that way our understanding of what we want could be an illusion..
WOT A flawed logic? and you still couldnt figure out the ASS! The reason freewill exists is to make the right choice without influence or curtailment. For the ass, its indecisiveness was its downfall, not necessarily freewill or the lack of it! IT was conditioned in the first place to behave that way..eat, take shit n wot not! so then u give it freewill its gonna be confused...A man (or woman) however is much more rational, even though conditioned since birth, his rational mind can still help him make that choice. But then it begs the larger Q - is the choice b/w freewill & curtailment or its b/w just choices. In both cases a human can be a good judge and not make an ASS out of himself!
@Nandith: 1) There is only one state of being where one is uninfluenced and uncurtailed. That my dear friend is death. We are influenced and curtailed from the second we are born by everyone and everything around us. 2) We are no different from the ass because we are conditioned from birth aka refer point 1.
3) To answer the big Q, the choice is always between choices since no one knows what absolute free-will is.
4) The way we make these choices or what you term rationale is determined by one's experiences or pre-states of being.
Trivia: This theory is called 'Determinism'. For more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism
Well written...To put it succinctly in the words of Arthur Schopenhauer - "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."
Thank you!
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