Existentialism...

Does it ignore aspects of the human condition?
How much free will do we truly possess given we are often at the mercy of our genetic predispositions...

To me it seems laughable that we supposedly have the ability to change our inherent nature...
And it also seems infantile, or at best naive, to think we can legitimately take responsibility for all our actions...

This thread is intended to be nebulous...meaning there aren't any defined boundaries for participation...
I am simply interested in throwing ideas in the arena to encourage greater understanding of what "Existentialism" means to different people...
And hopefully gain greater enlightenment in the process...

to quote raj: Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

heh..this is a very big topic.

From a Buddhist philosophy, we as in people are the combination of all of our experiences from everyone around us kinda thing. So..the 'individual self' is kinda not real. This is a very 'eastern philosophy' type of viewpoint.

The western philosophy tends to lean toward the idea of the individual self having a lot of choice in the matter.

Personally, I think we do have the ability to make direct and personal changes in ourselves - BUT it takes some amount of influence from others or the situation around us to make us change. For example, someone may decide to lose weight. That decision could be based off comparing one's self to others, or to the risk of heart attacks and other diseases, and so on...but pretty much all of that is 'external'. The same, I think, is kinda with life in general. One of my coworkers put it kinda well...he said something like he needs to live at least 20 more years to make sure his kids grow up and are on their own. In the end, it sounds like for most people our decisions on who we are and what we do are to fit with others..as is our reason for living.

You have a good question my friend. I'd say 'free will' isn't something that's as free as everyone thinks it is. We may be able to have thought, but we don't know that really. We could just be holograms from a universe which has flying pigs and everyone's a human/dolphin. All we actually know is that we don't know anything at all.

But as TDT said about the Buddhist philosophy I can agree with that much more than the Western philosophy. I believe if justice systems were based entirely on the Buddhist philosophy law and order in society would be better.

TDT wrote:heh..this is a very big topic.

The "subject" was much bigger, but I couldn't fit it in the subject line...
So I shortened it to simply "Existentialism"...
True story, btw...

I will reply properly later...
I need a rest from the internet after doing so much research this evening...

TDT wrote:From a Buddhist philosophy, we as in people are the combination of all of our experiences from everyone around us kinda thing. So..the 'individual self' is kinda not real. This is a very 'eastern philosophy' type of viewpoint.

i can see this one disappearing in a puff of smoke up its own tailpipe. if no one is real then everyone is equally unreal, no matter who they 'rub noses' with!!!

TDT wrote:The western philosophy tends to lean toward the idea of the individual self having a lot of choice in the matter.

i'd tend to go along with this except that many people do tend to use it as an excuse for a complete lack of any human compassion.

TDT wrote:Personally, I think we do have the ability to make direct and personal changes in ourselves - BUT it takes some amount of influence from others or the situation around us to make us change.

my personal philosophy is: life is what you make of it within the circumstances you find yourself (C). that is to say that i don't think everything is newtonian, in as much as i don't think we only respond to external stimuli. i think we are capable of 'inner revelation', for want of a better expression (that's partly what all those neurones are there for). otherwise, life would just be a very complex game of pool, and i don't fancy that idea at all!!!

Reality is a limited and, to a certain extent, arbitrary system, necessary for human functioning. Without language, for example, reality would be (and in fact certainly was) fundamentally different. Now suppose someday humans develop a technology that allows for the ubiquitous use of telepathy. The permanent change to the average reality would probably be just as dramatic.

Another example is psychedelic drugs. Many users, including one-time experimenters, proclaim reality as a whole to change permanently and fundamentally after the experiment. All (or virtually all) users experience significant alterations in reality while under the influence of psychedelics, even if their general functioning is not impaired.

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Free will can only exist within a system greater than observable and understandable reality, since understanding requires structure and predictability. In other words, it simply cannot exist within the system of physics. It is insubstantial, by its very definition. If you include metaphysics in your system of thought, then it makes sense to question the existence or nonexistence of free will. Otherwise, it doesn't.

Personally, I don't see the point in metaphysics (I don't see how I could pretend to know the unknowable), but I don't actively reject it either (no sane system can be self-contained). So the concept of free will, as either present or absent, is irrelevant to me.

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PS: Is there a name for this "philosophy" of mine? I'm not very knowledgeable about terminology and schools of thought when it comes to philosophy.

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shock_the_monkey wrote:to quote raj: Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

The accent makes it so much more expressive!

TDT wrote:The western philosophy tends to lean toward the idea of the individual self having a lot of choice in the matter.

Christian teachings tell us we have absolute free will...
To this I say bollox!

I once posed this question to a young Christian female:
"Did you choose to be here on this earth?"
Staggeringly, she said yes!!!

So we got the "absolute" free choice thing out of the way...
Hopefully!

Sh3ld0n wrote:

TDT wrote:The western philosophy tends to lean toward the idea of the individual self having a lot of choice in the matter.

Christian teachings tell us we have absolute free will...
To this I say bollox!

what a devastatingly cogent argument!!!

Sh3ld0n wrote:I once posed this question to a young Christian female:
"Did you choose to be here on this earth?"
Staggeringly, she said yes!!!

it gets worse than that! most spiritualists would tell you that you choose your parents too!!!

Sh3ld0n wrote:So we got the "absolute" free choice thing out of the way...
Hopefully!

you're welcome to think so. after all, it's your thread.

TDT wrote:Personally, I think we do have the ability to make direct and personal changes in ourselves - BUT it takes some amount of influence from others or the situation around us to make us change.

Absolutely we can make some changes to our lives...
The questions are, can we change our basic nature?
And can we truly be responsible for our actions/decisions in an absolute sense, especially because of these external influences you mentioned?

Some assumptions need to be made to qualify my statement.

Firstly, since we are discussing the concept of existential responsibility for our actions, the individual needs to have matured enough philosophically, negating those of pre-adolescent years...
Seriously, how can a fetus or day old baby have the facility of free will?

Consider this:
If one's philosophical choices are severely limited, how truly free are one's choices really?
Do we have an Animal Farm scenario, where:
All individuals have free will...
But some are more free than others...

And also consider that the human male brain develops at around 25...
And the female brain at around 22...
How responsible can one be with, say, half a brain?...

Then there is the consideration of:
How aware are we in regards to inherent and environmental influences to our way of thinking?

We may be making choices...
But are they truly independent/free choices...
Or have we simply been pre-loaded with suppositions not of our making...
And if so, how can we truly make personal claims to these decisions/choices?

There have also been studies suggesting that our choices have been made before we are consciously aware of those choices...
Curiouser and curiouser...