Re: Mind's Eye Freewill - A useful myth?

There is more to life than the realm of cause and effect. Many of us
just prefer it there.

On Jan 5, 5:27 pm, Allan H <allanh1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Free will is a reality..  the problem comes once you made your choice and
> the effects of the choice ,,  these results appear that you have no
> choice,,  you just mad it earlier.
> Allan
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> On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:33 PM, malcymo <malc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Humanity has always, for some reason, felt the need to support his
> > world view with a series of myths commonly termed beliefs in order to,
> > in some way, justify its behaviour. We must not, however, believe that
> > these myths are always spiritual or mystical in nature. Many are not.
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> > The legitimacy of a myth depends on many features. Umberto Eco in his
> > excellent tome 'Foucault's Pendulum' quietly draws our attention to
> > the requirements needed for the creation of a robust myth and there is
> > no doubt that within most religious and philosophical beliefs the
> > required elements are found.
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> > Secular myths, however, are somewhat harder to pin down. This may be
> > because they are founded little more than intuition. They are
> > therefore difficult to identify as myths in the first place. Also,
> > such myths can often serve a very useful purpose.
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> > Let us take as an example the idea of freewill. The idea is so
> > embedded in our psych that most of us believe it to be a reality. Even
> > so, an in depth study soon reveals the fragility of the idea. So
> > fragile is it that philosophers have argued over the question of
> > determinism v free will for generations; time which could have been
> > more usefully employed on other ventures. Indeed some eminent
> > philosophers believe that free will and determinism can sit
> > legitimately together – the so called Such is the nature of a myth.
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> > We can only suppose that such an idea must appear rational to us in
> > order to give it legitimacy. After all, our ideas of virtuous
> > behaviour, responsibility and justice are founded on the idea of free
> > will; that we are responsible for our actions and must accept our
> > responsibilities. Yet, there is no doubt that free will defies the
> > tenets embodied in modern physics, the idea of cause and effect. It
> > seems to be extremely difficult for us to accept that some things just
> > are.
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> > I am interested in this dilemma because if we eventually discover, if
> > we have not already, that determinism is beyond dispute how should we
> > react? How could we possibly recreate our society to live with such a
> > 'truth'?
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> --
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> |_D Allan
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> Life is for moral, ethical and truthful living.