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originally posted in: Do We Have Free Will?
Edited by Masque of Night: 3/23/2016 3:04:02 AM
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I think we have the "illusion" of free will. We are able to make our decisions in reality based on our own perceptions, moral code, intuition, and emotional state at the time, but these are all factors that can be linked to influences beyond our control. Our perception is imperfect and easy to trick, especially when dealing with other people, since they can weave falsehoods to mislead and influence our decisions. Morals are ordinarily learned and established during childhood, based on our environment and how we're raised. Intuition can be largely affected by subconscious knowledge or subtle suggestions, which are both gained from external sources. And our emotional state is essentially dictated by our every day encounters and environmental settings, plus many other subtle nuances, but all external. To summarize all of that, we're essentially the product of everything we encounter and learn over time, so while we're free to use our collected information to make decisions, they're still decisions influenced by external forces (i.e. the actions, intentions, and suggestions of other sentient beings) based off of information (i.e historical data, facts and figures, etc) that's entirely gained through external sources. To be honest, I quit caring whether my thoughts and actions are my own. I acknowledge that my current awareness is extremely limited in the scope of things, and that it's possible i'll never truly know that "I" am "me" or what of "me" is actually "mine". I just do what seems right and hope for the best.
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  • [quote]I think we have the "illusion" of free will. We are able to make our decisions in reality based on our own perceptions, moral code, intuition, and emotional state at the time, but these are all factors that can be linked to influences beyond our control. Our perception is imperfect and easy to trick, especially when dealing with other people, since they can weave falsehoods to mislead and influence our decisions. Morals are ordinarily learned and established during childhood, based on our environment and how we're raised. Intuition can be largely affected by subconscious knowledge or subtle suggestions, which are both gained from external sources. And our emotional state is essentially dictated by our every day encounters and environmental settings, plus many other subtle nuances, but all external. To summarize all of that, we're essentially the product of everything we encounter and learn over time, so while we're free to use our collected information to make decisions, they're still decisions influenced by external forces (i.e. the actions, intentions, and suggestions of other sentient beings) based off of information (i.e historical data, facts and figures, etc) that's entirely gained through external sources. To be honest, I quit caring whether my thoughts and actions are my own. I acknowledge that my current awareness is extremely limited in the scope of things, and that it's possible i'll never truly know that "I" am "me" or what of "me" is actually "mine". I just do what seems right and hope for the best.[/quote]

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  • My thoughts exactly. Well said.

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  • Well said overall, sometimes it feels like I'm galaxies away from the nearest person who knows what we're talking about.

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  • Nah, I feel like everyone is aware of this sort of thing to a certain degree...just easier not to think about it, i'd guess. It's natural to feel a need or desire to be in control of your own existence, but realistically a lot of our lives are left in the hands of influencing factors we might not even be able to fully comprehend.

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