24 01 29 1 a Knife-edge decisions and actions

Published: 01/01/1970

Free will and determinism # 04

Those, like Saul, who say there is only the illusion of free will, that the motivation and impetus to do or not do is just the sum total of where all the current forces at play are up to, can always win that argument. Since this argument was again put to me last week from a considered and respected source, I’ve been processing it.

Einstein came up with his insights by imagining ‘mind experiments’. I’ve been reflecting and testing this whole volition thing in my own ongoing life.

Some long-held philosophic beliefs (Belief #27) – once it happened, it had to happen (in this world view, everything – think “Weather” is just a bunch of probabilities. As “possibilities” get closer to becoming certainties: there is a 20% chance of rain at 2 pm; 40% … to 100% as we get closer to a real rain event making us wet; so too is the probability of WHATEVER happening increases or decreases until something happens; OR the chance of it happening recedes to impossible.

So, in the past week, I have written each morning (or not), including this, which you are reading now.

Australia Day has passed. “The moving sheet of now”, as I write this, is Monday morning. I’m 70 and have a many-times damaged back, well worn out by bulk years of physical labour. I was trained, encouraged and rewarded to do physical labour since I was a kid. At 12, about to growth-spurt, my philosopher brain – lots of articulate thinkers in my cultural sheath, who imbued me with self-belief of my intelligence and incisive analysis – said: “you can become a weedy weak philosopher, or you can be a thinker in; inevitably, my physical body, which can either be weak and sickly, or strong and robust. Decision point. I choose? to work on a poultry farm, weekends and holidays, through most of my adolescence. Motor bike crashed, industrial accidents (bit of a risk taker – I liked running the knife-edge a bit – try not to now I'm old and brittle) and working for years each as a farm labourer, commercial builder’s labourer; on my own projects, like the self built bushouse I write/wrote this from. Earthworks and drainage, road building labourer, each for years – labourer and university lecturer has been my fate, my choices made (all inevitable? No-one is ever gonna know). Endless life decisions (or the illusion of); fate, circumstance. I’ve been resting my back, reading good books. Bludging for weeks. January. Traditional western country holiday month. I’m 70. Surely I am allowed rest (again, imbued with such a ‘productive labour’, ‘good to keep busy’, ‘keep active’ world view) that dis-ease haunts me when I bludge. 70. When is my contribution/engagement discharged? This compulsion to go on. TO DO.

So, for the past few days, I’ve rested my back, felt the dull fuzzy brain and pain of what may – or not – be - mild long Covid – knowing as the body winds down from ‘useful’ to sluggish [MAXIM # 05 THE MORE Y0U REST, THE MORE REST YOU NEED.] The corollary (here is the advantage of studying formal logic at university – logic has rules, and the rules help understand changing reality – is that, to stay functional (and I think/believe human functionality is a key ‘screen and filter’ to judging people, groups, our future) you need to be a bit fit. At least a bit fit.

Illustrative story/21C parable #15: Today is valuable

My land partner here for 30+ years, dear friend, one day took me to some friends in this rural district – we had to help them move some stuff. Ron Crones was that sort of bloke – he helped people. Often and with good heart.

So we get there. One of their two vehicles was blocking the drive. They knew we were coming. No clean transaction here. Self-blocking denotes poor functionality. ‘Self sabotage’ the Psychology books call it. Because I’m a high function kind of person (used to be, till age, damage and long-covid? have recently been inerting - new verb – refer Everything’s a verb – Bertrand Russell me. So I have started whipper snipping, mowing, walking up to the next ridge to get my body going again) their obstruction to us helping them, by them made me a bit grumpy.

I waited in Ron’s ute. He went in to have the blocking vehicle moved. He got the key and moved it. They didnt move it for us. We were removing a table for them. Then he got our ute near the door. I followed Ron into the house. Two fat people, a couple, both on very expensive recliner chairs pointing at a big TV. engrossed in a dreary day soap. Neither got up. Barely spoke. We loaded up the table. Barely a thanks. No cuppa. Off we went.

Story – one was sick, the other a depressive. One died, the other, a few weeks later, did the exhaust pipe into their car death. His note said they couldn’t go on. Functional or not? Learning – inertness reinforces itself. Down the drainplug. The opposite to the joy of living an engaged and active life. A race to the bottom. The opposite of inspirational. Moral – fight against the coming of the night. Life is a gift. Short time living and a long time dead.

Now, I am not a depressive. I can’t imagine. If I seem arrogant, judgmental – I accept we all do the best we can.

Sual would say they were destined for their lives, their deaths. My feeling/enculturation/lived experience and analysis/belief is that there is at least a knife-edge of choice. My ‘world view’ – most people’s - includes ‘wealth for toil’. Put in, get rewarded. The legal system requires a belief in the exercise of choice. Chaos is the alternative. Most religions say – come to our belief structure and group and be saved. Be responsible for your actions. Follow these rules. Thou shall or shall not …

So once I was up – and I love being horizontal – less pain/more comfort – I made myself/enforced a discipline to sit and write this. And on. Sual would say my imposed discipline and commitment to write is something I (luckily?) got trained to have.

Live your best life is a rulebook, a value system that Bertrant may have enjoyed. Or dismissed and puffery. But some say he was an intellectual snob. How could he not be; seeing himself – as millions did – as a leading thinker and sharer of his philosophical musings. Yea thought experiments. It got us our understandings of the very nature of existence. The facts; most fundament reality, through thinking.

And on.

Have a nice day.

Do what is best for you, the atmosphere and the remnants of our glorious global biota. May black cookatoos survive our damaging prowess. Or not. Our collective choice.

Ding

29 01 24

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