Imaged by RyanMcGuire | pixabay.com
By Muhammad Natsir Tahar
The conversation about free will was almost over. At least that's what I'm aware of, free will versus destiny in determinism has been a philosophical debate all the time. In conclusion and if I have to take sides: free will is just an illusion.
Together with other biological creatures, our daily actions and reactions are arranged in a logical sequence of steps called algorithms. We perform regular sequences such as making a cup of coffee or doing office or factory chores, and repetitive morning or even full-day activities.
Algorithms in the life cycle of a cat can be detected simply. From babies and suckling, scratching ears, wrestling, scavenging to hoard dirt, noises enter the breeding season, breed, breastfeed and so on, and it happens the same for every single cat.
The algorithm in cats is constant with a rigid period, because there are no interruptions from the mind. Is the mind and the event horizon that surrounds it part of free will? In fact, today's artificial intelligence can take over free will to determine the best decisions, by simply tweaking our algorithms.
There's no need to bring up Friedrich Ratzel's theory of external factors or Dr. Joe Dispenza about the power of habit over action that comes from within, we can feel for ourselves, are we really acting freely?
Do we have a schedule to laugh, get angry, or fall in love? It all comes from pushing, we are not free, we are pushed or pulled simultaneously. In quantum energy, suppose if someone on the other end was thinking about us constantly, we would immediately be drawn into contact even if it seemed like an illogical coincidence.
This is no coincidence, we are not free, we are drawn. Regarding this phenomenon, I have hastened to take the postulate of Professor of Cognitive Science Donald Hoffman _without going into full detail that our entire perception of reality is an illusion.
We think that we have free will about choosing a fashion or other product, when in fact we may be just victims of subliminal messages that are swarmed by visual and audible stimuli from product marketing.
We can argue, we never saw thead, but just following a trend or a friend's invitation, or having no other choice but that one, or because of price considerations. Those reasons are not part of free will, we are driven. This has not been mixed up with the lusts and temptations of Satan in the belief system.
What we think of as free will only remains as plans, predictions, and imaginations until it is allowed to happen by the Almighty or Super Cosmos who has governed every detail of the movement of the cosmos.
Then free will becomes an illusion. Praise and punishment are just side effects of illusion. Then we run around all day between impulsive and compulsive movements.
The endless debate between determinism and free will has been reconciled by compatibilists. It is unconfident to say that free will and determinism are not contradictory ideas, and to believe that they are both at the same time is not a logical inconsistency.
According to John Locke (1690), compatibilists believe that freedom can exist in a situation for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics. Courts, for example, determined that aperson acted on their free will without bringing up the issue of metaphysics.
Likewise, political freedom is a non-metaphysical concept. They define free will as the freedom to act without hindrance from other people or institutions.
In the context of metaphysics the question arises, what is the difference between being unimpeded and being allowed to happen? For example a murderer, is he or she an unhindered sinner or is he or she the hand of God allowed for that to happen, because of death and the way of death (I want to ask the worshiper of free will whether this has been determined or not?).
Are we going to just say someone died at random to make punishing a murderer seem logical? In terms of manner of death, what then distinguishes a murderer from an electric pole who is hit in a single accident?
Whether the events after the murder have to be rearranged (beyond the domain of deterministic destiny), such as changing the status of a wife to a widow, children becoming orphans, inheritance distribution and days that are no longer the same, just because a criminal accidentally interrupts the duration of the other's life.
Unintentionally means that the motive for killing can be driven by revenge, anger, incitement, need, opportunity and urge, you name it. Again it is not part of free will. (Without intending to be permissive of criminality, inevitably this must be sounded in philosophical discourse).
The next question is, for example, about rapists (driven by libido as well as attracted by visual sensations from the victim) who produce children. Was this child born by fate or just jumped onto the face of the earth from a father who was an asshole? Then this bastard was punished even though he had been “used” by God.
Similar questions and defenses of the logical problem of evil in its more complex form have been elaborated by Alvin Plantinga, an analytic philosopher who later wrote his book God, Freedom, and Evil (1977).
If free will is real, Jean-Paul Sartre's proposition "Man is condemned to be free" is acceptable. We are condemned to be free so that we can be punished, without involving God in it, or even God in it.
God provides heaven and hell for everything He has ordained. As an omniscient, it becomes impossible that God does not know who will be the inhabitants of His heaven and hell in the future.
Removing free will from our prejudices has not only been done in the past, even by the most progressives cientists of this century, such as Bostrom of Oxford, Terrile of NASA, andElon Musk of Space X.
They postulate that there is a logical basis for saying that we are in a simulated world under the supervision of a superior entity in the sky. An experiment also proves, that the brain has made subconscious decisions before we know it.
Then what then distinguishes us from seagulls or mango trees? As fellow creatures composed by algorithms and determination, at least we have a conscious mind, we have language, we have myths and we have poetry. We can quench our inner thirst by celebrating God and His destiny second by second. ~
Comments