h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Life is what you have between dreams, dreams are what makes life worth living, freedom is a dream and I plan not just to dream about it, but live it to." - Martian Luther King, unknown year

As described previously this chapter is to discuss the concept of free will. Now I could do tones of well researched, well done criticism and support for some particular theory based on this research (or at least tied in with it). But I can't be bothered. There is a good reason for this, the major one is of course the problem with free will is that there are 4 distinct paradigms in "Free will theory":

1. Everyone has a free will. Are able to make choices and therefore are able to distinguish the situation they are in, are able to know what is going on, and so forth. Therefore everyone has a "choice".

2. Everyone does not have a choice, some people are not intellectually able to make a choice, or are not presented with all the choices, do not know that a choice is available, are forced to make a "choice" which is the only one they can discern that allows them to keep living all other choices were unthinkable for some reason, be it culture, pressure, external forces, internal conflict, mental disability etc.

3. No one has a choice at any point in time. We are all destined to make a particular choice at a particular time, if you try and change this you will end up making the choice at some point in the future or the choice will change so that it was the one you made. Some external or internal force choses for us and we are simply fates pawns.

4. There is no choice at all, It is an illusion that is created by the outside world, culture or some other force.

Now all of these paradigms have there lives in various political philosophies and as far as I am concern they are ALL wrong. Thats right ALL of them. Not just the first, or the last, or one of the middle ones. They are all wrong. And as I described in chapter one I will of course discuss at least one of these with examples from the current elections in what is about 48% of the world population.

Now the disproof of the first is very easy and those of the second philosophy tend to use examples such as this one:

Imagine you are a divorced middle age women with 3 kids, who is down on her luck and has considerable debts to people who don't just demand payment but break arms and legs and possibly your life. In this your darkest hour, you decided to resort to prostitution to pay off the most demanding dept. Could you say you had any real choice in this matter?

Of course this does not prove anything. It is a nice example of a situation were you may not have much choice but you still have at least 2 choices, prostitution or death. Now many people will argue from the 1st paradigms point of view that the person still has a choice even if neither are very nice.

An example where a person does not have a choice is like this one:

You are falling off a cliff, you are about to die. Goodbye.

You have only one choice which is continue falling. That is what proves the first paradigm wrong. Why does it prove them wrong? Well if you look closely at the text and the logic of it says basically that people have a choice. The person is only presented with the choice of "continue falling" no matter what there state, they is not actually a choice at all. It is a solid fact thanks to Sir Isaac Newton.

This however makes the second paradigm look pretty good right? Thanks to the previous chapter and paragraph we could argue that that we may not be in any control of our thoughts and if we are not presented with a choice but are forced into one by some external force and only have a choice sometimes. Unfortunately there is a problem with this paradigm, if you are forced into a choice all the time then you are not a subscriber to this paradigm at all but the third. Therefore this paradigm is false. QED.

Ah the third paradigm. It is all very nice thank you. It is one that generally subscribed by the religious people who are controlled by the government through secrete satellites that apparently can control there minds, making them think that the government has secrete satellites that can control there minds and so on. I am not a great believer in this as you can probably tell. Not withstanding it is a nice philosophical theory because it says basically that sure one knows one exists but one has a chosen destiny ahead of you. You can make choices sure, but they where not actually your choice someone or something had already decided that that choice was going to be decided. This of course means that although you exist you have no real free will, no matter what you think, it was already decided that you would think that. Its a very freaky and dangerous though because it is in fact a second way of proving existence. Sure Desrecraties
"I think therefore I am"
Is nice for the odd argument in the pub, but this thing is almost as solid as a rock. It is a stone in a pool of limpid gray matter. The theory is spelt out like this:
1. If this was already decided then it has already happened
2. Ah but it has happened since you did do it
3. Therefor you have found that it was decided already and therefor you exist since without that decision in the chain of events you would not know about it if it had not been made.
4. You confuse me you bastard!
5. Yup.
Anyway the almost as solid as a rock thing is of course breakable by what I like to call the mental jackhammer.
Me: I deny you the ability to decide my destiny since if it is MY destiny it is one that I own.
God: Ah but I think for you and do everything for you. It has already happened and I know that you will think this thing you are thinking now.
Me: Ah but thats the exact problem if you are doing everything for me then I am simply a fate of pawn, so therefore you are arguing against yourself right now.
God: If that is the case then why do I argue against myself?
Me: Sorry I am you so I only know what you allow me to know which is that of the entirety of what you decided to know.
God: You mean that if you are me and I am you then you actually make the decisions by yourself since your god?
Me: Pretty much.
God: Shit! I didn't see that one coming!
Those who did once believe in this theory think of it this way, if destiny exists then you exists, then god exists, then you are god, but I am also god and I got a shotgun and you don't have one. Or do you? I mean this theory makes us all one person, that means no matter what happens I will always commit adultery as I am not having it with my wife since she is me, and therefore I am masturbating always, if i kill someone that was me and I am dead and so on. It makes us all one glorious whole, which is very nice but sounds terribly unhygienic.

Now of course all of you are now wondering how it was so easy to dismiss such a long held religious philosophy? I mean it didn't even take more than a few well placed keystrokes! If its that easy to dismiss a theory why should I take one up at all? I believe in nothing now!

Ah however that is a problem you see. None whatsoever is in fact a lot. Nothing is billions, trillions, its really really big. Its a number that you should be scared of. Because of it Atheists all around the world are becoming mathematicians. If there is no choice at all people then what is there? There is nothing. It is all void. There is no choice, no people, no spoon, whatever. There is a continuos void of nothingness. Nothing at all.

Unfortunately for you who have chosen this path there is something. You see nothing is actually a thing, no things are an object. I can hear you all go WHAT THE? as you read this, the thing is people its not very easy to explain, you see take an election. You have a vote. Thats right you have something. However that vote happens on the 11th of november say and not now. So you don't actually have a vote, it is a potential vote. At the moment you have no vote for all the time from now till you get the piece of paper that you wright your vote on. You see folks the thing is that this vote does not exist until then. So what does this have to do with your new philosophy? well lots. You see nothing is something in this case and in fact it is not a hard step to prove that nothing is in fact something in all cases. You see if you have one thing it is one thing, equally so that if you know you have nothing you have one thing. It is a thing you know you have and so therefore if you have something it must exist it is something that is there and is tangible. It is a thing because you call it a thing, to truly to believe in nothing is a farce. You will always believe in at least one thing. Many have tried to believe in nothing and faced this very problem, you believe in something no matter what.

So there you go. In conclusion believe what you will about free will, if it was your choice or not to do so.

*bump*

Ah, and another thread magically appears.

I read it. The entire thing. I'm withholding comment.

Ah but are you? Sorry that was mean.

It wasn't mean, but I am withholding detailed commentary. Dya mind if I make a copy of it?

no, i do.

Okay. I liked it.

it looks like eveyone else is refraining from comment

Sorry, but I couldn't be bothered with reading the whole thing right now.

Ah, the one with the social graces of a dead cow speaketh.

Oh well, I am sure agent_c will.

Maybe so.

If I had free will, would I have chosen to respond to this?

Was it free will or someone peering over your shoulders holding a sharp stick?

There are always choices. Even when you're falling off a cliff, you can still try to learn to fly.

As I said in the rant, its not the fact the choices exist but who makes them.

I suppose I shall have to read it now, when I get the time.

That one's easy; I make them all.

This is why I get distracted sometimes- too much on my mind.

Minds? What brain?