No it didn't. My past experiences about philosophy, earlier debates in posts and even my education pushed me to write this article. The decision was not mine at all but a conglomerate of different instances.
Society requires that we are responsible for our actions.
irrelevant. also. 'society' is a very abstract concept.
Like the band Rush sang, If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice. :-)
That quote alone demonstrates that free will does not exist even further. You are answering your own question :)
Society (or civilization) are man made constructs. Many things are.
More Rush lyrics:
"You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that’s clear
I will choose free will."
The lyricist, Neil Peart is calling Free Will a choice. The song itself is about how we don't have to live our life in chains. We can keep our slave jobs or blog on Steemit, as one example.
Great comments mate! I actually made a video about this very subject the other month and I shared it on my blog today. Check it out! :]
He can call it whatever he wants. No matter what we believe our life has chains. You are bound on this planet for example when there are trillions new worlds out there. no matter how much free will you have, there is nothing you can do about it.
Are you trying to explain causality? I am trying to understand if you're trying to use science to prove or disprove (a) philosophy is wrong or right? On my end I am just offering up an opposing view (I think). I am not sure there are any truths in philosophy. There are beliefs, some of which are more powerful than truth, math or science (obviously). If you watch the movie version of the Ayn Rand classic, The Fountainhead with Gary Cooper, you might appreciate the concept of free will a bit differently. Thanks for your replies @kyriacos. - I might be understanding you a little better.
watch this. it might help
I watched the entire video. I agree that the justice system is flawed. However, they didn't prove a lack of free will. Even the Whitman example was ridiculous. If he had the clarity and prescence of mind to know that something was wrong in his thought processes and then WROTE IT DOWN. Then he also had the ability to choose to seek out help. He could have gone to a doctor instead of the clock tower. I believe he had other motives that are unknown to us but wrote the letter to offer a scapegoat for his actions. But since everyone is dead we will never know.
We should always be striving to educate the next generation so that they can make better and more informed choices. We are robots BUT we are robots that have gained consciousness and self awareness. We have gained the ability to choose. This is the point of free will. If we lack the ability to choose then we are not ALIVE. We are a THING and our lives and deaths have no meaning. This type of thought always leads people like this guy trying to create the "magic" pill he described so that they can force everyone to live by what THEY have decided is the best possible version of humanity.
this. this is how you answer your own question. Often times, if not always we don't know why we do some things. It is so random because it comes from so many different stimuli. so many influencers. This is also the reason why psychologists are so successful. They creative narratives that always fit due to the over abundance of suggestive clues.
There is no intrinsic meaning in life.
I like how you only copied the first part of that sentence.
"I believe he had other motives that are unknown to us BUT wrote the letter to offer a scapegoat for his actions."
You see I finish the sentence by explaining my thoughts on his actions. Since he so kindly removed himself from the equation we will never be able to know if maybe his mother and wife were conspiring to have him committed for having violent outbursts. Or maybe he was tested already by a friend and knew about the tumor. So his wife and mother wanted him to have a surgery but he decided to take them out with him. Since he offed himself we can not learn of his motives. All we have to go on is his note. How convenient for him :P
Of course there is an intrinsic meaning in life. We just don't know what it is...yet. A lack of knowledge or understanding does not mean it does not exist. So in the mean time we give our own meaning to our existence. One day the aliens that created us (also known as God's in the old days) will return to let us know why they created us....or they won't. Maybe we were the "arc" for their planet and people. Which means our only intrinsic meaning in life is just to exist.
HEHE This has been fun :P