--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Yifu" <yifuxero@> wrote: > > > > ...I'm on the free will side, but don't see how the question > > can be resolved logically. > > IMO only those indulging in confirmation bias believe > that ANY philosophical question can be "resolved." :-)
Besides, attempts to "prove" that there is or is not such a thing as free will strike me as the kind of thing a catechist would do -- declare that only one answer can be correct or true, and for everyone. I am less limited, and can see that it might be an individual thang, with some having free will and others not having it. To provide a completely theoretical example of how this could work, say there was a deranged bag lady who had taken offense at some perceived minor slight years ago, and had as a result cyberstalked the person she believed slighted her for, say, seventeen years, spending during most of that time 25% to 50% of her weekly posting allotment trying to "get" him. I think we would agree that such a person has no free will, because no one who indulged in such embarrassing behavior and had the free will to change it would fail to *not* change it. Continuing the embarrassing behavior for that long can legitimately be seen as a kind of proof that *for that particular cyberstalker* there is no free will. On the other hand, if the stalkee refused to play the game and ignored the cyberstalker as if her and her attempts to "get" him affected his life about as much as finding one's path blocked by a puddle of flea piss would, and focused on his life, well that individual obviously has free will. So it seems to me that the question of free will is an individual thang, a lot like the question of having charisma or creativity or intelligence. Some of us got it, others don't. :-)
