Have It Your Way

[struggle4progress]

39. If there is no such a thing as free will, then what sense can I possibly make

of your demand that I ought to attempt to define "free will"?

The only interpretation I could give, to the assumption that there is no such thing as free will, is that you and I are both physical automata, driven by ambient conditions, and (in particular) that you made no choices when posting your post. That is, to make that assumption means: your post involved no conscious agency. And so the assumption means your post is essentially without content, since you would have posted it no matter what

Now, of course, we all do show some automatic behavior, and (in fact) the attempt to reduce people to automatic behavior is common as a manipulation tactic. This is why (for example), in your effort to provoke some automatic response from me, you attempt to insult me by sneering at my "google-fu" and try to suggest that I hold English teachers in contempt. I will admit that the latter suggestion could actually offend me gravely, but perhaps for the purposes of this conversation, I would do better to recall Chuang-Tzu's discourse on empty boats:

an ill-tempered man, crossing a river, does not become angry when an empty boat collides with his skiff; but if he sees someone in the boat, he shouts "Steer clear!" and if not heard he will shout again and again and curse -- all because someone is in that boat

Thus it is natural to forgive people of diminished capacity when they clumsily offend us