[AGL] reply to Michele's statement

[Bill Irwin]

Free will is a delusion Jon.  To better make my case I will just rely on a
quotation from Eric Fromm on the subject who can better make the case than
I.  I would use Buddhist thought on the subject but you complain that I was
being dogmatic.

Our poet laurite framed the question as:
"Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"

Fromm explains it:
What holds true for groups holds true also for individuals. In

every person  there is a potential of archaic forces  which

 we have just discussed. Only the thoroughly "evil" and the

 thoroughly "good" no longer have a choice. Almost everybody

 can regress to the archaic orientation, or progress to the full

 progressive unfolding of his personality. In the first case we

 speak of the outbreak of severe mental illness; in the second

 case we speak of a spontaneous recovery from illness, or a trans

 formation of the person into full awakening and maturity.' It is

 the task of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and various spiritual dis-

 ciplines to study the conditions under which the one or the other

 development occurs and, furthermore, to devise methods by which

 the favorable development can be furthered and the malignant

 development stopped.3 The description of these methods falls

 outside the scope of this book, and is to be found in the clinical

 literature of psychoanalysis and psychiatry. But it is important

 for our problem to recognize that, aside from the extreme cases,

 each individual and each group of individuals can at any given

 point regress to the most irrational and destructive orientations

 and also progress toward the enlightened and progressive orienta-

 tion. Man is neither good nor evil. If one believes in the goodness

of man as the only potentiality, one will be forced into rosy

falsification of the facts, or end up in bitter disillusionment. If

one believes in the other extreme, one will end up as a cynic and

be blind to the many possibilities for good in others and in oneself.

A realistic view sees both possibilities as real potentialities, and

studies the conditions for the development of either of them.



  These considerations lead us to the problem of man's freedom.

Is man free to choose the good at any given moment, or has he

no such freedom of choice because he is determined by forces

inside and outside himself? Many volumes have been written

on the question of freedom of will and I can find no more

adequate statement as an introduction to the following pages than

William James' remarks on the subject. "A common opinion

prevails," he wrote, "that the juice has ages ago been pressed

out of the free-will controversy, and that no new champion can

do more than warm up stale arguments which everyone has

heard. This is a radical mistake. I know of no subject less worn

out, or in which incentive genius has a better chance of breaking

open new ground—not, perhaps, of forcing a conclusion or of

coercing assent, but of deepening our sense of what the issue

between the two parties really is, and of what the ideas of fate

and of free will really imply."4 My attempt to present in the

following pages some suggestions with regard to this problem

is based on the fact that psychoanalytic experience may throw

some new light on the question of freedom and thus permit us to

see some new aspects.



   The traditional treatment of freedom has suffered from the

lack of using empirical, psychological data, and thus has led

to a tendency to discuss the problem in general and abstract terms.

If we mean by freedom freedom of choice, then the question

amounts to asking whether we are free to choose between, let

us say, A and B. The determinists have said that we are not free,

because man—like all other things in nature—is determined by

causes; just as a stone dropped in mid-air is not free not to fall, so

man is compelled to choose A or B, because of motives deter-

mining him, forcing him, or causing him to choose A or B.5



   The opponents of determinism claim the opposite; it is argued

 on religious grounds that God gave man the freedom to choose

between good and evil—hence that man has this freedom. Second,

 it is argued that man is free since otherwise he could not be made

 responsible for his acts. Third, it is argued, man has the sub-

 pective experience of being free, hence this consciousness of

freedom is a proof of the existence of freedom. All three argu-

 ments seem unconvincing. The first requires belief in God, and a

 knowledge of his plans for man. The second seems to be born

 out of the wish to make man responsible so that he can be

 punished. The idea of punishment, which is part of most social

 systems in the past and in the present, is mainly based on what

 is  (or  is  considered  to  be)  a  measure  of  protection  for  the

 minority of "haves" against the majority of "have nots," and is

 a symbol of the punishing power of authority. If one wants to

 punish, one needs to have someone who is responsible. In this

 respect one is reminded of Shaw's saying, "The hanging is over—

 all that remains is the trial." The third argument, that the con-

 sciousness of freedom of choice proves that this freedom exists,

 was already thoroughly demolished by Spinoza and Leibniz.



 Spinoza pointed out that we have the illusion of freedom because

 we are aware of our desires, but unaware of their motivations.

 Leibniz also pointed out that the will is motivated by tendencies

 which are partly unconscious. It is surprising indeed, that most of

 the discussion after Spinoza and Leibniz has failed to recognize

 the fact that the problem of freedom of choice cannot be solved

 unless one considers that unconscious forces determine us, though

 leaving us with the happy conviction that our choice is a free

one. But aside from these specific objections, the arguments for

the freedom of will seem to contradict everyday experience;

whether this position is held by religious moralists, idealistic

philosophers, or Marxist-leaning existentialists, it is at best a noble

postulate, and yet perhaps not such a noble one, because it is

deeply unfair to the individual. Can one really claim that a man

who has grown up in material and spiritual poverty, who has

never experienced love or concern for anybody, whose body has

been conditioned to drinking by years of alcoholic abuse, who

has had no possibility of changing his circumstances—can one

claim that he is "free" to make his choice? Is not this position

contrary to the facts; and is it not without compassion and, in the

last analysis, a position which in the language of the twentieth

century reflects, like much of Sartre's philosophy, the spirit of

bourgeois individualism and egocentricity, a modern version of

Max Stirner's Der Einzige. und sein Eigentum (The Unique One

^ThT^pSTJosition, determinism, which postulates that man

is not free to choose, that his decisions are at any given point

caused and determined by external and internal events which

have occurred before, appears at first glance more realistic and

rational. Whether we apply determinism to social groups and

classes or to individuals, have not Freudian and Marxist analysis

shown how weak man is in his battle against determining in-

stinctive and social forces? Has not psychoanalysis shown that a

 man who has never solved his dependency on his mother lacks

 the ability to act and to decide, that he feels weak and thus

 is forced into an ever increasing dependency on mother figures,

 until he reaches the point of no return? Does not Marxist analysis

 demonstrate that once a class-such as the lower middle class-

 has lost fortune, culture, and a social function, its members lose

 hope and regress to archaic, necrophilic, and narcissistic onentations?



            We conclude, then that man’s actions are always caused by
inclinations rooted in (usually unconscious) forces operating in his
personality.  If these forces have reached a certain intensity they may be
so strong that they not only incline man but determine him – hence he has no
freedom of choice.



BTW -  Jon, this from Eric Fromm's book "The Heart of Man".  It is his
attempt to psychoanalyze the Fascist mind and come to a rationalization of
the Holocaust.  You might be interested in reading it.





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jon Ford" <jonmfordster at hotmail.com>

>
> Bill== Free will? Read some more philosophy. There are plenty of
> philosophers who would defend the concept of free will/free choice, even
> without the prop of a wise creator-God. You are simply being
> dogmatic,asserting a claim without evidence. You could argue that people
who
> believe in free will have a burden to prove it exists, but you can't just
> state like some tin-pot prophet "free will is a delusion!"
>
> Jon
>
> >From: "Bill Irwin" <billi at aloha.net>
> >Reply-To: survivors' reminiscences about Austin Ghetto Daze in the
> >60s<austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net>
> >To: "survivors' reminiscences about Austin Ghetto Daze in the
> >60s"<austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net>
> >Subject: Re: [AGL] reply to Michele's statement
> >Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 09:23:10 -1000
> >
> >Pretty good deconstruction Mike.
> >If you want wisdom you first have to get rid of delusions.  One delusion
> >that should go first is that one has free will.
> >Aloha
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Michael Eisenstadt" <michaele at ando.pair.com>
> >To: "survivors' reminiscences about Austin Ghetto Daze in the 60s"
> ><austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net>
> >Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 5:58 AM
> >Subject: [AGL] reply to Michele's statement
> >
> >
> > > Michele,
> > >
> > > You have often spoken to me on this subject but never at such
> > > length. Permit me to reply interlinearly to some of what you've
written.
> > >
> > > >I believe that God (or whatever name you choose) made us
> > > because He/She needed love—that in some way He was lonely
> > > and because He had a need to "see Himself"
> > >
> > > According to Hegel, the attempt "to see Himself/Oneself" is the
> > > ultimate exercise of human consciousness. This suggests to me
> > > that the attributes you have identified as God's are merely
> > > human projections.
> > >
> > > >He placed us in a perfect place where all our needs were met (without
> > > spilling a drop of blood). He gave us free will—otherwise how would
we
> > > be like Him and what would our love be worth if we didn't choose it?
> > >
> > > Once again, why does free will require a God? Logically, in assuming
> > > the existence of God, you are committing the error of petitio
> > > principii (assuming the conclusion as your starting point).
> > >
> > > Now I know that you will remind me of your personal experiences
> > > with you know who. That solves the petitio principii problem. But
> > > that brings up the veracity of testimonial or testifying. Would that I
> > > could accept testimony. Testimony is worthless unless confirmed.
> > >
> > > >Then came curiosity. Had things progressed in the way He wanted, we
> > > would have been good, obedient students, matching knowledge with
wisdom
> > > and growing towards oneness with Him.
> > > The Tree of Knowledge was not all about sex, it was about sex and
> > > everything else. Seduced by instant gratification, we transgressed—
not
> > > waiting to learn wisdom as He intended to teach us.
> > >
> > > You are assuming that "seduced by instant gratification" is a bad
> > > thing. You may know this from personal experience. But that is
> > > not my personal experience. I see absolutely no reason why instant
> > > sexual or other gratification is bad.
> > >
> > > As for wisdom which we all crave, to believe that the deity desires
> > > that we pursue it, that too is a human projection, an admirable
> > > one to be sure. There has been a little progress in the human
> > > pursuit of wisdom. A necessary condition was the invention of
> > > writing. Part of our progress towards wisdom consists of
> > > practicing the ascesis of avoiding logical errors. Part of it has
> > > been the realization that received beliefs (about God and on
> > > other subjects) are to be examined closely for possible errors.
> > > Then we can try to think through the issues. If there is no
> > > reason and no evidence for a belief in God (my viewpoint),
> > > it is best abandonned as an impediment to the pursuit of
> > > wisdom.
> > >
> > > That's as far as i got in your letter at this time.
> > >
> > > Mike
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
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