Perhaps everything is predetermined. Perhaps 99% of my thoughts are not my own, but until proven otherwise, I will choose to believe I am still 100% responsible. To me the alternative is devolution. (I’m careful to try and limit this belief to myself; judging others’ circumstances by my personal standard is also devolution, IMHO)
Musings
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15 responses to “Musings”
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I like the sound of devolution. IMHO, I think we evolve inside a cycle of devolution
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It is not because your thoughts are determined by your body & surroundings, that they are not your own. I have thought and read a lot about the subject, the link below is the best text I came across. It kind of clearly proves a free will (as generally understood) simply doesn’t exist. http://www.pnas.org/content/107/10/4499.full
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Either way, it’s like the existence of a higher power or afterlife. Maybe it does or doesn’t exist, but in the morass of unprovability (who can say that the universe wasn’t born a second ago?) it becomes depressing believing in nihilism. And belief does have tangible effects…the placebo effect at least! 🙂
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Thoughts are no one’s property but belong equally to all. I am glad to see people take responsibility for their mental hygiene.
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Someone once told me “Fate and Free Will are like a Cornetto. You get given the ice cream, but it’s up to you whether you lick it, bite it or throw it away.”
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Events can be predetermined but always have ability to make a conscious outcome
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Personally, I think we are someone’s science project and live in a huge aquarium. Either that, or we are a physical, holographic video game being PLAYED by an advanced species who need something to do on their off hours. None of it’s real but it’s so well done that even if we believe it’s not real, it’s hard not to think it is. I think whoever is running the game throws things at us and we have to kill each other or die, or do whatever, in order to deal with their choices. That makes more sense to me than anything else. Like a huge Monopoly game, we pick a shoe, or car, or body and move around the board. The squares aren’t quite as clear but they are there. Jail, Boardwalk, poverty, money, greed, railroads, and all the rest. We can always leave the game, whenever we want to, of course. The fools who make up the rules add them as we move across the board. Suicide is a sin, (church made that one up when people were killing themselves and not able to give money to the church). Everything is made up. We are being played. We can say, “Okay, that’s the way it is and I’ll play as long as I feel like it,” or we can ignore the game and live on the fringe of the board. Whatever we do, we are always part of the game and we will be forced to react to whatever is thrown at us. When they tire of us, they’ll just shut us off.
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I believe everything is made up, and there’s no way to prove one position or the other, but I like to think that at some deep level, we choose to put ourselves through the BS our fated have determined. Too depressing otherwise! 🙂
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Kent Wayne 
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