I’ve never believed in the concept of free will, ever. So when I matured and started seeing that everyone takes it for granted, I was more shocked than anything. We can just like… decide to do things for ourselves? That sounds utterly ridiculous to me. Everything is a dominoe effect from something that happened prior. Everything is influenced by your parents, upbringing, genetics etc. Nothing is ever decided by you, and the belief that it is, is a symptom of human egoism.
Again I ask, why is that demotivating? Perhaps it’s my world view, and that I genuinely can’t conceive of what it feels like to decide something for yourself. To me, this is freeing, if I do something—it’s not my fault. It’s the natural consequence of something that came before. Everything that happens is like wind hitting the sails of the boat. There’s no need to stress because no matter what I do, it’s all accounted for—all predetermined.
Does that make life meaningless? Why? You still feel dopamine going off in your brain don’t you? What difference does it make that you weren’t the one to make it happen?
Do you do painful things with no reward in the near future?
For example, do you exercise even if you don’t want to? (Here I am assuming that you hate exercise like I do. If you enjoy exercise, this question is not really relevant.)
Do you refrain from eating tasty but unhealthy food?
What do you mean? This would imply that I decide to do something that requires motivation. In my worldview, everything follows after the other so quickly, so sequentially, that there isn’t time to stop and go: ‘How do I feel about this?’
I go to the gym, yes. It’s incredibly painful, yes. In my worldview, this would be a symptom of masochistic tendencies; either from stoic philosophy I’ve inherited, or figures I aspired to during childhood. Not sure? Might be useful to draw a mind map at some point and calculate exactly what is deciding things for me. EDIT: notice, even now; I’d only draw this mindmap because I’ve read your post, and I only found this post because it popped up randomly on my feed, and so on and so on.
As to whether I ‘do things I don’t want to do’. Again, I don’t know what you mean by this. Some things might be imposed on me that set off some kind of unhappiness. I might be pushed into other things that happen to make me happy. I don’t distinguish or preempt these events with how I feel about starting them only how I feel during them.
Huh. This is an interesting read. Your mind seems to work in a very different way than mine.
Have you read The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes? I have not read the whole thing, but I have read summaries of it, and your description reminds me of it. :)
Why is it demotivating?
I’ve never believed in the concept of free will, ever. So when I matured and started seeing that everyone takes it for granted, I was more shocked than anything. We can just like… decide to do things for ourselves? That sounds utterly ridiculous to me. Everything is a dominoe effect from something that happened prior. Everything is influenced by your parents, upbringing, genetics etc. Nothing is ever decided by you, and the belief that it is, is a symptom of human egoism.
Again I ask, why is that demotivating? Perhaps it’s my world view, and that I genuinely can’t conceive of what it feels like to decide something for yourself. To me, this is freeing, if I do something—it’s not my fault. It’s the natural consequence of something that came before. Everything that happens is like wind hitting the sails of the boat. There’s no need to stress because no matter what I do, it’s all accounted for—all predetermined.
Does that make life meaningless? Why? You still feel dopamine going off in your brain don’t you? What difference does it make that you weren’t the one to make it happen?
Do you do painful things with no reward in the near future?
For example, do you exercise even if you don’t want to? (Here I am assuming that you hate exercise like I do. If you enjoy exercise, this question is not really relevant.)
Do you refrain from eating tasty but unhealthy food?
If so, how do you motivate yourself?
‘How do you motivate yourself?’
What do you mean? This would imply that I decide to do something that requires motivation. In my worldview, everything follows after the other so quickly, so sequentially, that there isn’t time to stop and go: ‘How do I feel about this?’
I go to the gym, yes. It’s incredibly painful, yes. In my worldview, this would be a symptom of masochistic tendencies; either from stoic philosophy I’ve inherited, or figures I aspired to during childhood. Not sure? Might be useful to draw a mind map at some point and calculate exactly what is deciding things for me. EDIT: notice, even now; I’d only draw this mindmap because I’ve read your post, and I only found this post because it popped up randomly on my feed, and so on and so on.
As to whether I ‘do things I don’t want to do’. Again, I don’t know what you mean by this. Some things might be imposed on me that set off some kind of unhappiness. I might be pushed into other things that happen to make me happy. I don’t distinguish or preempt these events with how I feel about starting them only how I feel during them.
Huh. This is an interesting read. Your mind seems to work in a very different way than mine.
Have you read The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes? I have not read the whole thing, but I have read summaries of it, and your description reminds me of it. :)