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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
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I see you haven't met me. I will walk to the refridgerator, grab a bottle of lemonaide, grab a single sock, and grab a hot wheels car. Then I'll go back to my seat with these items, and ask nobody at all "Wait.....why the hell did I grab these things?"
I don't do things because I want to, or need to, or even because it makes any logical sense.
I just do things. I have no idea what I'm doing half the time.
Hey, are you going to eat that ghost?
I was just thinking that there is a third option. You certainly can do things you don’t need to or even d want to.
An extreme example would be all the various kinds of mental issues. Even phobias count. You don’t need to be afraid of balloons, nor do you want to. However, someone suffering from such a phobia just can’t help themselves.
Either you have to or you want to.
Having a phobia is not something people chose to have, so no freedom there. If a person is afraid of spiders they then want to avoid them at all costs. That aligns with the statement in the title.
Depends on the way you define “have to”. If we take the loosest possible definition, as long as literally anything makes you do it, you have to do it. Could be another human, laws of physics or even your own brain doing stuff you don’t want it to do. In that case, I agree with you. However, people usually aren’t that loosey-goosey with their definitions.
Oh, just realized, this definition also encompasses the case where you want to do stuff. It’s all in the same category at this point. People do stuff because they have to.
Well I don't believe in free will so in my view what ever you do is because you couldn't have done otherwise. In that sense you "have to" do everything that you do because doing something else would mean breaking free from the laws of physics and deterministic universe.
Whay ever makes someone do the thing in the first place is what would make them do it again, and again, and again no matter how many times they rewind the clock and try again. You'd need to be able to change the order of the universe to break free from the causal chain.
That description of your process reminds me of this video on consciousness, and how the creator describes how he has no inner monolog, or even conscious thought of some of his actions, and instead it's like a black box that he can query. Is your experience similar to that?
That doesn't imply any kind of freedom either. It's what you wanted to do wether consciously or not.
Sounds like you're categorically defining everything someone does without being forced as "want". But who is the "you" that wanted to do it if you're not conscious of that want? Do I breathe while in a coma because I want to? Do I stop breathing because I want to? Or does my low-level biology force me in those cases?
I feel free choosing my wants. There's freedom in what you want and whether you'll do them.
You can't choose to not want something you do or vice versa.
Yeah, I feel I can. Why do you feel like you can't?
Feeling you can and actually being able to do so are different thing.
I'm not saying your tastes can't change; I didn't use to like the taste of coffee but now I do. I however didn't choose to start liking it. My taste simply evolved over time. Now I couldn't choose to not like it.
What do you feel like you have the ability to change your preference about then?
I mean, you chose to taste it again when you knew you didn't like the taste. That's how acquired tastes work, you start liking something after repeated exposure.
Yeah, I wanted to be the kind of person that drinks coffee like everyone else around me back then. I didn't choose that want. That desire was imposed on me from the outside.
It still was your choice, people regularly go against the societal norms and desires imposed from the outside. Like, I never started smoking, although both of my parents and a lot of my peers did.
No, I disagree. I didn't choose not to start smoking. I simply never developed the desire to start. It's not something I decided against my natural preferences.
It's besides the point anyway. Even if I could choose to do or not do something it would still be about what I want which aligns with the title of the post.
You can't do something you don't want unless someone makes you do it. Even if you do something like go to the gym despite not wanting there's a greater want behind it that's pushing you to do it. In this case getting healthy and fit. This means you do want to go to the gym, you just don't like it.
The point was to illustrate a counter-example to your coffee example and that you can control (at least some) of your wants (which you previously said that one can't do). I would be curious to hear your definition of want (and have to, for that matter). You seem to be using it as an umbrella term that covers everything from physical urges to something a person thinks would subjectively benefit them.
By have to I mean obligations. You've got a meeting at noon, you have to be there. You may not want to, but you have to.
By want I mean every other voluntary action. You're thirsty and you open the fridge. There's milk, water and orange juice. Say you grab the orange juice. You did that because you wanted it. To say that you could have chosen milk or water isn't true. You didn't want those, you wanted orange juice. If you rewind the clock and open the fridge again you'd still want the orange juice. In that moment you can't do other than what you want. You can't choose to not want it. It may be than in a few years you no longer like orange juice so in thay sense your wants may change but then and there in that moment you can't act against it.
Even if you decide against your preferences to prove a point you'd still be acting according to your wants; you want to prove me wrong and thus you grab the water. That's still doing what you wanted to do.
If by "want" you mean "everything you do that you don't have to" then your post is kinda useless. Yeah, you do things you have to and things you don't have to, that's obvious, cause there is no other category of actions.
Well I can't think of a voluntary action that people do for any other reason than either wanting to do it or having to do it. That's the point of the post. Every example I have been given so far is either of those two. It feels like we're free do to what ever, but in reality we're only free to do what we want and nobody picked their wants.
Nobody is forcing me to reply to this message. I do it because I want to. If I didn't want to I wouldn't but I also don't know why I enjoy having these debates. I didn't choose to enjoy it, I just do.
Just give me an example of something you do or could do that you don't have to but also don't want to. I don't think you can. You're not free to do that.
The problem is with you definition of want. You've formulated it based on the conclusion you've wanted to reach - that there is no other reason to do things, not based on what you actually think it is. That's why I asked for your definition - to try to find a counter example, without you moving the goalpost and saying that that's actually a want as well.
To have a strong feeling to have (something); wish (to possess or do something); desire greatly: synonym: desire.
Pick any dictionary definition for it.
Well, I neither have to nor have any strong desire to wake up early on a Saturday, but I still do because of a force of habit, how does that fit into your definition?
It's involuntary action. Not something you choose to do.
The title is essentially an argument against free will. The illusion that you could have done otherwise. Waking up early out of habit is no indication of free will to me.
I wasn't arguing for free will, I was arguing against your argument, and, as you can see, it is flawed.
When it comes to free will - in a situation where you have to make a choice it doesn't matter that post-factum you can say that you couldn't have chosen otherwise due to internal and external factors, what matters is that in the moment you still have to make that choice, and no one (oftentimes not even you) can really predict the outcome.
Also, determinism is flawed simply because quantum mechanics exists, which is decidedly indeterministic and deals with probabilities, and there are phenomenons where it affects things on a macro scale.
I decided not to like gummy bears anymore because I was eating too much of them, and since then they always taste flat. I’ve got Debby Downer powers like Britta.
So you realized it's not good for you and you wanted to change the habit. That perfectly aligns with the title of the post.
I knew it wasn’t good for me to start, I just used to enjoy them through the guilt until I made the conscious decision not to like them.
You didn't just choose to not like them, though. That's not how human psychology works.
I don’t know what to tell you. I decided one day that I didn’t want to like them anymore, and then I didn’t enjoy them enough to eat them from then on.
What about when we just can't think of anything better to do?
People don't do stuff they don't want to to because they couldn't think of anything better to do. If you decide to just stay in and lay in bed because you couldn't think of anything better to do then laying in bed is what you preferred to do above everything else, otherwise you'd be doing something else.
I've seen people staple their arms because they couldn't think of anything better to do. You can have an impulse that you don't actually want to do but which you follow through on
It's what they wanted to do at that time then. Why else would they do it? I mean really, think about it. Why would you choose to do something like that other than it's what you felt like doing at the time.
I have a bad habit of biting my nails. It would be correct to say that it's something I do despite not wanting to but that wouldn't exactly be true because when I catch myself about to do it and I resists, it's hard because I really want to do it despite knowing I shouldn't.
It's more like the person I want to be being in conflict with the person I actually am.
I stub my toe. Is that a "have to?"
The argument in the title is essentially an argument against free will. Involuntary actions are outside of your control and are thus for evidence of free will. Stubbing your toe is not something you chose to do. It's a thing that happened to you.
I agree. I do appreciate the spirit of OP's comment, that we are agents. I observe a lot of people who blame everything but themselves for their circumstances, and take responsibility for nothing.
However, sometimes you get the meteorite, and sometimes the meteorite gets you; we're none of us 100% in control of our fates.
Sure... If you're normal. 🤷🏻♂️