cumulus.james said:
My problems have been summarized best by others:
“The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?”
- Gilles Deleuze - Anti Odipius
This doesn't really say much about you personally, though. Are you the the one perceiving the servitude, or are you the one fighting for it? Or maybe both?
Regardless of that, there is a reason for why people do such a thing, and why those who perceive it most usually only contribute to it themselves. Because true change is difficult.
If we were theoretically all born into servitude and always lived in servitude, why would we seek 'freedom'? It is a foreign thing to us. It is jarring and difficult to comprehend. It requires change, not just in our situation but within ourselves. It requires the absolute destruction of who we are, what we believe we are, and a completely new beginning from the basis of what is essentially a newborn.
And like newborns they will cry at first, but a baby that learns to smile enjoys smiling. And this smile will last until they learn of their servitude and learn of their captors.
And so I will ask you this, what reason would a child born free have to stop smiling?
The pain of change is something we all endure whether we actually accept it or not. Things change. We change. Life changes. The world changes. Change is everything in the universe. Absolutely nothing is static or unchanging. Science has proven this for us.
In any case, I do not know your circumstances. I don't know if you're just simply watching the crime occur, or if you're the victim, or if you're even the victimizer. Maybe you're all three. But no matter what - change is there. Waiting.
We are merely to accept it. Learn from it. Embrace it.
It's actually kind of funny you'd reply to me with a quote like this. I've written so many posts and speeches on this very subject. The quote you provided is something I can understand and sympathize with very deeply. And also something that I've devoted a lot of my time into discussing, thinking, and writing about.
cumulus.james said:
"Where our intentions themselves come from, however, and what determines their character in every instant, remains perfectly mysterious in subjective terms. Our sense of free will arises from a failure to appreciate this fact: we do not know what we will intend to do until the intention itself arises. To see this is to realize that you are not the author of your thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose."
Sam Harris
First chance, then choice. First "free," then "will."
Personally, I never really liked Sam Harris much to be honest. To be completely honest I actually think he's a bit of a bigot, despite the irony of this. But that isn't so much relevant here. I point this out because I think he lacks completeness to his ideas. He is a sort of extremist on many particular issues yet he seems to completely overlook the massive irony this draws to his beliefs. The quote you provided is but one example, albeit a more subtle one.
I've seen this quote referenced many times by many people. And it's one of those quotes that makes me sad, because I truly think it is incomplete. It's not that I completely disagree with it, but it just doesn't seem to be a complete ideology. It's a half-truth, if you will.
Harris essentially argues here that we are the byproducts of our life, in contrast to the common belief most seem to conclude that life is a byproduct of our self.
I think they're all wrong. Or both right. However you might want to look at it.
Let's go back to the original quote by Deleuze.
What isn't seen in that quote is his primary philosophy: That difference is not a product of things, but things are a product of difference.
In other words, difference and division is what defines all things.
I bring this up because this is what Harris is always lacking in his thoughts to truly form the coherency that so many try to give him credit for, despite not truly possessing.
It's somewhat ironic you'd quote the two together, when in my opinion the two authors could not be much more different in their philosophical positions.
The way our minds work do create many illusions, one of which is this concept we call 'free will', but it is not so easily overlooked as merely just an illusion, an unreality. What Harris does not seem to understand is that illusions are very, very important to humanity, and to the mind. I'd even argue that they're important to reality, but that's another topic altogether that I won't get into now.
Essentially all things are an illusion in terms of thought. All things, entirely.
Our sight? Nothing but wavelengths of light transferred through electro-chemical signals converting them into a pattern that we come to understand as sight. The illusion here is very real, it is a process we call "chemistry".
But I won't stop there - everything we "see" and perceive is 'not truly real'. By the time that the light gets into our eyes, and the chemicals transfer the signal, and our brain processes it all... We are seeing into nothing but the past. This "reality" that we all know? It is the illusion. And we base all of our thoughts on the past. And we can do nothing but that, because that is how we are made.
So, what right does Harris have to just disregard 'Free Will'? Granted it is an illusion - but if we are speaking of thoughts and the mind, then what isn't an illusion? And maybe that's his point, but yet again it is incomplete.
The nature of the mind being unable to act upon illusions is the real illusion here. And this is the core of what Harris argues here. And it is wrong.
We are the changing actors upon change. That is where the confusion comes from. 'Free Will' is no more an 'illusion' than what we know as our hand, or a rock, or music. That is to say it is all an illusion - but all extremely meaningful and important. Harris disregards the value of illusions, and that's the real pity here.
To once again return to Deleuze, if you are to agree with his philosophy, that difference is what defines all things, then you should also accept that all illusions of the mind are created from and reflect a singular whole. That whole is what we call "reality". That these illusions are no less meaningful than reality itself. Simply reflections of what it really is. And, also, that reality changes, and so do we. And there is a choice in that change, created by our differences. And that's the real beauty of life, in my opinion.
