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Miscellaneous / Re: The Origin of Evil
« on: March 15, 2010, 04:16:03 pm »
Ooh boy, a philosophical topic 
Unlike you, I do believe in some kind of free will, but as you stated, our actions are certainly influenced by our biological drives. IMO, the question "Can free will exist?" is exactly the same as the question "Does there exist a future that, if someone saw it and learned his own future actions from it, that person could NOT still act on his knowledge of his yet-to-happen actions in order to completely change them?" That might not be worded very well, so I'll give an example. Suppose I see my own future, and in it I'm a used car salesman. Certainly I can act on that knowledge; with my supposed future in mind, let's say I fight against it and become a farmer. There, future changed. But my question is this: is there a future that I could see that I couldn't break away from? It's hard to imagine such a future. And if indeed no such future exists, then I believe that this proves that free will does in fact exist.
I think I see some contradictions in the rest of your viewpoints as well (I may just be misinterpreting though, so correct me if I'm wrong). You seemed to have adopted a fairly nihilistic worldview after your epiphany. But then you went on to define 'evil' and to a lesser degree 'good' as well. As a nihilist, I do not believe that good or evil exist. Even if they did exist, there could be no proper definition for them because morality is always relative. Then again, your definition of 'evil' seems to have a different nature entirely than most purely philosophical definitions of it. And honestly, I think your definition works much better on a practical level than a philosopher's. But a problem arises when you need to define the 'negative forces' that define your 'evil'; what exactly makes something negative? This, too, is primarily a subjective matter, and therefore even with your definition, most people might not see themselves as 'evil' whereas to someone else, they are.
As for religion, well, I'll keep this short as to not offend anyone (apologies in advance if I do anyway)... I'm utterly faithless. Agnostic, most people would say. I believe that atheism and theism each requires a similar amount of faith ("There IS for sure a God" vs "There IS for sure NOT a God"), so I have adopted pure religious agnosticism so I don't contradict any of my other beliefs.
One last thing before I forget, I do find The Abyss an interesting concept; it's a metaphor that can be easily applied to any person--- wait, no--- anything at all, living or not, as long as it has some kind of system of morality and can be corrupted.
Just my thoughts on the matter
Unlike you, I do believe in some kind of free will, but as you stated, our actions are certainly influenced by our biological drives. IMO, the question "Can free will exist?" is exactly the same as the question "Does there exist a future that, if someone saw it and learned his own future actions from it, that person could NOT still act on his knowledge of his yet-to-happen actions in order to completely change them?" That might not be worded very well, so I'll give an example. Suppose I see my own future, and in it I'm a used car salesman. Certainly I can act on that knowledge; with my supposed future in mind, let's say I fight against it and become a farmer. There, future changed. But my question is this: is there a future that I could see that I couldn't break away from? It's hard to imagine such a future. And if indeed no such future exists, then I believe that this proves that free will does in fact exist.
I think I see some contradictions in the rest of your viewpoints as well (I may just be misinterpreting though, so correct me if I'm wrong). You seemed to have adopted a fairly nihilistic worldview after your epiphany. But then you went on to define 'evil' and to a lesser degree 'good' as well. As a nihilist, I do not believe that good or evil exist. Even if they did exist, there could be no proper definition for them because morality is always relative. Then again, your definition of 'evil' seems to have a different nature entirely than most purely philosophical definitions of it. And honestly, I think your definition works much better on a practical level than a philosopher's. But a problem arises when you need to define the 'negative forces' that define your 'evil'; what exactly makes something negative? This, too, is primarily a subjective matter, and therefore even with your definition, most people might not see themselves as 'evil' whereas to someone else, they are.
As for religion, well, I'll keep this short as to not offend anyone (apologies in advance if I do anyway)... I'm utterly faithless. Agnostic, most people would say. I believe that atheism and theism each requires a similar amount of faith ("There IS for sure a God" vs "There IS for sure NOT a God"), so I have adopted pure religious agnosticism so I don't contradict any of my other beliefs.
One last thing before I forget, I do find The Abyss an interesting concept; it's a metaphor that can be easily applied to any person--- wait, no--- anything at all, living or not, as long as it has some kind of system of morality and can be corrupted.
Just my thoughts on the matter
