8 Bit Philosophy: Do We Enjoy Being Free? (Sartre + Final Fantasy)
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It can be a rather daunting thing to have nothing but your own choices setting your path... but then that itself assumes a rather utopian outlook where nothing on this plane of existence can influence what options are available to us.
Can someone born into poverty truly choose to become a doctor if the government of their country provides no means for those without money and no connections to draw money from to attain an education?
Regardless, however much or little control we have over our lives, abnegating responsibility for what choices we can unambiguously make is simple cowardice.
Can someone born into poverty truly choose to become a doctor if the government of their country provides no means for those without money and no connections to draw money from to attain an education?
Regardless, however much or little control we have over our lives, abnegating responsibility for what choices we can unambiguously make is simple cowardice.
There is simply no way of knowing if "choice" actually exists or not. Unless we can replay history to see if the results turn out the same, it remains a strong possibility that we have no choice. If we are not free, because choice is an illusion, we also have no responsibility. And yet in order to have a functional society, we must believe that our freedom is real, our choices are our own and that we are responsible for what we do, to whatever degree the context of any situation allows.
I think a society should nurture the talents of its people and value those talents more than it does class. I also think society should allow talented people to flourish when they work hard and apply themselves. I don't think class should be the prime determining factor in success and I don't think society should coddle the lazy. I believe there's a middle ground here.
Good question, though one might offer that a person in poverty might transcend that poverty through hard work, financial planning and ambition. Part of it is what privileges we have to draw on and part is what privileges we earn for ourselves. Sometimes the former is so lacking that the latter seems unobtainable. It crushes the spirit, especially when one sees those born with much of the former have so little need for the latter. Can someone born into poverty and with little access to the cash needed for school really become a doctor? There are those that have, I'm certain. But just because some can, and have, does not mean that that should be the standard of expectation.leviadragon99 said:
I think a society should nurture the talents of its people and value those talents more than it does class. I also think society should allow talented people to flourish when they work hard and apply themselves. I don't think class should be the prime determining factor in success and I don't think society should coddle the lazy. I believe there's a middle ground here.
Hearing all this I can't help but think what Nietzsche would say.
Relinquishing one's choice to chance, or gods, or other pointless reticules of fate is a flaw in its most critical sense. Given that one who seeks to surpass their previous self needs to recognize this, they would probably make out to make sure the choice is always theirs; defining themselves not by what society or their "role" should be, but what they think is best for their growth, and given a good ubermench also seeks to improve their morality, then presumably what's best for the growth of others as well.
Of course... I suppose that there's a few other sides of this... One is the rebuttal that even trying to act in accordance of a role that could be higher than one's actual self is a form of bad faith.
...A counter to that in that choosing the roles we want to uphold is sometimes a bigger and more meaningful choice, and often a harder one than the choices it makes for us, and sometimes choosing to uphold that role is itself a tough role.
...And a companion argument that when the role you're trying to fulfill is based on being strong enough to make those tough choices for yourself and owning up to them, it levels the playing field in what you're capable of choosing, in that while what once might have been an easy choice to make because you're weak but a bad one is suddenly made harder, while the hard choice that's the "right" one is now something you should strive to make.
In the later-most side... The implication is that trying to achieve a role you've taken upon yourself is not always in "bad faith", as rather than letting you avoid the consequences of freedom by making choices for you, it can open up choices that you would have otherwise acted like they were already made for you.
For example, a choice between laboring under someone's rule or fighting back would otherwise be no more than "I have no choice since I'm too weak". While choosing to live up to the role of the Ubermench, the choice is opened up, and you can examine the consequences of the choice. Such as "Is the rule of this person so good that they deserve to?" vs "Would things be better for us if they were overthrown?". And in the case they choose the later, they can also choose which way they think taking them down would be best, and how best to become strong enough to fulfill that method.
Its a thought.
Relinquishing one's choice to chance, or gods, or other pointless reticules of fate is a flaw in its most critical sense. Given that one who seeks to surpass their previous self needs to recognize this, they would probably make out to make sure the choice is always theirs; defining themselves not by what society or their "role" should be, but what they think is best for their growth, and given a good ubermench also seeks to improve their morality, then presumably what's best for the growth of others as well.
Of course... I suppose that there's a few other sides of this... One is the rebuttal that even trying to act in accordance of a role that could be higher than one's actual self is a form of bad faith.
...A counter to that in that choosing the roles we want to uphold is sometimes a bigger and more meaningful choice, and often a harder one than the choices it makes for us, and sometimes choosing to uphold that role is itself a tough role.
...And a companion argument that when the role you're trying to fulfill is based on being strong enough to make those tough choices for yourself and owning up to them, it levels the playing field in what you're capable of choosing, in that while what once might have been an easy choice to make because you're weak but a bad one is suddenly made harder, while the hard choice that's the "right" one is now something you should strive to make.
In the later-most side... The implication is that trying to achieve a role you've taken upon yourself is not always in "bad faith", as rather than letting you avoid the consequences of freedom by making choices for you, it can open up choices that you would have otherwise acted like they were already made for you.
For example, a choice between laboring under someone's rule or fighting back would otherwise be no more than "I have no choice since I'm too weak". While choosing to live up to the role of the Ubermench, the choice is opened up, and you can examine the consequences of the choice. Such as "Is the rule of this person so good that they deserve to?" vs "Would things be better for us if they were overthrown?". And in the case they choose the later, they can also choose which way they think taking them down would be best, and how best to become strong enough to fulfill that method.
Its a thought.
Well, one of the things to understand also is that every person wants to be prosperous and do something of value, or which they enjoy. The needs of a society however mandate that the vast majority of people need to do basic labor for little reward for it to function. See, every kid wants to be a Doctor, an Astronaut, or some kind of leader, and pretty much every person wants a lavish and comfortable lifestyle whether they admit it or not. The exceptions to this exist, but are very rare, and oftentimes come about as a result of one kind of conditioning or another. At the end of the day though society only needs so many Doctors and leaders. The big question in today's world is of course how one decides who gets to do what, and how the people at the bottom of the totem pole wind up there. Philosophies like Communism or various forms of "Anarchy" tend to be omitted from such discussions because at the end of the day both ensure that the unpleasant jobs that society requires in vast quantities are not going to be done. As a result we wind up with various socialized or competitive systems whereby people people are assigned work based on capabilities and more important society's need, or through a form of ruthless social Darwinism. That said the truth remains that the people at the bottom are always going to be miserable and looking at the top with envy. Those in an "assigned" system will look at the leaders and think that if they could compete fairly they themselves could lead or do an important job, those in competitive systems tend to think it's unfair that they can be kept down by someone who is simply smarter, better looking, more charismatic, or simply more ruthless than they are and think they would benefit if society stepped in to more directly control things.Gorrath said:
Societies exist in the long term, and as such things tend to work multi-generationally where people both leave their success for their children, or the children of the unsuccessful wind up with few opportunities. No system is able to do away with this as there are always going to be long-term, multi-generational issues. In an assigned system those at the top will of course want to assign family members and those they know to the better jobs, in a competitive system while fortunes are won and lost the children of the successful usually wind up benefitting from that success.
The problem is that Sartre's philosophy doesn't work except on the smallest scales, because the first thing it does is omit any kind of higher order or principle existing within the universe. "There is no god" a statement I disagree with, but even if one disregards the supernatural in all it's forms including things like Karma, you still wind up with a situation where mankind becomes it's own god through a sort of societal consciousness, basically the edifice that is society makes decisions and creates pressures beyond the control or understanding of the individual that can literally wind up giving them a "Fate". Even those who resist their fate usually do so due to opportunities within, and allowed by, their society.
The whole stereotype of criminals blaming society is an old one, but few people really bother to examine that. At the end of the day we've all probably had things happen to us we didn't like, with literally nobody we can address or confront on the other end. Society works on it's own beyond any individual, people get marching orders, and if you do follow the decisions up the tree you oftentimes wind up with a situation where it comes down to long standing policies which exist for objectively good reasons (even if they don't benefit you) and which were set by groups of people or might have existed before the current bureaucrat was ever in office. I don't articulate it well, but society can be a nebulous, incredibly powerful, and incredibly capricious entity (due to all of it's contridictions) that intentionally changes only very slowly, and yet has overwhelming power over the individual. In other words it's very similar to the concept of a god. Indeed various writers have approached the subject of society becoming a god, and bureaucracies achieving self awareness. To an extent Neil Gaiman's "New Gods" approached this subject and had confrontations between old gods like Odin and new ones like "Media" (which has it's own avatar).
To put this into context in case someone doesn't get it. Take the case of the woman torn between two lovers, why can't she have both? The reason is because society decided this is not permitted, and of course everyone was conditioned to think that way, as a result she's forced to make a choice with that choice conforming to certain parameters.
To look further at that, the reason why she has to make a choice like that is because society decided Polygamy is a bad thing as it usually amounts to the richest and most powerful men taking all of the women (or the best ones) and then forcing out the young men to avoid competition with them being unable to marry. It also leads into various arguments about how without families it leads young men to war and violence, and also arguments about eugenics where by the best men breeding with the crop of the best women it leads to a superior institution among the rich and nobility, while the poorer people, forced to breed multiple times, and among inferior stock, wind up becoming inferior due to the genes and it cements the social system. Eugenics are a touchy subject, especially nowadays when it comes to people, but it has been part of the thought process. One might say "but Therumancer, that only applies to men marrying multiple women, why can't a woman have multiple husbands" the answer to that comes down to the civilized ideas of equality, especially nowadays, whereby you cannot make special laws holding back a group of people despite the occasional intrusion of common sense, this if your going to pass a law like this you cannot prevent a man from having multiple wives exclusively, it has to apply to everyone (in this case wives with multiple husbands). The point here being is that there is some solid logic involved here, even if some people are going to disagree with it, and policies have been made about it that go well beyond any current decision maker or authority. These policies, and the societal pressure, thus force the woman into the position of having to make that choice to begin with, in part because if she doesn't choose one the penalties she can face potentially legally (if she marries both) or socially (if she maintains a husband and a lover without marriage) make it impractical, and even destructive to all involved, not to make that choice.
I don't view Nigel as not having a choice though, or acting in Bad Faith though. He made the choice to become a Black Mage in the first place, when he likely had a chance to become a White Mage. He clearly wanted to use/do black magic, and he's chosen a path that specializes in exactly what he wants to do. As such, he's maximizing himself to do what he wants to do. In the case of the wife, however... you're right on that. She's letting the choice be made for her by having the prospective mates fight over her to prove dominance, and how much one of them cares for her.
I know this well, I had a woman set me up to fight a friend that was interested in her as well. I told her I would not fight for her. If you want to leave, go, I'm not going to be constantly proving myself to you. She ended up clinging to me tightly, and I ended up breaking with her later because I distrusted her so.
A better one would be to claim how someone in a certain class SHOULD act, as opposed to how they actually are. Take the Fighter for instance. No one expects him to be very smart or worldly in knowledge and lore, so he may act like an idiot and push away books because it's not "powerful" as a pursuit. He may even act overly violent because he's viewed as a meatshield/idiot who just wanders around to hit things with a sword.
Notice however that the Fighter can become a Knight, who uses healing magic, and also, in some games, gains "cover". For anyone who played the Fighter up to that point, you're shocked: He was purely physical, and quite destructive, yet now he has abilities to heal others, and take damage for them, expanding his capabilities.
I know this well, I had a woman set me up to fight a friend that was interested in her as well. I told her I would not fight for her. If you want to leave, go, I'm not going to be constantly proving myself to you. She ended up clinging to me tightly, and I ended up breaking with her later because I distrusted her so.
A better one would be to claim how someone in a certain class SHOULD act, as opposed to how they actually are. Take the Fighter for instance. No one expects him to be very smart or worldly in knowledge and lore, so he may act like an idiot and push away books because it's not "powerful" as a pursuit. He may even act overly violent because he's viewed as a meatshield/idiot who just wanders around to hit things with a sword.
Notice however that the Fighter can become a Knight, who uses healing magic, and also, in some games, gains "cover". For anyone who played the Fighter up to that point, you're shocked: He was purely physical, and quite destructive, yet now he has abilities to heal others, and take damage for them, expanding his capabilities.
I would take some small exception to some of what you say here, but it'd mostly be nitpicking. Some people are quite happy with doing what work they can find and enjoying what pleasures they have, without a strong ambitious urge to go further or even want further. I tend to be one such person; I find the idea of mega-success sort of repulsive, as I think it'd strip me of too many relationships to be worth it. But I am not most people and so you point stands. Those with privilege gained through birthright tend to see systems that allow them to exercise that privilege as preferable. Those born without privilege gained through birthright tend to see systems that allow them easier access to earned privilege as preferable. The two types of privilege tend to be at odds with one another, though I'm not certain they have to be. In any case, I find nothing particularly disagreeable about what you say above.Therumancer said:
Quite true here as well. Though one can build a society that puts more emphasis on talent than birthright. This is done by nurturing talent through education. Education opportunity is the single most effective way to mitigate the multi-generational issues created by the inevitable class system. It is undoubtedly better to have a well educated population, even among those who, by choice or chance, end up doing the menial labor of society.
I am one such person who rejects all notion of the supernatural, but I do agree with you that "fate" may exist and may even be likely in the sense that, whether by nature or nurture, we are "programmed" to react certain ways. How many of our choices are made, free of the bonds of taboo, tradition and other such societal pressures? None. If I were a betting man I'd guess that free will was an illusion altogether. But even if it is an illusion, we must act as if it's not. This is why it's so important that we craft that edifice you speak of with care. If we admit that society at large is responsible for guiding our collective "fate" more than we'd want to admit, it is paramount we pay fine attention to what we've built. This I think again reinforces the notion and need for the best system of education possible.
Criminals may very well have a valid complaint, but much as we can't accept that we have no free will, we can't accept that criminals aren't responsible for their own actions either. Without getting into the minutiae of morality by example, I think it suffices to say that every society has its faults and strengths and we are both part of, partially in control of and at the mercy of society all at once. As with the above, the best we can hope to do is educate ourselves and be as moral as we can be. No matter how slow a society changes, an educated society can at least hope to change for the better, if we define better as being that which is more moral and ethical.
Right you are, and this was my thought when the example was brought up as well. We may think of the woman as abdicating her choice, but in reality, she is hamstrung by a taboo. From her perspective, the best choice might not be husband or lover, but both.
And this is a great demonstration as to why that edifice we produce must be as carefully calibrated and well thought-out as possible. We must be progressive in our thinking. If a tradition exists because it's based on the good sense of a society from a hundred years ago, we need to examine that tradition and the sense behind it. If we find the good sense of now contradicts the tradition, we should do away with it. If we find that the good sense backing the tradition still stands, we should keep the tradition. What we should avoid is tradition, and taboo, for their own sake. Tradition should exist to serve us, not the other way around. This is how we avoid making the Gods of tradition that you speak of. Do we exist in a society that would really suffer if polygamy was law? I can't say, but if we were to find out that polygamy is either beneficial or even simply neutral to the health of society and its people, there's no reason it shouldn't be the law.
Thanks for your detailed reply. I hope I've added a worthy response of my own. Cheers!
I always find stances that are against religion based on these arguments completely off base. Christianity assumes free will and responsibility, so there is a non-argument as the basis for Sartre's argument.
I always felt the best outcome of the woman was this:
She leads them to each other, they realize she is a big 'ol slut, grab a bear and she gets neither.
I always felt the best outcome of the woman was this:
She leads them to each other, they realize she is a big 'ol slut, grab a bear and she gets neither.
I'm not sure this deals with happiness at all. It's just a discourse on free will and the implications of it.
The counter question should be that if we were not free, would we be able to be happy or would even that just be our programming.
The alternative is important to consider.
The counter question should be that if we were not free, would we be able to be happy or would even that just be our programming.
The alternative is important to consider.
If happiness is just part of the programming, we aren't even free to be not happy. Happiness, like all emotions/reactions would just be a consequence of our perception, run through the filters of our programming. The good news about this lack of control is that we are not simply selfish beings driven to ensure our own survival. If we were free to turn off our emotional output, or simply alter it to whatever we desired, then any input could lead to any output, which would be dangerous for our nature as moral/ethical beings.Lightknight said:
We may or may not have any freedom as it relates to our programming, since it is possible to prove that we are in some ways bound by it and impossible to prove that we aren't completely bound by it. We do have some freedom from societal pressure though, as the demolition of Maslow's hierarchy demonstrates. If an individual is not even bound by basic necessity to be happy, they certainly don't need society's approval to be happy. But still, whatever effect our basic needs or society's approval has on our actions as they relate to our own happiness, we may very well still be slaves to the programming that underlies who we are. Even if we are free of the bonds of society and basic necessity, we are still slaves to ourselves. Maybe!
Is it just me or is Sartre's philosophy kinda ridiculous? Nobody acts independent of outside influence. I believe people have freedom in the sense that they can act in accordance with their own will, rather than be forced to act a certain way by an outside authority. But ultimately we're all products of our environment, if we weren't our actions would just be random, and what could be more meaningless than an action made at random?
But some people have the opinion/belief that people who cheat, or even lead men to fight one another just so they can "prove themselves" to be terrible people. It's not just Christians either. Slut is a term used for someone who is considered loose, and I've seen it applied to men as well. Jut because you have free will doesn't mean you should entirely act on it, especially if it'd hurt someone. Me? I'm not into open relationships. If I were being cheated on, and/or being pitted against another man by my wife just to choose for her, I'd be under the same belief: She's a terrible person who will easily spread her legs even when in a relationship, and I want nothing to do with her. To me, that's shameful.Strazdas said:
Please note: This does NOT include men and women who are porn actresses who do this to pay bills, or are in knowingly open relationships. This thought track only applies to men and women who engage in such acts while with someone who actively believes they're in a closed relationship. Also, the woman has no right to choose both if unless both the men in question are comfortable with this choice. If they are, more power to them, otherwise, no, she doesn't get that option.
LoL, I didn't slut shame anyone. She is a fictional person who has no social standing so therefore, there is nothing to shame. But whatever you say. To the point at hand, it still gives you the freedom of those choices. No one can guarantee any decision is free of consequence, actually, no decision is free of consequence. Those consequences will change from society to society or value system to value system, but you are still free of make those choices.Strazdas said:
Yes, There are other people that think certain actions are not good too, but the person i quoted raised christianity as somehow above it.Crimsom Storm said:
And yeah, you claim to be one of those people that do not like women to have choice in their relationship. Also cheating only exists if the partner hides it, thus no cheating exists in open relationships.
To hold somone as yours and only yours without allowing that person to make her own choices, to you, thats not shameful, to me, thats just selfish.
And yes, the woman has every right to choose both, its just that men also have right to not continue the relationship afterwards.
Just because its a fictional character does not meant it cannot be slutshamed.Baresark said:
See, the problem with choice and responsibility is that if certain actions will result in eternal torment its not really freedom. If you get punished its not a free choice. a free choice in a simple example can be picking which pencil to use. going to hell for being gay is not free choice.
P.S. sorry if my thoughts drifted in this one, im a bit.. high... on painkillers.. today.
But here's the thing, there is no noticeable or intrinsic difference between having been programmed vs. self-programming if you will. There is no inherent difference between whether or not I'm typing this because I as a being am creating this of my own free will compared to if I'm creating this as a created simulation of a being with free will. To me, it would be impossible to know the difference and even if told the truth and shown the reality it would be impossible for me to not feel like my reactions to that information are my own rather than the programming they could be.Gorrath said:
So, at the end of the day, free will vs predestination make no difference to us. Not morally or otherwise because it still appears as though we are in complete control of our actions. What would be really messed up would be if only some of us had free will and others had none. Boy oh boy would that be quite the experiment of some bored deity/programmer.
With that in mind, would you rather be programmed and happy or unbound by programming and unhappy?
I think it's somewhat of a mistake to consider the fact that we do have items to base our decisions off of as programming. Free will is more in our ability to evaluate the decisions on our own merits even if the factors we evaluate and the merits we measure them by are influenced by the environment around us and our own biological heritage.
Are we comprised of biological and environmental influences? Sure. Is biology just extremely advanced programming where DNA is concerned? Yeah. Is our environment just a long list of mathematical interactions between energy and matter that is controlled by a set of scientific parameters both known and still unknown? Sure. Is that any different from a program? Not really.
But the element of randomness and chance provided by both the environment and the way DNA is distributed is so extreme as to remove the notion of a guiding hand or forced conclusion. Predestination isn't really there as long as chance is part of the equation and the dice aren't weighted to one side. There is a difference between calculating the trajectory of a cue ball as well as its subsequent interactions before sending it on its way and tossing a ball onto table while blindfolded.
So in a way we are programmed but in another way that programming is so very organic as to make programming irrelevant to being "forced" to do something. Instead, it's just who we are and we get to make decisions because of who we are rather than who someone wanted us to be. Influence is different than overt manipulation and control of external forces.
Let's consider No Man's Sky for a moment. A procedurally generated universe that mankind has achieved to some degree. If we one day created a version of that so advanced as to allow for the possibility of sentient A.I. to randomly (albeit as a result of the procedures or way the universe was constructed) generate then I would consider that A.I. to have free will. That goes away if the procedure is specifically tweaked to alter the A.I. If the procedure is tweaked to make trees provide shade and it has an unexpected consequence on any A.I. then I wouldn't see that as someone else enacting their will on your own so much as the nature of the universe changing.
That humans so frequently create miniature universes (video games and other sims) with their own physics and rules makes me consider strongly that our own universe is merely one such thing. Given significant enough technology I have no doubt that one day we will create our own universes with naturally occurring life and as such it makes me strongly doubt that we'd be the top-universe. Especially if that newly created universe could then go about evolving to a point where it might create its own.
If this is the case, then not only would the idea of God be entirely legitimate if not outright likely, but his seemingly infinite powers would be easily explainable and while magical to us not really magical at all. That's something fairly weighty to consider if someone is an atheist rather than an agnostic. I consider agnostics to be the only true skeptics for this reason and have placed true Atheists in a similar camp as members of specific faiths (though, as Dawkins pointed out, many Atheists are moreso De Facto Atheists than full blooded faith in a null which is consequently also in the agnostic camp).
Either way, I do not equate having been influenced by others, even God, to be programming unless your attributes are specifically selected and designed so that you will be a certain way and respond accordingly. Then that's where free will drops off. But if chance and unknown exists? Then it wouldn't be that different then how you have a strong role in what your children will be without actually haven't control over them.
Mmm... that felt good to write out and solidify. Thanks for the opportunity.
Well, by definition slut shaming means to publicly shame someone for having multiple sex partners simultaneously, which I'm fine with anyone doing if that is what they want to do (having multiple sex partners that is). Since the character is fictional, they don't have a social standing that can be damaged by the act of calling them a slut and they aren't even named and don't look like anyone in particular. For the record, I don't call real people sluts. I don't like the word simply because it's amazingly simplistic when talking about a person and is kind of hard on ears.Strazdas said:
About responsibility: Eh, I don't agree. You can't murder someone without facing life in prison or possibly the death penalty depending on where you are. That is the same thing. You have ability to make that choice and no one can stop you from making that choice, but that choice is not free of consequences.
When Sartre talked about God and not having free will to choose, he seems to mean that God give people direction and decides what people will do with their lives, meaning they don't have the freedom to choose. But that isn't how the whole thing works in Christianity. In Judeo-Christian religions, you have the freedom to choose your path as a sinner or a saint, otherwise punishment in Hell would carry no weight because you are either meant to be there or not with Sartre's thinking. Also, since the Reformation, there has been so little concentration on Hell, some have even come to believe it is not a place (by that I mean people who are Christian and devoutly believe in God and worship as thus do not consider it a place, kind of like Purgatory being removed by Catholicism).
We may have to agree to disagree on this one.
Disclaimer: I'm not by any remote measurement all that informed about Sartre, I'm only going by what I was told in a few forums and learned in a few videos. I could be interpreting his words completely wrong. These 8-bit Philosophy shows are a bit short on details, but they aren't meant to be in depth either.
Always a fascinating subject to discuss, especially in terms of modern science. We are not just our programming. We do have some level of freedom of choice. I can decide to go to work, get there and turn around and come home. Or I can choose to just go to work. Or I can choose to call out and not go at all. And this choice can be modified on the fly. Our "programming" will certainly dictated how comfortable we are with those decisions, but the those decisions are always in front of us and an option.Gorrath said:
I subscribe to Daniel Kahneman's theories on this myself. We have two systems in our brain (analogy in coming). We have a fast automatic system and a slow thinking system. This is where Heuristics comes into the conversation. Anything that is tough for our slower system causes a lot of mental stress, so our brain develops shortcuts. We hear "What is the probability of...", and our brain will always substitute it with, "what is the likelihood.....". Similar questions but ultimately very different. Probability seeks a number that is exact, where likelihood seeks our feelings on what is most likely to be the case. Our brains ignore base rate, as he says. That is part of our programming. But ask that some question to someone who has time to think about it and research, they can find out what the actual probability is.
In that frame of thinking, people have free will about a great many things. Essentially we have free will about things that we have conscious control over. We also decide what is acceptable to us. We have a base line that is built into us, which is different for just about everyone, within a certain range of course. But, through cognitive therapies we can actually change those aspects with work. If you look at how an addict works, for example. Their brain has essentially been wired to seek certain things. But cognitive therapies can rewire how it works. It can find ways to substitute other things for the addiction, things that are constructive in some way. So, through that sort of reprogramming we can edit out baseline of who we are. Most people don't need to do this, however, though you can essentially make yourself into anything with the right amount of work based on these things. And those things will be your choice.
But, we also do so many things we are not consciously aware of, our brain handles so much that we are not aware of. How it coordinates walking over uneven ground without a conscious thought is simply mind boggling, which is why robotics progresses so amazingly slow. This is necessary because the slow aspects of our brain is amazingly lazy. It just doesn't want to do anything that it doesn't have to do. So we rely on what our brain wants to automatically do in a ridiculous number of situation. But our brains are also creatures of habit, so when we do something enough times, that becomes the automatic way. When I get to work, I always take the stairs rather than the elevator. Yet I know people who don't even consider the stairs. They walk in and with no thought press the elevator call button. I walk in and just hit the stares, it's amazing.
It's really crazy how we all can be so different too. Which makes me always wonder how right the concept of us not having "free will" can be. The easiest thing to do is dress like other people, work like other people, have the same worries (all within a given society of course). But I work with people who are nothing like me. We interact with each other, we work side by side in our own ways, we are very very diverse. Even when you look at ways we are similar to other people, we tend to be very different in many minor ways. I work in IT, I love video games, I go to the gym 5 days a week. My team lead: Works in IT, Runs Marathons, Fixes cars for fun. Co-worker 1: Works in IT, Loves vintage videogames, Will never see himself inside a gym. Co-worker number 2: Works in IT, originates from Jamaica, is a professional student.
We are so different but we all spend 8 hours a day essentially doing the same job. We all have comparable educations and goals, but we all approach our "happiness" in our own way.
It's a mixed bag really. Fascinating subject. I could ramble on for hours.