It
is quite intriguing how Dostoevsky describes the basic inability of reason and
desire to go together. That basically if one uses reason they are disregarding
desire and if they exercise desire then they disregard reason. However, he does
admit that some reason might be desirous but that is it highly unlikely. He
says that one day we might be able to calculate what is expected of us, that we
actually have no free will and that everything is already mapped out.
However,
Dostoevsky counters this with the idea that if everything is already calculated
then we will find ways to break away. We will automatically rebel against the
chart in order to prove that we are human and that we exercise free will. It’s
impossible to say whether or not we really have free will because there’s no
real way of calculating it. I think free will is all a matter of us believing
we have it. If we believe we have a choice; that we can change and choose how
to live life, then that’s us exercising free will.
I
think it’s highly possible that there is no way to calculate our desires. This
is because sometimes we won’t even act on our desires. Other times when we act
of our desires, they are irrational and unconventional. If humans were rational
beings, then we wouldn’t be acting on desires. The only time a desire is
rational is when someone thinks and plans it out. When they methodically
analyze the pros and cons and decide what they believe to be the best choice
for them. Sometimes this is a way to come up with the most desirous option.
This can be seen in the case of a career path, “which job will give me the most
money?” People think things through in this manner all the time. However, I don’t
think this shows our true deep desires.
Our desires are based off
of fundamental animal instincts to prove that we are individuals with our own
right to make decisions. When we are exercising this ability we are showing
that whatever choice was made, it was because we wished it. Sometimes it doesn’t
always make sense though. I think that’s why Dostoevsky refers to humans as
bipedal idiots (more or less).
For instance, animals are
the types of creatures that learn from experience. However, humans don’t
necessarily have to do that. We can learn from our parents and friends and
family. If we wished, we could take someone’s word and believe it to be true
without actually having experienced it ourselves. If someone saw an UFO and
then told someone else, although the person hearing about it didn’t necessarily
see it, they might believe that it is real. However, other times, we rely on
our own experiences to make our opinions. It’s actually quite fascinating how
contradictory humans really are. If we break it down and think about it, why
would in some instances we believe what someone says but then in others we won’t?
There really is no logical answer to that.
Just in the same that it
is impossible to state why we are contradictory in that sense, shows that it is
impossible to state the formula humans have for the decisions that we make. We
never really know what we are going to do and when we come to the faintest
glimmer of an idea, we almost shun it away. It’s as if we thrive on the
mysterious and unknown. We don’t want to know no matter how much we say we do.
And we want to be different and go against the norm no matter how much we say
we don’t.
Hey there Lexus, Matthew here from group 21 (The weird group with the video). Sorry if my response lacks structure, I'll be going through the paragraphs and writing my immediate reaction.
ReplyDeleteI would say that free will is something (if it were existent in an agent), that one has available to them in order to choose which possible future universes come about based the one's actions. So this assumes there are indeed different futures and they dependent upon our actions. While one would like to believe they have to ability to do so, by quantum indeterminism our future is fundamentally random. A single agent could be considered as a subsystem of the universe, and no matter what actions one takes, one cannot influence the future simply because nothing can influence quantum indeterminism. And thus nothing can influence the future.
I like what you said about it being difficult to calculate one's desires based on that we are as a whole, irrational beings. And most of the time, our desires are irrational. So how can one put ration constraints like mathematics to calculate an irrational thing?
I'd say that most of the time we learn from induction. We make inferences about simpler cases of something and we apply some skewed implication towards other things that share the traits of our base case. For example, I don't know what shit tastes like. So if somewhere as you or I: "Which flavor of ice cream tastes better, shit flavored or strawberry flavored?" I'd assume you also are ignorant towards the taste of shit, however, I assume we would both say strawberry is better. This is because shit smells, and generally when things smell bad we infer that they must also taste bad. So, you could say this is a way of learning from experiences. However, I would like to say much of our learning comes from applying our more basic experience to more complex ones. Like eating shit.
Let me know what you think either in class today or on this blog. I enjoyed reading your submission.
Hey Lexus, I want to focus on your thought that humans are quite contradictory in terms of making decisions, forming opinions, and other things of that nature. Your question “Why in some instances we believe what someone says but then in others we won’t?” is something incredibly relevant to the lives of human beings that it goes unnoticed. People never consider themselves hypocritical or contradictory, both words have a negative connotation that people simply dismiss as a characteristic that could possibly describe themselves – just because. Though in a previous class discussion hypocrisy was one of the subjects being discussed and it seemed that the general consensus was that absolutely everybody was at some point hypocritical. Now, let’s consider this idea of being contradictory, I would suggest that both words aforementioned lie upon a similar line.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that I would listen to my parents on a particular subject than my friend on the same subject? Similar to my group mate’s response, Matthew T., says that generally learn from induction. Now, induction does have its problems but the core premise is that if we’ve learned something, it generally will apply to future instances. In the case of learning or taking opinions from others, if my family had led me well in past cases, it is more likely I will continue to learn from them, regardless of right or wrong; even though a friend could suggest something more convincing about a particular matter, I’ll probably still side with my parents. In the end, perhaps you could associate learning from induction to simple things such as trust and belief.
Hi Alyssa,
ReplyDeleteThis was a great post and you brought up many good points. I'm going to speak only to your idea about the split between rationality and desire; it's a fascinating topic. It seems as though The Underground Man is living, and fighting, with both but he places higher value on the experience of them collectively. To some degree, I would follow his sentiment.
I wonder, first, if we can even split the two ideas to begin with? Can we, necessarily, desire through reason or the reverse. In other words, can we think about our desires so much that we thrust them into existence? Or, can we desire-ourselves-into-a-state-of-rationality? Again, this is fascinating to me. You spoke to these questions by, it seems, categorizing them individually. You mentioned desires that are more social and desires that are seemingly more 'animal' and 'instinctual'. This seems to be an appropriate delineation.
So, if desires, of the latter sense, are more fundamental to our existence, can we contemplate our existence within which our desire are located? Put differently, again, even if these desires are 'deep' can we still think about them? Do we think about our deep desires? Or, is it irrational to think about our deep desires? Likewise, is it undesirable to rationalize our deep desires?
For me, and I would venture(cautiously) to say The Underground Man, the two are inseparable. They, to some degree and extent, go together. Who knows though?
Good job Lexus!
Peace,
Jay