Ask Prospero anything...thread

[robertlouis]

Always forever,toghether,love you all ,better nice and sweet than grumpy and moody

Como esta, bella?

[danthepoetman]

Why can't we, human beings, accept that we are animals, and therefore subjected, as any other animal, to our own set of impulses? Why can't we see that our societies are not and never have been the product of an illusory free will, but of our gregarious and competitive instincts?

[tsadriana]

And you answered another question. you can't resist, can you Adriana?

I fall for this easily ,you know.x

[tsadriana]

Why can't we, human beings, accept that we are animals, and therefore subjected, as any other animal, to our own set of impulses? Why can't we see that our societies are not and never have been the product of an illusory free will, but of our gregarious and competitive instincts?

I go with that Dan

[tsadriana]

Como esta, bella?

Bene.x

[Prospero]

Why can't we, human beings, accept that we are animals, and therefore subjected, as any other animal, to our own set of impulses? Why can't we see that our societies are not and never have been the product of an illusory free will, but of our gregarious and competitive instincts?

Do you want me to take issue with the opening assertion or to answer the question of acceptance. You've packed two thoughts into that statement.

We cannot perhaps accept because we are a competetive species - and that surely extends to intellectual arguments and reasoning. And i do not necessarily accept the notion that there is no such thing as free will.

[Stavros]

Why can't we, human beings, accept that we are animals, and therefore subjected, as any other animal, to our own set of impulses? Why can't we see that our societies are not and never have been the product of an illusory free will, but of our gregarious and competitive instincts?

But we are not the same as 'any other animal' -and surely you did not post here out of instinct, but free will? You may not choose to eat or drink water because without them, over time you will die. But it was an act of free will that led you to register and use this forum, n'est-ce pas?

[martin48]

“Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.” Spinoza

Discuss

[Jericho]

Oh Gawd, they're off again!

[Prospero]

Wittgenstein argued that the issue of free will was a pseudo-problem and could not be solved.

John Locke agreed: ""To return, then, to the inquiry about liberty, I think the question is not proper, whether the will be free, but whether a man be free."