Do We Have Free Will?

Matters to me not a damn if my life is pre-destined, or if I have free will. I believe I do have free will, but I'll concede that it may be pre-ordained that I believe this.

We have to live a life that's worth repeating, even if it's the only one we've got. Is the reward repeating a good life? Is the reward for living a life worth repeating heaven? Is the reward merely having lived a good life? I don't care. The latter is good enough for me and mine, and in my life I've used up my personal quota of stagnation.

Also Sprache Zarathustra has to be about the most floridly written, ill-considered and pragmatically silly work that ever flowed from the pen of a self-centered and socially inept author.

That's pretty, & it ain't true, but it's your opinion & I respect it, however i differ with you, Nietzsche was not inept, he was a genius.

Could you plz be more specific about your standards for inept, it's a very ambiguos, since you don't set a standard or compare him to anothe author.

Neitzsche was unable to form and maintain a normal social relationship at any time in his life. Whether or not this were simply neurological pathology, as is suggested by his collapse at Jena at the end of his public life, or, as i opine, a life-long adolescent character beyond which he was incapable or unwilling to advance--neither case alters that he was a solitary, unloved, unloving and morose man. Also Sprache Zarathustra was written with an exceedingly heavy hand, and plowing through it was one of the most boring exercises of my life, even though i read it in callow youth, when it has the most appeal. Beyond Good and Evil was a much better read, and, absent the preachy tone, far more useful as a work of a competent philologist. Inept means that one lacks the skills for an endeavor, or only has such skills but poorly developed, thats not ambiguous at all, its a common and acceptable use of the word. Nietzsche is an interesting case study, and he occassionally has useful ideas to impart deriving from his philological genius--his life is not only unworthy of emulation, it can serve as a model of how not to live well with one's fellows.

He was a teacher of philology at university of Basel, so he did had social contact, besides his friends were Paul Reé & Wagner, before he became christian, betraying Nietzsche in a way. So he wasn't so horrible like you think he is, & it's not so hard to read his books, I had a wonderful time reading Zaratustra, Beyond Good 6 Evil & The Antichrist.

I would also like to point out that he was a prety good psychologist, i especially admire his psychological studies of Christ, Paul & the jews.

He developed a very low opinion of Wagner, and given the opinion i hold of Wagner, claiming friendship with him is nothing to brag about. The report of his contemporaries is definitely that he was a solitary and morose man. Zarathustra is one of the most contrived, and largely meaningless works i've ever read, and, as i pointed out, i felt that way when i was young, the time when the work has the most appeal. Read it again in thirty years, i guarantee you your opinion will have dramatically altered. I've also worked at two very large universities--i have little reason to believe that his appointment at Basel is any reason to assume that he had a normal social life.

By the way, the issue of "free will" is a religiously motivate shell game, tarted up with philosophy to lend it a dignity it does not deserve. Read again what SealPoet has posted, it disposes of this absurd question quite well.

Also Sprache Zarathustra was used quite effectively in the opening sequence of 2001: A Space Odessey, though.

truth
Setanta, while I've agreed with you most of the time, I think your assessment of Nietzsche is very flawed. Despite his social life--which is no measure of his philosophical ability at all--he was one of the five greatest philosophers of Western civilization, and the founder of postmodern culture today (as a measure of his influence). I havn't read his Zarathustra, but from those who have I'm told it is a profound philosophical, psychological and literary treatise, to be taken as metaphorical throughout.
Regarding the Eternal Recurrence theory. I assume this was some kind of mystical intuition of Nietzsche's. I do NOT take it literally to mean that everything is repeated ad naseum in actuality. I consider it to be something like Kant's categorical imperative, a guide for behavior. Nietzsche was saying in the "theory" two things: (1) that we should live each moment AS IF we were going to live it that way forever. We should live and love each moment of our life(amor fati). This, if done, would generate a wonderfully valuable life. (2) I think, the eternal recurrence, refers not to a recurrence in the sense of things happening forever and forever (repetition) but to a quality of the eternity of each moment amounting to (a) a quality of timelessness and (b) its indelibility, the fact that once something has happened it can never be undone.
Nietzsche would probably disagree with me in these interpretations, but he would encourage me to work out my own understanding. He wanted to stimulate not lead.
His "nihilism" was not a nihilism of dispair but one of freedom: a re-evaluation of all values and knowledge so that we can grow and improve.

Nietzsche indeed gave us the most wonderful tabula rasa we so badly needed. The notion of a severe mono-God is dead indeed.

Now, I'm convinced, we can build upon the clean table he left us, depart from nihilism, and grow the culture of realistic interconnectedness, which does not discard science as the monotheisms did. And still do.

I totally agree with you wolf

Btw, Nietzsche's philosophy will be the base for a new society.(Just my opinion)

Do We Have Free Will?


We really don't know.

In order to KNOW if we do or don't -- we would have to KNOW what the reality of existence is -- and that, at the present time, seems beyond our grasp.

Anything we say about whether or not we have "free will" seems to be a guess.

Frank, what do you think about Nietzsche eternal return theory?

setanta; I agree with jlN (surprise);
Genius and idiocy are co-nacent, and sometimes vacillate back and forth, however a lot of Nietzche is important, and his social ineptness is not unusual for an exceptional mind.

As for the eternal return theory; doesn't shake my cage! Its been tried by many, none of whom have been at all convincing.

Btw Dux; your English is getting better very fast!

I think it is as good a guess about reality as any other -- which is to say, I think it is a guess pulled out of thin air.

It may be right -- and there are moments of de jevu where I want to think that is what is happening.

But it may also be dead wrong.

Same thing goes for the theistic position about reality. It may be right -- and it may be dead wrong.

Ditto for the atheistic position.

BTW -- I agree with Bo. Your English, at times, seems to be A-One!

And Dux; I should mention that in life there is no such thing as "free" will;
it would be "cheap" will at best, since there is a large cost in implementing it!

Are we talking about Free Willy here? Okay, seriously, whatever our so-callled lives dictate, every situation demands a decision. Decision denotes a choice. One always has a choice, for better or worse. So yes, I believe we have free will, and we choose to use it or not.

Bad BoGoWo . . . bad joke . . . heeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .

Assuming for sake of avoiding contention, that everyone here understands will in the expression free will in the same way, i would respond to this question with another question. Were our will not free, what is the limiting factor?

Come on, someone say god . . . i know yer just dying to . . .

Everyone needs a will...otherwise the government will decide where your assets go. As for the other kind of will....that comes down to your personal moral/ethical fibre. I ain't dragging god into this....