Posted by galtin on November 9, 2001, at 22:06:08
In reply to Re: Depression and Free Will, posted by Cam W. on November 8, 2001, at 0:53:02
> > Has anyone found that the experience of incapacitating depression has changed their outlook regarding Free Will and Determinism?
>
> Jojo - Since everything we do is based on what we have done and in the past, and that is based on what our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, (ad nauseum) did, do any of us really have free will? This is regardless of any psychological or physical state. I'm still "damned if I do: or "damned if I don't". - CamONE CHEER FOR FREE WILL.
Neither free will nor determinism can be proved. They are both constructs we impose on the past as a way of understanding ourselves in the present. To prove determinism, we would have to trace an infinite regression back to an undetermined first event of determination or back to the totality of determined events. Both are impossible.
So forget that line of thought and just look at our everyday experience. You can defend determinism, but only as an a priori supposition of faith. The consequences are a tad depressing, since determinism annuls the concept of humans as moral (or immoral) agents.
I think my decisions and actions are mostly a combination of influences, including genes and past experiences and including a capacity to transcend these influences in ways that cannot be predicted in advance, or interpreted in hindsight, by determinism.
As for depression with the big D, it is a catastrophic biological event that reduces dramatically my field of action, but not necessarily the capacity for choice. The choices are just, well, blander. To sit up in bed or not sit up in bed. To drag self to the shower site in bathroom or remain slumped on the bed. To actually subject the self to a shower or flee in alarm at the prospect of standing in one place naked, to grunt at loved ones passing through or attempt conversation (though not dialogue), to address household pets or. . . . . . . . . .
galtin
poster:galtin
thread:13483
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20011105/msgs/13740.html