{"id":557,"date":"2012-04-24T19:14:30","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T00:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=557"},"modified":"2012-04-24T19:15:45","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T00:15:45","slug":"poem-free-willcompelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/24\/poem-free-willcompelling\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: Free Will Compelling"},"content":{"rendered":"

I find the experience of free will very compelling.<\/span><\/h2>\n

I like this simple one line poem because it juxtaposes two seeming opposites.\u00a0 Free will is often viewed as some kind of absolute.\u00a0 Compulsion is on the other end of the spectrum, except that we also typically view it as some kind of absolute, that which one has no choice about.\u00a0 Of course, this reminds me of perhaps the only quote I can recall from the complex, sophisticated and difficult-to-read author and philosopher, John Paul Sartre: “We are condemned to be free.”\u00a0 I view neither free will nor compulsion as absolute.\u00a0 Free will always has limits, and the very existence of free will and human beings bring some freedom to any situation no matter how compulsory we view it.\u00a0 However, let’s get back to the poem.\u00a0 What I mean by finding the experience of free will very compelling, is that it is predictably surprising how free we are, meaning that we always have a choice in any situation.\u00a0 By exercising our free will, our awareness of this essential and irreducible freedom can grow.\u00a0 We are faced with an infinite number of choices at any given moment.\u00a0 If you don’t believe this, you may have just flunked the first question of a creativity test.\u00a0 The reason I like Jean-Paul Sartre’s quote so much is that it also juxtaposes two apparent opposites.\u00a0 Being condemned, or forced, to be free.\u00a0 Of course, this is what drives John Paul Sartre into an existential frenzy, being unable to pin down any ground of our being, or God, he is left with a conundrum of being condemned by some unknown or unknowable reality, yet mystically or coincidentally, he happens to experience the good fortune of gaining freedom within this reality.\u00a0 In fact, freedom can be viewed as a nuisance, in that facing that infinite number of choices at any given moment, and seeming to have no ultimate basis for making any particular choice, leaves us to our own subjective devices.\u00a0 I actually find it kind of funny and ironic that Sartre felt so compelled to find the determinants (sic) of free will.\u00a0 Of course, I’m teasing him a bit.\u00a0 More fairly, he did groundbreaking work in epistemology, the study of the limits of human knowledge.\u00a0 Quite obviously, one cannot find the determinants of free will.\u00a0 However, one may be able to map out certain boundaries to where and how free will operates.\u00a0 Since he won the Nobel prize for literature, I’ll assume that is genius exceeds mine in this respect, or perhaps, no one could understand what he was saying and thought that giving him a prize might be appropriate to not appear stupid.\u00a0 In my own experiments with free will, I feel compelled to experiment more — to exercise my free will more and more.\u00a0 This seems to be more practical than writing a 300+ page book about the structures of consciousness.\u00a0 But that’s just my choice…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I find the experience of free will very compelling. I like this simple one line poem because it juxtaposes two seeming opposites.\u00a0 Free will is often viewed as some kind of absolute.\u00a0 Compulsion is on the other end of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[483,336,337,167,335,386,692,411,428,338,115,10,485,65,562,486,100,323,601,502,224,299,275,380],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-awareness","tag-choices","tag-compulsion","tag-consciousness","tag-conundrum","tag-creativity","tag-epistemology","tag-existential","tag-experience","tag-free-will","tag-freedom","tag-funny","tag-genius","tag-god","tag-ironic","tag-meaning","tag-one-line-poems","tag-opposites","tag-reality","tag-respect","tag-sartre","tag-stupid","tag-subjectivity","tag-work"],"yoast_head":"\nPOEM: Free Will Compelling | Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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