Something that keeps getting on my nerves is the whole Benjamin Libet experiment issue, whereby people argue that you don’t have “Free will” but you have “Free won’t.”
First off, I’ve not completely examined the Benjamin Libet experiments, the published papers, and so forth. Ok, that’s fine. I could go down to a medical library or the public library, request the papers electronically, and start reading them. It’s all hearsay, anyway, so what’s it matter?
Regardless, were I to consider the validity of the papers and experimental results, then a person might find anything I have to say worth something. That doesn’t mean the whole “free won’t” thing is not crap. Because I highly suspect that it’s exactly that: Bullshit. Authors in Scientific American and Psychology Today more than likely undergo cognitive dissonance and end up contradicting themselves.
Here’s someone’s definition of “free won’t,”
We have free will to abort an action. So, we may better think of volitional action in this case not as free will, but as “free won’t.” We can stop an action initiated by our brain nonconsciously.
– source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/201106/free-wont-it-may-be-all-we-have-or-need
Ok, so there are issues. Once again, there is, as cited and sourced, the pushing forward of the premise by an author that there is “free will.” Ok, so the author in that source is like, “Well, there isn’t free will. Well, ok, there is free will, but I’m going to change its definition to make it exist: it’s now called free won’t. And, sure, I contradicted myself and changed what free will is called rather than changing it’s definition, but I don’t think most people will notice.”
One is the linguistic use of the word “can,” which brings in the philosophy of language. I want to write an article or blog entry about how I believe most of the world has schizoaffective disorder. When people use words, such as “try,” “can,” “will,” or “want,” then they are using a set of words that are part of a “free will lexicon.”
Imagine a world where people didn’t use words or language that implied that somehow they have free will and are able to “change” reality as it is.
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