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Originally Posted by kinnikpasswordforgetter
well i'll never agree with you.
and i dont find my position tormenting, the opposite is true. the torment was in the initial difficulty of accepting it and the difficulty in abandoning a lifetime of culturally enforced preconceptions. in fact i'd go so far as to say the initial horror in accepting it. thomas ligotti knows what i'm talking about. it's telling that for an american (former catholic) like him, these perspectives form the basis of his book of pessimistic philosophy. probably the pinnacle of the genre. he even said in interviews about it he absolutely would kill himself if he didn't have family commitments.
but like i said, i dont expect many to agree with this.
although it is completely true.
we haven't yet developed a way of talking from this perspective in the west. you can read some ligotti stories about the horror of puppets (hint, you are the same as a puppet) or you could try stephen batchelors buddhism books. its not like i expect my posts to convince people here to give up on the idea they are the creators of their own life and can shape reality with the force of their own will. it is this idea that is impotent.
everyone assumes i am "tormented" or "angry" and just say those things over and over again. i would expect to be attacked in far worse ways if i went around aggressively confronting people with these viewpoints.
in fact, someone like zizek who clice mentioned earlier you can imagine wanting to throw people who think like this in his "gulag". i think he'd hypothetically have to.
as i've said, the buddhists messed up this knowledge by offering a form of redemption (nirvana). which can only make sense when you accept this perspective. (although i don't believe in reincarnation). another thing they did was lead their people into war. they used a great arguement, which zizek himself extrapolates as "when your sword is going into the enemies chest, do not worry as this is not true reality. this is the viel of maya (illusion) and so it is permissable to kill in these situations as you are merely the passive observer of your hand thrusting the knife into the other person." which you have to admire in its evil genius. basically telling you to just disconnect from your actions and become a passive observer of your body as it kills someone else.
however, none of you can possibly disagree with my point about free will being non existant because the brain has been scientifically proven to make its decisions a moment before you become concious of them.
you can try, and undoubtedly this kind of humiliation will be fought against by the left and right alike. you can deny it. but it's an observable and scientifically verified phenonemon.
and the reason it freaks you the fuck out is because this means that hypothetically, if someone was to get wireless access to your brain with some future technology they could control your actions and you wouldn't even know it. the way to stop worrying is to realise this is effectively happening already, but (for now at least) its not the cia.
however, they've recently observed that with the technology they have now, the brain tends to obey 5 out of every 6 of the small range of commands they are able to send to it. they don't know why this is, i heard it put forward it was some sort of quantum phenomenon. like the brain has a built in security system or something.
now do you all understand why schizos tend to say things like "the cia is stealing my thoughts" and "my teeth are picking up radio transmissions"?
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It might be worth reading this.
http://www.wired.com/science/discove.../mind_decision
It looks like the study you're referencing has been backed up by this newer study, but it looks like you're misplacing its significance. Sure, brain activity occurs long before you become aware of the decision (7 seconds according to this article), but it has only been tested using simple decisions. This study was conducted where a person had to push a button using their left hand or the right hand and scientists were able to predict which hand the person was going to use. The scientists themselves even say that, while this is fascinating, there is no reason to throw out the idea of free will all together based on this evidence.
I'm not particularly uncomfortable with the idea that there is no free will. I study the social sciences and there are authors who take similar stances without relying on brain studies to prove their point (Bourdieu and his Habitus, for example). At the same time, I think it's wise to consider your sources before constructing an all exclusive ideology.