[Ailist] PsyBlog: Do You Believe in Free Will?

[Stephanie West Allen]

If we are in our reflective mind, we have free will. If we are in our  
reactive brain, we likely don't, except that most of us can choose to  
move into the reflective mind.  The free will/free won't debate as  
seen through the neuroscience lens is laid out quite well in THE MIND  
AND THE BRAIN by Schwartz and Begley. As you probably know this is a  
topic of much disagreement among the neuroscientists.

Sounds like a good book, Bruce.

Stephanie

On Jan 23, 2009, at 4:39 PM, Bruce Elkin wrote:

>>
>> http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/01/do-you-believe-in-free-will.php
>
> Interesting article, Stephanie. I like the “compatabilism”  
> approach, toward the end.
>
> But the underlying question poses a false dichotomy, what EF  
> Schumacher called a “divergent challenge.”
> The more you frame the question and try to solve it, the more the  
> “solutions” diverge from each other. Ultimately you end up with  
> polar opposites, such as free will vs. determinism.
>
> Schumacher said that you have to transcend the question by going to  
> a higher level value.  He gave the example of the French  
> revolutionary slogan, “Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité” as an  
> example. If you have unlimited freedom, society won’t be very  
> equal. To get it completely equal, you have to regulate freedom too  
> much. So the French went to the higher order value of compassion  
> (brotherlineness/ fraternite), to help reconcile the dichotomy  
> between freedom and equality.
>
> In my new (soon to be finished) ebook Staying Up In Down Times:  
> Resilience, Results, and Rewards, I discuss this issue and  
> Schumacher’s approach to it.  In it, I say:
>
>> Schumacher’s pairs of opposites “cease to be opposites,” he says,  
>> “at the higher level, the really human level, where self-awareness  
>> plays its proper role.” At the level of the whole person, higher,  
>> more senior forces such as love, compassion, truth, understanding,  
>> and creativity enable us to embrace and transcend these polar  
>> opposites.
>
> As usual, I’m trying to make a case for a shift from a  
> predominantly “problem” focused approach to the higher-level  
> “creating” approach (which I suggest is very compatible with the AI  
> approach).  I add:
>
>> Creating is more powerful—and simpler—than problem solving because  
>> it mobilizes such forces as caring, and love. Working within  
>> creative tension, we can transcend problems, and create what truly  
>> matters to us.
>>
>> The Urge to Create
>> The great psychologist Carl Jung recognized the wisdom in  
>> transcending divergent challenges when he said that life’s messy  
>> problems are not solved, only outgrown. As we saw earlier, they  
>> fade away when confronted with a new and stronger life urge such  
>> as the urge to create.
>>
>> Creating is driven by the power of love—the desire to bring an  
>> envisioned result into being. It is rooted in the truth the  
>> current state of the result. It expresses our creative spirit  
>> through choices and action. It is the place, where the hands, the  
>> head, and the heart come together.
>
> So, to come back to the free will vs. determinism dichotomy, I  
> think it, too, can be transcended by creating.
> Our choices are not merely determined, only partially. Much choice  
> is freely chosen, in support of higher order values and visions.  
> It’s not so much a “both/and” balance, but more a hierarchy of  
> choice in which we acknowledge the degree to which our past and our  
> biology determine us, and we transcend that determinism through  
> higher order choices and actions in support of what we want to create.
>
> Of course, unless we understand and master the “creating” approach  
> and it’s structure, we’re doomed (determined) to flail away at  
> things with our problem solving hammers.
>
> Cheers!
> Bruce
> *********************************************************************
> BRUCE ELKIN: Helping You Create What Matters Most!
> 20+ Years   -   Clients on 6 Continents   -   Author of 3 Books &
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>
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>                 with your one wild and precious life?
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