Response: Supposition of Freedom [Ready for BoT][Added OB]

[Boompiee]

Response to "The Supposition of Freedom"
Unknown


For several reasons I am disinclined to support the claims that prophecy and free will in their essence contradict one another, even though I admit I am biased. My human nature cannot help but scream out at the thought of not being in control of my own future and my own thoughts, and I would therefore most likely be opposed to your claims whether I had arguments against them or not. As it happens, this is not the case. I would like to list several arguments that entered my mind while reading “The Supposition of Freedomâ€Â￾.

I found it odd that you base your first thoughts upon such an uncertain claim. First of all, I would be interested to hear of an example where one acts within one’s capabilities, but still cannot explain the outcome of the action. Furthermore, I do not believe any one man is wise enough to comprehend the sum of events that follow an action, even when excluding divine intervention as a possible factor. This world is infinitely complex, and there are things that cannot be understood by a mere mortal. I believe nothing should be attributed to the gods simply because you are unable to explain it.

Nonetheless, I believe the rest of your arguments are persuasive enough to merit a response, even though you seem to base them upon a flawed supposition. It is my opinion that prophecy is a topic worthy of debate, and its effects upon our freedom of will even more so.

The first thing we must ask ourselves is this: What do the concepts prophecy and destiny truly entail? Does prophecy force things to happen that would otherwise not have? Or does it tell what will happen, due to the logical chain of events that has already been set in motion at the time of the prophecy? Perhaps the prophecy itself is the trigger, setting this chain in motion. The first implies further interference by god, the other does not. I believe the second possibility is a valid one. But I will get back to this later.

The notion of destiny is harder to understand, let alone refute. Does destiny truly exist? Can you ever be certain that an event was destined to occur in a specific way at a specific time? Not unless you could travel back in time with your knowledge and try to change the event. If you were unsuccessful no matter what you tried, then destiny must exist, and the gods must be actively forcing it upon us. If the outcome of an event can be changed this way, then destiny is an illusion. However, time travel is not a possibility. Therefore these arguments provide us with questions, not answers.

As you can see, both prophecy and destiny can be explained with and without the interference of gods. In essence, there is not yet reason to believe that free will would need to be sacrificed in order to make a prophecy come true. But just in case you are still not convinced, I will now show that even if the gods play an active role in prophecy, they would not need to tamper with free will to do so.

To do this, first I must define what freedom of mind and will means. Any sane man defines himself as an individual consciousness. He feels that his thoughts and emotions are his own, and that they are unique. Free will means that these thoughts and emotions will not be altered by any third party on the subconscious level. For instance, if your thoughts are changed by a spell, this would damage free will. But if your thoughts are altered by a heated discussion, free will remains intact. To clarify: any change of mind that occurs, that is triggered by information introduced to the mind through the senses, does not damage free will. Keep this in mind while reading the next paragraph.
Any event is the result of many factors, which can be divided in the categories human and non-human. To change the result requires changing one or more of these factors. If any desired result could be created by changing only the non-human factors, then free will is preserved. I cannot prove that this is the case, but I believe it is so. But the number of non-human factors must be near infinite, and therefore their possible influence upon the world must also be near infinite.
To summarize: In theory any desired result can be created by changing a near infinite amount of objects with which humans interact, without having a direct influence upon the mind.

In conclusion, I would like to ask a question of my own. I certainly hold no doubt that if our gods were so inclined, they would have the power to take away a mortal’s free will. In fact, even powerful wizards of mortal breed can take away free will when desired, thus the gods must certainly be able to do so as well. But my question is: why would they want to? Our world is based upon rules, some of which define the way humans live and breathe, but most of all: how we think. And to gods, Tamriel is a playground, a game if you will. This game could not possibly be played without rules, because to break the rules would be to spoil the game.

[Haplo]

3.B..
TrBook3SclResponseToTheSuppositionOfFreedom