I firmly advocate that others’ opinions should never constrain us. As Mary Kay Ash, a successful businesswoman once declared, "You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” Likewise, what matters most to me is determination: we can accomplish anything if we set our minds to our goals. Regardless of the outcome of my choices, I am determined to passionately follow my heart and make my own decisions. Prior to employing the affirmative ideology of free will, I was once extremely sensitive to others’ attitudes. In fact, I was afraid to speak in public. I realized that this issue greatly hindered my pursuit of my dream of entrepreneurship, so I forced myself to practice speaking at least once per class. Eventually, I articulated my …show more content…
As a typical 18-year-old Chinese high school student buried in 15 hours of daily studies with the objective of attending a renowned university, I yearned for independence and the freedom to broaden my horizons by studying abroad. However, I was raised in a traditional Chinese family to respect elders and comply with their judgments. My mom strongly disapproved initially, believing I would not survive by myself in a foreign country. Although I appreciated her concern, I persisted in challenging myself. Ultimately, I not only survived; I thrived as I graduated magna cum laude from the University of Washington in only three years. Neither chilly nights I slept on a dusty, tattered mattress borrowed from a landlord’s garage nor taking three final exams in three hours made me ever regret my decision to study overseas; instead, my hardships strongly reinforced my resolve. If I had not exercised free will, I would have missed the incredible opportunity to become confident and independent from a formerly shy and timid boy. My transformation deeply impressed my parents and old
Before I begin it is pertinent to note the disparate positions on the problem of human freedom. In "Human Freedom and the Self", Roderick M. Chisholm takes the libertarian stance which is contiguous with the doctrine of incompatibility. Libertarians believe in free will and recognize that freedom and determinism are incompatible. The determinist also follow the doctrine of incompatibility, and according to Chisholm's formulation, their view is that every event involved in an act is caused by some other event. Since they adhere to this type of causality, they believe that all actions are consequential and that freedom of the will is illusory. Compatiblist deny the conflict between free will and determinism. A.J. Ayer makes a
I felt academically challenged. It was the first time in my life when I thought that perhaps I might not meet the standards. Growing up in Venezuela made me see the world from a very peculiar perspective. Ever since I was little, I’ve heard people praising my academic performance and claiming that I can achieve whatever I want in life, in consequence, they encourage me to take a break and stop doing so much work. But what I had failed to understand is that the ones who tell me that are people who were raised seeing nothing but mediocrity. Ironically, in a country sunk in violence, crime, corruption, brutality and mainly lack of an educated population, a fifteen-year-old girl who wanted to gain knowledge and debate about international issues was seen as a misfit. No one understood why I wanted to participate in Model United Nations, work in my free time or spend the summer learning about business instead of going on the classic 15-year-old’s trip around Europe which all my friends attended to get life experiences like falling asleep at museums and partying all night long. It was that summer when I decided that if I ever wanted to achieve great things, I needed to set myself apart from that group of privileged Venezuelans, the ones that had experienced the same country situation as I had but had decided to continue living in ignorance and just focus on
fate or determinism and say this was all planned out from the beginning of time knowing some things in nature happen randomly--
4. Adam’s decision was made by his subjective ability to reason. There is no way for a scientist or other being to take apart Adam and physically analyze Adam’s ability to reason. Since choices and reasoning are not at all physical, they cannot share a physical cause and effect relationship, and have nothing to do with determinist’s causal relationship philosophy.
Fate, as described in the Oxford English Dictionary, is “The principle, power, or agency by which, according to certain philosophical and popular systems of belief, all events, or some events in particular, are unalterably predetermined from eternity.” To the western world, fate is perceived as “a sentence or doom of the gods” (Oxford). They often sought prophecies of the gods, especially from Apollo, the god of knowledge. The Greeks would seek prophecies usually when they had doubts about something, or if they were afraid or in despair. When the gods made a prophecy, the Greeks put all their faith in it and believed that it would happen. When their prophecies did come true, was it really fate that
He became interested in psychology when he started to attend Harvard Medical School in 1863. He wasn't able to continue his education due to his illness and depression, but after understanding the real meaning of free will as he writes in his journal his psychological illness become more stable. In 1869 William James got his M.D. degree in medicine. His first work was Principles of Psychology, which had far reaching impacts on the field of psychology, he discusses the idea of free will which plays a major role in his thesis of happiness. According to William James, “Happiness requires Active Risk-taking: happiness is not produced merely by thinking or by resigning oneself to life’s circumstances, but rather by taking bold risks and acting on
In fact, we do not know which of our decisions and behavior result from our free will or from our freedom of choice. Because we do not understand the nature of the forces that managed our lives. our Lack of understanding of these forces gives rise to the feeling that we have free will. actually we have the freedom to choose only one thing, except that everything we do dictates to us and is controlled by external and internal factors.
The aim for my essay is to identify the basis and root for evil in the world despite God being divine and good. That basis for evil being the free will that has been bestowed upon humanity. This, in my opinion, is the best and most conclusive solution to evil, despite arguments against the theory. My paper will be divided into several sections. Section 1 will illuminate the problem of evil through human freedom(s). Sections 2-3 will provide specific objections to free will as the catalyst for evil and will be followed by a proposed answer to these objections.
William Rowe defines gratuitous evil as an instance of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.(Rowe 335) In a world with so much evil it raises the questions If God is all powerful, all knowing and all good, how can he allow bad things to happen to good people? Can God even exist in a world with so such gratuitous evil? These are questions that has afflicted humanity for a very long time and has been the question to engross theologians for centuries. The existence of evil has been the most influential and powerful reason to disprove the existence of God. It is believed among many theist that God is the creator and caretaker
“I wouldn't have any idea what was meant by "free will."...Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.” The Tralfamadorians explain this to Billy when they take him to their planet and unveil their reality about space and time. Billy readily adopts this view, and he spends the rest of his life trying to convince the rest of the world that this is true.
Free will is freedom of the mind from causal determination. Many advocates of free will argue the irrelevancy of the law of causality: “Every effect must have a cause; the same cause always produces the same effects.” Since a choice is not an effect, advocates of free will argue that the law of causality is irrelevant; however, it must be recognized that the one’s choices are limited by their heritage and environment. Moreover, a choice is affected by what one desires, which we affirmed were determined by heritage and experience; therefore, we can soundly conclude that one’s choice is determined.
You're on a plane, going to visit your grandparents in Arizona, because you havn’t seen them before. But then, the plane starts to nose dive towards the ground. The plane is about to crash, but at the last second, it doesn’t. The pilot saves the plane. The pilot is just a regular pilot. But that only happens because they know what to do. But what if they were just a regular human, with no license to fly. What would that be? Would that be fate? No. That would be luck.
I began the discussion by taking the determinist point of view and stated that human behavior can be determined by the laws of nature if we have access to all relevant variables. If we were to know someone's genetic make-up, the environment in which they are raised, the family they are raised by, etc., we can make valid conjectures about their behavior. For instance, if we know that a child has a very active limbic system (which is associated with emotion and aggression), is raised in a very poor and stressful environment and does not receive much affection from the parents, it is valid to project that such a child will behave violently and criminally in its adolescent and adult life. In fact, such
The concept of free will fundamentally breaks down into the interpretation of its two constituent words. The word free is a direct link to the concept of freedom, which Descartes describes as "the ability to do or not do something". (O'Connor) Freedom is not constrained. There can be no limits placed on it, lest it lose the fundamental nature of its definition. Hume reasoned that the sense of freedom linked to free will was that of liberty.
Studying abroad is very important to one’s life if the opportunity lies right in front. Nowadays, many students has becoming aware of the benefits of studying outside from their homecountry. America is one of the most common country that encompasses international students all around the world. Besides from housing numerous esteem places for learning, America tends to act as a place for the culture to exchange between international students and locals which is one of the many benefits for one to consider studying overseas. However, the process of learning does not happen as smooth as the wind flow. Problems may arise when one fails to comprehend how other’s culture works. By inspecting the story of Yu-Wen in the America for the first time, we can understand why she had many difficulties there.