Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

The Good Place: "The Worst Possible Use of Free Will"

#1
C C Offline
http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/..._free_will

EXCERPT: Free will: Does it exist? Although this question may seem bizzare to ask, it isn't off limits in philosophy. The Good Place's latest episode, "The Worst Possible Use of Free Will," goes deep on it. In creator Michael Schur's world, which remains rooted on Earth despite this episode's frequent flashbacks to the afterlife (including what are, presumably, newly filmed afterlife scenes), free will does indeed exist. In this way, the world Schur conjures is realistic, though not everything in the episode is perfectly believable.

[...] Naturally, Eleanor, queen of defense mechanisms that she is, latches onto determinism -- "the theory that we have no control over our actions. Everything we do happens because of some external force which exists outside our control -- to convince herself that Michael forced her and Chidi to fall in love. She's not capable of love after all; she was just in a simulation that Michael controlled.

Eventually, Eleanor admits that Michael [a somewhat morally rehabilitated demon nowadays] is right after he almost succumbs to her level of hopelessness: "If everything is determined and we have no free will, then all the stuff we're doing to put more good into the world is pointless, and I want to believe it matters," he says. This moment is among the episode's most rewarding, and it arrives right after what might be forkshadowing (more on this later): "Maybe there's a mega-demon who built a torture chamber for demons and this whole thing is just him torturing you," Eleanor suggests to Michael while she's still got her defenses up....

MORE: http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/..._free_will

- - -

Chose this review because it actually states the definition of "determinism" used in this episode. One that stresses external agency being responsible for what an individual does, in variation to the "completely determined by prior states" framing of it.

The latter seems irrelevant to autonomous decision-making and behavior if referencing a human body's own incremental changes or differences in the past (i.e., "it's your own processes slash character program yielding your choices and actions, not something outside you doing that"). Free must necessarily refer to working within the constrained options of your own psychological and physiological make-up; otherwise you would effectively be someone slash something else else or not functioning to begin with (disorganized, non-regulated). And an injection of randomness would be surrendering to an external handler (albeit not one of pattern -- without principle, order, predictability, and governance).

"Prior states" is also pointless if referencing those of the "external" universe at large. Since again the brain / body is locally producing such output -- the general existence of the cosmos would lack the intelligence, interest, and intervening power to manipulate a person like a puppet.

OTOH, the believer in a soul would not be satisfied with the situation, since responsibility or "engendering of will" would be assigned to the mechanistic, physical soma rather than the spirit entity the believer identifies with as the actual self.


~
Reply


Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  How our reality may be a sum of all possible realities C C 0 61 Feb 7, 2023 04:45 PM
Last Post: C C
  Who is the worst philosopher? + How is philosophy useful? + B Russell & common sense C C 29 2,211 Dec 19, 2019 11:46 PM
Last Post: Syne
  Is a hole a real thing, or just a place where something isn’t? C C 9 2,166 Jul 3, 2018 04:13 AM
Last Post: Zinjanthropos
  Why We Should Always Overthink Things Whenever Possible C C 20 2,973 Jun 26, 2018 06:32 PM
Last Post: Syne
  Hierarchies have a place in societies built on equality + When a nation apologizes C C 2 472 Apr 5, 2017 07:50 PM
Last Post: Zinjanthropos
  World's Worst Philosopher Questions Knowledge Zinjanthropos 5 1,447 Feb 3, 2017 11:46 PM
Last Post: C C



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)