Prophetic Hindsight

These ideas are ones that I came to know in the beginning months of studying philosophy. These questions used to confound me as I racked my brain and my experience wondering which one could qualify well enough from my perspective. I did not realize until reading these articles for this class that I had nearly forgot about such questions of Free Will and Determinism. It is not that these questions have become so irrelevant that I have forgotten them, but rather there simply seems to be far more interesting things to ponder rather than if you are in control of your pondering. If it turns out that you are or aren't, you still will. As the example of the young person born in the dumps of Mexico will still continue to breath air and occasionally speak with others, life goes on whether you know of these theories and concepts or not. 

As I see it, the theory of Determinism can only be qualified after a moment has passed. One can only speak of what is determined after the thing that has happened, has happened. To then take such a reflective judgment and consider it able to direct the oncoming days seems extremely strange. If keeping up with the analytical nature of most arguments for consistency's sake, one couldn't possibly posit a thing of the past as a predictor of the future. 

On the other hand, the theory of Free Will  is utterly prophetic. Free will is based upon the ability of a human to make a decision. If one could admit that the making of a decision involves an entire progression of thought which then leads to an action being made, half of making a decision is premeditative. As one thinks of their choices, the decision hasn't fully happened and its completion still waits in the future. A theory of free will seems to me an attempt to objectify one of the most subjective and concealed things in this universe; the human mind. Even more so the theory of Free Will seems completely dependent upon the existence of an understood moral law. A moral obligation of all humans would be necessary for Free Will to even be considered, otherwise the contemplation and judgments of a humans decisions would be of no real significance. A controlling factor must be posited before freedom could ever be considered untrue or unattainable, and to determine a "meta" determining factor is either completely incomprehensible or exclusively subjective. 

Only did the theory of Cosmological Determinism intruige me enough to begin to entertain the idea. Nature will have it's way and it could eventually get in our way, but never purposefully. Even the simplest winter can keep me from doing many things that I would maybe like to do, but I experience the changes in nature as the inevitable apperance of all things and their opposites. Without the winter I could never know the pleasures of summer and without the tornado one would always fear the slightest rumble of thunder. There are things to be learned from the ways of nature rather than limitations to expect.