The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Anyone else... disappointed? [PT/BG spoilers]
Arjan:
--- Quote from: morriswalters on November 24, 2020, 01:22:36 PM ---Harry has chosen how he would live. Making choices which damage that perception of self would change him for the worse.
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That gets us back to Lea definition of shame from changes.
Wicked Woodpecker of West:
--- Quote ---I would say acting against your nature is acting against your emotional makeup, against your instincts. It is based on the idea that animals (and supernatural beings) have only instincts and never act against their nature while humans are unique in having a soul, free will (and maybe superior intelligence) and can act against their animal base instinct because of higher motivations and because they want to be more than their animal self.
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Indeed it seems to work that way - still if choice is possible - that is when our intellect shows us possibility of choice - as there are many actions done on instinct when such choice is just not presented to self, then following your emotional instincts is still a choice - choice of not enforcing own will over own feelings. If there is real posibility to make different choices - then following your guts is always one of them - there is no CHOICELESS option as Bad Alias seems to suggest.
--- Quote ---Harry has chosen how he would live. Making choices which damage that perception of self would change him for the worse.
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Indeed. Considering how much of fake guilt he bears, real one that would be hard.
Mira:
--- Quote ---ndeed it seems to work that way - still if choice is possible - that is when our intellect shows us possibility of choice - as there are many actions done on instinct when such choice is just not presented to self, then following your emotional instincts is still a choice - choice of not enforcing own will over own feelings. If there is real posibility to make different choices - then following your guts is always one of them - there is no CHOICELESS option as Bad Alias seems to suggest.
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But that is the tricky part, isn't it? We can go with our gut, which usually is an emotional choice. Or we can think it through, then make a choice which is more intellectual. Choice can enforce one's will over one's feelings, rightly or wrongly. While yes, there is always a choice, but sometimes it really makes no difference.
Wicked Woodpecker of West:
Well indeed. I'm just pointing that following "gut" is just as choice-y as overcoming it, and if choice is possible, like really possible it should count as splitting decision.
Bad Alias:
--- Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on November 24, 2020, 08:59:06 AM ---Is it[free will cheapened]? I mean if any time free will can be used - all possible itterations creates new universe then it seems logical one of those itterations is - ABSTAIN from using it - and going with the flow. Not doing something when you can is ALSO a choice in itself.
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You said so.
--- Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on November 07, 2020, 10:58:09 AM ---I must say Butcher teasing multiverse is the WORST.
I can accept few splited timeline, but when according to WOJ each choice split reality it cheapens free will imensely. I mean literally that makes free will some bizzare mechanism to produce more alternative universes, not a real power of choice :P
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Emphasis added.
--- Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on November 24, 2020, 08:59:06 AM ---Indeed, but he also point to several uses of it by Dresden alone in "Warrior".
So "seldom" used by him does not seems to be "rare" - just well - way less often that people thinks.
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Who said Harry seldom uses his free will? Humans seldomly use free will.
--- Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on November 24, 2020, 08:59:06 AM ---That's quite odd definition of nature, I have to say.
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I'd say your's is an odd definition of against. It's often in one's best interest to act against one's nature.
--- Quote from: Arjan on November 24, 2020, 10:55:22 AM ---I would say acting against your nature is acting against your emotional makeup, against your instincts. It is based on the idea that animals (and supernatural beings) have only instincts and never act against their nature while humans are unique in having a soul, free will (and maybe superior intelligence) and can act against their animal base instinct because of higher motivations and because they want to be more than their animal self.
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I disagree with the intellect over emotion/instinct definition of free will. I'd more say free will is the ability to actually make a choice as opposed to a deterministic and mechanical view of reality in which we just respond to cause with effect, whether emotionally or intellectually.
--- Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on November 24, 2020, 03:15:34 PM ---there is no CHOICELESS option as Bad Alias seems to suggest.
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I'm suggesting that in Harry's world as laid out by Jim Butcher, people can not exercise their free will because that's what Uriel seems to say in The Warrior.
--- Quote ---"That smells an awful lot like predestination to me. What if those people choose something different?
"It's a complex issue," Jake admitted. "But think of the course of the future as, oh, flowing water. If you know the lay of the land, you can make a good guess where it's going. Now, someone can always come along and dig a ditch and change that flow of water-but honestly, you'd be shocked how seldom people truly choose to exercise their will within their lives."
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Now, one can argue what Uriel means by "truly" exercising free will is that acting in accord with one's nature, while an exercise of free will, isn't any different than if one didn't have free will in the first place.
WoJ on Free Will Creating Parallel Universes:
(click to show/hide)One of my favorite parts of your novels are the divine and the demonic, and kind of how they offer (?) each other, and how they have rules, and I wanted to ask, what made you decide that Chicago wasn’t enough, that all of Creation has to be at stake?
Well, it’s not all of Creation. It’s just all of THIS Creation. We haven’t really pulled the camera back far enough yet. There’s a lot of reality in the Dresden Files. The Dresden Files is a universe that is driven by Free Will, and every time you make a choice, it creates a new universe. So, there’s this vast spectrum of universe out there, and it’s not just ours, there’s causality going off in every direction. So a philosophical war on that scale is something that is just so tremendous you can barely imagine it. And while it dwarfs into unimportance our particular universe, at the same time, the only way to win that war is one choice at a time, one person at a time. And that’s really what’s going on at the level where the angels are operating, that’s what they’re concerned about. On the level where Dresden’s operating, its like, “How can I survive until the next chapter?” and that’s sort of the problem that we’ve got, as people, how do we look out and try to fix the things that are wrong with our world, when we’re basically going, “How do I get to the next chapter?” How can we have that longer view point, do we need it? I don’t know the answers to questions like that, but I enjoy the hell out of torturing Dresden with them! That’s really kind of the point of what I do. (Emphasis added).
If everything is a choice and every choice results in a reality where the consequences of that choice plays out, does free will even exist? Every choice must be made, so no choice is volitional. If it's not volitional, it's not a choice. Thus if everything is a choice and:
--- Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on November 07, 2020, 10:58:09 AM ---each choice split reality[,] it cheapens free will imensely. I mean literally that makes free will some bizzare mechanism to produce more alternative universes, not a real power of choice
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