Today, I was talking to my psych professor about free will. As I described the philosophical argument against free will, she responded by saying, "well, I'd like to at least think that we have free will". Foma are everywhere. I keep thinking back to the first class when we were all asked if we ever tell ourselves white lies, and if we ever put our faith in something that might not make the most logical sense or be 'true'. Throughout this course, I have realized how many things I put my (blind? ignorant?) faith in because it makes me “brave and kind and healthy and happy” (CC pretext). Determining to believe that I have free will, and that my fate is not predetermined, regardless of what the actual 'truth' is, allows me to feel that there is more meaning to my life. Is this wrong? Is this disregard of a quest for finding out what's actually true negative? And, in the end, do we derive the most 'truth' from the lies that we tell?
Maybe we focus too much on the weight of our truth and lies. From the workshop today I learned that maybe we aren't all that significant, and in the best way possible. What is the meaning of life? It doesn't need to have meaning to be important, its not so much about the end goal but rather the happiness you gain getting there, wherever "there" is. So maybe we do derive truth from the lies we tell, but do they make us happy? Is that how we maintain happiness? I think there is a bigger picture to it all.
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