What shapes us into who we are today? [@tribesteemup bi-weekly question]
The concept of self is a very complex idea that involves many factors which lend a hand to development.
According to different socialization theories, the entire self is derived from interacting with other people. While others, like some Christians, believe destiny, or predestination, is what fundamentally builds our lives and experiences. However, since I do not believe we have true agency, or free-will, but rather an illusion of such, the waters which shape us become very murky. Join me in today's video where I give my personal thoughts upon this week's @tribesteemup bi-weekly question: What makes you the person you are today, is it destiny or do we play a hand in shaping who we are?
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Asking if we play a hand in who we are depends on first answering the question of who we are.
Take the first moment, the very moment "we" come into being: if we do play a role in who we are, did we preexist our self? Or does our self come into being first, and only then do we begin to play a role in who we are? But if determinism is true, and we don't determine that first instance of our self coming into being, then it doesn't really matter if we play a hand in the later sequences, since all the later sequences are now determined.
So, if we do have any kind of self, then, as a determinist, I have to say that we don't play a role in who we are in any sense that really matters.
The other option if that our sense of self, just like our sense of free will, is an illusion. This idea has an ancient pedigree. Buddhists for instance say we've no self! It's the famous anatta doctrine.
I think you're very right to draw a distinction between determinism and destiny as you do in your vid, but I don't know if the "one cause vs multiple causes" is the right way of going about it. Destiny basically implies some mystical force destining you to something, whereas determinism is just science. Determinism would say that if you hit a billiard ball with x force, at angle y, etc., the billiard ball will move in predictable ways. Destiny, on the other hand, says that no matter how you hit that ball, it will move in whatever way it was fated to move.
Regarding the 'multifaceted' point, I think what you're getting at is, to put it pictorially, there's a causal arrow on the left side of a black box, then there's the black box (say that box is us), and then there's an arrow (outcome) on the right side of the box. You're saying that, in a sense, we play a role, because no black box is going to react the same as any other black box. So regarding that, I'd like to point out that that's true of any box, and the box doesn't need to be a human. I.e. it can, again, be a billiard ball: obviously, the billiard ball is going to react differently to a golf ball. What that means is that whatever we grant humans (say agency, or free will), based on that argument, we'd have to grant inanimate objects as well.
First, let me thank you for your in-depth and thorough response. I truly enjoy when people engage in a meaningful manner, so thank you.
I tend to agree with the Buddhists on the concept of self, that it to is an illusion. Didn’t really go into it in this video, but have in previous episodes. Not sure why I didn’t really start with that, I appreciate you mentioning that argument.
As for my distinction between one cause verse many and your argument against it, I think that you are correct. It is often easy to garble thoughts in these videos as I don’t prepare or plan anything prior. Even if there were just one cause, it would still be determinism, for as you mention destiny means that no matter what happens you still end up in the same place.
I don’t necessarily agree with what you are arguing at the end, because chemical reactions will react exactly the same no matter where the chemicals come from. Environmental factors do play a role (pressure, temp, etc) but are significantly less nuanced than human environmental factors. Again, chemical reactions will react the same when you nullify any differences in environment, where humans do not. This is the same argument we had on my sociology post hehe 🙃
Great response! Have you thought of answering the TSU question? :)
I should also mention that this sort of activity upon what defines who we are would be passive rather than active, seeing as our reactions are intrinsically derterministic. :)
No time for TSU questions and such, can barely find the time to do my own (what should be) regular posts!
About the point at the end, I see us as being made up of atoms (obviously), or whatever is the smallest thing there is in the subatomic world that constitutes all reality. But let's say atoms, for ease. There's a thing in philosophy called an emergent property; so 'being a car' for instance is a property that does not belong to any of a car's individual parts, it kinda emerges out of all those parts together without being in any one of them. But, my claim is, that's not what happens with free will: if an atom (symbolically, a billiard ball) has no free will, then whatever is made of them can't have it either. That might be because 'free will', like 'mass', must be a physical property, not a value judgement. Compare 'freedom' and 'free will', for instance. 'Freedom' is a judgement that changes according to culture, among other things. 'Free will' shouldn't change no matter who or where you are. But with terms like 'agency', things become trickier: I'm not sure whether it's a value term or a physical/science term. So I guess in that case it's possible that a human has agency and a billiard ball doesn't. As often happens, it depends on how we define things.
Many of these issues also possibly touch, or ultimately depend on, what consciousness is. And it's my impression that still no one really has even an inkling of an answer to that!
And thanks for making engaging vids!
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
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Destiny belongs to us in Existence, but Death and Aging is our Fate, it's the finitude of the human condition that is out of our control.
It's impossible to exchange experience between human beings, but both create a third persona, an interpersonal relationship being, where two became one and generate mutual change.
We can't change people inside (we can't see), but we can change mutually each other's behaviour that is observable, in the inter-experiential field.
People always blame each other for things instead of seeing that interpersonal subject where both are one that they can act upon, negotiate behaviors and change.
Our real selves, only show up in the encounters between people, as the only food of our Essence.
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