← Return to Interesting theory that can change the world for the better?

Discussion
Comment receiving replies
@robertwills

I believe it was in his autobiography, My Inventions. You can find this book online and read for free, or even buy the book. Here are some of the pertinent quotes from it. The last paragraph is very interesting:

Not only this but all my actions were prompted in a similar way. In the course of time it became perfectly evident to me that I was merely an automation endowed with power OF MOVEMENT RESPONDING TO THE STIMULI OF THE SENSE ORGANS AND THINKING AND ACTING ACCORDINGLY.

to recognise that I was but an automaton devoid of free will in thought and action and merely responsible to the forces of the environment. Our bodies are of such complexity of structure, the motions we perform are so numerous and involved and the external impressions on our sense organs to such a degree delicate and elusive, that it is hard for the average person to grasp this fact. Yet nothing is more convincing to the trained investigator than the mechanistic theory of life which had been, in a measure, understood and propounded by Descartes three hundred years ago. In his time many important functions of our organisms were unknown and especially with respect to the nature of light and the construction and operation of the eye, philosophers were in the dark.

Our bodies are of similar construction and exposed to the same external forces. This results in likeness of response and concordance of the general activities on which all our social and other rules and laws are based. We are automata entirely controlled by the forces of the medium, being tossed about like corks on the surface of the water, but mistaking the resultant of the impulses from the outside for the free will. The movements and other actions we perform are always life preservative and though seemingly quite independent from one another, we are connected by invisible links. So long as the organism is in perfect order, it responds accurately to the agents that prompt it, but the moment that there is some derangement in any individual, his self-preservative power is impaired.

Jump to this post


Replies to "I believe it was in his autobiography, My Inventions. You can find this book online and..."

How does that explain what is happening when more than one being, whether human or other animal, experiences the exact same forces, yet behave differently?

For example, what causes one person for fight back against an external force and another to be moved by the same force? Why does one person seek shade in the desert, while another fal.s from the heat and just lays there?

I tend to agree that plants, without the ability to ambulate, must bend towards the sun for survival, but it is too simplistic an explanation for animals.

No doubt external forces have a lot of influence, but it is not absolute, other than some immutable laws of nature like gravity.

External forces like societal norms, laws and rules likewise are not absolute - hence one person may become a criminal while his brother does not. Or one Muslim woman might accept Sharia law with its constraints while her sister rebels, in spite of the known risk to her life.

To accept the premise that we have no power over these outside forces, whether natural or manmade, is to deny the essence of humanity.