I might have forgotten that this blog exists
Hey yāall. Itās me, your favorite needlessly philosophical lizard-person back from the dead. Or, rather, back from the mess that was the winter 2020 semester of college. After a failed class or two, several slight breakdowns, and some similarly minor inconveniences, I have made the decision to take a break and focus on work this year. Which means one of two things; either Iāll have more time to be posting regularly OR I might simply forget the existence of this blog once again. Only one way to find out!
So. As per usual, Iām going to rambling with no apparent direction and hoping that it comes to something. So buckle in, folks, this is either gonna be a wild ride or an incredibly boring one and they always say better to be safe than sorry!Ā
To set the stage, Iām currently sitting in a coffee shop, probably looking like that one person thatās trying way too hard to look like their involved in something important and interesting. Iāll make one thing clear: the things in which Iām involved are neither interesting nor important. But! As depressing as that may sound, Iām actually quite happy with it. I like sitting here, wasting my time away clickety clacking away on a keyboard on my day off from work. Itās recently come to my attention that I donāt spend nearly enough time pursuing my hobbies, and I should really focus on doing what I love more often. Like rambling on a random blog whose followers mostly consist of random porn bots. Shout out to them, I do hope they enjoy pretending to read what I write. Do robots enjoy things? I think that you need some form of free will in order to actually enjoy things, so maybe not. Not yet, at least.Ā
Thereās something Iāve been thinking about for a while. Free will. Is free will synonymous with consciousness? I can think of arguments in both directions, but I must admit that Iām inclined to think that theyāre two different things. All animals, all living things, have free will. This means that they have the ability to act as they please, but only within their own limits. A tree can neither choose to walk around nor have the desire to do so. A cat cannot build a spaceship, nor can it comprehend what a spaceship is. Creatures with consciousness, however, can both act out of free will and have the capacity to have desires that extend beyond their own abilities, beyond the material world. That sounds terribly gross and fake philosophical, but I think that what it comes down to is that free will is the ability to do things, while consciousness is the ability to wantĀ to do things. Does that make sense? Hopefully it does.
Part of me wonders whether consciousness is just an extension of free will. I would elaborate on that, but I canāt seem to come up with the right words to do so, right now. All that means is that Iām going to sign off for now and think about it some more until I can write you another directionless mini-essay. If you bothered to read all this, thank you. If you disagree on a fundamental level and are terribly offended that I would even suggest such a thing as a difference between free will and consciousness, or think that itās just a self-evident fact and want to call me an idiot, please, feel free to discuss.Ā
My saying that may just be me saying that Iām lonely and would like a good conversation, now that I think about it. Remind me to go out into the real world, visit some place that isnāt a hipster coffee shop, and make some friends. You can bet Iāll ramble about it if I do.















