Darias wrote:
If I am predisposed to love unhealthy foods and still eat them despite wanting to eat more healthy -- is it possible to have will power at all to change that?
Yes, I think so. Willpower is not obviated by determinism. It's a fact that people demonstrate incredible amounts of willpower - all determinism changes about this is that we must acknowledge that they didn't *consciously* choose how to apply their willpower, or to what degree, and so on. To me, strength of will is no less impressive for this fact.
Sure the knowledge of the fact that I need to make healthier choices is a motivator, but how does that translate into choice? Can it?
Yes, I think it can. You merely acknowledging that it is a "motivator" implies that it can. It's one more stimulus entering the black box of our subconscious mind. *How* is a much harder question. Presumably the force of our belief in "Needing to make healthier choices" along with the depth of our understanding about why we need to make healthier choices, along with other factors like our confidence that we can succeed in making healthier choices, all influence how strongly our inner mental machinations will weight that fact in outputing decisions to be acted upon in the future.
I also think that conscious rumination can actually function to bring about changes in the subconscious workings of our minds. It's still all determined, but at least I don't think our conscious thought is entirely non-efficacious.
I don't ascribe to free will but I had always thought that at any given moment I had a range of possible actions I could be capable of doing, given my upbringing, my experiences, and biology. Like, I could choose diet Pepsi, diet Mountain Dew, or water. But now I doubt I even have that capacity at all.
It depends on exactly what you mean when you say "I have a range of possible actions." In the first person perspective/introspective sense that you can't see into the black box of your underlying mental workings that ultimately result in your actions, then yes, you do have a range of possible actions. Lots of small stimuli you may not even notice will conspire together with your current mental state to produce a choice that will *feel* like you made it, when truly you just became aware of your mind's choice. That's why you can be surprised at yourself.
In the sense that every action causally follows at least probabilistically from prior events, no, you actually don't have a range of possible actions. But since we have the gift of ignorance of the intricacies of all those causal interactions, we may as well pretend we do have a range of actions. More fun and profitable that way, IMHO.
If I want to improve myself (health or otherwise), is this even possible?
Yes. People improve themselves all the time, don't they? The fact that they were determined to do so is irrelevant from their first-person perspective: to them it appears that they pushed themselves to improvement. Which is kind of nice, since it gives a feeling of self-efficacy that can build on itself, even if it's on some level a lie.
So we should take away from this that it does no good to try to apply determinism practically to our own first-person experience. We really have no choice but to pretend we are free agents if we ever want to accomplish anything. Since we can't know what the future is determined to be, we can't choose to just "follow the script" or something. Perhaps the script is for us to improve! If you want to improve, and then you end up doing it, that was the script!
I think determinism is more fruitfully applied to our view of other people. It softens my gaze on both the errors and triumphs of others to know that they were not responsible for them in any ultimate sense, while at the same time realizing that praise and punishment still are rational, as those things do have *real* potential to participate in the determinative scheme (at least from our non-omniscient perspective).
Is the fact that I have a will to do those things an indicator that I have the capacity to do them? Or am I just along for the ride?
Again, in a first person sense you have the "capacity" to do anything. You can't know what the future holds. Whether it's actually in the determinative cards is something else. Having a will to do something is not an indicator that aren't constrained by circumstance to do the opposite, if that's what you're asking.
