Is External Influence the True Source of Human Actions?

[Lindat123]

The inventor Tesla stated that all living things' actions appear to come from the will but actually come from the outside. He stated to the effect "we are corks upon the sea". For example you are sitting at your computer and start typing. You don't start typing because you want to but because you are forced by the outside environment. In the case of responding to me it is the text you are reading that forced you to type?

I believe this is true because I have seem glimpses of it. If it is real it is a is a major discovery for the world. There are a lot of possibilities to do good in the world with it. However, I do not see it fully. Any thoughts on this subject?

 

[russ_watters]

Any thoughts on this subject?

Welcome to PF! To me, what you've written is too vague to be meaningful. Do you have a source that tells us exactly what Tesla said? Also, in physics, a theory must make testable/measurable predictions -- what can we do with this one?

 

[cosmik debris]

Perhaps the OP is asking about the age old argument about free will and determinism?

Cheers

 

[davenn]

You don't start typing because you want to but because you are forced by the outside environment. In the case of responding to me it is the text you are reading that forced you to type?

Honestly, that is garbage ... I respond to your text because I want to ... no one forced me to

this is more philosophical and isn't really inline with PF standards

 

[rumborak]

Maybe a good Einstein quote adds something here:

„An Freiheit des Menschen I am philosophischen Sinne glaube ich keineswegs. Jeder handelt nicht nur unter äußerem Zwang, sondern auch gemäß innerer Notwendigkeit. Schopenhauers Spruch: „Ein Mensch kann zwar tun, was er will, aber nicht wollen, was er will“, hat mich seit meiner Jugend lebendig erfüllt und ist mir beim Anblick und beim Erleiden der Härten des Lebens immer ein Trost gewesen und eine unerschöpfliche Quelle der Toleranz. Dieses Bewusstsein mildert in wohltuender Weise das leicht lähmend wirkende Verantwortungsgefühl und macht, dass wir uns selbst un die die anderen nicht gar zu ernst nehmen; es führt zu einer Lebensauffasung, die auch besonders dem Humor sein Recht läßt.“

„In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that „a man can do as he will, but not will as he will,“ has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others’. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralyzing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humour, above all, has its due place.“

Regarding Tesla, I have something akin to a "Pavlovian cringe" when I see that name.

 

[Evo]

Closed pending moderation.

 

[russ_watters]

Thread does not meet our guidelines and will remain locked.