Thursday, July 15, 2010

What is free will?

Here is what freedom looks like:




The clip above shows the greatest pianist of our times, Martha Argerich, playing Chopin. At times she is playing six or more notes per second. She plays the notes she wants to play and yet she cannot possibly be thinking about each note as she plays it. They go by just too quickly.

We tend to think of free will as meaning that our actions are under our mental control. That we are not influenced by other things or acting unconciously. I think Martha Argerich shows us just what a ridiculous notion that is.Martha Argerich's playing is freedom and any real definition of free will will start with that sort of freedom. Freedom is the ability to do something freely.

3 comments:

  1. I love Martha Argerich, she is perhaps the greatest pianist of our time, she has a gift. But that gift had to have been nurtured and valued from a very young age. What seems effortless when we hear her is the result of years of long, hard, and tedious practice. What if she had grown up in a family that didn't value that, or didn't have the means to cultivate it? Your conclusion is correct, we are always influenced by extraneous things that have an impact on the choices we make, whether we know it or not.

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  2. I half agree with you. the story of great musicians is full of examples of people who succeeded even they grew up in family's that did not value their gifts and who had very little means to cultivate it.

    I think you nailed it when you wrote "What seems effortless when we hear her is the result of years of long, hard, and tedious practice."

    I thing freedom, real freedom, is the result of years of long, hard, and tedious practice.

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  3. I half agree with you too. Yes, there are stories of great musicians who were able to pursue their craft against all odds, somehow they were able to find a way to do it. I think that's less likely today because of the highly competitive business music has become, and realistically you can't decide at 21 that you want to be the next Martha Argerich, she had to have been studying from when she was 5 or 7 yrs old.

    You're right real freedom is the result of long, hard, tedious practice.

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