Have you ever felt unsure about how much of what you "want" to do and then do was not actually desired beforehand but only rationalized after the fact to maintain a sense of continuity and control?
Now imagine your free will as a force pulling forward from the future rather than pushing ahead from the past. It's still you deciding what to do, just from the other direction.
It feels more like freedom to think of your path as being set by the portion of you in the past (the part of youself you actually know) than by the portion of you extending into the future (which the present you can never know). So our minds cope by telling us this is the real state of affairs.
Why would causality (i.e. time) actually move from future to past instead of the way that feels better? Maybe it's like vision: we can only see in the direction we're looking (and typically moving). Maybe memory is only what you see when you look that direction in time. We see only where we're going, not where we've been.
@miksimum Right, just a little thought experiment here. While taking a walk last night, I was listening to some audio about the philosophy of #PhilipKDick, and I suddenly had this thought, which gave me vertigo. That backwards flow of time PKD liked to go on about (and even wrote a full novel about) is finally starting to click for me.
The Brothers Grimm recorded the story "Der süße Brei" about a magic porridge pot.
When instructed, it produces food until told to stop. One day, the owner forgets the magic word and the village is engulfed in porridge.
If you are NOT German or English-speaking, does your culture have a similar cautionary tale?
If so, what foodstuff is it about?
@Edent not directly the same but in the ancient Finnish #Kalevala poems there is the story of #Sampo, a magical machine that creates money and wealth. Wars are then fought over it. Kind of like society nowadays, really…
Also a more direct, similar one to yours is the sci-fi story #Autofac by #PhilipKDick, which I really enjoyed.
Part of the SF Masterworks Collection. Despite being nearly 60 years old the narrative around the manipulation of the truth feels incredibly prescient. Wondering whether David Whitaker had read it before he came up with #DoctorWho story The Enemy of the World. #Books#Bookstodon#SciFi#PhilipKDick