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Philosophy of Values: Period 3 - Class #4 9/28/06

Unfortunately there were no scones or cookies or other yummy treats today. There was tea and coffee but that had been all that Wilson was up to pulling together. He was there, leaning against the desk in his habitual suit and tie, though his right arm was heavily bandaged and a sling held it bundled close to his body. He’d set aside his pain pills in exchange for being sharp and alert for class and was staring down at the floor as if he might be seriously regretting that decision.

Of all the times for his TA to be MIA.

As the students settled into their chairs, Wilson pushed off the front of the desk, to start his lecture as Lyra began to pass out a handout for the day’s lecture.

"Good morning."

Lecture:

Handling the overhead projector with one hand was a bugger but he managed well enough and got started into the lecture.

"Today we’re going to discuss the Philosophy of Chance vs Choice or the Philosophy of Free Will. If you would all please refer to the handout I just distributed we’ll get started."

For the next half hour, Wilson went over the material in the handout, touching on some aspects a little more heavily than others, as it was a complex subject enough subject and could probably turn the head around fairly quickly, but needless to say it was one that was dear to his heart, for obvious reasons.

Class Participation:

Finally, about forty minutes into the lecture, about the time he was starting to really feel like crap, Wilson made his way back to his desk and leaned against it.

"All right, so what are we looking at here? The idea of our own Free Will and is there such a thing? Do we truly have Free Will to make pure choices or does the random affect of Chance, pollute that purity for its own cause? Or could Chance be the foundation of Choice, offering us the ability to exercise our Free Will upon the Choices presented to us by the chance happenings in our lives?"

Homework:

After the discussions were winding up, Wilson pushed away from the desk and pulled a small box he had towards the back forward, giving it a tap.

"For homework, please pick up a copy of King Oedipus. I want you to read it and give me an essay no less than a single space full page on the idea of Chance vs Free Will in the story."

[ooc: OCDs are up! Class is in session ~~on the way~~]

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Sorry no goodies today only tea or coffee.

Willow took a cup of tea and signed in.

Blair signed in

Agnes took tea and signed in.

Alanna signed in.

Hermione signs in.

Lyra signed in, and offered to pass out handouts and be general gopher today for Professor Wilson. The fact that he looked so beat up worried her a little.

Lyra was viewed as a Godsend and Wilson thanked her for passing out the handouts and other materials for the day's class and homework!

She smiled and made sure he had a cup of tea, at his elbow, too. There wasn't anything that a cup of tea couldn't fix.

Please turn in your homework assignments from last class.

Willow handed in ten pages on the idea of the soul in relation to the ability to be able to choose to do good or evil and whether or not that predisposed sentient beings to abuse the powers they were born with (conclusion: depended on the being and depended on the power). She also included graphs.

Blair turned in his homework.

Agnes turned in her homework. ~~And with her canon, footnotes were obligatory.~~

Lyra turned in her homework. After seeing the stack of paper that Willow handed in, she felt totally inadequate.

Alanna turned in her homework and gave Willow an odd look at her stack.

Hermione's homework still doesn't include footnotes, but there is a bit of an appendix to it today.

The discussion question for today: "All right, so what are we looking at here? The idea of our own Free Will and is there such a thing? Do we truly have Free Will to make pure choices or does the random affect of Chance, pollute that purity for its own cause? Or could Chance be the foundation of Choice, offering us the ability to exercise our Free Will upon the Choices presented to us by the chance happenings in our lives?"

Willow raised her hand. "I think that there are some things we can't prevent from happening, but we can affect how we react to them."

Hugging himself ~~though without the spiffy white jacket~~ Wilson winced as he nodded, the action pulling on his shoulder.

"So you would say that we have a Free Will choice to respond to the influences of our environment?" Then, because he figured Willow would be just enough of a geek to enjoy linkage in subject matter, he continued. "What do you think Miss Rosenberg, is Free Will a product of Nature or Nurture?"

"I would," Willow said. "Because Buffy didn't have a choice about whether or not she was going to be the Slayer but she could control how she handled that destiny."

Willow thought about Dr. Wilson's other question. "I think we're born with the capacity for Free Will, but we can be trained not to have it. Like somebody could be told from birth that they were going to be a balloon animal maker and it might not occur to them that they could say no, they'd rather be an accountant."

"We have free will." Blair raised his hand and said.

"All of us?" Wilson asked.

"Yes?" Blair looked at Wilson oddly. "Who wouldn't have it?"

"Angels and Fallen angels." Wilson responded. "They are the agents of their creators and bound to follow the will and whim of that creator or forefit their very identity."

Shifting with a wince, he continued. "Take Paradise Lost for example. Lucifer Falls due to his disobedience to God's will. The punishment for dissention is swift and utter. They are cast out with no hope or course for redemption or salvation. Flip side of that being, if you're caught dissenting on the other side, you're bound for all eternity to the torment and torture of Hell's Mercy, with no hope of redemption or salvation."

Shifting the sling a bit, he continued. "They are created one way and 'Choice' for them leads to one path, damnation. It's follow the party line or get booted and besides, take an angel's very philosophy. They are created to embrace the Will of God not particularly born with the chance to make a choice on their own and again, once they start to question it's a slippery slope to eternal damnation. There is no forgiveness or mercy for Free Will in their ranks."

"But Lucifer still is able to make the choice, isn't he? Regardless of what the consequences, he wasn't prohibited from exercising free will." Blair shook his head. "Everyone is put into situations where it seems as if your choices are limited or forced. Even here at school. But we always have the option of exercising our free will, though we may have to suffer some grave consequences."

"How about this. Technically speaking there exists the ability for you to change your sex from a boy to a girl. Change everything about who you are, your very basic identity. Would you?"

"It's not really something I've been thinking about doing, man." Blair smiled. "But if I wanted to, I would."

Wilson nodded...regreted the action almost immediately but said only.

"That is part of the gift of Free Will. But it's not a universal gift to everyone, though it seems as if it should be."

"So not everyone has free will because not everyone can undergo gender reassignment surgery?" Blair asked.

Reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, Wilson looked pensive.

"Well technically speaking angel's are genderless unless they make an effort but let's just not go there."

Lowering his hand, he hugged on his bad arm, trying to find a comfortable spot for it.

"Since it seems to be a running theme in Fandom, let's say Jane Doe is choosen by Prophecy to save this world from annilation but battling and killing Sandy Doe who is her bestest friend in the whole world. Jane doesn't want to kill Sandy and makes the Free Will choice, not to do so. And the Prophecy comes true, the world is annilated because an alien race uses Sandy as a tracking beacon and blows the planet to bits. Now, personally...it was not my Free Will to die. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm against dying but due to Jane's decision not to follow the destiny laid before her, we're all dead. What happened to our Free Will?"

Blair's eyes widened at implication of gender-changing angels and he waved his hand quickly. "Uh yeah, man. Let's not go there at all."

"I...." Blair was intending to follow through with the given example but all his mind could do was think about the car trip on Tuesday. If it had been up to him, he would have stopped the car and tried to figure out what the demons wanted. But it wasn't up to him and Wilson had made the choice for him. Whether it saved their lives or not, the idea of not having free will scared him. He looked up at Dr. Wilson worriedly. "We really don't have free will?"

Inwardly Wilson flailed. There was a part of him that wished Blair didn't have to embrace some of these tougher ideas and could continue on with the view of the world as a white entity. But the truth was so damn grey at times, bad things happened to good people and the knight did not always get to rescue the princess. It sucked.

"Sometimes, by the act of exercising our Free Will, we give it up and perhaps that's the price we pay not to live in sterile little bubbles where we would never change, would never risk but sometimes our decisions are made for us."

Like Julie. If it had been up to Wilson's Free Will, he'd be a father right now but his ex-wife's Free Will had put paid to that idea.

"Oh." Blair nodded and studied the desk. He didn't know exactly what to do with that information. He had been raised to believe that you always had a choice, always had the ability to make changes in the world around you. But the other was proof that even if you wanted to do make a choice, sometimes you just didn't have the opportunity. He sighed, realizing that he had a lot to process.

Lyra raised her hand, hesitantly.

"We do have free will, sir. The problem is that we live in worlds where everyone else has free will, too. Sometimes the choices that people around us make limit our choices. And sometimes ours limit other people's."

Taking a sip of his tea ~~thank you Lyra!~~ Wilson nodded.

"That's a very good point, Lyra." He was serious in his tone and genuinely pleased she'd seen that angle. "Do you think, though, that in those situations another person's choice, their.. Free will, might provide a Chance for those who have their own Free Will affected by it?"

Lyra's brow furrowed, and she took a few moments before replying. She spoke slowly, as though still working it out as she answered.

"If someone else makes a choice, that would limit our choices, but would also open up a whole new range of choices, like a tree branch. Not all the choices are good ones, though."

In trying to think of an example, she had a sudden moment of inspiration. "But people have to know that they have a choice. Like in your example to Willow; the people who were living in the world that got destroyed, there were things they could have done to stop it. They could have talked to the aliens, or killed the girl themselves, but they didn't know they had choices."

"I'd like to believe we have Free Will, but I'm fairly sure we only have it to a point."

Notes would be a good idea for today, he's quite likely to give detention if pushed.

Blair took notes..well, they were mostly doodles.

Agnes took notes. Many notes.

Dr. Wilson kept making cultural references she didn't get at all, using vocabulary she'd never heard. Copious notes were a matter of self-defense.

He's not staying after class today, but if you need to talk to him, he'll be in his office.

....

*flails*

Phoebe would not willingly be MIA... ESPECIALLY if she knew what had happened. :)

*Pets!!*

He's still waiting for Phale to tell him what happened to Phoebe, which Phale will probably do tonight when Wilson mentions she wasn't in class. ;)

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Philosophy of Values: Period 3 - Class #4 9/28/06

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