Can you choose something you don't want to choose?

Question

If you CAN choose something you don't want to choose, doesnt it then BECOME your choice, thus never actually choosing what you didnt want to choose?

So if you can only choose one thing, that which you want, can you choose your 'wants'? Can you choose to want to eat food? Can you choose to want to have sex? I dont think you can, so even your 'wants' themselves arent choice.

So, in conclusion, Is 'choice' an illusion? Because according to my above statements, you can only 'choose' one thing( that which you want ), and that one thing isnt a choice.

Zero C00l:

i garantee you wanted to take a shower.
if you analyze the reason you took a shower, the 'decision' to take a shower will ultimatly root from 'you wanted to'.

why did you take a shower? because you were dirty? because you WANTED to be clean? because you WANTED to smell nice?

Maybe the dictionary says 'choice is a choice', but does it prove itself?

RE: zero cool's edit:

If you make a choice out of nessesity, is that really a choice either? if you decide to take a shower because you NEED to be clean, could you really decline?

lets take an example of something that's actually a nessesity to better understand. Eating. If you decide to eat because you NEED to, is there free will? you cant CHOOSE your NEEDS, so once again, you choice is being dictated by something isnt your choice at all. UNLESS you can choose NOT to eat, or decline, which is saying someone would CHOOSE to starve to death. Why would someone choose to starve to death? i cant think of any reasons but if there are any i garantee that choice would be made out of something outside of thier will.

Answer 1

I think you're talking about fatalism when you say "doesn't it then BECOME your choice, thus never actually choosing what you didn't want to choose." That's the same as "things only happen one way, so there's no choice, only fate."

But even there, choice is not strictly an illusion. Fate can only be perceived in the past, or from a point in time *after* a choice is made. At the time that the choice is made, we cannot know what the "fated" outcome is to be. We cannot rely on a knowledge of the future to decide how to act in the present. Therefore, any decision we make is indeed a 'choice' at the moment that it's made.

Whether choice exists in an objective, external sense is impossible to know, and really impossible to consider, since all choices are made within the individual, and are therefore inherently subjective.

Cool question, though.

Answer 2

I'm in a situation right now where my circumstances dictate my choices. You can certainly choose to do something that you don't want to do. If you do that though, you will be on a downward spiral in my opinion and you will end up eventually either going back on your choice, being too miserable to face the choice, or convincing yourself that you did it for a reason, that you are doing the right thing, and then you might end up living a life in regret of that choice or fooling yourself that you are happy.

Sometimes you do things for other people, regardless of how you personally feel about the situation. I'm dealing with this right now. I can do one thing and be relatively miserable, but I will be making someone else incredibly happy. If I live like that though, I will be forfeiting my own "real" choice, the thing that I would do if there were no consequences.

I think consequences dictate a lot of our decisions, which is mostly a good thing. But sometimes, when you know that one thing is completely right for you but not necessarily right for someone else, it gets really tricky.

You might also choose to do something because you can't actually make a choice so you just have to default to something. It's hard to tell what exactly drives a person to make a decision, especially the big ones, the ones that determine your future or a portion of your life. I do know that your personality mixed with the circumstances and the possible outcomes combine to make a choice that seems the most reasonable to you, and you will pick that choice in the end. The choice you make might not be something logical to someone else, but that's because your feelings, emotions, personality, etc are your own and cannot be explained or understood by ANYONE else. They might have a good idea about who you are, they might know you better than anyone, but they have never been inside your brain and have never seen each individual thing from your perspective.

That was a very long winded answer, but in conclusion, I think choice is determined by a number of outside influences, the people involved in the situation (and likely their own opinions which you filter into your thoughts about your options), and your own personal idea of what is good for you, what will make you happy, what is "right" for you.

Answer 3

Your choice is (logically enough) always your choice. You may not have wanted that choice, but arguably you wanted it more than whatever other choices there were.

There are some who would argue, as you do, that nothing you want is your choice. It is also a simple enough matter to demonstrate genetic, environmental, and trained effects which can contribute to what a person does and does not want. But I don't think this does well enough to explain the vast variations in wants that can be observed in people.

Consider: if these factors were all that mattered in entirely determining a person's wants, we could (with enough effort) produce a person whose wants were entirely caused by them. That person would want nothing other than what they had been conditioned to want and they would want only exactly as much as they had been conditioned to want. We could replicate these conditions indefinitely and produce whole societies of people whose wants were exactly identical in every way.

I think any parent will tell you that this is an implausible picture at best. No child, no matter how sheltered and controlled by their parents, ever has become exactly what they were forced to be. I'm sure there are some who would just say that it is because ultimate control of everything still eludes us, but for the time being it seems more plausible to me that some other factor is sabotaging the whole enterprise - thought and choice.

If we look at it from a behaviouralist perspective, it becomes a circular agument anyway. What did he choose? He must have wanted that. What did he want? The thing that he chose. 'Want' would just be a description of how you make your choices, not some forced inclinations that make the choices for you.

Answer 4

YourDictionary.com defines choice as:

1. The act of choosing; selection.
2. The power, right, or liberty to choose; option.

The fact that we can make that decision - to have or not to have, to do or not to do - means that choice is not an illusion. Why isnt what you want a choice? Because it's what you want? The fact that it's what you want means you've already made a choice. You've chosen it over another alternative.

So let's say you're hungry - so you have to eat...of course, you could choose not to eat which would end up killing you in the long run. You go to a place and you feel like eating some pizza...why wouldnt the pizza be your choice? It really is. I mean, you are choosing it over a million other kinds of food you could have. Only because you want it, doesnt mean you're not choosing it. Desiring a slice of pizza means you've already chosen it over other alternatives.

Answer 5

Yes, choosing to give up something for a greater good is present in every stage of life.

Take smoking cigarettes. Smokers choose to smoke the first cigarette; unless they had a gun pointed to their head. When the smoker repeated the action they got addicted to the nicotine. When addiction occurs it is no longer a choice to continue to smoke but an impulse to do so or suffor withdrawl. So, to free themselves from a nicotine addiction, they must learn to say “No” to what they want, which is the immediate gratification of the cigarette in exchange for a tobacco free lifestyle and other benefits. It aint' easy to give up what you instantly want for a benefit you can't see!!!

With “Sex” for some (not all) it becomes like an “Addiction” like tobacco. People with this addiction often cannot see past their immediate desire for the long-term benefits. Just like the smoker who gets told many times a day, “Smoking kills you” and decides to ignore it … so too with the person trapped into their own sexual desires. So what is the negative side to willing enslaving yourself to your own sexual desires? One, you loose your own self-respect, and self-control. Two, you start to see fantasy worlds provided by TV, Internet, & Porno and get depressed because you don’t get gratified as much as you see others getting gratified. Three, you stop the mental process of finding “Intimate” relationships starting with yourself, then your family, then friends, then co-workers, and soon society (out of your fantasy world) alienates you.

Choice is not an illusion but the key to break you free from the deep “Illusions” and “Denials” that you have been entrapped into: tobacco, alcohol, drugs, pain pills, adrenaline (sky-diving), violence, and any other thing/action that hits your “Dopamine” senses in the brain. The CHOICE is to get out of immediate gratification for something greater; which I hope is for yourself.

Answer 6

There is no power greater than your ability to choose. To not choose is a choice. You can choose not to eat...in which case you choose the outcome....many have made this choice...so how is it not a choice? Yes you can choose 'wants' including sex....ask a few women. You have never chose to do something you don't really want?.....then you haven't grown up. And choosing it does not then make it a want.

Answer 7

I don't WANT to take a shower, but I WILL take a shower. I could've chosen not to shower but I didn't choose not to take a shower, I chose to take a shower.

Both were viable options. I was perfectly capable of either showering or not showering. Just because I chose the less appealing option doesn't mean a choice wasn't made. Less appealing though it may have been, it was still worthy of consideration along with the other option.

*edit* No, some people shower because they NEED to be clean. They may not want to be clean; they may enjoy the feeling of their body's natural fluids, of bits of the world (like dirt and grass, etc) clinging to their bodies, but they NEED to shower in order to assimilate into normal daily life. Most people can't survive in total seclusion as it isn't in our nature. We are social animals and as such, when it comes right down to it, we are required to fulfill basic criteria in order to mingle in the "civilized" world. One of those necessities is that we don't repel all other fellow human beings by what they consider deplorable neglect of self-sanitation, so yes, some people shower not because they want to but because they NEED to. Not showering IS a viable option only for so long, but then eventually the choice is no longer feasible given that we have to survive in the social world. The choice IS very much available but only up to the point that it would be a considerable detrimental to our continued social survival, and then it become a necessity to shower.

If I'm wondering whether or not I should eat pizza for lunch, there IS a line of reasoning involved that will eventually aid in determining whether or not I'm going to in fact eat pizza for lunch. Will it agree with my stomach, do I want to ingest so much cholesterol in one sitting, do I want to spend the money, do I have the time, do I even feel like eating pizza at all? The outcome I reach wasn't preordained, existing independent of my thought processes, floating about waiting to smack me on the head at the "right" moment. If I decide to eat pizza, if the pros outweighed the cons or if I didn't consider the cons important enough to influence my decision, then I've chosen to eat pizza. And vice versa. Both were genuine possibilities. Choice is merely taking a course of action when more than one feasible course of action was available to be taken. Doing something out of want (or spontaneity without paying any mind to the "pros" and cons", let's not forget that) isn't the same as doing something because no other alternative action was available.

The trouble comes when the "choice" is little more than illusion, when one is supposedly presented more than one viable option and yet only one viable option truly exists. For example, for people who believe Hell exists and that Jesus is their salvation from eternal fire, they are said to have made the "choice" to accept Jesus as their savior. The problem with this view is that Hell was never a viable option to begin with. No one who is absolutely sure that Hell exists EVER voluntarily chooses to behave or live in such a way that it would send them there forever. It's not a viable option, hence the "choice" was never really there.

It's like a stranger walking up to you, putting a gun between your eyes and asking if you want to live or if you want a bullet tearing through your brain. NO sane person would for even a second consider the second proposal a viable "option". There is no real "choice" involved since the only viable option is life.

Answer 8

Ok Captain Jack, you can decide to not choose something you want, but things you need must be chosen.

Answer 9

If a person (has to choose)and has to settle for less then what he would have wanted. no it was not his choise it was a dictate from some one else.

Answer 10

Think about this, my child...(strangely disquieting hum in the air)

"I didn't "CHOOSE" to answer this question..."

Doo Wah!!! Doo Wah!!! Doo Wah!!!

(then, back to a strangely disquieting hum in the air)