Elizaveta Friesem
  • About
  • Books
    • Media is us >
      • Principles of communication
      • Micro- and macropower
      • ACE model
      • Description of chapters
    • Hypertexts >
      • Me, looking for meaning >
        • A
        • B >
          • Binaries
          • Both sides
          • Bureaucracy
        • C >
          • Can I give myself credit for being empathetic?
          • Choice
          • Circumstances
          • Cognitive biases
          • Common sense
          • Communication
          • Coincidence
          • Content and form of this book
          • Coronavirus and me
          • Culture
          • Cycle of violence
        • D >
          • Depression
          • Do children ask themselves about the purpose of life?
          • Doing the right thing
        • E >
          • Emotional pain
          • Empathy
          • Empathy as a matter of self-preservation
          • Everybody has their struggles
          • Everybody is connected
          • Explain/excuse conflation
        • F >
          • Feelings and emotions
          • Forgetting about your purpose
          • Free will
        • G >
          • Good vs. Bad
        • H >
          • Meaning of honor
          • How much do we understand each other?
          • Human brain
          • Human nature
          • Human needs
          • Human thinking
          • Human thinking is nonlinear
          • Hurt people hurt people
          • Hypertext books
        • I >
          • I am an optimist
          • Ideas
          • "I'll never understand!"
          • Individual meanings vs. shared meanings
          • Inner compass
          • Interpretation
          • "It is what it is"
        • J
        • K >
          • Knowing your true purpose
          • Knowledge
        • L >
          • Language
          • List of completed pages
          • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
        • M >
          • Make Sense
          • May I meet this, too, with kindness
          • Meaning as importance
          • Mean and stupid
          • My Anxiety
          • Meaning
          • Meaningless
          • Meaning wars
          • Meaning of life
          • Meaning communities
          • Meanings perceived by animals
          • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
          • Media
          • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
          • Misunderstanding
          • My perfectionism
          • My quest for meaning
        • N >
          • Norms and normal
        • O >
          • Objectification
          • On being a scholar
          • On being a writer
          • On being right
        • P >
          • Paradox
          • Privilege
          • Polarization
          • Postmodern worldview
          • Postmodern philosophy
          • Power
          • Power of the mind
          • Problem/solution binary
        • Q
        • R >
          • Reality
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • S >
          • Science, religion and art
          • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
          • Self-awareness
          • Self-empathy
          • Stories we tell
          • Society vs Individual
          • Subjectivity and objectivity
          • Suggested citation format
          • Symbolic interactionism and Buddhism
          • Synesthesia
        • T >
          • "The Death of the Author"
          • The importance of having a purpose
          • Truth
        • U >
          • Understanding ourselves
          • Us and them
        • V >
          • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
          • Violence in the human nature
        • W >
          • What does it mean to "understand"?
          • What is a text?
          • What we can learn about ourselves from media
          • What is "natural"?
          • What's the point?
          • What will this project become?
          • When conflicts get out of control
          • Where do meanings come from?
          • Why am I trying to stay sane?
          • Why do people hurt each other?
          • Why is language so unhelpful?
          • Why do everyday objects make sense?
          • Why do misunderstandings happen?
        • X
        • Y
        • Z
      • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
  • Editing
    • Me as your editor
    • How I will help you
    • Pricing
    • Privacy policy
  • Blog
  • Learn more
    • Workshops >
      • Five (easy) steps to become media literate
      • Surviving the polarization vortex
      • Understanding yourself
      • Not enough
    • Bio
    • Talks and interviews
    • Essays
    • Poetry >
      • Russian poems >
        • Stranger
        • Lonely heart
        • Fairy tales
        • Dreams and nightmares
        • Puzzles
        • Moon
        • Seasons
        • Muse
        • Art
        • Games
        • Sketches
        • Nonsense
      • Video poems (English and Russian) >
        • Butterfly (poem)
        • One day, I will return (poem)
        • Where are you now? (poem)
        • Hole in the world (poem)
        • Wondering (poem)
        • Wanderer II (poem)
        • What people call love (poem)
    • Epoxy resin
    • Photography
    • Educational materials
  • Contact me

Free Will

PAGE IN PROGRESS
What you see here is a page of my hypertext book Me, Looking for Meaning. Initially empty, it will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. See this post to better understand my creative process. Thank you for your interest and patience! :)

​Questions of determinism. How much can be go beyond our circumstances [add link]?

Free will may be possible within a certain limited range. For example, a person who experienced trauma may need to have a certain amount of pre-determined resiliency in order to survive this trauma. Within this range he can exercise by three will by deciding to pursue therapy or rejecting therapy. But it is possible to assume that some people who do not survive trauma just did not have the pre-determined resiliency in the first place.

we have to support the social order, the status quo. The need to support it is in all the individuals, and it allows people to have orderly living (albeit filled with issues that critical social scholars discuss). In this sense, it does not matter which order we support, but we do need to support some order. That is why any social chance meets do my g resistance from many people. Even though we recognize that society changes, so there are many possibilities configurations of social order, we still find it feet hard to let go of the social order that we live in.

I think that our actions are in many ways determined by our circumstance, but we do have some freedom to choose, even though we are choosing between a predetermined range of options. In this sense, perhaps I can give myself some credit, but not full credit for the way I act/think? 
​

About this project: Start page
Picture

I use AI tools as a kind of writing partner—sometimes to shape drafts, clarify arguments, or explore phrasing. But the ideas, perspectives, and direction are always my own. Every piece here is part of an evolving personal project.
  • About
  • Books
    • Media is us >
      • Principles of communication
      • Micro- and macropower
      • ACE model
      • Description of chapters
    • Hypertexts >
      • Me, looking for meaning >
        • A
        • B >
          • Binaries
          • Both sides
          • Bureaucracy
        • C >
          • Can I give myself credit for being empathetic?
          • Choice
          • Circumstances
          • Cognitive biases
          • Common sense
          • Communication
          • Coincidence
          • Content and form of this book
          • Coronavirus and me
          • Culture
          • Cycle of violence
        • D >
          • Depression
          • Do children ask themselves about the purpose of life?
          • Doing the right thing
        • E >
          • Emotional pain
          • Empathy
          • Empathy as a matter of self-preservation
          • Everybody has their struggles
          • Everybody is connected
          • Explain/excuse conflation
        • F >
          • Feelings and emotions
          • Forgetting about your purpose
          • Free will
        • G >
          • Good vs. Bad
        • H >
          • Meaning of honor
          • How much do we understand each other?
          • Human brain
          • Human nature
          • Human needs
          • Human thinking
          • Human thinking is nonlinear
          • Hurt people hurt people
          • Hypertext books
        • I >
          • I am an optimist
          • Ideas
          • "I'll never understand!"
          • Individual meanings vs. shared meanings
          • Inner compass
          • Interpretation
          • "It is what it is"
        • J
        • K >
          • Knowing your true purpose
          • Knowledge
        • L >
          • Language
          • List of completed pages
          • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
        • M >
          • Make Sense
          • May I meet this, too, with kindness
          • Meaning as importance
          • Mean and stupid
          • My Anxiety
          • Meaning
          • Meaningless
          • Meaning wars
          • Meaning of life
          • Meaning communities
          • Meanings perceived by animals
          • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
          • Media
          • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
          • Misunderstanding
          • My perfectionism
          • My quest for meaning
        • N >
          • Norms and normal
        • O >
          • Objectification
          • On being a scholar
          • On being a writer
          • On being right
        • P >
          • Paradox
          • Privilege
          • Polarization
          • Postmodern worldview
          • Postmodern philosophy
          • Power
          • Power of the mind
          • Problem/solution binary
        • Q
        • R >
          • Reality
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • S >
          • Science, religion and art
          • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
          • Self-awareness
          • Self-empathy
          • Stories we tell
          • Society vs Individual
          • Subjectivity and objectivity
          • Suggested citation format
          • Symbolic interactionism and Buddhism
          • Synesthesia
        • T >
          • "The Death of the Author"
          • The importance of having a purpose
          • Truth
        • U >
          • Understanding ourselves
          • Us and them
        • V >
          • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
          • Violence in the human nature
        • W >
          • What does it mean to "understand"?
          • What is a text?
          • What we can learn about ourselves from media
          • What is "natural"?
          • What's the point?
          • What will this project become?
          • When conflicts get out of control
          • Where do meanings come from?
          • Why am I trying to stay sane?
          • Why do people hurt each other?
          • Why is language so unhelpful?
          • Why do everyday objects make sense?
          • Why do misunderstandings happen?
        • X
        • Y
        • Z
      • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
  • Editing
    • Me as your editor
    • How I will help you
    • Pricing
    • Privacy policy
  • Blog
  • Learn more
    • Workshops >
      • Five (easy) steps to become media literate
      • Surviving the polarization vortex
      • Understanding yourself
      • Not enough
    • Bio
    • Talks and interviews
    • Essays
    • Poetry >
      • Russian poems >
        • Stranger
        • Lonely heart
        • Fairy tales
        • Dreams and nightmares
        • Puzzles
        • Moon
        • Seasons
        • Muse
        • Art
        • Games
        • Sketches
        • Nonsense
      • Video poems (English and Russian) >
        • Butterfly (poem)
        • One day, I will return (poem)
        • Where are you now? (poem)
        • Hole in the world (poem)
        • Wondering (poem)
        • Wanderer II (poem)
        • What people call love (poem)
    • Epoxy resin
    • Photography
    • Educational materials
  • Contact me