How do I overcome the nihilistic depression which naturally follows the insight that free will is logically impossible?
Knowing that I don't have free will, everything becomes pointless. My existence is reduced to passively suffering from events over which I have no control. The universe just follows its laws and some day I die.
you've only reached the first stage of edginess, go deeper and beyond your high school library's array of existential trash.
Luis Lopez
What makes you say that free will is impossible?
Ryan Roberts
How do I become a supreme edgelord?
Samuel Wright
>you make a decision >I ask you "How did you make that decision?" >case 1: you explain the procedure >thus you were following a procedure and were not free >case 2: you cannot explain how you made the decision >then you obviously didn't have full control over it
Thomas Thompson
If it's so logically possible how come half of all philosophers are compatibilists? If nihilism is the logical conclusion to that logical conclusion how come 4/5 of all philosophers are moral realists?
Camden Carter
Compatibilism is bullshit though.
David Phillips
You still experience the world in exactly the same way you would if free will did exist, though. You still feel as though you're in full control, it makes literally no difference.
I'll never understand people that get upset over things like free will TECHNICALLY not existing, or their being no "objective" purpose or meaning in life. This is probably why people say philosophy is pointless, because shit like this really is. Almost nobody actually fucking cares about this, and for good reason.
Dylan Richardson
Yep, I'm glad you showed me that half of all philosophers are not only wrong, but obviously so.
So which is it, are you a super genius, or are all those philosophers, who combined have spent millions of dedicated hours, with all the required material, infrastructure and peer review authorship just dumb?
If you have solved it I think you can collect your best philosopher in the last 100 years award, congratulations.
Ayden Roberts
Most philosophers are just dogmatically spouting empty buzzwords and have no idea what they're actually talking about. They aren't STEM. They don't need to know logic or science. Tell me, how many philosophers actually use formal logic? How many philosophers know about relativity or quantum mechanics?
Lincoln Harris
>muh STEM
Juan Anderson
>Most philosophers are just dogmatically spouting empty buzzwords and have no idea what they're actually talking about So this statement alone is meant to make me ignore all arguments I don't like? I'm not saying determinism is stupid, it's a very defensible position, but to say that the tens of thousands of compatibilists philosophers are just idiot dogmatics just spouting buzzwords (something you do in your own post) is beyond ridiculous. It calls into question academia as a whole since these are open, peer reviewed works.
>Tell me, how many philosophers actually use formal logic? Logic is one of the major branches of philosophy so pretty much all of them. Do you even know what symbolic logic is? You don't get a PhD in philosophy without a solid grounding in logic. >How many philosophers know about relativity or quantum mechanics? What is the philosophy of science? You know there are philosophers out there whose job it is is to be aware of the current state of science for its potential philosophical implications. Also who cares? How does knowing about quantum mechanics matter if you do ethics? It's like saying how many Olympic sprinters know how to read Ionic Greek.
Chase Hall
A.camus
Have a great day fags.
Ryder Garcia
>determinism If you think the opposite of free will has to be determinism, you are beyond uneducated. Just another point in favor of my post.
>is beyond ridiculous What is beyond ridiculous is the fact that so called "academics" seriously consider compatibilism to be a tenable stance.
>Do you even know what symbolic logic is? I studied it from the mathematical point of view.
>You don't get a PhD in philosophy without a solid grounding in logic. You've obviously never seen a university from the inside. Most people studying philosophy do so because they don't want anything to do with math or science. Most theses in philosophy are buzzword bullshittery without any logic at all. Have fun with your "postcolonial critical theory of gendered multiculturalism".
>What is the philosophy of science? A farce, simply a farce. A circlejerk of people who were unqualified to contribute to science and hence jerk off over their shallow understanding of science's methodology as if their platitudes had any effects on how actual scientists do research.
>How does knowing about quantum mechanics matter if you do ethics? How does knowing philosophy matter if you talk about ethics? Any nigger on the street has his emotional preferences, so he can talk about ethics just as well as any philosophy professor.
>It's like saying how many Olympic sprinters know how to read Ionic Greek. It's rather like saying an Olympic sprinter should know how to walk. After all, philosophers claim to be masters of wisdom. This appears to be incompatible with the anti-scientific anti-intellectualism you are currently spreading. A truly wise man doesn't reject whole areas of knowledge.
Sebastian Hill
>Most philosophers are just dogmatically spouting empty buzzwords and have no idea what they're actually talking about.
pot meet kettle
Lucas Fisher
Try to swallow the true red pill of social science. Under the reign of the social organism the human individual is nothing more than a worker bee. You exist solely to keep evolution going.
Brody Bailey
You seem to have inverted qualia. That pill is clearly blue.
Easton Green
Free will is an unfalsifiable concept and not scientific. It is the same thing as saying. >What makes you say god is impossible? It is on you to proof it exists, which you cannot.
Anthony Carter
>Durkheim >organic theory >literally one of the first sociological theories >true red pill of social science
Brandon Reyes
Philosofags, I'm not one of you arguing from a position of equality. I come here to learn!
What makes you think humans beings don't have free will? If I say to my arm, "Move in that direction", and it does (the mad man), isn't that a free act?
Kevin Phillips
>If you think the opposite of free will has to be determinism, you are beyond uneducated. Just another point in favor of my post. Except I never said anywhere that free will is the opposite of determinism, nor implied it, nor said anything which could possible be construed to that effect. OP is talking about determinism so it is kind of natural that I have recourse to use it.
>A farce, simply a farce. A circlejerk of people who were unqualified to contribute to science Except Kuhn was first a scientist and then became a philosopher.
You had me for a bit. This was really good bait. It was around >Any nigger on the street has his emotional preferences, so he can talk about ethics just as well as any philosophy professor here that it clicked. 8/10
No u. >Durkheim sought to create one of the first rigorous scientific approaches to social phenomena. Along with Herbert Spencer, he was one of the first people to explain the existence and quality of different parts of a society by reference to what function they served in maintaining the quotidian (i.e. by how they make society "work"). He also agreed with his organic analogy, comparing society to a living organism.[15] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Durkheim
Hudson Reyes
how is this a case for free will being impossible
it just means you might not have extensive enough knowledge to explain how your brain interacts with your body, not that your brain or some aliens are controlling your actions
Logan Kelly
This is it?
James Moore
The question wasn't about brain physiology, but literally asking on an abstract level how you made a decision.
Zachary Kelly
What a clueless soul... Pffff...
Carter Sanchez
Spencer published The Social Organism in 1860, when Durkheim was 2 years old. >trusting wikipedia Literally asking for it.
Jaxson Morales
My original post said that it was one of the first sociological theories and that Durkheim was a proponent of it. Therefore there is literally nothing wrong with what I wrote, and you tried to be a dick and fell on your face.
John Wright
>dat backpaddling Ok mate.
Wyatt Watson
what makes you think you do have free will? classical objects behave in a deterministic manner your brain is a classical object. ergo, everything you ever think or do has already been determined, you are just traveling down a set path
Lucas Edwards
Ok so how do you explain celibacy, and heroism, martyrdom or someone going on a hunger strike for an ideal? Don't these go against basic animal instinct and therefore prove there is free will?
Isaiah Peterson
That is a typical STEM attitude. Biological determinism with free will mixed in. Then you take them their free will and it's >hurr this doesn't make any sense >you're all stupid humanities suck
Charles Murphy
by not being an angsty teenage bitch
Caleb Miller
I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Jackson Kelly
like ur that important
the amount of self centered righteousness that would be required for this to occur
>pure fantasy and make believe
David Roberts
Free will isn't "logically" impossible. That would mean that it's impossible to conceive of it, which is retarded.
Blake Bennett
Why does everything become pointless once you realise you have a fate? also No free will=/= no choice
Just because you would have always made the choice you made doesn't mean it wasn't your decision.
Hunter Johnson
Why would that prove anything? First of all, they go perfectly well with instincts of social animals. Same as a mother would die for her offspring, social animals die for their tribe. And to facilitate that this altruism and selfsacrifice function is built in. And sometimes it goes haywire, and the "this is beneficial, totally go ahead" circuits fire when they shouldn't. What the fuck does that prove?
Even IF they were completely counter to reproduction, like cuttin off your balls or suicide. How does that prove free will? You still don't controll your thoughts, and can't generate them as you please. They just pop up. You can't decide to have a thought, because that would just be another thought and you'd have to have decided to have that and so on. Its an incoherent concept. No matter how things behave.
Xavier Moore
how does anything you wrote disprove what I wrote?
Kayden Cox
It is impossible to conceive of it. See
Isaac Cook
Being a philosopher =/= being right.
Daniel Cox
You can claim to be able to think about a square circle, that doesn't make it logicly sound.
Angel Roberts
Not an argument
Brody Wood
no
Dylan Ortiz
There's thousands of things that you can conceive of that aren't possible logically.
You are literally arguing that no one can ever be wrong.
Elijah Harris
> We have been told by popular scientists that the floor on which we stand is not solid, as it appears to common sense, as it has been discovered that the wood consists of particles filling space so thinly that it can almost be called empty. This is liable to perplex us, for in a way of course we know that the floor is solid, or that, if it isn't solid, this may be due to the wood being rotten but not to its being composed of electrons. To say, on this later ground, that the floor is not solid is to misuse language.
Do you suddenly fall through the floor upon learning that the ground you stand on is empty space? Of course not. This knowledge changes nothing about the world. It merely describes it. It is the same way with the freedom of the will. Knowledge of the fact that choices are causally determined doesn't change the value of what we have always called choice.
Logan Allen
By accepting god isn't real and as a whole all of humanitys greatest accomplishments are merely a grain of sand in the vast ocean.
David Fisher
Why are you being so defensive and passive-agressive? Is it so important to you that humans have no free will? Because if it is, I'll stop arguing. For me it doesn't make a difference.
There is easily as much people, if not more, who wouldn't give a fuck or would, on the contrary, sacrifice other people's lives to save their own. There are terrible moms, moms who leave their babies in the trash can. You can't say that humans have an "altruism and selfsacrifice function is built in" if this kind of behavior is completely unpredictable in human beings. More like an ad hoc. It seems that it is only because humans have free will that social sciences are so innaccurate. An ideal is not a classical object. But in this case a non-classical object clearly as the cause of a non-deterministic behavior.
Hudson Davis
you're mistaking your own inability to predict something with unpredictability.
An ideal is simply a descriptor of a set of neurons in the brain behaving a certain way. neurons are classical objects
Noah King
that doesn't matter if it's chaotic. And the brain is.
Ayden Anderson
>An ideal is simply a descriptor of a set of neurons in the brain behaving a certain way You say this as if it were a fact. And then you use it to prove your point. Funny.
Landon Powell
complex is not the same as chaotic. The brain is complex, but follows rules, and is therefore not chaotic
Dylan Perry
A philosopher is someone who deals with abstract concepts for which there can never be a right answer. Attempting to base an argument on the beliefs of philosophers alone is foolish. Plus it takes the same type of person to become a philosopher so it isn't surprising so many think along the same lines.
Levi Rivera
are you claiming that an ideal is anything else? The brain is a big set of neurons. The brain is also a predicting machine, it predicts outcomes based on inputs to determine a course of action. an Ideal is a best case scenario prediction of what we would like life to be where is this ideal manifested physically? The brain. therefore, an ideal is a set of neurons behaving a certain way
Bentley Sanchez
While there is no freedom from causality, you can still live in an existence which permits the best possible life for yourself through the rationalization of all causes from whatever point you find yourself at and determining the effects from there; there is nothing in the world which makes it as though you can't predetermine and even guide the change of your will into differing directions from its concurrent standpoint.
Gavin Jones
If an ideal were such simple things we would be able to program them already. Regardless, according to your own reasoning the brain, the neurons, etc. are all classical objects but the ideal itself isn't. >an Ideal is a best case scenario prediction of what we would like life to be Interestingly enough, there seems to be a slip in your own definition: "what we would like life to be". So there is the brain, there are the neurons, but there is a "prediction", that is neither brain nor neuron, and there is also a fourth and a fifth element. There is a we and there is a want, that are also neither brain nor neuron. It seems that the brain and neurons are simply tools to this "we" who "wants", and isn't this we and this wanting what we call the willing subject and the will?
Ryan Powell
I didn't say they were simple, I said that it was deterministic. complex systems can still be deterministic, eg. your computer. I still fail to see how having an Ideal precludes determination and it seems like you're intent on being as pedantic as possible.
Noah Reed
No. I'm intent on procrastinating on the internet instead of doing what I have to do.
Jaxon Ward
>They aren't STEM
Illiterate CompSci fedora tipper detected
Jose Torres
t. barista
Jack Kelly
>"You can't say that humans have an "altruism and selfsacrifice function is built in" if this kind of behavior is completely unpredictable in human beings."
What? Why? I didn't say it was always active, I didn't say its the primary function, or the default function. I said those circuits sometimes fire. How did you get "it MUST always be active, and its not so it can't be there!!" ? What the fuck dude?
We are a weird unbalanced setup of maby instincts that are beneficial in different circumstances (rape vs protecting from rape, selfish vs altruistic). Whatever manifests in one instance can be different. That doesn't make "magic undefined ability to be excluded from the laws of the universe" suddenly a coherent concept. We don't understand the brain fully yet, but we very much understand that its a material object, that certain parts cause certain thoughts, or if damage change your personality completely. And we can predict choices you make in fMRI experiments up to 7 seconds before you become aware that you made the choice.
There is no argument for free will except "but muh feels and strong unreflected intuitions" and "but humans are so superspecial that natural law doesn'T apply to the brain!" mythology bullshit.
Nathaniel White
This is nothing but sophistry.
Landon Sanchez
who gives a fuck just do things you like and accomplish things you want to
fuck people overthink this life shit
Ryder Moore
You gotta sink so deep into it that your eventual death will feel reassuring.
Benjamin Gutierrez
Spoken like a true normalfag.
Hunter Sullivan
>he hadn't heard of the transcendental of freedom
Brody Lee
Something wrong with being normal and disregarding things that will never matter in the long run? Free will, no free will, I don't care. I want to do things and accomplish things before I die. That's all I need. That's all the purpose I require.
The universe doesn't give a fuck about you or me and we shouldn't give a fuck about it
Camden Allen
As I see it there's nothing inherently wrong or right in this world. But that won't prevent me from despising normalfag shallowness.
Kayden Wood
do what you gotta do man I just know from personal experience that dwelling on things that make you depressed or fatalistic or hopeless does no one any good