Been contemplating the idea of free will for weeks

Consciousness threads are always shit which makes them perfect for a shit board.

Well, I'm guessing I have about a high school knowledge of science, but I find the concepts of science that reach the limit of our understanding to be pretty interesting, and I have always followed current science articles that appear here and there, because science seems to be the one thing next to art which I find to be mentally stimulating. I like it when science opens up new ways of understanding the universe that change your perspective.

Consciousness threads are great. Without them I would have never read Dennett's work which successfully convinced me of dualism.

Ok, I would read these books in this order:

E = MC^2 - David Bodanis

A Brief History of Space and Time - Stephen Hawking

In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat - John Gribbin

Elegant Universe – Brian Greene

Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014) – Max Tegmark

This will give you a layman friendly grounding in physics and cool shit about the universe.

Here are some lectures to augment the books:

youtube.com/watch?v=gA1s15sCi34

youtube.com/watch?v=wMI-ot-n-aw

youtube.com/watch?v=uhwuU9l10PM

youtube.com/watch?v=IHKGUCcLz_U

youtube.com/watch?v=NVAz6dcSK0M&feature=youtu.be

youtube.com/watch?v=6M0FBLnlo8k

i use this as an excuse for being retarded

Consciousness =/= free will

I am pretty conscious right know, but my actions are driven by physical chemical laws and the consciousness part can't do anything but percept

Oh sweet, thanks. I'll order these books and start a playlist of those videos. I watch a lot of lectures and documentaries and general videos about whatever all the time, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal. I usually find that sort of thing to be calming, just listening to someone more educated than I talking about interesting stuff.

Cool.

The first lecture has some basic math in it, which you should be fine with, but don't worry if you have to press pause occasionally to wrap your head around it.

I'd also recommend reading the books a couple of times over, however you want to go about doing that.

Good luck user!

Mmm, I actually believe that once we can replicate consciousness with a computer we will be much closer to understanding consciousness, but I don't think that there's really a consensus about consciousness, I've , heard Daniel Dennett say in a video that there's no consensus on it, and I sort of already figured that before. I think that we can pretty much surmise from just deductive reasoning that consciousness is a byproduct of physiology, there's literally no other logical explanation besides that. And when you think about the laws of physics and how basically something determines the actions of everything, it's easy to see that there is really no control of our own involved in it, it's just the playing out of laws of physics and matter. Now, to explain what consciousness is in a concrete and scientific way, I think will also give us an incredibly deep understanding of philosophy, because a lot of philosophy deals with perception of the universe and plays into consciousness, as far as I'm aware. So, basically consciousness is the most interesting fucking question I can imagine in all of science, and I hope to the endless void that there's going to be a breakthrough in artificial intelligence in the coming decade, I think if there's one thing that I want to see in my lifetime, it would be self aware, self conscious, self learning, common sense able artificial intelligence, which far surpasses the intelligence of human beings. The end of religion may be a little outside of my lifetime, sadly.

How do you do it, Veeky Forums?
How do you deal with the crushing depression?
The eternal loneliness that hits like a bullet and never goes away?

Drinking, drugs, none of them help. None of them help. None of them can stop me from thinking of remembering everything. Nothing stops me from knowing that everything is going nowhere or knowing that no matter what happens, no matter how many people I have around me, I'm always going to be alone.

How can I make these feelings stop?

Well friend, I'm OP, and I can tell you that I've spent a lot of time alone. When you're alone you're made to face your thoughts and left to contemplate bigger questions that leave you feeling empty inside. I can tell you what I have found, to help me not feel as though I'm being sucked into an existential void. For starters, feelings are temporary, they don't define how you feel, you can wait for negative thoughts to pass, you don't need to think negative thoughts. More so, there's always the possibility that you could be in a situation where your life is conducive to happiness, the idea that you're trapped in a never ending cycle of misery and just can't escape just shows that you're not willing to imagine outside of that box. I don't mean to diminish what you're feeling, I empathize with what you're feeling, I'm just saying that there's ways to think about it that don't limit you to the pointless/meaningful dichotomy.

The reasons that our minds look for this dichotomy in the first place is because the human mind is a pattern seeking mechanism, it's how we're so intelligent, although life itself lacks meaning. However, you could also look at life and say how come it has to have meaning at all? Aren't I capable of just being happy without the idea that there needs to be some sort of higher purpose? I know that almost every day I get down on myself for not feeling intelligent enough, or feeling like I am just at a dead end and I have literally been sitting in my house for about a year and a half with no friends just reading articles online and reading books and playing video games and listening to music. The thing is, I can see a future for myself where I am happy, I haven't used drugs or alcohol at all.

If there's one thing I realize though, that for me I have to keep my mind occupied, I have to be learning something and pondering bigger questions or else my mind gets bored. I find that to be extremely important, is just staying focused and open.

>they don't define how you feel
I meant to say they don't define you.

They deal with it by not having it. See a therapist, and don't be afraid to dump a shitty therapist to find a better one, because MOST are shitty.

This. I'm on my 4th and I think she's pretty decent, but the last ones I had were not very helpful at all.

Take your autistic cartoons to

>I shouldn't learn more about a thing I don't know a lot about
not with that faggot attitude

Go circlejerk and learn on

Depression: escitalopram
Loneliness: touch my bf until he stops doing what he's doing