Discussion do you guys believe in determinism or free will?

[LittleMagician]

Do you guys believe in free will or determinism because it feels like no matter what I do I feel like I'm not in control of anything it's like my body sends me signals and I can't do anything to change it and it makes me wanna be eaten alive

 

[DivineSpark]

Maybe it is weird mix of both? Free will to some extend.

 

[Forever Sleep]

It's a question I always struggle with. I don't like the idea of determinism in the respect that it lets criminals off the hook. As in- they simply couldn't help themselves.

I certainly think our genes, upbringing and experiences in life greatly influence the way we will likely behave. It gets very tricky with things we shouldn't or should do though.

Take the 'criminal' example. Are people who resist acting on their heinous thoughts actually to be commended (yes- I think so,) even though they may have more natural resistance to temptation? Or, maybe a religious or very moral upbringing that stops them in time? It was surely still impressive to stop themselves doing something they really wanted to do though.

Similarly, it's impressive really that we are even capable of suicide despite the very strong biological, societal, religious and moral opposition to it.

I suppose I also sit somewhere between the two. Life is full of micro decisions. All of them don't feel predestined yet, all of them combined determine where and who we are in life. I think our own individual circumstances make us likely to make certain decisions but I don't think it's exactly set in stone- maybe at any point. A person can change their mind about the most life changing event at the last moment.

As for something bigger in play. Fate and predestiny. I sometimes fall back on that when I'm feeling scared. As in- things have just gone to shit but, perhaps they needed to so that something better comes out of them. That's just scared me hoping that fate- even a God in the past would look after me. I don't really believe that though. What about the people who lose loved ones to murder or accidents or war/ disease. How can that possibly work out for the best? I suppose we could be fated to get all the bad luck but I'm mindful I don't start using that as an excuse.

The problem with being convinced we are hobbled with bad luck means we may feel powerless to even keep trying. I suppose in a way, I feel similarly towards depression. I've always wondered the difference between the two- am I lazy or depressed? I'm not meaning to call other people out here. It's more an internal puzzle. Like today- I've done so few productive things. Beyond personal hygienne, a tiny bit of tidying and a towel handwash. I had such big plans though. I intended to tidy in a big way.

Is it really not my fault that I haven't? Can I justifiably say it's because I'm so miserable and, making myself do it would only intensify how miserable I am? I can do it though- physically. It would be hard because I've let myself become so unfit but, it's not like a broken leg- it is possible for me to do it. So- that's more of a lazy decision- rather than a symptom of depression I would say. If it's a decision- rather than an inevitability, I can hopefully make a better decision at a different time.

Really though, I simply don't think we're important enough for the fates to be conspiring to help or harm us. I think it's all chance. Then I suppose determinism plays a hand in how we deal with that situation. What will our genes, upbringing and experiences make us most likely do? I suppose my philosophy is free will strongly influenced by situational determinism.

 

[CanIStopTryingNow]

To use a metaphor, we didn't choose the cards we were dealt, but we still choose how to play them.

 

[dust-in-the-wind]

Some great thinkers say free will is just an illusion. So I'm not sure.

 

[cemeteryismyhome]

I think it's 100% both, which is weird and seems impossible, but, life is weird and seems impossible.

 

[Gustav Hartmann]

Everything in the world is determined or ruled by quantum uncerainty. Even if it is an illusion, that nature is ruled by laws, what would be the alternative? Chaos.

With the best will in the world, I see no space for a free will. If I had to design a robot with a free will, I have no clue how to start.

On the other hand, I have also no idea how to live without the illusion of a free will.

 

[RoseGirl]

Yeah, there's the logical reasoning part of your brain, generally this feels more like yourself. Uhm then there are the more instinct based parts of your brain, which typically have more control. You're probably experiencing ur body trying to follow its instincts while the logical part of ur brain is like "terrible idea wth." Well that's like my experience with it. I think there's some stuff involving executive dysfunction and it's like a super common experience for people with BPD.
I've done a lot of terrible things which logically make no sense and which i personally hate on a moral level. But at no point did it feel like i got to choose what i was doing t~t
I personally think that free will is a perspective thing, where like the smarter u are the more free will u kinda have, and to god everything would be deterministic but to a mere mortal it would appear as tho they had free will. I personally feel like i don't have free will, the part of me which handles morals and talking and all that fun stuff is not in charge around here T-T

 

[Pale_Rider]

Combination of both also. Some people have more free will then others.

 

[Dejected 55]

I wrestle with this sometimes. If I truly believed in determinism than it doesn't matter what I do and I should be able to do anything and everything would work out the way it was going to anyway... but then those wouldn't be real choices anyway, so whatever I did would be what I always was going to do... including questioning whether what I do matters. It's a recursive loop.

If free will is a thing, then what I decide should make a difference even if I can't always see it in the moment. But so much that I do never seems to matter. Also, things that appear to be random often aren't. You just don't always know how things happened completely. Coin flips appear random but if you could be in a stable environment and always apply the exact same amount of force on your flip and always start in the same orientation then it should always land the same way... so what appears to be random are really the variances in what you do and changes in the environment after each flip... so, not random, but exactly what would always happen if you measured and calculated all the unknown variables in the situation.

All of our thoughts and actions are based on chemical and electrical impulses. We "think" but we are just running our programming and we would always "think" the same thing under those same set of circumstances. Even if you think one thing and do another, that could be in the design for those situations.

And, just because nothing I say or do matters and I'm really depressed over it... doesn't mean I can just go and willfully hurt others or steal stuff or whatever... Those actions would matter to me, they wouldn't be who I am, and I never want to intentionally hurt anyone through my action or inaction. But is that really me deciding and feeling that? Or is that just my predisposed design at work?

 

[Groundhog_Day]

My brother got me to use Sam Harris' waking up app. He explains how free will and the self are illusions. I kind of understand it, but still live my life feeling like there is a seperate 'me' who has a body and a mind, rather than just being a body and a mind, shaped by genetics and environment.

Somethings that help remind me of the illusions are that everything is just the universe unfolding. And suffering is from trying to control that which can't be controlled.

 

[artificialpasta]

yknow the more I read about these things the more I realize we just don't know

 

[Carrot]

Unfortunately I think there might be determinism, and therefore no free will.

When I look at games, that run at a certain number of frames per second.. Let's say it's 60 frames per second. It can be 15, 144, doesn't matter. When the game starts, it's frame 0. Something is loaded, some state, even if it's a new game, new save file. What happens the next frame is clearly determined by the previous frame. After a second, 60 frames happened. Then 61st frame depends on the state of the game what it was in frame 60. What happens in frame 1780 in the game depends on frame 1779. Sure, you can input something, press a key that changes things. But what are we but a collection of atoms, that behaves a certain way? Maybe we don't understand how it works, maybe we can't predict the next "frame" in life, I see life as a game running at a nearly infinite amount of frames per second game, where next state is entirely predetermined by the previous one.

I have not aware any true randomness in life. There might be randomness that is good enough for what we need, but no clear true randomness. When you throw a die (dice), the result depends on it's initial state, its material, its imperfections, on how far the ground/floor/table is, the air, the particles, the atoms. If we knew everything about the world maybe we could predict the result of the dice with 100% certainty roll before it even finishes.

I don't know, but if I had to guess the answer would be yes, everything is predetermined. Maybe there is something humans don't understand about the world yet. Maybe true randomness exists somewhere in the universe.