this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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Free will also isn't real, but I don't go around to people I know and care about trying to collapse their entire world view around it. Sometimes it's better if people believe in fundamentally incorrect things that don't impact others.
Edit: here's a crazy idea, if you think I'm wrong...that's ok. Just leave me be? Maybe? Isn't that the point of my entire initial comment. Lol.
Why did you write this comment?
Because he wanted someone to ask, "What do you mean free will isn't real?!?!?"
It was relevant to this discussion as I'm saying I similarly wouldn't bring this truth up with someone like my mother or similar as shown in the original post.
My goal is not to convince anyone who feels differently, I just felt others could relate to my example. I will not provide any explanation unless specifically asked as my goal here is not to force my knowledge onto someone who doesn't want it.
I think he's trying to refute your claim that your will isn't free. I.e. you made that comment of your own free will. Not literally asking why you made the comment.
I do not believe I had free will to make or not the comment. And this seems upsetting to many. So I suggest they just keep their world view if it benefits them.
Woosh.
You said that free will isn't real and went on to say the reason YOU DECIDED to make that comment, as well as what YOUR GOAL was, and what YOU WILL OR WILL NOT DO.
If you're not the one deciding what you did in the past or what you will or won't do in the future, it seems pretty arrogant of you to speak one way or the other about it.
At best, maybe you're saying that all existence is just made up of particles colliding and interacting with each other, and that if you knew the exact position, vector, and velocity of the most base level of all particles, you could perfectly predict all future events or extrapolate past events and that we're all forced to proceed just like pool balls moving on the table. Since we currently can't map those values for a single electron, I'm thinking that maybe your "truth" can't be extrapolated to the rest of the 99.99999999999% of existence that we haven't discovered and don't understand.
My favorite part is at the end where you say you're not going to force "your knowledge" on anyone, as if you've found this immutable truth that the rest of us are just too daft to understand.
My guess is that you're between 13 and 22 years old and like to feel special by knowing "the truth." That's why we have flat earthers and people who say that 5G causes autism. Their goal is to feel like one of the enlightened ones much more than performing or understanding research.
If you really want to be a lifelong learner and something closer to a scientist, your goal won't be to arrive at some final destination ("my knowledge"/"the truth") but to continue to move forward, press on, learn more, take it to the next level ("my most recent theory.."/"what I'm thinking right now.."/"this study suggests.."), and drop the arrogance and fake superiority.
I love when I sit on responding to a direct reply for a few days and come to find someone has saved me a TON of time typing up a response :)
It's true, I spent way too long replying. I usually avoid engaging but I think it was the absurdity that made me throw away what had to be at least a combined hour of my day. They responded to a comic about atheism by saying the knew the true nature of the universe.
It was obvious pretty quickly that they weren't in a place where they could accept their belief being challenged, but maybe a really bored person read it all and took something away from it.
Sorry I triggered you. I was predestined to make the comment I made. This one too. Please choose to disengage if it would benefit you most.
I'm always open to any evidence to change my position, I just never am presented with any.
I guess you were also predestined to not address any of the points I made?
Telling someone that their thought process is flawed/immature is not the same as being triggered.
If logic doesn't move the needle, how about this: every person who thinks they have it all figured out is seen by most others as an arrogant douche.
If you ask any real scientist who's running real research and experimentation - those people who have 1,000 more understanding of the subject for which you claim to hold "The Truth" - they'll tell you that every new discovery leads to many more questions. The last step of the scientific process isn't, "sit back and enjoy having figured it all out." It just starts over.
The reason I think (hope) you're younger is because it's more natural for younger people to believe that they get it, they understand, they have the answer. After all, that's much of what school pounds into us: here's The Answers. Repeat them back to me for full credit. Most education is focused on creating a foundation for different subject areas as opposed to teaching students how to learn and think for themselves. Having "the answer" and being "right" is heavily encouraged and younger people gain validation from it. It's natural to continue reaching for more truths and answers instead of innately valuing the learning process itself.
A lot of people never grow out of that stage. Feeling like you own all the answers can be quite comforting. That's why the mom in the comic is broken on the floor. She just lost all the answers that got her that far in life. You probably relate to the guys in the first frames who know The Truth (god isn't real) but you're also being represented by the woman on the floor. You don't know how to cope with the actual truth which is that you don't and will never know The Truth. The best you can do is accept your current level of understanding in all its deficiencies and to keep learning more.
If you currently possess the ability to take in what I said and accept some new Truths about yourself, great. I'm really writing for anyone who might see this and benefit from your example.
Then again, depending on what exactly one means with "triggered", you could say that you've "been triggered" (like activating some mechanism or something) to write a long response :D
(Not trying to join any side of the original discussion, just sharing what's on my mind ^^)
If "triggered" means to be influenced to think or act due to stimuli, then sure, everything is triggering to everyone all of the time. You were triggered to respond. I was triggered to pee when I woke up.
Yes, that's correct.
I have answered the only question presented to me. The rest is you ranting aimlessly to feel better about your own position.
I wish I had 1,000 more understanding though! If you have any legitimate evidence to provide that demonstrates I'm wrong, please share it. If not, shut the fuck up. Or don't. It's not in your control anyway.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could meaningfully clarify what 'truths' I should take away from your comment and why.
It sounds like there's already some cracks in your foundation, and that's a good thing. If you were privy to The Truth you surely wouldn't care about what one person thinks about how flawed your thought process is. You definitely wouldn't tell them to shut the fuck up.
That shows that you're a bit rattled and don't like having your authority challenged. If you can become aware of this predisposition within yourself, you can start to change it.
Anyone who "knows how it all works" stops learning because there is nothing more to learn. They started digging and got all the way to the bottom and there's no more to go. You said you wish you had a 1,000 times more understanding which doesn't align with your position of owning The Truth. Either you understand The Truth or you have a lot of understanding to go. You can't have both. And spoiler, no one has ever come anywhere close to The Truth in any discipline. What we can do however is increase our understanding to be used in meaningful ways and to create and test current and new theories as we keep moving forward.
You can accept this, or tell me to shut the fuck up and down vote my comment. If it's the latter I hope that this either planted a seed or was meaningful in any way to someone else.
I'll edit my comment to respond to the edited addition in your last one:
The truth is that you don't and won't ever know The Truth. Knowledge is a journey, not a destination. Claiming to know The Truth is arrogance and leads to the end of learning. Intellectuals seek to learn more and keep digging while they understand that they'll never reach the bottom.
2+2= who the fuck knows.
Our current understanding of math tells us that it's 4, and simple addition like this led to higher levels of mathematics that we've used to do things like place humans on the moon.
That never would have happened if we'd collectively said, "2+2=4 and now we know all math."
We don't Know All Math. Check out all the unsolved proofs that our best mathematicians haven't been able to solve. And those are just the questions we've thought to ask due to our current level of understanding.
People who acted like you used to believe that they were having a drought because enough virgins weren't blood sacrificed, as that was the contemporary thinking. They were just as unbending as you in believing they knew The Truth. We have the benefit of hindsight and advancements in science to better understand and predict droughts. You're lacking the ability to see your place in history objectively and understand that what you call Truth is merely a theory of today that requires infinitely more understanding.
If you're not ready to accept that you don't know The Truth, that you're not in the special club of enlightened people like everyone who goes to the Flat Earth conferences also believes, I understand. It's not an easy transition from "I'm so smart that I understand the very foundation of reality" to "I'll never know The Truth about anything but I'm excited to keep learning." It's not something that happens quickly either. It's a whole shift that changes how you see everything, and it can initially lead to feeling like the mom in the comic. I hope you can make that transition someday as the earth always needs more scientific minds.
Are you religious or something? I'm confused. Don't worry about me bro, worry about yourself. You sound unwell.
Edit: and the contemporary thinking is that we have free will, not my position that we do not
If you were able to take in anything I've said you wouldn't have asked that, though you've made it abundantly clear that you don't currently value the process of learning. I've never cast judgement on the theory you've chosen to call The Truth. Through everything I've said, you either refuse or can't understand what I've clearly laid out. Your issue is blind acceptance of something you heard. Your arrogance and lack of actual knowledge told you that it sounds neat and makes sense at 30,000 feet so it's Truth.
You go for personal attacks because you have nothing of value to retort or add. Your Knowledge was challenged and you reacted with anger and name calling because you can't reasonably address anything I've said.
You and religious people have a lot more in common than you think. You all believe that you've found The Truth. Whether it's Jesus or some theory you actually know practically nothing about, you're drunk on feeling superior and think you comprehend the very nature of existence. There's no real difference between you and any religious person because there's as much hard evidence for one belief as the other. You believe there's a difference because you chose to go all in on a theory as opposed to a god, and that makes you feel smug.
You're a kid who doesn't know much about anything, and you think you've got existence figured out. It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad and common.
Hopefully you'll grow out of this but there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that may not be the case.
What name calling?
You're the only one making personal attacks. I only expressed my concern that you are unwell. Like just read what you yourself wrote, it's all right there.
I get that you feel like you have to "win" and that since facts and logic aren't on your side you want me to feel upset which would give you some sort of moral victory. You try and change the topic away from you claiming your own god (predestination) in response to an atheism comic no less, to debating my mental health which could put me on the defensive and begin to get under my skin like I have to you.
It doesn't work when you're so transparent though. And even if it had, you'd still walk away knowing that some stranger poked a few holes in the latest belief structure that you were trying to use to make sense of your reality. That would be a fun challenge to an intellectual but just sucks for someone like yourself who wants to be right and feel smug.
There's hope though. You don't have to stay like this. As you get older and mature, your awareness can help you to become someone who's interested in learning instead of being right. Then you could grow into a real intellectual thinker instead of cosplaying one.
You didn't answer the only question: 'what name calling?'
You may want to consider showing this thread to a friend or family member you trust and get their opinion of the interaction. I'm not at all trying to hurt your feelings or belittle you.
Stay in school, kid.
What name calling? What name?
If everything is predestined, whatever you choose is your destiny. Which means you get to choose your destiny. Even if the decision is already determined, your decision process is a part of that and whatever you decide is what becomes the future (or present). Predetermination is irrelevant unless it can be seen beforehand, but if it could, that knowledge could be acted on to change it. So either you can see the future and change it, or you can't so there's no functional difference between it being indeterminate.
I agree entirely with your comment and I experience the illusion of free will. I just recognize it's an illusion.
If you define "free will" as individual processing of input based on your genetic makeup and past experiences/memories and circumstances, with some inherent randomness. Then i guess free will is real.
God damn quantum mechanics is like a "get out of determinism” card.
Randomness is the exact opposite of what people usually mean by freedom, though, isn't it?
Lol, thank you.
But it's true. Our ~~neurons~~ axons are as small as can be, hence they sometimes misfire. Our brain works on that
Nah, that's compatibilism. My favorite use of "that's bullshit but I believe it"
Lol no it's not. This is the dumbest argument of them all.
That there was a joke. What argument do you think I was making?
Misread your comment. My mistake. Missed the sarcasm.