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submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Have you went down any internet rabbit holes only to come out with a deep set existential crisis? If so, what are they?

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[-] [email protected] 30 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Free will.

It's hard to accept, but free will is just not compatible with reality. It's like geocentrism. It seems obvious on its face because of our limited perspective, but nothing else in the universe makes sense if it's true. We live in a mechanistic universe and cause and effect doesn't suddenly stop when the atoms are part of a human.

I freaked out for about a week once I came to realize how much of our society is based on a scientific impossibility. Redesigning justice, ethics, healthcare, the very concept of blame, etc. to account for this is a daunting fucking prospect.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 3 days ago

Subatomic particles act in insane ways that are absolutely not mechanical or predictible. A very limited size of object behaves "normally". I think believing that the universe mostly acts like our everyday objects is the skewed perspective.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago

Not being predictable by us does not mean they offer free will.

The preconditions are so precise that you'll never be able to get exactly the same results from trying to do the same thing twice - you'll never be able to do the same thing twice. But that doesn't stop cause and effect determining the outcome. There is no place where free will can enter in to any equation at any micro or macroscopic level and just having unpredictable microscopic events doesn't give you control of your own destiny. This is totally separate from your own perceptions of having choices you make. Personally I find myself doing things I didn't consciously choose to do. Once you start noticing them you might find more and more.

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this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024
81 points (96.6% liked)

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