Is agency bullshit? -

[Ari Gold]

I like to think that free will is possible. But I recognize that the external world has a great influence over my own understanding of the matter including my own upbringing.

Can a person exercise free and independent thought or action?

Or does the environment and the constraints it places on the person prevent an individual from ever obtaining something resembling freedom?

 

[Exorbital Columnations]

Just because we're constrained by the laws of the universe and civilization it doesn't mean we lack free will. We're free to work within the confines of reality.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

To answer your question: sure, if you're a woman, according to some women

You have free will. But just because you have free will, doesn't mean that the world around you will always accommodate your will.

 

[Rusty Crab]

This but unironically. The notion of 'free will' is a preposterous concept that requires supernatural intervention.

However, it's important that we PRETEND like it exist because we're stupid monkeys and if we don't, everyone will start acting like retards because they think they're blameless. THAT is why we blame people for their actions.

Daniel Dennett has some interesting thoughts on why free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive. However... I never fully grasped what he was saying and it seems like nobody else did either. It seemed like his definition of 'free will' is not what people think of when they hear that word. Granted, the talk was aimed mostly at other philosophers, so who knows what level of kool-aid that's at.

 

[Exorbital Columnations]

View attachment 2059563

This but unironically. The notion of 'free will' is a preposterous concept that requires supernatural intervention.

However, it's important that we PRETEND like it exist because we're stupid monkeys and if we don't, everyone will start acting like retards because they think they're blameless. THAT is why we blame people for their actions.

Daniel Dennett has some interesting thoughts on why free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive. However... I never fully grasped what he was saying and it seems like nobody else did either. It seemed like his definition of 'free will' is not what people think of when they hear that word. Granted, the talk was aimed mostly at other philosophers, so who knows what level of kool-aid that's at.

You're only saying that because you're a biological robot who is compelled to say it.

 

[Rusty Crab]

You're only saying that because you're a biological robot who is compelled to say it.

Pretty much, yeah.
The biology I was born with and subsequent information I had fed to me lead me to that conclusion. My consciousness is just the backseat driver that thinks it was clever enough to come up with that itself (very very loosely speaking).

 

[Penis Drager]

You're only saying that because you're a biological robot who is compelled to say it.

You too

 

[WhoBusTank69]

Most of what we do is formed by our perspective, our experiences, and how we comprehend them, which is what truly makes us unique. I suppose that's what can be mistaken for "free will," though I think it's a much more enticing description of it.

 

[Exorbital Columnations]

Pretty much, yeah.
The biology I was born with and subsequent information I had fed to me lead me to that conclusion. My consciousness is just the backseat driver that thinks it was clever enough to come up with that itself (very very loosely speaking).

It's funny because I fail to see how society would progress in any way shape or form if this is all just predetermined biologically. How does a new idea come into being and become implemented in reality if we're all just automata? Are the internet and atom bombs just lying latent in our genetic code, waiting for any one of us to be triggered by some environmental factor into building them?

 

[Rusty Crab]

It's funny because I fail to see how society would progress in any way shape or form if this is all just predetermined biologically.

Nothing fundamentally changes based on whether or not we got our ideas from 'free will' or the laws of chemistry in action.

If you're looking at amoebas, they're just kind of floating about, consuming and splitting every once in a while. They pretty clearly have agency of some sort because they're 'doing things', but one would hardly call that free will because the cause and effect is so obvious.

You move up to watching a mound of ants, and their actions are clearly more complex, but they still have pretty simple responses to their environment and one would be hard pressed to call them conscious beings with free will.

Then you do the same thing with grasshoppers, then mice, then bluejays, then cats, then gorillas, then monkeys, then dolphins, then humans. Where does that 'free will' line start? When do animals start being independent of the chemistry around them?

How does a new idea come into being and become implemented in reality if we're all just automata? Are the internet and atom bombs just lying latent in our genetic code, waiting for any one of us to be triggered by some environmental factor into building them?

In a way, yeah. It's more that the laws that make those things possible are waiting to be discovered by beings that can recognize them. The Internet is built with natural materials (precious metals and electricity, mostly) and there exist ways to put those things together to make what we call the internet. Our brains were (apparently) biologically equipped to learn patterns to make that happen, so we did it.

EDIT: I'm glad that you respectfully disagree, but still love me

 

[Exorbital Columnations]

EDIT: I'm glad that you respectfully disagree, but still love me

Cringe.

 

[Rusty Crab]

Cringe.

lets take this as an example actually.

What you just did was negative reinforcement. The intent there is to feed a piece of information into my brain that will make me less likely to do that again in the future. I know this because previous information I've received in my life tells me that 'cringe' is a bad thing. Under normal circumstances, a typical person would take this information and adjust their behavior to something else because you said 'cringe'.

But the previous experiences I'VE had made me into a weirdo and now I'm more likely to do it! I was BORN in the CRINGE! MOLDED by it!

I still love you

 

[Exorbital Columnations]

lets take this as an example actually.

What you just did was negative reinforcement. The intent there is to feed a piece of information into my brain that will make me less likely to do that again in the future. I know this because previous information I've received in my life tells me that 'cringe' is a bad thing. Under normal circumstances, a typical person would take this information and adjust their behavior to something else because you said 'cringe'.

But the previous experiences I'VE had made me into a weirdo and now I'm more likely to do it! I was BORN in the CRINGE! MOLDED by it!

I still love you

Nah, I'd like you to continue being cringe and gay. This is the right subforum for it.

 

[L50LasPak]

I mean, you have free will, but the overwhelming majority of your choices amount to a narrow category of "This sucks but at least I won't eat shit for it." and the much larger category of "Eat shit."