/lit/ - Literature

Just had a long conversation with my (autistic) friend about how he sees the world. For some background, he’s unemployed and basically lies in bed watching YouTube videos all day.

He told me he believes we’re just sacks of DNA and that everything is predetermined and we’re just glorified atomic/chemical reactions. The brain is a computer and “the individual” does not make decisions; instead it is brain chemistry influenced by millions of factors environmental and biological beyond our control. “We do not have free will”. “Every action any human ever takes could be predicted by a computer advanced enough”.

I insisted what he was describing was Fate or destiny, merely made to appear more scientific by using terms like “atoms”, “logic” and “chemical reactions”, and that his thinking was more in line with philosophy than science. He objected to this, claiming that philosophy doesn’t reach conclusions (everything is reducible to chemical or evolutionary programming) in the way he has, and therefore his thinking is scientific. I told him I would attempt to find a philosophical movement that best aligns with his viewpoint, even if it doesn’t use scientific terms that are currently in vogue, whether it be Empiricism or what. What are your thoughts?