/lit/ - Literature

>>11413922
Guess he isn't rainman autistic

>>11413957
Seems more the autism has manifested itself with ontological paradoxes and extremely convoluted reasons not to do things.

>>11413922
Did question him how it was possible for his will to be determined into lying in bed watching YouTube videos all day when it is likely that he was born before YouTube's creation?
What does his body gain from his lazy fate, what is he working up to? It sounds like he has given up with poor excuses.

>>11413922
he should read analytic philosophy so he can understand how and why he's wrong

Why are you friends with 15 year olds?

>>11413985
That's quite a stupid argument, anon, and I hope you're just being factitious. His point is quite obviously that his brain is programmed to seek out pleasure and avoid pain; the particular permutation of the pleasure is mostly irrelevant to this discussion. From what I'm gathering from your post, the only reason you resent OP's roommate is because you think there exist more efficient and durable means of seeking out pleasure and avoiding pain.

>>11413922
i'm an autist with a severe internet addiction who somehow got into a top college through years of experience of arguing on the internet about insincere political ideologies(english is not even my first language). I suffered from disassociative episodes since i was a child, my dad was a conspiracy theory fanatic and a highly imaginative person a post 1960s antinomian that gave me few tools for coping with bourgeoisie society. I was always terrified of people and the outside world and learnt to cope through ironic distancing and alter egos. eternal dilettante, I was into reading wikipedia articles, then classical music and then mu-core but never formed any actual relationships with people online.most of my life was a running away from myself, a constant feeling of anger and shame. i was obsessed with extreme ideologies and the idea of collapse. at one point, I even memed myself into taking Nick Land 100% literally and seriously. It's been of help reading philosophy and i hope i will do better in the future. sometimes i feel like i don't know who I am

>>11413922
Scientific determinism is essentially the same thing as predestination. Your friend is (unwittingly) a Calvinist. Also, he sounds toxic and you should distance yourself from him ASAP.

>>11414031
Not that guy, but if the autist claims he sloths around all day watching Team 10 because his brain only seeks pleasure and avoids pain, then he has already disproven his own argument. Surely living an active, varied, adventurous, exciting life with genuine human connection would be infinitely more pleasurable than watching youtube in bed all day.

>>11413922
He's a retard who sits comfortably in an unchallenging position so he dosn't have to do anything with his existence. He's merely justifying his lifestyle and mental habits, avoiding development. Reality and life are more complex than 'muh free will', or 'everything is just like, biological mannnn'. Personally, I think free will is an ill-conceived notion to begin with, half-baked. As it reduces human choice, and doesn't go into what exactly that is, to a fundamental constituent. But reality isn't blocks of human choices. In any case, discarding all this, you might as well do something and develop your thinking/understanding because his alternative is teetering on the edge of nonexistence. The brain is not really a computer btw, that's dribble meant to evoke emotional justification (quite against his apparent worldview), though it is just as mechanistic. You could consider it as such but that's just expanding the word into meaninglessness and it offers nothing of use, it's just rhetoric.

I don't know OP, he just seems like every other nu-atheist, 'enlightened' rationalist that you see everywhere. He probably doesn't even understand the justifications and 'science' he parades as excuses, let alone has considered it philosophically. It's infantile. He needs to start thinking and studying, from the very basics.

t. biologist

>>11414053
you sound like a poster child for what the internet does to someone. What would happen to you if you unplugged and were left alone for two weeks with nothing to do but meditate with all your food, water, and shelter needs met?

You've defined yourself in relation to all these ideas and concepts that themselves are ill-defined. Of course you don't know who you are. There's nothing to know.

In a sense, you've ended up in a place of false enlightenment. You have no sense of individuality, no real ego as such. But it's false, in that you still identify with the ego. It's fascinating to meet people like you in the real world. It's like running into an almost complete video game, nothing but a simulacrum of a human that, if they could only get over themselves, would be amazing.

But they always end up lost to the machine, because they spend all their time online.

>>11414031
>seeking out pleasure and avoiding pain.
You could easily argue becoming a Buddhist monk or some kind of ascetic (Buddhism doesn't have that much asceticism), is the best way of achieving this. Ultimately, some vague talk of pain and pleasure denies the complexity of the matter, and the specifics of individuals. They're meaningless concepts beyond casual speak.

Your friend might like the Philosophical Investigations, if he approaches it with an open mind.

I have a life and actually try to achieve things but I think what I'm going to accomplish or not accomplish is probably predetermined. He's just using it as an excuse to do nothing.

>>11413922
>talk with autistic friend
>"philosophy is useless, science has all the answers"
>proceeds to spit out a basic philosophical observation about free will as if it was the most profound thing, confident that he had debunked the entirety of philosophy as he lay in his cum-stained sheets

Sounds about right desu.

>>11413922
What he is saying is an argument though. It requires philosophy/logic to be prior to chemistry to even make the argument that chemistry is prior to all else. If philosophy is not prior to chemistry then tell him to make his arguments in chemistry alone i.e. with molecules not words or language or logic.

I imagined your autistic friend's arguments in Baldrick's voice.

The best thing you could do for him is to call him out for being a lazy autistic faggot. Call him that. Use the words "lazy autistic faggot."

>>11414158
No. It sounds like a Mind Body argument that was solved hundreds of years ago. And OPs friend has conjoined the two under a flag of physiological science. Ultimately it boils down to "humans do humans things" and is completely substantiated, but utterly useless as a profound logical argument. Physics didn't kill philosophy, it absorbed it.

>>11413922 (OP)

Are you me lol? Over the years I have memed myself into embracing so many extreme ideologies ita not even funny, though I wouldn't say I was insincere, for as long as I was, say a tankie, I was a true believer. Though nowadays I'm more aware I was essentially escaping the mental and emotional drudgery of wageslavery. As for feeling you don't know who you are, I would say there's nothing there, we all carry a lack or void inside us and seek with filling it with something but it can ever be done, and ironically by having so many meme personas online is how I've discovered this, I think it's the Buddhists who get it right with their concept of "anatta."

Now that doesn't mean "nothing is true everything is permitted lmao" on the contrary, ethics might be the only thing that matter on the long run.

>>11413922
He is 100% right in everything he said. Fuck off OP.

His lack of free will has nothing to do with his lack of will though. Thats just laziness or procastrination because of neuroticism and depression.

Tell him to make sure he is a determinist and not a fatalist.

>>11414251 (me)

Meant to reply to >>11414053 but messed up the formatting (thanks omnichan)

>>11414105
if you where literally him you would find watching youtube all day better than those things.

>>11413922
Free will is an illusion and your friend is correct, but unless he is filthy rich he needs to react before its too late.
I used to be in the same situation as he is but I managed to climb out of the hole by embracing the illusion of free will.

We have to make many choices in life, it really does not matter if the outcome of the choice and the choice itself are deterministic because you don't know what the future holds.

Lying in bed all day because why bother everything is predetermined is not determinism it's fatalism.
Getting up and bettering your life because you expect these choices will affect your future in a positive way is determinism.
Cause and effect, the cause of positive changes in me was brought about by mentally visualizing the shitty future I had ahead of me if I did nothing about it.

tldr; even if everything is predetermined you dont know what the future is so you have to act as if you had free will.

>>11414251
i'm doing well for myself, but I worry about saying inapropriate and or bizarre things. I think we are caught in a weird transitional period, historically speaking, and i'm trying to reconnect with literature and philosophy, my own country's culture, and repair my relationships with the people nearest to me. I hope it all goes well in the end for everyone. I'm interested in the anti psychiatric works of RD Laing and kinda blame capitalism and technology for giving me mental illness, but I also agree with Cristopher Lasch's criticisms of the post 60s mentality. (my parents could have been hippies out of 1970s California) Psychology is historically conditioned y'know? I do believe there is some sort of world soul you can connect with through music art, or history or just talking sincerely and passionately to other people.

>>11413922
>What are your thoughts?
I need to watch Blackadder again

>>11414332

>I do believe there is some sort of world soul you can connect with through music art, or history or just talking sincerely and passionately to other people.

Yes. Absolutely. At the end of the day I've discovered this by doing an effort to nurture my relationships with the people I care about (many of them live far away but what can I do?) I hope things turn out well for you.

>>11414168
Same.

>>11413922
he needs to be less of a materialist reductionaist and go out into the world and find some awe. tell him to try weed, go for a hike in the desert, or read some tolstoy.

We are just sacks and nothing matters.

>>11413922

Your friend is actually a radical rationalist who bases his rationalism on arguments from authority. He's got the philosophy of a Victorian spinster.

>>11414309
But the universe is not determinist so what are you talking about?

Tell him that he only thinks that way because of his condition. Autistic people have a part of their mind missing. They can't recognize personal agency.

>>11414168
underrated

>>11415028
>rationalism on arguments from authority

What does this mean exactly?

>>11413922
epic b8 anon. look at all these pseuds you've caught

>>11415641
"I am right, and science supports my claim"

Free will is limited, we can choose to do what we want but we cant choose what it is that we want

>>11414168
>when Percy discovers Green

>>11414309
>if you where literally him you would find watching youtube all day better than those things

Wrong. I know it's in vogue to role-play the "I'm just such an antisocial introvert geek xD I hate people!!1!" character, but in reality humans are social creatures; even watching Youtube is a social activity, although very diluted and remote. There is not a single person who would truly rather watch a LCD screen in bed alone all day than be spending time with a cute, amiable, intelligent woman or doing something outdoors with friends who share your interests. The problem is that OP's friend is autistic, is self-aware in regards to his social impediments, is afraid of rejection, and so he settles for solitude and "safe" pseudo-social activities (activities that shallowly mimic social interaction but without the danger of rejection) out of cowardice, convincing himself that he prefers loneliness so that he doesn't have to confront his cowardly nature and can shirk responsibility for his pitiful condition.

I know this because I'm the same way, essentially a coward.

>>11413922
Your friend sounds like a loser, but he's not wrong.

>>11414251
>we all carry a lack or void inside us and seek with filling it with something but it can ever be done
I told you so.

"We do not have free will"
Just start kicking the shit out of him and when he tells you to stop, tell him you're not doing anything

Such a fucking nonsense philosophy

>>11413922
>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”.
this is what every "gifted introvert" 14 year old sayds

>>11416530
you are so self ashamed and you are so obssesivily self-aware about your cringe making cowardice that forget all the hipocrisy and intrinic rules and fake notions of yourself what you need in order to be "genually" social.

basically you idealize the social game because you want to be part of it but you cant, or you think you cant.

>>11415641

He derives his worldview entirely from principles, and his principle is deference to authority. He's not scientific, he's somebody who makes appeals to Science, the institution, as explained by popularizers.

He's literally the same as a Victorian spinster making appeals to the general opinion of her fellow parishioners and the declarations of the priest about what's 'right.' She might say things like, "well a lot of people might go for these silk stockings but really they're just a lot of sin." She uses statements like this to isolate her from the dynamism of the world because it scares her. She will live in a room in her father's house, perfectly proper, until she dies.

>>11416675
I've seen her butt, filled with sharpies.

>>11414130
Where are you getting this from?

>>11416702

I have the whole set.

I've seen everything.

>>11416657
>you are so self ashamed and you are so obssesivily self-aware about your cringe making cowardice
I'm with you so far. I agree with some slight reservations.
> that forget all the hipocrisy and intrinic rules and fake notions of yourself what you need in order to be "genually" social
Now you've lost me. Are you saying that being social (or at least, for someone like me or OP's friend to be social) is inherently dishonest and hypocritical? If so, I don't agree with that at all and I won't waste time refuting it because you didn't see fit to support it.
>basically you idealize the social game
Now you've outed yourself as one of us, but like OP's friend, you lack a certain level of self-awareness. Are you saying that you consider meaningful relationships as just part of "the social game"? And if I "idealize" these relationships, why shouldn't I? Aside from faith and love of God, what could possibly be more important than love, friendship, brotherhood, etc. with other humans?
>you want to be part of it but you cant, or you think you cant
Exactly. There is nothing wrong with wanting positive social activity and meaningful relationships. I would like to bring to your attention that 4chan is a pseudo-social tool, we are socializing in a way right now, and that reading literature is maybe the highest and most intimate form of pseudo-socializing, being a somewhat efficient and accurate connection to the thoughts of others.

You should ask him if wants something out of life, and pursue it. It's not really difficult.

He's a slob who knows that he's wasting time, which is why he needs this huge rationalization to not do anything.

>>11416702
>>11416726
Anons... please

>>11416732
>love, friendship, brotherhood
in the "social game" (including 4chan and literature) is all, everything happens. hatred, treachery and separation included.

you are the one who say what is social and what is pseudo social. this is stupid, if everything we do is social (or everything we do who imply some kind of contact..) your necessity of proclaim what is truly and genuinely social is what i feel is fake. you need do this in order to mantain some kind of aspiration.

>is inherently dishonest and hypocritical
only if you dont know the appropiate person and you force yourself to be "social". and believe me is heartbreakingly common

>>11413922
>everything is reducible to chemical or evolutionary programming
>Science
>Downstream of philosophy

Yeah nah, your "friend" is retarded. You can just openly ask the question next time t.b.h. But the main problem is as a scientist how do you even contextualize sense data? How does it mean anything if you don't have mathematics, metaphysics, logical categories, etc?

If our existence is reducible to chemicals in the brain, why do I experience a theaterical screen of my life instead of unadulterated chemical experience? Why do I feel as though there is some private quality to my consciousness?

>>11416843
>in the "social game" (including 4chan and literature) is all, everything happens. hatred, treachery and separation included
And yet you are still here conversing with me, so you must think it's worthwhile despite the dangers.

>>11413922
The thing is - he's right. That is, he's right for himself. Autistic people are reducible to "sacks of DNA", they have no soul in any deeper sense of the word.