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6549452 No.6549452 [Reply] [Original]

What do I do now that I know free will is an illusion?

Should I kill myself? How can I enjoy this meaningless life?

>> No.6549455

>Should I kill myself?

Yes.

>> No.6549457

Stop caring.

>> No.6549459

>>6549452
Why does it matter? Everything is exactly the same as before you were convinced of this. Even if you kill yourself it will have already been determined.

>> No.6549465

>>6549452
Remember determinism=/=fatalism

>> No.6549475

whoa what if free will really is an illusion

>> No.6549513

Embrace the enjoyable

>> No.6549531

Define "free will".

>> No.6549539

>>6549452
You don't have any control over a movie but you may still enjoy it. If you don't enjoy the film you can always kill yourself. Give it a chance though. Also look into neuroscience and expose yourself to positive information.

related: Which philosophers accept that free will is an illusion and discuss the consequences?

>> No.6549559

>>6549452
If you don't have free will you can't decide, dipshit. You can't have it both ways.

>> No.6549573

We were all predetermined to get rused into thinking determinism is a thing.

>> No.6549598

I don't understand, OP, why you'd believe something that makes you unhappy. Ideas are operating systems, they aren't meant to get in the way of our happiness.

>> No.6549603

>>6549452

Both Kierkegaard and Camus rejected this solution to the same question. If life is meaningless, killing yourself makes as much sense as doing anything else. Is it really about the lack of meaning in your life if you do it then?

The fact that, physically speaking, you don't have free will doesn't concern you either because your will works on a different level. Someone, with all the information in the universe, might be able to calculate every single action you're going to take, but you still have to take an action. Wait, what does that even mean? Well nobody fucking knows. It's called the hard problem of consciousness. Maybe you could dedicate your life to figuring it out.

Speaking from experience you're most likely unhappy for entirely different reasons and simply rationalizing with philosophy. What makes you happy? Go do that. If you don't think there's any meaning to life that just means no one has the right to judge you for whatever that is.

>> No.6549605
File: 200 KB, 1239x795, killurselfmymane.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6549605

>Should I kill myself

The answer is always yes.

>> No.6549614

Reminder that philosophy by Schopenhauer's era was literally recreational unhappiness for people with no real problems. If you've ever had to cook your own food or work, you don't need it.

>> No.6549628

>>6549605
>helium tank
>45 bucks
>mask
>another 50
fuck that shit, I'm not getting robbed right before I die. I've still got princples

>> No.6549629

>>6549603

One doesn't kill himself because life is meaningless. One kills himself because in life you are always escaping from suffering to live another day, and once you are comfy you get bored, and you start escaping from boreness, getting in suffering-related endeavours again. And this is absurd as fuck, it's like someone was playing you a joke all the time about life goals.

>> No.6549637

>>6549629
It's not absurd. Those behaviors exist because of evolution and can all be explained.

>> No.6549640

>>6549629

So, one kills himself because of a semantic confusion about the concept of 'goals'.

>> No.6549646

>>6549628
Excuses, excuses, excuses.

We both know you wont need the money in death.
You can also pop a plastic bag over your head and tape it off, so money shouldn't be an issue either way.

>> No.6549652

>>6549640

Can't you understand that some people just get bored with life? that they don't want to experience yolo and bullshit?

It's pessimism, it's depression, it's anhedonia, i don't know, but some people just do it. I'm pretty sure that if some people could see all their lives in this very moment, all that which will happen, all the situations, they will see how futile it's and they would just go and trigger the gun into their heads

I won't kill myself in a time from now on because I'm young and I still want to see things, it's pure curiosity, but i can understand how some people at 40 or 50 years old just kill themselves without regret.

>>6549637

I don't think people can get concerned with that

>> No.6549653

>>6549637
Welp, evolution can account for it all so it's been solved. Go home everybody.

>> No.6549659

>>6549452
>What do I do now that I know free will is an illusion?
>I know free will is an illusion
>What do I do
>I know free will is an illusion
>What do I do
>I know
>I do
You don't seem to know shit.

>> No.6549674

Who gives a shit that there is no free will. Does it stop you from enjoying an orgasm? Does it stop you from enjoying a good film? Does it stop you from enjoying anything? No.

All realizing there is no free will did for me was make me more empathetic towards people.

>> No.6549676

>>6549652

Yes, I understand that. I'll do it myself eventually, for different reasons. But misunderstanding that the point of goals is that they're future tense, that being dissatisfied after they're achieved is natural, that life isn't about reaching some equilibrium and just stopping, is a poor reason to do it.


>>6549653

The point is, it fucking has. 99% of philosophical problems from that era are indistinguishable from fedora rant. Same unquestioned privilege, same lack of self-awareness, same assumption that not getting your own way occasionally means the universe is a black joke. Philosophy became literature because as any contribution to thought it's as useless as astrology, now.

>> No.6549681

>>6549603
Except killing yourself ends the suffering, while choosing to live effectively doesn't change anything.
You still have to deal with suffering, which is what causes people to kill themselves in the first place.

>> No.6549690

Who's meant to have established that free will is an illusion? Schopenhauer? How, when he had zero scientific education?

The people who now say it aren't saying that, what they're saying is that much of decision making precedes cognition. Big whoop.

>> No.6549693

>>6549676
I know it has. It's the "so it's been solved" that was meant ironically because It's not a fucking math problem.

>> No.6549695

>>6549681

If you did something with your life, choosing to live would do something. Killing yourself ends pleasure and everything else. The opposite of 'alive' is not 'painless'.

>> No.6549698

>>6549693

I knew you were being ironic but I thought the irony was 'science can't explain everything yo'.

>> No.6549712

>>6549695
This relies on the presumption that a person wants to undertake something. It also assumes that suffering can be outweighed by pleasure, and that such a thing would be preferable in the first place.

>> No.6549717

>>6549690

The whole concept is absurd. It doesn't make sense on a very basic level.

What kind of magic do you think exists out there that for some reason changes the laws that particles follow specifically in the brain of some bipedal ape? And who is making the decision and how?

>> No.6549719

>>6549629
Maybe you lose at life because you live at a constant retreat. Who ever heard of someone winning a war by running away?

>> No.6549725

>>6549712

Yes, it relies on the assumption that you're not bone-idle and self-pitying.

Suffering doesn't have a weight, it's a state of mind. This kind of moping used to work when philosophers disregarded the 99.9% of people who had no problem functioning other than the problems caused by the economic system that allowed them to philosophize, but it's comedic in the 21st century to do all this 'life is but a joke' shit when everyone knows what real problems are. Depression is depression, not thinking.

>> No.6549733

>>6549717

Read what was said again. I'm not disagreeing with you, idiot. The point is, consciousness is not the prime mover that it was once believed to be. That's all the assertion means, it doesn't invalidate what consciousness does.

>> No.6549738

>>6549733
>consciousness is not the prime mover that it was once believed to be
It's the perception of the prime mover.

>> No.6549743

>>6549719

Please go to bed Nietzsche

>> No.6549746

Love of Fate

>> No.6549753
File: 54 KB, 600x456, 1413629459793.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6549753

>>6549743
>going to sleep like a chinaman or buddhist

>> No.6549754

>>6549738

Yes.

Most people rely on instinct more than intellection, so this is in many ways a confirmation of how they proceed and a refutation of a lot of how intellectuals insisted we must function.

>> No.6549776

The whole debacle over the free will thing seems like a very poorly thought out concept that people then get needlessly upset over when it gets punctured like a balloon just because they became emotionally invested with the thing.

>> No.6549777

>>6549738
>>6549754

... I mean, think of the times people will say 'I felt it in my waters' or 'I knew in my gut' - it's an acknowledgment that the thought didn't originate in consciousness as such.

>> No.6549784

>>6549776

I think there is a danger of semantic confusion. People take it as an argument for predestination, which it doesn't seem to me it can be.

>> No.6549789

>>6549725
>Yes, it relies on the assumption that you're not bone-idle and self-pitying.

Once again you're making assumptions.
One can be entirely apathetic to live with being bone-idle and self-pitying.
Some men might simply consider non-existence the preferable state of life, it is a state without suffering after all, and suicide would be the gateway to that state.

You're also equating suffering with depression.
Sure depression is exactly that depression; a medical disorder, a chemical imbalance, whatever.
Depression is part of suffering, but suffering encompasses more than just depression. People without also suffer. Depression has little to do with as far as I'm concerned.

>> No.6549795

>>6549789
Fuck me man, forgot a handful of words in some places, but whatever it gets the point across.

>> No.6549797

How do you know that free will is an illusion?
Also please define free will.
Also determinism does not disprove free will.

>What is compatibilism

>> No.6549800

>>6549452
>How can I enjoy this meaningless life?
Hedonism
Now go fuck a bitch or something

>> No.6549821

>>6549789

No, I'm not. Again, you're in the wrong century for this. 'Apathetic to live with being bone-idle and self-pitying' means the same thing as 'am bone-idle and self-pitying'. Your anachronistic use of 'men' is telling here. It isn't a 'state without suffering', it isn't, in terms of consciousness, a state.

Depression has everything to do with it. With the right meds, your suffering wouldn't be there. Seriously, I have cyclothymia, I don't take medication, but I consequently take this suffering with a massive pinch of salt. It is something happening to the chemicals in the brain.

This territory isn't philosophy any longer, any more than astrology is science.

>> No.6549824

>>6549797

Compatibilism is just people redefining free will to mean something that is compatible with the human brain following the laws of physics. It's worthless.

When people normally talk of free will they talk of the concept that they as agents have some capacity to decide what happens in the future, and that on any given choice they make, they somehow could've made a different choice.

>> No.6549826

>>6549465
>>6549797

They are right.
It's like all of you just read wikipedia articles.

>> No.6549827

>>6549725
>it's a state of mind.
states of mind are scientifically observable, they're not magic.

>> No.6549839

>>6549824

Which is true, inasmuch as there is never more than one instance of any given choice. Their brains, upwind or downwind of the moment of their actual choosing, *could* come up with a different choice because the consciousness is surely chemically different at that moment? I'm not aware of anything that's contradicted that, it is, effectively, a misunderstanding between scientists and people especially concerned to preserve the notion of personal sovereignty.

All it cramps is the idea of parallel universes, and they were only ever thought experiments anyway.

>> No.6549844

>>6549827

Correct, that's exactly what I'm saying. Suffering is simply one chemical state of affairs. Change the chemicals and you change the state of affairs.

>> No.6549845

>>6549824

But they can. They just won't do it.

>> No.6549858

>>6549839

I don't see how the fact that one is never faced with the exact same moment makes either of the things I mentioned true.

>>6549845

What does that mean

>> No.6549868

>>6549858

It makes the second one true because the brain is different. There is never more than one moment for a single choice. The tense 'could have' implies a second chance. In the context of that idea, doing it a second time, the choice is different because the brain is different.

>> No.6549871

>>6549452
Well you obviously no one told you about David Hume and you live under a rock.

>> No.6549882

The point is, to think that life is meaningless because consciousness is no longer held to be the origin point of decisions is absurd. Your brain isn't different today from what it was before you knew that. This doesn't mean 'you aren't real', it doesn't mean 'every moment of your life is predetermined', it just means that your sovereignty, if you were committed to that idea, doesn't reside where you think it does - the body is thinking you. What else did you imagine was happening, if you really think about it?

>> No.6549884

>>6549868

That's true. But the ordinary person imagine that "could have made a different choice" as a scenario where you went back in time to that exact moment they could've made a different choice with the same brain. In any case that's just a way to illustrate the way people believe in free will.

>> No.6549889

And again, the idea of 'soul' always implied an element that was pre-volitional, hardwired, not alterable by software, for want of a less crude analogy. The mind has prepared us for knowing this, if you wanted to be cute about it.

>> No.6549892

>>6549884

Indeed! I'm glad I conveyed what I meant.

>> No.6549909

>>6549884

But no one believes this...

>> No.6549915

>>6549858

It means they still had the ability to do something different but they did not want to.

>> No.6549921
File: 26 KB, 698x672, 1427313628036.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6549921

>>6549573

>> No.6549922

>>6549909

In what sense don't they? Not that anon, but it seems a good description of the 'I could have done it differently' thought to me.

>> No.6549931

>>6549922

Because then they would believe they have the knowledge what will happen in the future, so their brain would also be different with this knowledge in it.

>> No.6549941

>>6549915

How did they have the ability

>> No.6549946

>>6549931

I didn't literally mean go back in time in some time machine you autist

>> No.6549951

>>6549941

Do you lose your ability to walk when you sit down?

>> No.6549957

>>6549931

The time-travel in this case is more the syntax of the thought than an imagined experience of time travel. What they're imagining is that they have the same brain now that they had then, and could therefore choose as the imagine choosing differently now. But they didn't have the same brain then, and they could not have chosen differently.

>> No.6549960

>>6549539
>Which philosophers accept that free will is an illusion and discuss the consequences?

john gray

>> No.6549963

>>6549951

I think you're trolling me with these inane statements

>> No.6549965

>>6549951

Oh, you're talking about the ability of the motor skills, not decision-making.

>> No.6549974

>>6549931
>>6549957

In fact, I should have said 'the time travel in this case is the syntax of the thought, rather than an imagined experience of time travel'. I fudged it to be agreeable, but as >>6549946 has been more forthright, I retract the fudging. :)

>> No.6549997

>>6549719
Worked for de Gaulle =^)

>> No.6550001

>>6549997
He's french, they don't count.

>> No.6550008

>>6549946
>>6549957

Then I don't see how anyone believes this... Of course you would make the same decision.

>> No.6550026

>>6549960
I'm liking straw dogs so far, although is disagree with the thesis. I accept humans are animals, but we are different and if we really do reach the singularity we will have transcended nature to some degree.

>> No.6550058

I honestly have problems coping with the idea of free will,
Did anyone honestly believe this? I dont think ive ever made a good life decision based purely on my conscious, gut instinct will always lead you towards real contentment. The coin flip test is the perfect example: when you come to a big decision in your life, and you dont know what to do, flip a coin. Youll know exactly what you really want right before the coin lands.

>> No.6550091

>>6550058
What if you generally don't care about what the coin tells? I've been in the situation before that I didn't reallu care what the outcome would be. Merely delaying the end game.

>> No.6550367

>>6550091

The I Ching nigger, it will make you think since everybody is too stupid to do it alone anyway (myself included)

>> No.6550477
File: 448 KB, 200x183, 1419789995089.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6550477

>>6549452
I dunno. Do what you want.

>> No.6550492
File: 21 KB, 338x203, 1367686355927.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6550492

Free will may be an illusion, but your interpretation of things is not.

Just like you cannot change what is visibly and audibly shown during a movie, but you can choose what your viewpoint on it is.

`Free will` is actually suspension of disbelief. You are watching a movie with haptic feedback feedback

>> No.6550498
File: 57 KB, 1322x180, meaning.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6550498

>>6549452
Pic related, you just need some time to mourn your presumptions and bury your spooks.

>> No.6550530

Everything is a chain of whys that all lead back to the same thing.

>> No.6550544

>>6549452

Define free
Define will
Define free will

>> No.6550548

>>6549963
>>6549965

:^)

>> No.6551864

>He thinks there's a difference between determinism and free will

LMAO

>> No.6551897

>>6549452
>What do I do now that I know free will is an illusion?
Whatever you want to.
>Should I kill myself?
Yeah.
>How can I enjoy this meaningless life?
Sex, drugs, violence, art. There's a lot of fun shit to do. Life has no pourpose or meaning, but that's not even a bad thing. It's just a fact some people don't want to admit, but admitting it won't really change anything.

>> No.6551910

It never stops amazing me how people actually become depressed after deluding themselves into thinking that free will doesn't exist

>> No.6551913
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6551913

>>6549452
What could possibly constitute "meaning"?

>> No.6551914

>>6549455
>>6549605
>>6551897
Don't tell people to kill themselves you fucking scumbags

>> No.6551925
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6551925

>>6551864
>He's a compatablist!

>> No.6551930

>>6551914
We don't have the free will required for not doing that, sorry. Also, kill yourself.

>> No.6551931
File: 854 KB, 600x887, all is just fine.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6551931

>>6551914
Fuck off fam.

>> No.6551936

>>6551925
>Implying that's what I meant

LMAO

>> No.6551944

>>6551930
Do you want me to beat the shit out of you, nigger

>> No.6551954

>>6551936
Then what did you mean?

>> No.6551977

>>6549605
you should avoid posting this shit dude. This is LEGITIMATE and could actively cause deaths

>> No.6552019

>>6551977
the right to life is the right to death

>> No.6552031

>>6549614
>tfw you will never cook your own work

>> No.6552036
File: 12 KB, 638x336, image.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6552036

>>6551977