Yeah but apart from mathematics, symbols must have a concrete target it is connected to. If death is nothing then it cannot cause even any feelings, unless we have conditioned and suggested ourselves with that particular word, "death" so it causes for example fear. Of course the culture does this for us.

You've given such a basic take, it's not hard to understand.

But yes, your advice is really good, maybe you should meditate on it.

Here are some basic starting points

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

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I think the author could have easily said “why birth?”

The cross from non-existence to existence or vice versa is absurd. Actually any existence is absurd to begin with. Buy if we except that we are here. And there is something happening here. Then why phase in and out of it?

That’s how I took it.

I find this not to be amongst those that embrace absurdism. Rather, I feel like this is the response of either one unable to accept it or one fighting hard to place order upon it.

>So you believe that the existence of the universe itself is a non-determined random occurrence? Because that’s what it sounds like…

Language fails. These words don't really mean much when we're talking about an object of which there is no outside. The universe cannot be said to follow from anything else, because there is nothing before it. Nor can it be said to serve any other purpose than itself, because there is nothing beyond it. The universe is not an occurrence; it is occurrence itself, the entire web of causality.

Things that occur occur necessarily – but does occurrence have to occur? It makes no sense for something to necessarily cause causality itself. Thus I do not believe the universe can be called a necessary phenomenon, even though all that is a part of it necessarily follows.

I only see the memes about fucking up snails on reddit tbh but it seems like there are scientists trying to implant memories and shit right now.

Again though thats entirely from memes so huge grain of salt but yeah according to a determinist it would be possible to put memories into someone or implant desires or whatever

I misread you the first time. Duty to me is not really something that is prevalent in our western culture, however, the culture of positive do's you call positive moral duties still revolves around what society deems valuable, which is money. So anything that gets money is seen as good, and the reverse bad, the rest, indifferent. And indeed, we learn this gradually, however there must be some overlap between our moral instincts such as doing good work, and preserving the status quo, avoiding conflicts.

I did not realize that positive moral obligations could also be self limiting, yet we are striving towards it, because they are what we should be or do, culturally.

One would require basically therapy on a global scale to change something.

But yes, I agree with your premises. I do think it is gradually shifting already, the last generation understands the flaws of our current system and strives to behave otherwise. One very obvious thing is the openness of discussion of mental illness and the struggles of life.

The rules are actually quite clear

Sure, I'm a layperson here too re: QM, perhaps I'll make it back with a refreshed opinion. Thanks!

>Like we dont see random things happening on a macro level we see very predictable things.

Right.

>because we dont have 100% knowledge of it how it all works right now doesnt mean we cant know it right?

Hard agree, but nonetheless I think it could be unknowable, these could be purely philosophical questions with this origin in determinism making it seem scientific.

Being able to smoke pot or know where a hippocampus is has no bearing on it, regardless of the "complexity" or our current "X%" knowledge, we might never be able to play back a memory or fully control functions. I assume deterministic thinking disagrees with this?

I have no idea if its absolutely true its my understanding that its the consensus of physicists but i am not a physicist and have not done enough research to say any of that for certain.

I would imagine though if qm made such a huge difference on the macro scale our traditional models wouldnt work right? Like we dont see random things happening on a macro level we see very predictable things.

Again im not an authority on this though and i have no citations very very good chance i have some fundamental misunderstanding here.

The parts governing brain though are knowable, we know certain drugs have effects on the brain, we know certain structures have certain purposes, just because we dont have 100% knowledge of it how it all works right now doesnt mean we cant know it right?

Well, right out of the gate, nihilism is what Nietzsche warned against, not what he espoused or encouraged. The better question is if his idea of becoming an overman is similar.

I'd argue it's more similar to Kierkegaard, because striving is, ultimately, an attempt to impose order on chaos. Both of them recognize that that's not really, truly happening at the highest mortal levels (though Kierkegaard obviously posits that the highest level, God, has it all figured out.)

If Kierkegaard is proposing a way to help you make sense of absurdity even if it can never truly make sense to a mortal, Nieztsche is telling you to go out there and make the absurdity make sense - like, with a sword. Be your own boss, and everybody else's. God is dead, so there's a vacuum. Fill it. Be awesome.

One could rightly criticize Kierkegaard's philosophy by suggesting that he's just telling people to be weak and follow what some other man - maybe even an overman - laid out as The Truth by the sword. Of course, Nieztsche's philosophy involves running forever and never stopping, lest everything catch up with you. It's exhausting, and it gels far too well with the general bent of high-functioning narcissistic psychopaths (and even some low-functioning ones, if enough people in a given realm are profoundly dumb and gullible already, cough cough.)

They can be both tools and limits. If you only have a certain collection of tools at your disposal, there are certain things you won't be able to do no matter your level of mastery with what's available.

If your argument revolves around maximizing the depth and breadth of what you can accomplish, it seems like mastery is the thing, and rules are indeed limiting factors. One's lack of mastery is what imposes the extra limits on top of those imposed by the rules.

>But quantum mechanics doesnt effect things on a macro level like qm randomness is never going to make a change to the outcome of a coin flip or a pool shot.

Is this absolutely true?

>mental state is also something thats predetermined, the chemicals that flow through your brain the structure of your brain itself all of that is something thats built for each individual moment of your life.

Again, just to be clear, its not the complexity of it that stops me, its that I don't see the science governing those interactions, I see it being extrapolated but the underlying science is, as of now (and maybe I'm ignorant), not certain on all interactions, particularly fluid flows in adaptable pipes, i.e. the brain.

is that your argument against being pleasant? i'm not sure i understand your 'because'.

But quantum mechanics doesnt effect things on a macro level like qm randomness is never going to make a change to the outcome of a coin flip or a pool shot.

But for the pool shot your mental state is also something thats predetermined, the chemicals that flow through your brain the structure of your brain itself all of that is something thats built for each individual moment of your life.

Sure, hard agree on complexity/nature of things, and great point about the coin, if its all classical mechanics than I totally follow you, but QM's "chances" are almost exactly how I feel about me controlling my muscles to flip a coin, or a pool shot. I think that's part of what is getting me so bad here, I do shoot a lot of pool, and the idea that a game (or worse all shots) are predestined because we understand the physics at hand is like, idk just inconceivable to the million experiments that I've run personally. To me, once the physical fundamentals of the game are learned, whether a shot goes in or not is almost entirely up to your mental state, and I'm not saying it is too complex to nail down, but that its akin to QM's inability to say things with 100% accuracy such as your vacuum sealed machine controlled coin flip.

Fun note: Someone did some coin experiments and I think said its about 1/10000 that it will land on its side, lmao, this the 49.999 instead of 50.

Firstly qm is on a quantum level not a macro level, yes things can get weird when we look at things at an atomic level and we may not know how all that works but on macro levels we do know.

The coin flip is a great example actually though because when you flip a coin all the physics for that coin is already involved and calculable you can KNOW how that coin is going to land and how many flips its going to do and how far its going to move in any given direction and how many bounces its going to have.

The math is very complex but its there and no amount of quantum mechanics are going to change that.

This isnt a 50% chance this is 100% knowledge.

With the decisions a person makes are much the same albeit much more complex but complexity doesnt change the nature of something.

Consciousness is the assumption that because we in the state of mind where we can acknowledge, respond and interpret our surroundings. But how do we determine that’s consciousness. Our brain never sleep always active. When we are asleep It uses memories and the surroundings to create dreams. I think the brain action does not necessarily indicative of the wake or sleep mode. Just like you only know it’s a dream when you are consciously in the wake mood. But does it make a difference to the brain. The brain is active regardless.

I don't think all of it needs to be purged, just all of Louisiana, half of Mississippi, and maybe parts of San Bernadino. Etch-A-Sketch that shit and start over.

Ok, I've read a bunch more in this thread, thanks for bearing with me, but yeah, I think I'd say:

The rock is a uniform solid, just simple predictable matter. I don't think a snake, or hamster, or human operates that way. I don't think that, because I can either choose or be unerringly illusioned to choose X or Y.

It seems just as silly to argue we are the same as a rock, than to say things would always happen one singular way, even if we could run it again.

I thought determinism wasn't this silly, so maybe I'm wrong, I thought it meant that there was an XYZ% of given events, that a coin will 49.999% of the time land on heads, not that the coin will always be heads on a given flip. My understanding of QM seems to back this up, as well.

So why is there a debate at all when this seems so obviously and demonstrably correct?

Is it just a theists vs anti-theists thing that immediately goes to the irrational place?