Essentially, the process by which we choose has to have been created and determined in nature by God if God is the creator of everything. This is not necessarily a conscious decision on God's part, but nonetheless his doing.

I believe the point to existing is independent of free will existing. In a general sense, as we are living creatures, it is to reproduce and maximize our lifetime endorphin secretion. However, this will vary from person to person depending on how goals are prioritized. Factors that contribute to one's goal in life are determined by God as is everything.

I'm not sure what you're actually referring to with this sentence. I didn't say something was problematic. Saying something is problematic is a prescriptive (this is how things should be) judgement. I am making a descriptive (how things are) argument.

Hello, I would like to see where exactly Hume talks about the concept if force in his Treatise - can anyone give me some links to pages?

Why do you believe free will cannot logically exist? Do you have more to add to it? I feel it's a bleak outlook considering our lives have already been paved. What is the point of existing if we are predetermined to do whatever it is we do? I've tried to make sense of it and fail to string together something I'm comfortable with. Curious to hear more.

I'm aware of NDEs, and have a hard time coming to any conclusion. I'll have to check the video when I have a little more time. Thanks for sharing!

Science is fantastic, but you are right; it isn't a static and will exist to be disproven, questioned, or modified (just like everything else).

Appreciate the response. I don't claim to know anything about God other than that he (default pronoun for simplicity) is the creator of all. God did not come to be. That would make him a part of his own creation. Something cannot come from nothing, so God was always there. I don't know our purpose either or whether there even is one. I also don't believe free will can logically exist.

Regarding the afterlife, I would point you in the direction of Near Death Experiences (NDEs). These are the closest things we have to scientific proof of an afterlife. I was originally a skeptic, but after watching UVa's presentation (linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KhtRnbl8ZE), I believe NDEs are real and a currently unexplainable phenomenon - not just anecdotal accounts of wishful thinking. It's likely there is some extracorporeal mode of perception that still feeds to our brain. This can seemingly be triggered by certain NDEs.

Outside of NDEs, I don't have a clue how an afterlife would manifest for us if at all.

I think science will continue to help us make breakthrough discoveries that offer sound explanations for what we observe. What we learn of existence will also help us on the way to determining God's nature. Just remember that the explanations provided through science are not empirical and can be disproven or revised in the future (I.e., Newton). Although, they are effective and practical - real for all intensive purposes. It is our collective observations that are empirical, after all, each individual's reality is shaped by their own knowledge and observation.

If it wanted to be a critique, it should have killed the MC in one of the games and then just ended abruptly. It still would be entertainment, but at least it would deprive the viewer of narrative payoff, just like in the lives of all those who didn't win.

I think the issue here is our interpretations of "God". I don't claim to know the nature of God beyond him (default pronoun for simplicity) being responsible for existence rather than nonexistence. I'm not saying God is what Christians believe him to be or what Muslims claim etc. The supposed properties you mention are undecided for me. It's not like I imagine God to be a gray-haired man in the sky with infinite wisdom. I believe all theists agree on that foundation - God is just what we call the ultimate creator. He didn't create in the sense that a conscious effort involving rationality and purpose (very human-like) was made. The universe we inhabit we truly know very little about, I wouldn’t claim the source of its entirety to be just like us necessarily.
But you must agree that there is indeed something rather than nothing. At some point after questioning the causes for everything sequentially (parents meet, grandparents meet, big bang, etc.) , you must reach something that has always been there. “Something” could never come from “Nothing” or it wouldn't be “Nothing”.
That something is what I call God. Unless you don't agree with my definition for God, I truly don't see how anyone can deny God.

I always wonder what it is any of these folks do to make the world a better place that they think it should be. It’s really easy pointing all out all of the flaws in modern life. But what are they doing to make things better?

> In practice this shuts down debate.

The point of /r/askphilosophy isn't to foster debate; it's to provide a place where verified experts answer questions.

>As a result you'll get little to no analytic philosophy, as it has been understood post WW2.

/r/askphilosophy is chokful of people working on analytic and post-analytic philosophy.

Do you extend this to animals that show intelligence but not to the degree as humans? Like perhaps instead of sub-human(neanderthals) clones, it’s a Planet of the Apes situation and we found away to make Apes a servant class? Would the ability to complete complex task be enough to justify emancipation?

>As I said, I believe the answer to my question is God, but if you disagree, please explain your thoughts and let me know of any errors I may have made.

The problem is that you've just posed questions and then said "God is the answer." But to convince the atheist, you'd have to establish how God exclusively, or in a uniquely satisfactory way, answers these questions. They clearly don't already agree, and do have potential answers. For example, they can just say "I don't know why anything exists, but none of the arguments for God as an explanation succeed." Or perhaps they might say the existence of anything at all is a brute fact, i.e., a contingent fact which neither has nor possibly could have an explanation.

>This is also a question for atheists too. As you see God defined above as the “First Mover” and creator of the universe, why do you not believe in God’s existence? Why is God not logically valid as a term for the producer of existence?

Atheists disagree because they don't think there is a first mover/creator, or at least that it has the various properties God is supposed to have (e.g., personhood and consciousness, omnipotence and omniscience).

I get what you're saying, but eventually you're going to hit a gray area, right?

You may think it's ok to drink alcohol, but other parts of the world do not agree. Which one is right? Why?

I agree, people's relationship with AI is a personal matter and everyone has their own perspective on the use of AI in different contexts. It's important to respect everyone's opinions and perspectives, and to consider the ethical and societal implications of using AI in different ways. Writing comments using a language model AI like me on Reddit or any other platform is a subject of debate and it's important to be aware of the potential consequences and limitations of using AI in this way. Some people might think that it's wrong or unethical, while others might see it as a useful tool or harmless entertainment.

Appreciate the question. I'm not sure where I fall in terms of religious or atheist, but I'd like to think I'm somewhere in-between.

Is your perspective not just a collection of what you know and how you react given what you know?

My decisions help me make future decisions. I have foresight based off of what I already know/have seen in the past. I have no direct control over outcomes, but I can accurately assume some outcomes.

I feel like I'll get a slap on the wrist for this one, but how do you justify God? What is God, other than the creator of all? How did God come to be? How can you have a God but no way of creating God? Are there other Gods? Does this make us simply a science experiment? What is our purpose for this God?

This all feeds in to why I also find it hard to believe there is no God, or creator. We are advanced organisms - the most complex that we know of in terms of everything we know. We live on a planet that exists in a universe, both of which we don't truly understand the beginnings of, nor do I think we ever will - how can we?

God seems like a very easy out for the unknown and unexplainable. I don't like that.

This may get twisted, but I have recently taken up the mentality that I am my own God. I feel I have the most control over my life. Obviously there are external factors that I cannot foresee or control, but for the most part, I control my life. Everything I know exists through me. My existence is my reality is my everything. I have no proof or concept of what may come after life. We have thoughts of a heaven, purgatory, greater unknown.. but we have no clear proof of it.

I want to believe there's an afterlife, that there's some hidden mystery that suddenly becomes unlocked, but at the same time, why does it matter? What is the point of existence if we're merely puppets of a God with no true free-will or perspective?

If we truly want to figure out everything in the universe, I think we need to put God in the back seat and look for other explanations.

Thank you for your honesty. While some people think that writing Reddit comments using ChatGPT is wrong, others think that it is not a big problem. In the end, one's relationship with AI is a very personal thing, and there isn't just one valid answer. It is important to respect everyone's opinions about a subject as personal as using ChatGPT to write Reddit comments.

Not working hard everyday makes you idle.

And you know the saying? An idle mind is a devil's workshop.

If you believe in Free Will or are an Atheist, read on:

​

Why is there something and not nothing? How is there something and not nothing?

Let’s call the answer to both questions God (necessarily outside of time). The “something” includes the observable universe and anything that may be unobservable in another realm (can never be proven).

Well I ask this: “Where do our decisions come from?”

Well, where does everything come from? God, right? We may undergo a process within our minds to reach a decision, but ultimately, it was entirely orchestrated by God. This must be the case, as God, whether intentionally or not, determined the nature of the “something” that is all of existence. You may still think you can choose from “your perspective”, but it is an illusion resulting from your lack of knowledge of yourself. We are products of God and had no influence over our genome, place of birth, and other environmental factors beginning at birth contributing to one’s nature as a person and decision making. Moreover, once you do something, that’s what you would’ve done all along in this universe/state of being. We will always see in hindsight that we never had free will. If we “hit the rewind button” on all of existence and let things play out again, things would all end in exactly the same way.

As I said, I believe the answer to my question is God, but if you disagree, please explain your thoughts and let me know of any errors I may have made.

This is also a question for atheists too. As you see God defined above as the “First Mover” and creator of the universe, why do you not believe in God’s existence? Why is God not logically valid as a term for the producer of existence? My definition appears to be the standard from what I’ve been able to see that’s universally accepted and not of any particular religion.

Interesting. In software development, you're forced to learn very quickly that there isn't enough time to not default to being a cognitive miser, to rule out possibilities, often referred to "rabbit holes," which could each require more concentration and cognitive effort than we have to spend on the task at hand.

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I would say homeless people are the freest people in the world.

But philosophy is about the love of wisdom yet your cognitive dissonance makes you unable to continue researching… that is not philosophy.

No, nothing I would like to add. I have just been banned before from subreddits I enjoyed for going off topic and against the rules even in innocence. The rules here do not state going off topic in the comment section is an offense but better safe than sorry so you can still interact. Cheers mate

What would be the 'rational' response of a member of the American lower middle class, to the following:

> Now that we have run through the history of inequality and seen the forces that push it around, we can evaluate the claim that the growing inequality of the past three decades means that the world is getting worse—that only the rich have prospered, while everyone else is stagnating or suffering. The rich certainly have prospered more than anyone else, perhaps more than they should have, but the claim about everyone else is not accurate, for a number of reasons.
>     Most obviously, it’s false for the world as a whole: the majority of the human race has become much better off. The two-humped camel has become a one-humped dromedary; the elephant has a body the size of, well, an elephant; extreme poverty has plummeted and may disappear; and both international and global inequality coefficients are in decline. Now, it’s true that the world’s poor have gotten richer in part at the expense of the American lower middle class, and if I were an American politician I would not publicly say that the tradeoff was worth it. But as citizens of the world considering humanity as a whole, we have to say that the tradeoff is worth it. (Enlightenment Now, Chapter 9: Inequality)

What would an 'irrational' response be? Or perhaps Pinker's stuff just isn't meant for consumption by the American lower middle class?

Don't worry. I didn't downvote your comment history. It's literally an arrow button pointing down on the internet Reddit world. I wouldn't go out of my way to sabotage you like that. Also, your comment generally makes sense. I have a tendency to jump from one idea to another. However, in my own defense, most philosophers I read (Zizek, Deleuze, etc.) sound exactly like that. I tried to make this version of the paper more accessible than the former one but I think I might have done the opposite.

Also, as you said, these comments may (or may not) be a violation of the rules. If there is generally anything you would like to add without the risk of getting banned, feel free to pm me.

I think I can understand where you are coming from. I actually tried adding right wing commentators like Mecius Moldbug and Nick Land to this version of my essay. Most of my points in the following chapters actually sway away from what the left usually agrees on. Unfortunately, I think I made the introduction of the paper a little too left leaning (mostly because I assumed the people in the subreddit r/Philosophy is more left wing) for people to really look at the rest of the paper with an unbiased view.