That would mean someone may be having it or attempting to have it for us instead of it being a gift to us.

The brain activity spiked so early before the decision was made because the person just wanted to continue browsing to make sure that truly was the pair of headphones they wanted.

This is what has always bothered me about the multiverse idea that every choice you could have made is made in another dimension/universe. I made the decision for reasons and there's no reason I would have ever made a different decision under the same circumstances.

An interesting and atypical perspective to be sure, but evolution tries all sorts of things, so it isn't too out there for some people to feel less ownership of their thoughts, decisions and actions.

Slightly higher than average levels of subclinical (so still within "normal" limits) depersonalisation (which exists on a spectrum in aus all) may explain what you feel, who knows.

Sorry, I'm using determinist to mean hard determinist. I intentionally avoided incompatibilist since that also includes libertarianians.

>The intuitive perception of the self which most Westerners have is illusory

What perception do Westerners have of the self & why is it illusory?

The way I see it there’s 2 kinds of free will: 1st is the more traditional metaphysical version, essentially the question of whether it is possible for any mind to make truly free decisions in what appears to be a deterministic reality. The 2nd kind is specifically human free will, which depends on our own psychology, and the degree of conscious involvement we share in our actions.

I don’t believe in either kind of free will - but even if the 1st type of free will existed, if our decisions truly were self caused … we could still lack the 2nd type of free will, which is our subjective sense of conscious involvement in our decisions. It’s the 2nd type of free will I see as being absent from my personal experience, as I can never directly observe the 1st type.

You seem to believe that (and correct me if I am wrong here) if you thought or acted using "free will" you would somehow consciously decide what you think, say or do a priori to the thought, vocalisation, or action. However, here we would come to a problem.

Now, this a priori "conscious decision" has been done without a priori thought process.

So to have "real" free will we need to take an a priori decision about out a priori decision.

So on and so forth ad infinitum

At no point will you be satisfied since at the bottom of the rabbit hole there will always be thought/decision will come to you without an a priori decision is process.

You seem to be asking too much of what a reasonable definition of free will could provide. Essentially, your definition of free will seems intrinsically paradoxical, in which case, of course you don't think you have it.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

If you pay attention in your day to day life, you’ll notice that most of the things you say and do don’t require any conscious reflection. Words and ideas pop into our heads from the subconscious, and we immediately act them out. This is why it’s possible to zone out while driving a familiar route, or having a routine conversation with your barrista. Most of what we do is following a routine - when our routine is disrupted in a significant way, it leads to confusion, and our response under such circumstances might surprise us.

For example, if I was walking down the street on my way to work, following my little routine, and a man leapt out of an alley to attack me, I can’t say with any confidence whether I would fight, flight, or freeze up. It would come down to whatever instinct was strongest in my subconscious at that moment. I simply wouldn’t have time to make a reasoned decision.

Even when I’m reflecting deeply on a difficult decision, it’s hard to explain exactly how I come to an outcome: usually I just ‘go with my gut’, that is, I follow whatever impulse is strongest within me. When we’re making a difficult decision, it’s like we’re being pulled in different directions by two different forces, and while it might feel like there’s a great struggle between them, in the end the victor is predetermined by whichever emotional force is strongest.

And if you make decisions based on reason instead of emotion - well reason is universal, so the more heavily you rely on rationality, the less ‘personal’ your decisions become. If someone asks me what’s 2+2, I can’t help but think 4 - I am compelled to by reason.

It's simple: you believe in free will or you can feel "free" to give up on everything and everyone, including yourself.

I know what I'm choosing.

I tend to agree with you, but I wouldn't say their moral system is based on compatabilism, but rather on libertarianism. Their moral system can be adapted to a compatibilist base, but as you say, this is a confusing and difficult process, which for a lot of people ends up in them throwing away parts of their moral system (thereby proving compatibilism, ironically).

Who can argue with that circular logic? XD

>You can't just tell people this assumption is wrong and expect them to magically adapt their whole way of thinking to that. It's no wonder accountability, morality, etc goes straight out the door if it was always based on the cultural myth of free will.

I see it another way, people really mean compatibilist free will which does exist, convincing people they don't have libertarian free will just confuses them and messes up their perfectly working moral system based on compatibilist free.

I wrote a paper about this myself back in college, after reading Notes from the Underground and getting inspired. I didn't personally support determinism, rather thinking of things happening in the moment as they occur, almost like there was no future / past, just the reactions that are happening in the moment. Another aspect came to play was optimistic nihilism, and taking into account that even if true "free will" does not exist, the concept of it being true is enough to give life meaning. It doesn't have to be real to enjoy life, create meaning, experience things.

>Turns out that convincing people that they don't have free will is bad.

Within our society/culture which desperately clings to the idea of free will. People grow up believing this and a lot of patterns, beliefs and thoughts are based on this assumption. You can't just tell people this assumption is wrong and expect them to magically adapt their whole way of thinking to that. It's no wonder accountability, morality, etc goes straight out the door if it was always based on the cultural myth of free will.

All languages are going to shape our expression of thought and our audience's understanding of those thoughts. However, I do not believe this diminishes understanding and it might even enhance it. If our thoughts are like a garden hose than language is our thumb over the nozzle. Language directs and intensifies our thoughts, and there is a tradeoff. We lose the fluidity and transience of our original thoughts in exchange for a clear and useful expression. So while invoking the name of God risks oversimplification it also condenses a large amount of information and context into one word. Furthermore, the more language we apply to an idea the closer we can recreate our thoughts.

>A determinist would agree that it’s incoherent… which is why they are determinist, no?

Nearly all compatibilists are determinists.

A determinist would agree that it’s incoherent… which is why they are determinist, no?

The way I see it is that professional philosophers are using the definition of what people "really" mean by the term. Amateur philosophers are using some weird incoherent definition that doesn't exist and hence isn't what people really mean by the term.

Are those the printed lyrics, or the sung lyrics?

I think the whole idea about "thought lag" is that we're being subjected to our thoughts. We're not actually manifesting them consciously.

Except that there are aspects of quantum mechanics that, as far as we know, are totally random and non-deterministic, e.g. radioactive decay. Now you might say that these events don't percolate up to our scale, but bypassing discussion of whether they do, we can make them percolate up. If you defer decision making to a quantum random number generator you would have an event on our scale that could not have been predicted. A deterministic event horizon.

The more complex and nuanced the situation and decision making becomes the more convincing that the choice is the product of our inner self. We retcon our decisions as being products of free will. We ride a roller coaster of a life and think the whole time we’re steering the thing while it’s on a track.

So basically the definition of "eugenics" is a lot more vague than we realize and we should make sure to differentiate between state-mandated eugenics and decision-making regarding fertilization. Interesting read, it convinced me that siblings should be able to legally have babies, which I don't think was the goal, but they seem to have inadvertently made some compelling arguments for it.

[deleted]