For me it is the fact that our blood contains iron. I earlier used to believe the word stood for some ‘organic element’ since I couldn’t accept we had metal flowing through our supposed carbon-based bodies, till I realized that is where the taste and smell of blood comes from.

  • OceanSoap@lemmy.ml
    7·
    1 year ago

    I think it’s bizarre to think we have free will. Everywhere around us, in all our tech, tools, toys we see the realities of determinism. Cause and effect. To think that our minds are somehow not governed by this in a universe that unequivocally is is beyond Babel levels of arrogance.

    Huh, I always thought of us having free will in response to cause and efect, not in place of it. But maybe I’m understanding free will differently?

    • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
      41·
      1 year ago

      If the universe is deterministic, it means that every particle has an infinitely predictable path. And our body and brain are full of particles which could only ever move in the predetermined way. And because our thoughts are only movements of neurone, which in turn, as everything, are made of particles, every action of ours would be predetermined and we could never decide otherwise than we did.

    • AOCapitulator [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      sometimes your brain will decide something independently of conscious thought, and then invent a compelling narrative for why you are about to do what your brain already decided you were going to do

      This kind of effect can be seen when a split brain person reacts to textual commands, like “stand up” seen on a computer screen in front of them only one eye can see by standing up, but when asked verbally why they stood up they just make up some shit on the fly like “I was tired of sitting and wanted to stretch my legs”

      We’re just narrative machines (no, not like ChatGPT)

      It could be asserted that none of our decisions are ever actually real, and its all just a series of these ‘decisions’ that are just invented by your brain to explain why you’re doing what you were always going to do, and thus you don’t have free will you just tell yourself that you do as a nice story.

      I don’t believe that, I think that assertion is a bit like last tuesdayism and I dislike the unfalsifiablity of it, but yeah I get the argument

    • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
      42·
      1 year ago

      I think Camus might have summed it up best when he said the only real choice (therefore, freedom to exercise will) humanity has is whether or not to commit suicide.

        • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
          1·
          1 year ago

          I had a conversation with my neighbor along those lines. He reads his Bible everyday. I asked him if he knew that God were real, 100%, something/someone he could reach out and touch, if that would change how he lives his life.

          I answered before he had a chance and said in no way would it change mine. I live my values. He said it wouldn’t effect him either, and I believe, he is a genuinely great guy. But the fact that that would change soooo many people is either terrifying or makes me super grateful that they have their reasons to not indulge their worst instincts.

          Both are unsettling, really.