The free will and simulation arguments, while certainly fun to think about and possibly valuable to bear in mind, are completely pointless to a certain extent. Even if you confirmed that free will doesnt exist or that we are in a simulation of some fashion, the mere fact that it had to be discovered and was up for debate prior to that means that nothing about your life will change to the slightest.
Well, the simulation argument may not make a difference, but the free will one might. If nobody has the free will necessary for moral responsibility, then many of our punishment practices can’t be morally upheld. If nobody deserves punishment, we should only use it as a means of keeping social harmony, and that means we should do it a lot less and a lot differently.
Lmao I realized after I posted that that it was gonna open a bit of a philosophical can of worms, and that I would quickly be neck deep. This is a very good point, and I only meant my statement to a certain extent. For the average human’s daily life, finding out that free will doesnt exist (to whichever extent you’d like to take an idea like that) wouldnt suddenly change their daily experience, and they would be able to continue to operate under the assumption that they are making meaningful choices with varied outcomes just like usual. They had this impression before the revelation that free will is not real, so their life experiences would not necessarily change after the fact (obviously it COULD change, but wouldnt as a necessity). As for the more nuanced moral implications of such a discovery/revelation, I shouldnt presume to know how that would impact the world.
But if we dont have free will morals dont exist because you arent actually chosing anything, if free will doesnt exist we arent choosing those punishments either. It was all mechanically determined before the first star went supernova and created heavy elements. To quote Pigeon of Mike Tyson Mysteries “whatevers gonna happen, is gonna happen anyways”
I personally believe that free will exists because of the quantum nature of our universe. I think when quntum effects collapse into macro effects that is the universal uncaring impersonal consciousness presenting itself to discreet personalized units of consciousness in a way we can understand and work with. I think the entire universe has consciousness and that when our containers can no longer maintain the biological loci of experience we return to that eternal, ever present, always safe universal consciousness, the source of the sense of identity.
Consciousness does all this because a universe where nothing ‘unpredictable’ happens and there is no ‘other’ to share experience with would be eternal solitary confinement.
Just my thoughts on the matter of free will, obviously un-provable and un-testable in our current state of being.
The free will and simulation arguments, while certainly fun to think about and possibly valuable to bear in mind, are completely pointless to a certain extent. Even if you confirmed that free will doesnt exist or that we are in a simulation of some fashion, the mere fact that it had to be discovered and was up for debate prior to that means that nothing about your life will change to the slightest.
Well, the simulation argument may not make a difference, but the free will one might. If nobody has the free will necessary for moral responsibility, then many of our punishment practices can’t be morally upheld. If nobody deserves punishment, we should only use it as a means of keeping social harmony, and that means we should do it a lot less and a lot differently.
Lmao I realized after I posted that that it was gonna open a bit of a philosophical can of worms, and that I would quickly be neck deep. This is a very good point, and I only meant my statement to a certain extent. For the average human’s daily life, finding out that free will doesnt exist (to whichever extent you’d like to take an idea like that) wouldnt suddenly change their daily experience, and they would be able to continue to operate under the assumption that they are making meaningful choices with varied outcomes just like usual. They had this impression before the revelation that free will is not real, so their life experiences would not necessarily change after the fact (obviously it COULD change, but wouldnt as a necessity). As for the more nuanced moral implications of such a discovery/revelation, I shouldnt presume to know how that would impact the world.
But if we dont have free will morals dont exist because you arent actually chosing anything, if free will doesnt exist we arent choosing those punishments either. It was all mechanically determined before the first star went supernova and created heavy elements. To quote Pigeon of Mike Tyson Mysteries “whatevers gonna happen, is gonna happen anyways”
I personally believe that free will exists because of the quantum nature of our universe. I think when quntum effects collapse into macro effects that is the universal uncaring impersonal consciousness presenting itself to discreet personalized units of consciousness in a way we can understand and work with. I think the entire universe has consciousness and that when our containers can no longer maintain the biological loci of experience we return to that eternal, ever present, always safe universal consciousness, the source of the sense of identity.
Consciousness does all this because a universe where nothing ‘unpredictable’ happens and there is no ‘other’ to share experience with would be eternal solitary confinement.
Just my thoughts on the matter of free will, obviously un-provable and un-testable in our current state of being.