Is the entire universe playing out a deterministic event where everything that happens is the result of everything that came before it like a cosmic series of dominoes? Maybe! The likelihood that we have free will is contested by physicists, neuroscientists, and philosophers alike!
All I know is that it seems best to act as if we have free will. To assume a sense of agency and responsibility is more empowering than assuming we have no control.
Then again, that may just be what I’m predetermined to say and believe!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
4d ago
Related Recs
💽
Maybe we do have free will and I just think this way because I’ve never felt I had control over my life! I don’t know how we possibly could have ended up here, but I strongly feel that my consciousness is only a manifestation of my physical body, which takes its place in an inevitable evolutionary march of organic machinery. Hopefully this is only a disconnection from my environment and spirituality. Maybe God will strike me down for such a sentiment. Maybe one day the matter that makes me up will arrange again, and I will exist after death. I do have principles and think it’s important to act on them but the action is inevitable as well. Someone please prove me wrong
4d ago
⛓️
I’m very anti-free-will-pilled rn. This new book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, argues all the baseline variables that precede action (our past, our current mood, our biology, our culture, etc) have an inescapable effect on our choices. To me, this is isn’t hopeless–it’s humanist! The alchemy of what motivates us is crazy! There is a traceable, individually justified reason for why we all do what we do. It’s helped me approach myself and others with openness and curiosity, instead of judgment. Like, think about the confluence of influences that drives one to goon. The world is magical place.
Feb 8, 2024
😃
i believe/think we do have free will because consciousness has not and, likely, will not be explained by science. Why are we conscious? What *is* consciousness? If we find and answer to those questions, then yea maybe we are living out our little predetermined mission 🤷♀️
4d ago
Top Recs from @zenlikeme
“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”
— Fred Rogers
3d ago
I haven’t been on Twitter for years and hardly touch FB, but I had been an active user on Instagram since 2012. I really like taking and sharing photos, and that had always been a fun place to do it.
No more.
With the changes the content moderation changes they’re making, leaving LGBTQ+ folks vulnerable to be targeted; their rolling back of DEI programs; their willing participation in far-right rhetoric and politics; it’s all too much and I’m out.
As if Meta’s platform hadn’t already been increasingly enshittified, this was the final straw to announce how much worse it will get.
And you know what? It feels freeing. Better to leave it behind and find new platforms to connect with people.
Jan 22, 2025
🫙
The guy got my attention with, “Hey, I like your shoes.” Just like that, he had me. We talked about where I bought the shoes and how I used to work in the shoe industry. He used to work in the beer industry but had recently become independently wealthy because of an investment opportunity he started with a few of his friends.
”You get to be your own boss,” he told me. Your boot could be on your own neck. We’re back to the topic of shoes.
He told me it’s a small investment to get started but things are really taking off and I could get in on the ground floor. I could quit my job. Work for myself. Had I ever considered doing something like that?
“No,” I said with a shrug. I walked away with my jar of peanut butter. I can’t remember if it was creamy or crunchy. Probably crunchy.
Nice guy!
Feb 25, 2025