If there's no free will, can I somehow manipulate my brain chemistry in order to make it make the right decisions? Like eat better foods or drug or something
if you had free will you could
>>28895733
You don't have the free will to manipulate your programming.
>>28895733
>If there's no free will
There is
>chemistry
an empiricist lie
>>28895733
Yes.
Do you have millions of dollars? No?
Well, bad luck trying. There is no free will. :^)
>>28895767
But if someone told me "omega fish piss makes you happier" I could go to the store right now and by some and start taking it.
>there's no free will
I really don't think we can jump into this conclusion, especially seeing how science can't really explain consciousness and qualia, especially when it comes down to "why it exists?"
>>28895820
>it cost millions of dollars to eat better
>>28895733
Some people say free will is more about removing yourself from the conditions and immediate pressures that come with it. So, take some drugs and promptly forget how it was to remove the conditions and gain nothing.
your genetics and early childhood largely determine how you act and will act for the rest of your life. there might be moments of escape from how you usually are, but generally, once a robot, always a robot
>>28895825
Hypothetically, all those events would have been predetermined.
>>28895891
Drugs + music. Music is the highest form of art as an articulation of the will.
>>28895850
this guys knows it
The no free will meme is just NEETs trying to justify their parasitic ways
>>28895733
eating better foods or taking drugs would be a direct result of free will though.
also taking drugs to make good life decisions isn't going to help you.
>>28896056
I meant like pharmaceutical drugs like zoloft or whatever
>>28895825
That would still be your enviroment SHAPING YOU, not you shaping yourself.
there is nothing you can do to practice free will, because it will always be some other factor doing it for you.
>>28896086
But I would be changing my environment
If there's no free will, why do certain drugs like alcohol lower the amount of control we have over our actions? There is clearly a distinct difference between having control and being out of control. How could this be, if we never had any control to begin with? Just doesn't make any sense.
If we were just a bunch of impulses, why do we even have an unconscious? So wait, there are two parts of every human brain, the conscious and the unconscious, but neither of them has any free choice at all and they're pretty much redundant? Doesn't that sound kind of dumb? It seems like the mind is way more complicated than it has to be if we are unable to freely make decisions. On the other hand though, if we consider the conscious part of our brain as having free will, then the way the brain's set up makes perfect sense. We can only focus on so many things at one time, so the unconscious is there to process extraneous information, as well as information we try to repress and ignore. The unconscious is a very logical addition to the conscious mind, so long as the conscious has the ability to freely make choices.
>>28896166
Its an illusion, you feel as if you are losing control but you had none to begin with
>>28896166
I really should start accumulating r9k thoughts and compile them into a book
They are almost akin to a great work of philosoph y if cleaned up and reformatted
>>28895733
What do you think is the right decisions? What prevents you from making them? Remember, what you think the right decisions even are is only a product of brain chemistry, so when you make a decision that you know is wrong, it only represents an internal, unresolved conflict, and nothing more.
Resolve the conflict. Figure out why it exists, that's the first step.
>>28896132
What do you consider you?
You must remember that you didn't come into this world, you came out of it.
The things that happened around you shaped the person you are, you never had ANY control over where you were born and what kind of training you would receive.
The best way to think of it is that (YOU) are a blank slate that receives instructions and nothing else.
>>28896274
Well then where do the instructions come from?
>>28895733
Well, the safe way is to control all of the things you can which also control you. The best example is how your friends influence you.
>>28896563
deviating from your friends' expectations of you puts a strain on the friendship.
>>28896495
The enviroment
>>28896056
>eating better foods or taking drugs would be a direct result of free will though.
Not necessarily, someone may do what they will yet cannot will what they will.
>>28896086
>there is nothing you can do to practice free will
We couldn't know this for sure, after all, you're basing your assertion upon flexible bedrock.
"Free" means that willing adequate outcomes are at least a live choice, i.e agent causation.
Randomness is not acausal, however clarifying what "free" is may be inessential considering the lack of proof for the universe relying entirely on causality.
>>28896166
Mind-inhibiting drugs obstruct intellectual freedom by hindering reason and inducing impulsivity, yes, yet being intoxicated by the effect of the drug could have been an inevitable part of a deterministic sequence. Seemingly having more control at one period than another would not necessarily mean that in either state of mind, you would not be subject to hard determinism. After all, losing control due to a certain situation may be attributable to your body falling back on its primal instincts, and it's uncertain whether the unconscious is a separate entity from the body in any way suggesting that cognition is or is not epiphenomenal.
>>28896606
Get new friends who better suit your vision of yourself. They won't be perfect, but at least you'll be in better company. Friends can be replaced. The time you waste living a way you don't want to live can never be recovered, only compensated for.
>>28895825
I hear magnesium and cod liver oil helps people out if they feel depressed.
>>28896667
I don't really understand what you mean by "primal instincts" in your point of view. If we have no free will, everything we do is more or less primal instinct.
I just don't understand what would be the point of all this. Why are we sitting in the driver's seat, if we have no control? Seems like a pretty stupid and useless evolutionary adaptation. Rocks are subject to determinism, but it can be reasonably assumed that there's not some guy in there looking out from the rock and trying to ponder the meaning of it all. Same with most animals, I don't think most animals have anywhere near the level of self-hood necessary so that they could, to use my stupid term again, "be in the driver's seat" in the same way that we are. It's sort of debatable for higher apes, dolphins, that sorta thing. What is the point though? Why is someone sitting in this cranium, just watching their version of the movie of life pass them freely by? Why would evolution develop such a thing? It just seems utterly ridiculous.
>>28895733
Sure, general good nutrition and eating habits will boost your mental state because it's part of the same meat.
Try eating flax, taking fish oils or some other way of getting omega3 for beating out depression feelings. I doubt it would help against clinical depression but any other kind will probably subside.
>>28896667
>reasoning is intellectual
lol
>>28897526
Simply reverting to primal behavior as a survival mechanism, or a hypnotically or drug-induced trance would not necessarily dictate a temporary loss of free will. The regulating id would still be part of the mind in the sense that the regulating superego is. If the mind were not a distinct entity, but a part of the body, then it would be subject to determinism all as well if that's how the universe happened to work. The point is that we do not know, and we are not at all close to understanding whether we are subject to some form of determinism.
>I just don't understand what would be the point of all this.
There doesn't need to be a point.
>I don't think most animals have anywhere near the level of self-hood necessary so that they could, to use my stupid term again, "be in the driver's seat"
We are barely evolved apes afflicted by the will of life just as much as animals are. It would be conceited to believe that we are somehow special, when it is a statistic probability that there is a more intellectually advanced being in the universe whom reserves the right to the driver's seat more than we do.
>Why is someone sitting in this cranium, just watching their version of the movie of life pass them freely by? Why would evolution develop such a thing?
It could just be a phenomenon. We crave significance, but we do not need it. We are literally manifestations of the universe, consisting mostly of stardust, which is a less depressing way to look at it. Perhaps bliss has to happen accidentally otherwise experiencing bliss could be driven by will.
>>28897623
What are you trying to suggest, that reasoning is not cognitive?
>>28895733
Kids are shown to dramatically change their behaivours when educated and there is a notorious difference between the ones who are and aren't
This is scientific proof that there isn't a genetical determinism for life, therefore there must be free will
>>28898272
>there isn't a genetical determinism for life
Perhaps not, but there is irrefutable proof that genetics do play a primary role in the propensities of our behaviors.
>therefore there must be free will
That wouldn't mean those kids being educated was a consequence of free will.
>>28895733
If you knew what the right decisions were, you would make them. Better food won't give you knowledge.
>>28897584
This meme about working out and eating right beating depression has to stop. Seriously if this shit actually helps you beat "depression" it's likely you never had one to begin with.
>>28898272
Genes still are very important. They determine your starting position and the speed at which you're gonna learn. If you start at shitty position and are dumb, your education is going to help very little compared to someone lucky.
>>28898272
You can't just say therefore and expect people to believe you. Free will has nothing to do with education.
