Do you believe in free will? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by Dr_Box@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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There is an argument that free will doesn't exist because there is an unbroken chain of causality we are riding on that dates back to the beginning of time. Meaning that every time you fart, scratch your nose, blink, or make lifechanging decisions there is a pre existing reason. These reasons might be anything from the sensory enviornment you were in the past minute, the hormone levels in your bloodstream at the time, hormones you were exposed to as a baby, or how you were parented growing up. No thought you have is really original and is more like a domino affect of neurons firing off in reaction to what you have experienced. What are your thoughts on this?

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[-] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 8 points 15 hours ago

Doesn't matter either way.

[-] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 1 points 15 hours ago

I agree. But then I am a pragmatist, which tends to make people extremely mad

[-] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 1 points 15 hours ago

Is there a tl;dr for that?

[-] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 hours ago

Sure:

It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the third grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.

– C. S. Peirce

[-] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 1 points 14 hours ago

I don't see why that would make anyone angry, but I also can't understand what the hell it actually means. "The third grade of clearness of apprehension"? "Might conceivably"?

[-] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 3 points 13 hours ago

Well, understandable. It's one line out of a book, out of context. What he means is that no metaphysical nonsense actually matters, if it doesn't have real-world consequences. I.e. someone can claim Russell's Teapot actually exists, and rest of us can just ignore them because it's untestable and inconsequential.

This has made very many philosophers very angry, but I don't expect anyone who's not interested in philosophy to care.

[-] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 3 points 13 hours ago

Ah I gotcha. That's an actual tl;dr. Makes sense to me and I agree.

this post was submitted on 20 May 2025

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