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Take responsibility for the hand of poker they are dealt? Take responsibility for a random occurrence, that's a pretty weird statement. Better is to understand
by plutonorm 4y ago
Take responsibility for the hand of poker they are dealt? Take responsibility for a random occurrence, that's a pretty weird statement.
Better is to understand and live in the truth - that many aspects of our lives are random. Including our own decisions, free will is an illusion and whether we decide to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps (as is deemed 'good') or sink into misery, it is a foregone conclusion which will happen. All we can do is surf the experience moment to moment, year by year. Free yourself from blame, from responsibility, know that the void is merely playing with all possibilities. Let that very subtly different you in one of the other realities do the hard work of saving the world, or whatever grand scheme suits you best. They are the ones for whom it was meant to be.
- dionidium 4y agoThe problem with this is that it infinitely regresses. If I can't control anything I do, then what's the difference if I'm empathetic and compassionate or not? Surely I'm just "riding the wave" either way. These admonitions always start by saying we have no free will and then advising a course of action based on that knowledge, but that's incoherent.
- plutonorm 4y agoIs it? You can have no free will, but still be influenced by the words that come out of my mouth. Maybe in the process your life has less suffering in it. I don't know, I am experiencing a sensation that implies that I hope it does.
- nkjnlknlk 4y agoI'd suggest reading: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#FreeWillMoraResp https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#FreeWillMoraRes... and jumping from there if you're interested. There is a difference if you're empathetic or not. That's easily observable in reality. What you're arguing against is perhaps the moral attribution to a decision if you have no control? That is, of course, irrelevant to the discussion being had.
- dionidium 4y agoThe point is that this whole conversation is irrelevant and terms like "moral attribution" are non-sensical if there's no free will. Sam Harris does this same thing. He'll spend 45 minutes in a podcast explaining why it's unlikely that you have free will and then say, "but it's still important for you to act morally." Huh? That makes no sense. If I literally can't do anything except that I'm doing, then in no sense is it coherent to advise me to "act ethically." You're just saying what the causal chain made you say and I'm responding to it however the causal chain demands I respond. That is, you're saying it because you can't not say it and I'm responding like this because I also can't do otherwise. But intellectually the game is up. You can't tell the plinko ball to "act ethically" on its way down. It's just gonna go whichever way the physics play out based on the state of the world when you let go of the ball.
- majani 4y agoThat "random" hand of poker becomes less and less random when you go down the family tree and trace their decisions
- plutonorm 4y agoThe whole idea of individual responsibility is built upon the fiction that there is an individual there to take responsibility.