Alscho2020

I get that determinism is a possibility, but I don't think it's true. At the end of the day I don't think it's really possible to "prove" either determinism or free will, but it seems to be far more advantageous to behave as though people have free will. Like Leo noted, pretty much all of society and culture are dependent upon the assumption of free will, and, as much as he may argue otherwise, I think a pure deterministic perspective of life leads to nihilism and perceived victimization. Here are some of my thoughts on Leo's Free Will vs. Determinism podcast: 1. I think the idea of determinism is rooted in the concept of materialism, the idea that all that exists is the material world. Which I don't really agree with at all. Immanuel Kant talked about the Noumenal realm of reality vs. the Phenomenal realm and I think he makes a pretty good argument against materialism. In order to even make sense of the material world (the Phenomenal realm), you have to assume the existence of things that aren't observable (the Noumenal realm), like the passage of time or empty space. Neither of those concepts can be physically observed, you assume their existence to make sense of the world, and you can observe their influences on the material world, but you can't take a sample of them and observe it in a lab. The human psyche is a lot more than the human brain. We can observe chemical releases and hormone levels in the brain, but we're not observing the mind at all, just its outer manifestations. 2. Leo's suggestion to pay attention to your continuous flow of thoughts seemingly coming from nothing, or the example of following a muse that appears to you, is also assuming that your conscious mind is the entirety of the human psyche, which isn't accurate. I think a common misconception is that the subconscious mind isn't actually a part of the "self", but it absolutely is. Your continuous flow of thoughts isn't coming from the abstract, outside world, it's coming from your subconscious. Because you can't observe your subconscious, there is the illusion, as Leo likes to call it, that your thoughts are coming from nothing, or coming from someplace outside of you, but that's not the case. 3. I'm no biologist, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that each individual cell contains the entirety of the organism's genome, but are designated to work in a specific area. Certain area's are "switched on" in the cell which tell it to be a blood cell, for example, or a skin cell, or a liver cell. My question is what on earth designates the cells to do that? Maybe it's DNA, again, I'm no biologist so I don't really know. But even if it does originate from DNA, that raises the question of what makes the cells respond to DNA. I get that DNA is like a recipe for a cell, and it "tells" the cell what to do, but what ensures that interaction? My guess is that the unconscious mind has something to do with putting the cells in order. Sure, we have trillions of complex cells that operate of their own accord, they do their jobs without being continually forced, but something had to tell them what their jobs were in the first place. I also had the thought about how some organs seem to operate of their own accord, for example, you can't just voluntarily stop your heart. But that's because your conscious mind doesn't have control over it, your unconscious mind, or the part of the brain focused on motor skills and survival does. Following Leo's line of logic, I can't seem to go beyond the human psyche as the controller of biological functions, or of the flow of thoughts for that matter. He seems to imply that they may be coming from nothing, but I think that's a pretty weak argument. Sure, evolutionary history may have taught the brain to behave in the way that it does, but no primitive human being is directly influencing my mind now. No outside force, as far as I can imagine, is interacting with my subconscious mind, forcing it to survive. I am performing my biological functions of my own accord because survival is my subconscious mind's motivation. 4. Also I don't understand when Leo says you need to take responsibility for your ego or for your life or whatever. Take responsibility for what? That you're a victim of circumstance? That the world around you controls everything you do? I don't agree with him at all that that will lead to enlightenment or a positive life. Knowing myself, if I surrendered completely to determinism, I wouldn't be really motivated to do anything at all except the things that bring me pleasure. I'd eat fatty food, I'd probably do drugs, I'd get into all kinds of trouble because what the hell is the point? I am the way that I am because the world around me is the way that it is, and I can't be anything other than what I am because of that. I can hope that the universe perfectly aligns one day to make me into a happy, rich, successful person, but I can't do anything right now to change the way I feel because the universe is aligned to make me sad and nihilistic, so I guess I'll just eat another burger and shoot myself up with heroin to take my mind off the present. Total surrender to whatever it is that's controlling you takes away all responsibility from you. It causes people to lose themselves in victimhood, it doesn't turn people into "Zen masters and yogis and martial artists". The moment you try to take responsibility and change, you disprove determinism, because your cells and the outside world obviously don't have complete control of you - unless your trillions of cells all collaborated at the exact same time and were all forced by some abstract influence to decide they were all going to skip the fatty foods that bring them pleasure, go put enormous stress and tension on muscles when they'd rather relax, and commit to a lifelong journey of self-mastery for the big meat machine they control. Not likely.