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Have you gone down any rabbit holes that gave you an existential crisis? (discuss.online)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Have you went down any internet rabbit holes only to come out with a deep set existential crisis? If so, what are they?

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[–] TokenBoomer 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You know, there’s a very, very strong emotional incentive to feel agency, and endless aspects of experimental psychology has shown that you stress people or frazzle them or give them an unsolvable problem, and they get a way distorted sense of agency, at that point, as a defence.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That is all well and good.

I'm an engineer, so I look at this from a physical sciences point of view. The main problem with the "no free will" argument is it provides no predictive power, there is no model that can say person X will do Y (instead of A, B, C or D) in situation Z.

What is possible is giving probabilities of Y, A, B, C or D in experimental settings. But in the real world, there are too many variables interacting in a chaotic manner to even give reasonable probabilities; this is why we can only use population level statistics rather than individual level predictions.

[–] TokenBoomer 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I present, the Jim Twins:

Twins separated at birth find each other and discover they've led identical lives source

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The two men had married wives with the same first name and had similar interests and hobbies.

Similar <> identical.

This story has little to add to the debate about free will. How many identical twins separated at birth didn't have similar lives?

[–] TokenBoomer 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It is anecdotal, but compelling. Determinism can’t be falsified, but neither can free will. The neuroscience is interesting, and shouldn’t be dismissed. Sapolsky’s debates are informative.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It only seems compelling, there is no base rate of non-similar twins separated at birth. Is this 1 in 2 sets end up like this, every one, 1 in 100,000?

The neuroscience is interesting, but it is not in any way predictive. It is all post-hoc rationalisations of what did happen.

As I said above, I'm an engineer and look at this from a physical sciences point of view. There is no model (as far as I'm aware) that can predict what will happen except in very specific psychological experiments.

[–] TokenBoomer 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Well, you’re an engineer, not a neuroscientist like Robert Sapolsky so his research carries more value than your opinion.