start at the question: why did i run her over with my car? let the True^1 answer be: i didn't see her as i was pulling up. this leads to the next question: why didn't i see her? maybe i was tired, but that begs another question, that can be recursed into infinity: why was i tired? why was i too anxious to go to sleep? why do i have developmental disorders? why did my grandfather choose to have sex with my grandmother that night? why did my ancestors settle down in lesser poland? why did the village chief chose to do the rites on that specific night? why did that mammal crawl into that hole to die? why did the amoeba pick that foodsource, and not the other? why did the big bang happen? ...or... did it?
there is always a reason for something, nothing happens randomly, even if the mechanisms are imperceptible to me. think about it, that is the only thing that makes sense. even with random 'free will' actions, there are always influenced by your environment, what you deem as radom, aka your social upbringing, what actions are physically up to you... even the 'choice' to act random to prove how indeterminable you are... there is a reason for that.
this of course raises two very important questions (that are not why based at least): does that mean that we're not responsible for our own actions, if it's all predetermined? and, does literally anything matter?
there is a nuance, y'know? its awfully pompous to presume that just because you have no real influence over your actions in the grand scheme of things, that you are robbed of free will. It's all relative - in your frame the free will very much exists - you're still making a choice based on the information provided to you. for all intents and purposes, your perception of reality allows you to handle with free will, so your actions are your own. that is the reason why you have to act Good^2. see it this way: the fact that your personality makes you want to choose to act Good, fuctionally does it matter if it's not free will? what is even free will under those contraints?
do ants think there is no free will when the human picks them up, or do they just accept it and adapt? to them it doesnt matter
of course, this whole outlook bases on some assumptions:
- there was nothing and then completely spontaneously the big bang happened. this doesn't mesh well with the whole determinism thing, but that is the most logical theory on the birth of the universe
- everything that seems random in physics in explainable, with an underlying mechanism currently unknowable to humans
- a human is a sum of their thoughts, opinions and interests. nothing more
- there is no way to calculate the Causal Chain^3
and by that logic, for the scifiheads like me, there are only two possible realities: the one where the big bang didnt happen (remember? the one spontaneous event in the universe) and ours. the one where it did. its nothing big, no huge realisation, but it is one of those things that bring me peace to know. nothing i ever do couyldve happened differently, and there is no fomo, no missable events. every choice is something ive done anyway. its something small to bring me peace
well, ok but then you might ask, lets just simulate reality! lets take something simple, like a cardflip and calculate the hell outta it! and well. you porbably could. looking at a cardflip, you can exactly determine its materials, every fibre and atom position if youre so inclined. you can calculate the air pressure and every gust of wind and the hardness and the repulsion of the table, even the machine arm that would flip the card can be finetuned into oblivion with minimal deviation. so thats deterministic alright. taking somethign more complex: can you simulate exactly how a machine would restore a painting? how about dog training? the more complicated it gets, the more parameters are necessary, that't feasible to simulate.
its important you dont try to actually predict human behavior in this way. take it from an emotionless robot: your brain cant handle that and neither can mine
it's not perfect, but it makes sense. randomness in any way is impossible for me to comprehend. dice rolls? the air around, the surface, the friction between the elements, the source of the movement, theres an incalulatable number of factors, but there are factors. i believe there are always multiple underlying reasons for everything that happens, huge or small.
so the thesis of this ramble is: there is a split between perception and reality. reality is objective, every perception is subjective, mechanical or organic. so sub jectively, there is no free will, there is no choices and no randomness. but what does that matter? if objective reality is impossible to access, the our nextbest factsimilie must suffice. free will is free to you, and that is the most important thing. there is no way to deconstruct yourself into factors, there is no way to perfectly simulate reality, so the best we can do is to appreciate the threads that we can see leading us up to our decisions, and try to understand yourself a bit more through it.
there has been a shift toward obsessive data collection, data fetishism i read somewhere. i think it's because we like to be understood, and to understand why we think like we do. isn't it fun to be able to see a graph of your heartbeat while you sleep? that's a you you were unaware of! your spotify wrapped serving up perfectly calculated trends of your mind, counting calories and macros, lately ive been noticing that we're trying to quantify ourselfves. it looks like the same thing with the social media microtrends, where what you wear and how others see you defines whether youre a part of something. i fall victim to this thinking too, because i too would like to understand myself better.
so maybe my whole shtick about the universe being deterministic but effectively unknowable is just a way of coping with the fact that nothing is really quantifiable and able to be fully explained.
1 - something True is something that perceivably happened, and is objectively well. true. word of god style
2 - Good is 1. not causing any harm to anybody with your actions (or attempting to minimize it at any cost) and 2. always helping/being kind/being useful to people whenevr you have the chance to. this metric is pretty insane, but i try to adhere to it as rigidly as possible
3 - a play by play of all factors that have contibuted to any event. literally impossible to calculate