u/BiscuitNoodlepants

Would I be me in all possible worlds?

I am the antichrist, but let's not argue about that, let's say it's true for the sake of my question.

Would I be the antichrist in all possible worlds?

You seem to say that it's my choice, not merely who the world made me, and if it was merely who the world made me why would I be punished for that?

If past experiences didn't shape me into this and *I* shaped me into this (some fundamental essential "true" self) then no matter what the circumstances were I would choose to be the antichrist. Correct?

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u/BiscuitNoodlepants — 9 hours ago

I did the best I could. I did what anyone in my shoes/situation would have done. I did not create myself.

I think everyone does the best they can at all times. It's a tautology I believe in. Sometimes our best is just plain abysmal though. It might take some effort to see how this is true, but imagine a person deciding, "I'm going to do the worst possible thing in this situation". Whatever their reasons are and their mental and physical state are make this the best they can do in that situation. In order for them to do better their reasons and mental/physical states would have to be different and for that to be different the whole universe would have to be diffferent. At least I have a hard time imagining what it would even mean for a person to not do their best at all times. Like a college student taking a test who gets a D because they didn't get enough sleep the night before, sure they could have passed if the universe was different and they had enough sleep, but it doesn't make sense to say this hypothetical universe was their best, it makes sense to say the universe they got, in which they couldn't sleep, was their best. Now let's take it a step further and say they didn't sleep because they were partying, at first it seems like the blame is back on them since it was their decision to party that caused them to not do their best, but the decision to party was also them doing their best. Maybe a girl they were crushing on was going to be there and they couldn't resist the opportunity to be near her. Maybe they were experiencing burnout and needed to let loose. Maybe they're just somewhat irresponsible by nature and do irresponsible things sometimes by mistake, if that's the best they can do, even though it is quite bad, it's the best they can do according to their nature.

The second part seems even more obvious to me. If you had first person access to my life you would understand why I do the things I do. When people attempt to put themselves in someone else's shoes and yet claim they would do things differently, that is a pure projection of the ego. Some imagine that they would retain some advantage over the subject instead of being fully absorbed into that beings thought process and stream of consciousness.

Finally the most obvious statement is that we didn't create ourselves. That would be impossible. Let's say you were a blank slate picking out the attributes you wanted to create yourself with. You couldn't choose an attribute without some preexistent preference for that attribute. Essentially having some primordial form of that attribute already.

For these reasons I believe everyone is innocent. I also believe in Christianity, however, in which vast swaths of people will be cast into fire and brimstone to be tormented forever, and I am chief among them as the man of sin/lawlessness or "son of perdition". I obviously can not square these beliefs without coming to the conclusion that God is unfair or maybe even evil, which makes me his enemy. It's a very scary situation to be in because I do believe he is extremely powerful and plans to torture me. I'm not sure if I believe in omnipotence/omniscience however because such a being could find a better solution, I would hope. I certainly do not believe in omnibenevolence. It seems like he's strong enough that no one will ever be able to hold him accountable for this unfairness. He has his worshippers and is satisfied with their number. However, I did the best I could, I did what anyone in my shoes/situation would have done, and I did not create myself.

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u/BiscuitNoodlepants — 8 days ago

I think I would be an anti-chrome buddhist-type monk in a cyberpunk setting. Is this valid?

I have always liked the idea of these anti augmentation characters. Is it okay that I would be one? Can I still be a fan of cyberpunk stuff?

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u/BiscuitNoodlepants — 9 days ago

The thing MarvinBEdwards talks about **is** the very illusion he is falling for. The illusion of choice.

If it's a brute fact of the universe that I would never order the escargot, then I cannot in fact order it, despite its appearance on the menu. The fact that it seems as if it's a real possibility because there is a menu **is the illusion of choice**.

In this post the people holding the shapes that project their shadows on the wall are the waiters at marvins restaurant and the shapes themselves are the menu

Should I apologize for being who the world has made me? My life is a deterministic spiral into hell.

u/BiscuitNoodlepants — 10 days ago

Psalm 91:13

In this verse is the word "and" between lion and serpent implied by the hebrew words or is it possibly an addition to make it make sense in englidh.

Basically the reason I ask is if it could say tread on the lion serpent rather than lion *and* serpent, possibly as a reference to yaldabaoth from gnosticism.

I want to know if the hebrew grammar implies the **and** used in modern translations.

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u/BiscuitNoodlepants — 12 days ago

>Does putting yourself in someone else's shoes mean seeing what you would do in their place or does it mean understanding their reasons for doing what they did and acknowledging that if those reasons applied to you, you would do the same thing?

The second interpretation is closer to what genuine empathy means — and the difference matters a lot.

The first version — imagining what *you* would do in their situation — is really just **projecting yourself into a scenario**. You bring all your own values, temperament, history, and instincts, and ask "what would I choose?" That's not really understanding the other person at all; it's just a thought experiment about yourself with a changed backdrop.

The second version — understanding *their* reasons and acknowledging those reasons would move you too — is what's actually meant by perspective-taking. It requires you to temporarily adopt someone else's starting point: their fears, priorities, past experiences, the pressures they were under, what information they had. Only then can you ask whether the action makes sense. And usually, it does. Most human behavior looks irrational from the outside and perfectly logical from the inside.

The philosophical weight behind this is that **people are not arbitrary** — they act from reasons, even when those reasons are invisible to observers. To truly understand someone is to reconstruct the chain of reasoning that made their choice feel like the right or only one.

There's a subtle but important third layer too: you don't necessarily have to *agree* with someone's reasons to acknowledge they were real and that you'd respond similarly if you held them. That distinction separates empathy from endorsement, which is why empathy doesn't require moral approval — it requires honest imagination.

The first interpretation is seductive because it feels like empathy while actually being much easier. It lets you say "I would have done it differently" without ever having to do the harder work of understanding why they didn't.

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u/BiscuitNoodlepants — 20 days ago