u/feihm

This a of AJayHeel's premise: https://www.reddit.com/r/freewill/comments/1vq0d2a/comment/p4garcu

Suppose an advanced neuroscientist secretly injects him with a targeted genetic therapy before he goes to the car lot. The therapy subtly reconfigures his dopamine receptors so that his brain physically generates 10x the pleasure response when looking at a practical grey minivan, and 0 pleasure when looking at the red sports car.

Unbeknownst to him, he walks onto the lot, looks at the vehicles, and experiences a sudden, overpowering, entirely internal 'desire' to buy the minivan. He buys it, and afterwards says: 'I wasn't forced, I just really wanted the minivan. I chose freely because it matched my desires.'

If a manipulation of your physical biology can make you 'want' something without you knowing, and you still feel 100% free while doing it, how does he know he isn't currently being manipulated by his own biology right now? The feeling is identical either way.

Let us say a man has a decent university degree, a steady job, a good group of friends, and zero history of mental health issues. He does not take drugs, he does not drink heavily, he does not hear voices, and he is not suicidal. He simply has an intense curiosity to know what human meat tastes like.

He knows he cannot buy it anywhere, and attacking another person is a violent crime. So, he makes a deliberate decision to use his own body. He cuts off his own lower leg in a clean environment, bandages the wound properly so he does not bleed to death, cooks the meat, and eats it.

The authorities find out (maybe the neighbour peeked through the window or something and notified the authorities), stop him, and drag him into a psychiatric facility. A panel of doctors and a judge sit down to determine if he should be committed to an institution for the next decade.

During the evaluation, this man is completely calm. He does not rant, cry, or claim a higher power commanded him. He lays out his steps clearly. He explains that he owns his own body, harmed nobody else, managed the physical risk, and simply conducted an experiment to answer a philosophical question.

My intuition tells me that the legal and medical worlds do not care about how educated or polite you are. Society builds its entire baseline of sanity on self-preservation. Your brain is supposed to keep your body alive and intact. The second you take a blade and hack off a healthy limb to eat your own flesh, the state decides that your survival instinct is completely dead.

No matter how logically you lay out your case, every doctor in the room will categorise that calm explanation as severe madness. Damaging your own body is treated as immediate, indisputable proof that you cannot be trusted with your own life.

Is that legal and medical standard absolute, or is there any possible way a sober person could argue their way out of being locked away after doing this?

A follow up to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/freewill/s/Sj6C8ElMJM

At t₁, Person B looks backward to t₀.

Person B determines the reasons for the actions of Person A. He maps these reasons with perfect mechanical logic. He finds the exact physical causes of the event&mdas; which is an essential rule of human observation—we must link effects back to their causes.

But then Person B attempts to turn this backward observation into a forward physical law. He claims that if he returned to t₀, Person A would perform the exact same actions.

Person B is relying on a trick of language. Let us isolate the pure logic. Person B takes a completed slice of time from t₀ to t₁. We will call this recorded history 'A'. He then imagines a hypothetical return to t₀. We will call this imagined timeline 'B'. Person B then argues that the actions in 'B' must identically match the actions in 'A'.

Thus, he is merely stating that 'B' equals 'A'. He is wanting that the past equals the past.

This is a circular tautology.

Asserting that a past event is identical to itself tells us absolutely nothing about the nature of choice at the moment it happened.

Looking backward causes a person to see a fixed outcome. Person B sees this fixed outcome and assumes it means Person A lacked the power to choose. Because he already knows the outcome, he assumes the physical record of the action is identical to the reality of the decision at the time it was made.

Also, Person B fails to separate the act of physical observation from the inner will of the mind. To say "I can explain what happened" is not the same as saying "nothing else was possible". Further, observing a completed chain of events does not prove that the chain was locked before it began. Person B is just making a physical observation of the past, and disguising it as a prediction of the future.

I'm not sure if this only makes sense to me, so i will restate it differently.

1. Person B defines a specific, frozen slice of spacetime from t₀ to t₁ and labels it Object A (which includes Person A's actions).

2. He then posits a hypothetical time travel scenario back to t₀ and labels the upcoming sequence Object B.

3. Because the hypothetical scenario explicitly requires Person B to be transported back to the exact same historical starting point, the rules of the scenario force Object B = Object A.

4. Therefore, Person B isn't proving that the actions had to be the same out of causal necessity; he is simply verifying an identity property. He is saying:

> If I go back to exactly the same past, I will see exactly the same past.

Which is the most useless tautology.

A logical equivalent would be:

> If you rewind time to exactly t₀, the present will be identical to the original present because the present is defined by t₀

The sleight of hand is that retrospective determinism does not imply prospective determinism.

Backward looking:

> "I can see the complete chain of causes that led to Person A's actions." (Valid observation).

Forward looking:

> "Therefore, given those causes, the actions had to happen and couldn't have been otherwise." (Invalid leap).

David Hume famously pointed this out centuries ago:

> "Just because Event X consistently follows Event Y in our backward observations, it does not mean Event Y necessitates Event X in a forward-looking metaphysical sense." (paraphrased)

Lets look at pure logic. Just pure logic.

Suppose at t₀ Person A makes a series of actions.

At t₁ Person B looks back t₀ and finds out that he can explain with perfect mechanical precision the reasons behind Person A's actions.

Does it logically follow for Person B to conclude that Person A actions we're physically locked — that "he could not have chosen otherwise"?

Person B believes this because if he were hypothetically transported back to t₀ to observe Person A's actions, those exact same reasons and conditions would still be present. After all, every single condition observed in retrospect would be identical in that hypothetical time travel scenario.

I would prefer only those with at least a bachelor's in mathematics reply to this post as I'm only interested in their specific intuition. Preferably.

People marching in the streets for political causes do not give a single flying fuck about the actual issue. It lets boring, miserable people feel important for an afternoon without doing any real work. The second the cameras turn off, most of them go home and forget what they were even screaming about.

A follow up to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/consciousness/s/X6w8lj52tw

When the doctor opens the head, he looks inside. He sees red blood and a grey brain.

But the red blood and the grey brain are not the true, outside world. They are entirely new shapes and colours created strictly by the doctor's own mind. The doctor's mind creates these shapes to help the doctor stay alive.

The doctor forgets this fact. He thinks his created shapes are the absolute truth. He searches for your feelings, qualia, consciousness and your thoughts inside his own colours. Because he cannot find your feelings hidden inside his colours, he decides your feelings are not real.

The doctor expects your true, hidden mind to show up inside the shapes and colours his mind invented.

He looks strictly at his own mind's creations and falsely decides you do not exist.

Just something i thought was interesting.

I could as you what is physical reality? Each person will just say they're own thing. There won't be any consensus as to what exactly is this thing we call physical reality.

One might say:

> "Physical reality refers to the totality of matter and energy."

What is matter?

> "Its a word we use to refer to tight cluster or specific arrangement of atoms."

What are atoms?

> "Atoms are collection of subatomic particles like.....

What are subatomic particles?

> A particle is a word we use to refer to different kinds of physical excitation of the physical fields of the universe.

What is a field?

> We don't know.

Or something like that. What im trying to demonstrate here is that all this words— particles, atoms, gouge bosons, etc—are just words we invented to refer to other words we invented. So we end up with a complex web of words we invented. We call this web: scientific theory or framework.

One might say:

> No. They're based on empirical observations.

What does observation mean?

> It means to record a physical event.

What's a physical event?

> Its what we physically perceive with our sensory organs or measure with scientific instruments.

How do we perceive?

> Our sensory organs like the skin receive physical data of the surrounding environment. They translate these into electrical impulses..... the brain then.... which then renders physical reality as we experience it.

You mention "translation". So the skin receives the raw sensory data -> translation -> electrical impulses?

> Yes.

Which are then sent to the brain for processing?

> Yes.

Is what the skin receives isomorphically identical to the resultant of the translation process?

> No. The raw sensory data aren't electrical impulses. The skin is a filter. 99.9% of sensory data is decarded. The resultant is actually homomorphically correlated with the raw sensory data. This is due to thermodynamic limits and such.

And those electrical impulses are further processed by the brain (another form of translation)?

> Yes.

So what is rendered is a translation of a translation? The first translation was mere 0.1% of the raw sensory data?

> Yes.

---

One might say

> But science, hadron colliders...

I will ask this question. Do these "prosthetic" sensory organs escape the previous physical limits of translation?

Silence makes people uncomfortable because they cannot measure your value or your weaknesses. In a group, talking is how people show where they sit in the order. When you speak, you give away information about your thoughts and do them a favour by providing entertainment. When you stay quiet, you refuse to give away free social value and you hide your flaws. People demand that you talk so they can figure out your position, categorise you, and use you for their own comfort.

Staying around any person costs time and labour. If a person has high social standing or attractive physical traits, others happily spend effort to be near them. If a person loses his position, his wealth, or his looks, staying near him brings no return. When someone cuts off a friend under the excuse of "protecting their peace", it is a way to throw away a person whose value dropped too low to justify the effort. It allows people to act selfishly while continuing to view themselves in a favourable light.

People do not know the difference between what is actually real and the words we use to talk about it.

Ontology is the study of what is physically real. Physical reality is strictly matter and energy. It is the actual physical stuff that makes up the universe.

Epistemology is the study of how human beings know things. It is the words, the labels, and the math we invent to count and group physical matter. A human label is not a physical thing. It has zero physical mass and zero physical energy.

Most people are clueless about the difference. They take a human label and treat it as a physical object.

A person tries to define a word, "X". Because "X" is just a human label, they cannot point to real matter to explain it. Thus, they must introduce another human label, "Y". Then they explain "Y" with another label, "Z".

Defining a word using another word causes the person to move further away from physical reality. It creates an endless series of empty human labels. Because these labels have no mass and no energy, they cannot physically interact with the real world.

This mistake makes debates about free will and determinism completely useless. People argue passionately about "choice" and "freedom". But these words are just human categories.

If a person cannot point to the exact physical matter and the exact physical energy that makes up a "choice" then they're just moving human labels around in their mind i.e., it remains strictly an abstract mental exercise.

To find the truth, a person must tackle the physical reality directly. They must strip away the human words and look strictly at the matter and the energy.

One might say:

> "matter and energy" is just another human label.

That is true. The actual words "matter" and "energy" are human labels. We invented the letters. We invented the sounds.

But there is a perfect difference between a human word and the real stuff the word points to.

We use the word "wall" as a human label. But if you close your eyes, forget the word entirely, and walk forward, you will still hit your head. You do not hit the human word. You hit the actual physical stuff.

The words "matter" and "energy" are just labels. But they are the labels we use to point exactly at the real stuff that actually pushes back.

Now, try to hit your head against "time". Try to bump into a "dimension". You cannot do this. You cannot touch them because time and dimensions do not push back. They have zero physical stuff inside them. They are only ideas in the human mind.

Thus, the answer is very direct. Yes, "matter" and "energy" are words we made up. But they point to the real physical stuff that exists even when we stop thinking. Things like time and space are just ideas that live strictly inside the mind.

It seems to me that there are some people who assume they're prescriptive. There are also some who assume they're descriptive.

Determinism is the idea that every physical event happens because an earlier physical cause made it happen. Every change in matter follows a cause that came before it in time.

Sceptics of determinism claim that the universe does not work this way. But to prove that determinism is false, one must show an exception to the rule. One must show that a physical event can happen with no prior cause at all.

If an event has a cause, that cause leads directly to the result. Thus, pointing to an event that has a cause only supports determinism. To show that the universe is fundamentally not deterministic, one must provide but one physical event that happens entirely on its own, with zero prior cause.

If such an event exists, then the universe is fundamentally not deterministic. If no such event exists, then determinism stands.

A-Theory

A-theory states that time moves. Under this view, only the present moment is real. The past has gone, and the future has not happened yet. Things truly begin to exist and cease to exist as time moves forward. When one applies the cosmological argument to A-theory, one looks at the beginning of time:

(1) Everything that begins to exist needs a cause. (2) The universe began to exist. (3) Thus, the universe needs a cause.

If the past had no starting point, an infinite number of moments must have passed before reaching today. But adding one moment after another can never complete an infinite count. Reaching the present moment requires a first step. Thus, time must have a real starting point. Because the universe started at a specific moment, a primary cause outside time brought it into existence. This primary cause created time and matter together.

B-Theory

B-theory states that time does not move. Under this view, the past, the present, and the future all exist equally. All moments in time are real at once, placed along a fixed line. Nothing comes into existence or disappears; every moment simply exists in its position. Because B-theory states that the past exists just as much as the present, asking what happened before the start does not work in the same way. Instead, the cosmological argument under B-theory asks why the entire timeline exists at all:

(1) Everything that exists needs a reason for why it exists rather than not existing. (2) The entire timeline of the universe exists as one complete whole. (3) The universe cannot explain its own existence, because no part of the timeline creates the whole timeline. (4) Thus, the entire timeline needs a primary foundation to explain why it exists.

Under B-theory, the cause of the universe does not happen before the universe in time. Instead, a necessary foundation holds the entire timeline in place across all moments.

Comparison

Both views show that the universe needs a primary reason for its existence, but they reach this conclusion differently:

(1) A-theory focuses on a first moment. Adding moments step by step causes time to move forward, requiring a first cause at the start to begin everything. (2) B-theory focuses on the whole structure. Holding all moments together in one place requires a permanent foundation to sustain the entire timeline.

Thus, whether time moves step by step or rests as one complete block, one must accept a primary cause or foundation that gives the universe its reality.

I do not have any specific conclusion or bias in mind. I am just looking for general interpretations. The core question I am asking is: What can you deduce from this statement someone on this sub said?

It seems to me that there are some people who assume determinism is a metaphysical belief. There are also some who assume its a scientific fact.

Physical reality contains only matter, energy, and physical interactions. If a thing exists, it must possess physical matter or alter physical matter. If a thing cannot push, touch, or alter physical matter, it has zero presence in physical reality. Thus, either God is physical, or God exists only as an idea in the human mind. Applying this rule shows that three major concepts people build identity upon exist only as mental ideas:

(1) People believe an inner person lives inside their head and directs their daily actions. In physical reality, the human head contains brain cells, chemical signals, and electrical pulses. Brain cells send electrical signals down nerve paths to muscles. Reaching a muscle causes the muscle to contract and move. One can observe that no extra inner person sits inside the head to push these parts. The feeling of an inner person is only an idea generated by brain activity.

(2) People believe they remain the exact same person from childhood to old age because they hold memories of their past. The human body changes constantly. Old cells die, and new cells take their place. Atoms leave the body when one breathes or sweats, whilst new atoms enter through food and drink. Thus, the body today does not contain the same physical matter as the body from ten years ago. Also, memories are current chemical patterns existing in brain cells right now. Recalling a memory causes brain cells to create a pattern at this exact moment. Because the past self does not exist in physical reality, personal identity across time exists only as an idea in the mind.

(3) People believe they possess independent personal choice that decides their future actions. Complex things are the direct result of many simple things working together. Physical matter behaves predictably. One can write mathematical equations to describe how simple matter moves and interacts. At present, technological limits and scientific understanding restrict equations to predicting matter up to a certain level of complexity. But having access to more variables and processing power vastly increases the threshold of predictable complexity. Increasing this threshold reveals that the behaviour of matter is mathematically locked. Because the human body and brain consist entirely of physical matter, every human action follows these exact mathematical rules. Knowing every physical variable and having enough processing power allows one to theoretically predict every future action. Predicting physical actions in advance shows that independent personal choice exists only as an idea in the human mind.

Therefore, if human identity, memory, and choices are completely bound by the predictable behaviour of matter, anything outside physical matter cannot alter or guide human life. Thus God must be a physical, measurable entity to exist at all, or one must accept that God exists solely as an idea inside human minds

Emanation

Emanation means that reality comes directly from God's own being. Because God is perfect, God's existence causes the universe to exist. The universe is a necessary extension of God.

Order

The order of the universe refers to the precise, unbroken "patterns" of reality which then we use mathematics and cause and effect to describe itThe patterns are the direct presence of God's "logic". Observing the precise patterns of reality causes one to observe the direct nature of God.

Point A: Cause and effect require a temporal sequence. One event must occur before a secondary event can follow.

Point B: Time is not an independent physical object. Time is a sorting method that the human brain uses to organise sensory data.

Point C: The physical universe in its fundamental state exists as a single continuous reality. It does not contain an internal ticking clock.

Point D: Thus, asking what caused the universe before time existed makes no sense. Asking for a cause prior to time applies a local human metric to the absolute foundation of reality where that metric cannot apply.

I previously thought free will was defined as the physical ability to make arbitrary choices. But recent discussions in this forum suggest that this framing is viewed by some as an informal misconception that has little to do with formal determinism.

According to this view, there is a strict division between two distinct groups:

1. Informal Commentators ("Internet Randos"): They speak as if written physical laws actively force matter to move, or as if a brain makes choices instead of the physical person. They state that because physical state updates are fixed, a person does not make choices, or that human choice is an illusion.
2. Formal Thinkers ("Serious Determinists" and Free Will Skeptics): They reject these informal claims. They accept physical monism, recognising that physical transformations of state occur deterministically. They accept that humans make choices. But they focus strictly on moral responsibility. They dispute whether human choices can be defined as "freely willed" in a way that justifies holding a person morally responsible.

My question to the community is: which of these two groups do you fall under and how do you define free will within your position?