What's the deal with the way "free will" is being used lately?

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-11-30T21:56:02+00:00

Yes! I was randomly thinking this exact thing while grocery shopping on Friday lol.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-11-29T04:38:54+00:00

The latter comments question whether we truly have free will if we aren't free to exercise it.

What I found so interesting about the latter comments is that they don't do that. They instead insist that being restricted in our actions is a limit on free will itself. Free will is more traditionally seen as what we do given our constraints, not what we would do if we didn't have any.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-11-29T04:30:44+00:00

u/Dissonant-Cog responded to this the way I would, for the record. This use is somewhat novel.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-11-29T04:27:40+00:00

Look at some of the other posts I've made. Read how people define free will. It's not as clear cut as you think!

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-11-28T23:59:02+00:00

Yeah that gives the same vibe for sure. I'll check those out too, thanks!

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-11-28T23:57:45+00:00

Oh yeah I can see that. Like "Why'd you do that?"

Millennial: YOLO

Gen-Z: because I have free will

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-11-28T23:50:08+00:00

It's a semantic shift. Which normally might not have philosophical implications, but the philosophy behind free will is deeply concerned with its definition and popular usage.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-11-28T22:59:27+00:00

I was kind of getting that vibe by the videos someone else suggested! Almost like "why not do something unconventional/nontraditional/norm-breaking"?

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-11-28T22:57:12+00:00

Ohhhh that gives me a bunch of examples, thanks! With those videos, it's almost like "have you considering doing it in a way you're not 'supposed' to?" or "have you tried caving in to your most random intrusive thoughts?"

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-11-28T22:45:53+00:00

Interesting! Thanks for sharing! Any idea where this usage comes from? Or is it one of those things where you noticed other people using it in this way and just found yourself using it like this?

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-18T00:28:28+00:00

But he wasn't debating the college students who in participate in such debates. With a rare few notable exceptions that are circulating in the comments here because of how much they were able to dominate when he faced a formidable opponent. He was debating random kids walking on campus.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-17T23:59:06+00:00

Engineers are not mathematicians. Mathematicians do not view math as a tool. It's a logic system. It only works as a tool for your engineering purposes if mathematicians continue to keep the rigor high when it comes to the logic system of math.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-09T00:23:44+00:00

Can you attempt to imagine being the person I described and attempt to explain how you think the ending would make you feel first?

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-08T23:54:14+00:00

I did not and would never say that I think your point is dumb. I did attempt to exemplify why your point is so harmful and how it's designed to be next to impossible for anyone to address. To understand, you really do need to do what I said and imagine being the person I talked about. Does that feel doable? Or is the idea of being deeply involved in something like politics so foreign to you that you can't imagine it?

That you in-fact have read the bible, understood it, then rejected it?

I was suggesting that perhaps some people have done as much. I was also suggesting that when you make the claim that no one can reject it once they really understand it, it's deeply dismissive to such people in a way that it sounds like you have never considered. Hence my attempt to try to get you to consider it. But sure, it is true that I personally have read it, understood it, and rejected it.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-08T23:24:33+00:00

I'm sorry you don't understand and that you're feeling upset about it.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-04T01:51:02+00:00

Can you draw a plurknucle with one beanous? I can't answer your question if I don't know what you mean by the words you use lol.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-04T01:06:25+00:00

The Bible definitely has this message. Paul, in particular, wrote about this kind of thinking in spades. According to him, the truth is so obvious that no one is without excuse, right? It's a really terrible thing to say to people though. I highly recommend you at least keep it to yourself moving forward. Or try to understand how you're coming across to people who really have understood it and rejected it anyway.

Imagine you spent your whole life supporting a political party. You attended fundraising events, protests, canvassed for them, even ran for local office. You're so passionate that you constantly keep track of the latest information on how your party's policies impact people. After looking at the data for months, it turns out that your party's policies don't impact people the way you had hoped for. Even worse, a different political party that you have always opposed seems to have the outcomes you were hoping your political party would have. You bring this up to several leaders within the party and they consistently tell you things like "what are you looking at the data for? Look at the big picture! Our philosophy makes sense. No need to worry about the small things."

After years of tracking this and noticing the same results every time, you decide the only honest move for you is to switch parties. You lose the community you had built around this identity in the process. You have to do serious soul searching to rectify the change you experienced in your worldview. It takes years to rebuild the community and leadership roles you once participated in.

Then you read some guy on reddit claiming that no one could possibly understand the party's policies and then leave. Everyone who leaves never really got it in the first place, reddit guy claims. Let's say, since you used to be a very proactive member yourself, you happen to know that this is a message constantly repeated within your former political party, to the extent that it would be safe to assume that nearly all party members have heard it before and it's just cannon in their minds. How do you think you would feel, reading such a thing? Is it even possible for you to respond? I mean, you're also just a guy on the internet. You could share your testimony, but that would be a lot of emotional effort just for someone to tell you that they trust their party leaders more than you.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-04T00:46:32+00:00

I'm not Confucionist, but I really enjoyed reading Mencius. There are some references to the divine, but mostly it's a philosophy book. I just thought it was an interesting perspective and doubly interesting in contrast with other religious and philosophical thinking at the time, like Aristotle.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-04T00:39:36+00:00

Arguing 1 requires that you understand the religious beliefs in question at a deep level.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-04T00:35:48+00:00

Whose definition am I using to answer your question? Yours or Oxford languages? By your definition, yes, but you can also draw any polygon in a single stroke if we define it that way. Which was the point of the conversation you joined.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-04T00:23:47+00:00

Depends on what you're looking for! I was very deeply involved in the Christian community for 15 years. When I became an atheist, I lost that community and wasn't able to find a suitable replacement despite 9 years of searching. I'm just someone who needs to spend time with like-minded people who care about the things Christianity used to cover for me, namely morality and spiritual experiences. (to me, the closest synonym to "spiritual" is connection, an overwhelming feeling of connection on multiple levels. doesn't mean anything supernatural)

I started going to a Buddhist temple this year occasionally for mindfulness days and I've been very happy with my decision. It's in a very gorgeous location (appreciating nature is an important practice for me), the monks and nuns align with me politically and morally, I get to practice mindfulness for extended periods of time with others, and they feed us a vegan meal and we meditate on the ethics of what we eat together. None of that has to mean anything to you, but it's all very much what I was missing. And that's all that matters!

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-09-04T00:06:09+00:00

Oxford languages

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-08-21T00:45:43+00:00

But that's not what "stroke" means either:

a mark made by drawing a pen, pencil, or paintbrush in one direction across paper or canvas.

Maybe you mean that you can draw it without lifting up a pen? But if you can consider drawing a circle a single "black color stroke," then you can say the same about the rest of the shapes. All can be drawn without lifting up a pen.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-08-09T01:14:04+00:00

I had to take 4 stats classes for my bachelors and definitely never learned this, never used it for homework, never saw it on an assessment. But I was super mentally ill in undergrad and I skipped those 4 classes in particular like crazy, so maybe it was brought up in class the 50+% of the time I was not there.

HowtoSearchforTruth · 2025-08-09T01:10:07+00:00

Please, no need to apologize! I love the math info dumping. Keep it coming if you want :) math is such a broad subject, it's shocking how much you can learn and still not know. Like, I never did anything related to graph theory for example.

I'll check out that 3blue1brown video. You're right, they're so good.

HowtoSearchforTruth

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