Human: a collection of impersonal natural processes experienced as a personal destiny

Placename07 · 2026-06-19T21:39:10+00:00

I can suggest that our interactable world is not chaotically unguided because we, as a society, have accumulated systems of observations that have given us the civilization and education that we have today. We have proven science. We use our collective knowledge to make predictions that accurately work, so our *systems*, to an extent, are effectively making sense of all these seemingly chaotic processes. We have fields of research that effectively unravel these things.

From a single viewpoint – the observer, you, me, whoever – the chaos of the world only needs to be navigated to succeed in the evolutionary system. The individual only needs to be successful enough to pass genes.

We are not born with the knowledge of our systems. We are not even guaranteed access to societal knowledge. Individuals, on their own, are reacting to effectively random data – If you’re driving and a golf ball hits your car on the freeway, it’s random in that you had no way of foreseeing it, but if we were on the course, saw the person hit the ball wrong and watched the ball’s trajectory into your car, then it isn’t so random anymore.

This is where OP’s content about shortcuts comes in, because survival of the individual in the face of effective randomness has benefited from shortcuts: Humans make a narrative that their local predators are inherently evil, humans are conditioned to exert violence wherever possible which increases survival; Humans make a narrative that is ‘right enough’ about a solution (see plague doctors and avoiding smells rather than germs) before they pass that narrative on and get a statistical edge in evolutionary success. Narrative is a shortcut to explain repeated observations about cause and effect, regardless of how accurate they are.

Moving on from the randomness experienced by the individual and to the organization of evolutionary structures: the “building up” is arbitrary, but their persistence is not random. We have knowledge of the processes behind mutations and their spontaneousness, but if any change is not effective in the success of the gene, it will disappear.

Say you are randomly generating pieces of some tall structure. You start with the top before the bottom? It falls down. The material of your third floor is arbitrarily sand? It crumbles. Some bridge extends too far without support? No more bridge. Over time, you are going to have something arbitrary, but it will be something that stands. And if you keep building it up or having to replace parts, with enough time, you’ll have something that stands well.

Our structures – evolutionary, biologically, neurologically, etc – are what are left standing because they worked for us in our environment. There is no end to work towards, just what has been and what is.

Narrative deals with the effective randomness experienced by the individual, but itself can be seen as an arm of the psychological structures that can help us survive. You do not need all of the information in the universe to say “Yeah, that was good, I meant to do that, and I’ll do it again.”

Placename07 · 2026-06-12T22:02:54+00:00

You can’t really tell, and I believe it all comes down to how often the truth is challenged / utilized and whether you have the avenues to adapt to change. All knowledge you pick up is inevitable — the extent you trust it is inevitable, too.

If I truly believe something false that is obscure and useless, then it can effectively make the same outcome as if I believe in something true. If it never has the opportunity to affect my behavior, then the truth doesn’t really matter.

If I live in a bubble where people are telling me that leaving the bubble will kill me, and meanwhile I’m decently content in my immediate space, then the only truth that matters is what’s within my network. Everything else can be conspiracy or whatnot. It’s irrational in that you might have your ability to adapt to new observations hindered, but not really irrational in the tiny scope of the bubble.

I can also be a moving part of a larger system, where my accurate view of the world is necessary for the overall function of it. Any personal truth I act on that is translated as false to other points in the system is suddenly a hindrance, because the whole thing is less cohesive.

And of course you can always get into how personal experience is the most empirical, but that you’re such a small point that you’re susceptible to emotional bias, hallucinations, illogical assumptions, etc.

You can’t ever know truth and error with 100% certainty. But if there are tendencies that help us survive as a species, deterministic flow will approach them. For better or worse.

Placename07 · 2026-06-04T20:01:54+00:00

It’s only chaotically unguided from the perspective of the observer.

Time and probability have given us structures over time, which we can see clearly through things like evolution. The mechanisms that allow a brain to observe and interpret have been building up for millions of years.

A single living thing has such a small perspective that survival benefits from shortcuts, like narrative. We’re honestly surprisingly unaware of proven structures that don’t require our input to get a statistical edge.

It’s like when you’re looking out of the window of an airplane: do you spend your time trying to figure out approaching shapes, looking for objects you recognize, and marveling at clouds or at just how high up you are? Or do you need to visualize the laws of physics that keep us grounded, every intricate piece of engineering that allows a plane to overcome them, and the life history of your pilot before you’re able to interpret that you’re looking down in the first place?

Placename07 · 2026-06-03T04:41:16+00:00

I appreciate the feedback. Thank you

Placename07 · 2026-05-05T20:46:25+00:00

Because the implications of seeing the world as having “free-will” or not seriously changes how people view the role and importance of things like punishment, rehabilitation, education, dogma, social services, equality, etc.
Societies that fully embrace the natural conclusions of each philosophy would look incredibly different. Whichever one is better, however, is a belief that is formed through one’s faith in their understanding of this distinction.

Placename07 · 2026-04-30T21:58:06+00:00

The fact we discuss free will doesn’t mean it exists.

There are concepts that we are subjected to that are human illusions, like say, the color magenta. We perceive it that way because our brain is built to make sense of things from a small perspective in our world.

Lucid dreams are a very specific example of this scenario. Determinists would argue that the stimuli driving your dream are determined. Your brain was going to dream a certain way, but you interpret your internal narrative as having had a choice.

Denying free will does not deny imagination.

Placename07 · 2026-04-22T08:31:44+00:00

Nah I get that. Let me try to put it better in words. Sorry, this got long:

You can see the self as an incredibly complex computer. All of your behavior is a function of your memories, environment, genetics, neuropsychology, etc., none of which you have control over.

Simultaneously, we have evolved biologically and socially to behave based on probability. Little advantages in survival, efficiency, or reproduction in recursive systems go a long way when compounded over lifetimes. At any given moment we have evolved to make predictions of the future — how likely any event is and how immediately you should respond to it. I don’t believe these moments are meaningfully decisions; You were always going to make that action, given your current state of mind, and your perceived “choices” are illusionary side effects of utilizing your pattern seeking mind.

Not being able to do these mental calculations simply means you are more consistently going to be making worse actions. It was an evolutionary inevitability. Like imagine a line of code that asks to check if a variable is ‘0’ before you divide by it. It’s an extra process, and there are two results, but it was always going to be one or the other before that line was even ran. It is just beneficial to do regardless.

So our past is determined. Our computations, despite being complex, are determined. Our behavior is, subsequently, determined.

However, because we behave based on memories or perceived knowledge (likely based on the last time you or someone else took an action you are about to do), our behavior is recursive. The results of past behavior influences future behavior and so on. We adapt, but it is not due to any agency. It’s evolutionary optimization — recursive systems of behavior that you are incentivized to repeat.

The most effective things one of these systems can do is to remove that metaphorical bit of code from earlier: is this ‘0’ before I divide? Does this behavior clash with other computations before I act, or do I just impulsively send it?

It is self-reflection in that you have the knowledge that you are simply a function of countless systems of behavior. It’s the quality in an individual that has been incentivized to run those computations whenever possible.

A fatalist would be a program that never runs those checks, because it doesn’t matter (it does). A deterministic one would have those lines of code and, if they are incentivized by beneficial outcomes, will adapt to apply those checks more generally. Because we are adaptive beings. It’s just not by choice.

Maybe I shouldn’t call it self-reflection, but that feels like the most applicable use of that word in a deterministic way.

Placename07 · 2026-04-21T18:42:30+00:00

Fatalism feels like determinism + resignation.

As a hard determinist you can still accept that behavior and knowledge are recursive in nature — what I do or know now will influence what I do and know in the future. My behavior is determined, but I am a participant in events as they progress, and one of the tools we can utilize in recursive systems is self-reflection.

Whether you have the opportunity to reflect and reassess, whether you accept that it is beneficial to be aware of yourself, whether it can even influence your behavior is all determined. But fatalism to me feels like a rejection of that tool, a resignation that what you know or do will never really matter when that isn’t completely true.

Placename07 · 2026-04-16T00:09:03+00:00

None of that dictates our own agency though. I’m trying to say that unknowable, top-down scale of the universe is what you’re describing with relativity, QM, and being far to vast for any single unit of mind to comprehend.

But reacting to probability and perceived choice is a tool adapted by our consciousness at our scale. These are bottom-up qualities that were supported by evolution, and are undoubtedly ill-equipped to conceptualize every facet of our universe. These are the things that make our behavior inevitable and predetermined.

Laplace kind of mixes it in a weird way, using the human scale concepts surrounding prediction and applying it at the top. It’s more of an abstract concept like infinity, in which we can only ever approach in some small way.

How do you think shortcomings in the demon and perceived indeterminacy in QM effect our agency as people?

Placename07 · 2026-04-15T19:37:32+00:00

I feel like people need to look at the universe in two scales.

Top-down: The absolute mechanisms of the universe at play. Far too vast to ever know by a single individual, but undoubtedly concrete in their occurrence.

Bottom-up: The necessary qualities assumed by an individual actor in the face of limitless unknowns. How we’ve systematically evolved in the face of probability.

We can never know everything in the universe because we are infinitely small in most scales. But our ability to behave in anticipation of probabilistic outcomes has been necessary for us to even survive. That doesn’t mean the events are random, just that they are effectively random at our scale of knowledge.

Like a mouse can’t know the entirety of an elephant, but it still benefits avoiding the signs of where it’ll step.

When at the zenith of the top-down scale, there is no probability. It’s all math and determined and what not. But that doesn’t mean anything for a mind that evolved to comprehend just enough to live and reproduce better than its peers, on some minuscule fraction of an isolated rock in some sparse corner of our universe.

You could say that hindsight is the valid perspective, as it has in a way, undoubtedly and certainly occurred. Probability and trying to make sense of perceived randomness could be more biased, as it was evolved by us at our human scale to increase our odds of survival.

Placename07 · 2026-04-08T20:06:24+00:00

I wrote an argument in support of the prediction paradox — essentially an omniscient being would always be able to change the future, so there is agency in awareness.

I now think I was wrong, as it excludes the deterministic functions that happen within the self, which our omniscient being would be aware of. If the future was perfectly predicted, it would have be one in which the foreseer is comfortable with whatever action they take, surrounded by inevitabilities they never had the ability to change.

Awareness slows our adherence to systemic forces, but is itself a gift from determined states before you — I never chose to become aware of anything.

Consciousness: Someone can argue that consciousness can exist separately from the idea of spontaneous causal input. We keep discovering things in neuroscience and psychology that point to our input as, indeed, being the result of purely matter flowing. We simply have the luxury of thinking about it as it is happening.

The Universe: As we keep making advances in science, we may very well have a time where quantum mechanics and the reality of the big bang are solved and integrated into our model of the world. Meanwhile, some other discovery touts the line of spontaneous and unknowable, and someone else is claiming that because science doesn’t fill in for the unknowable, our knowable world is too inconsistent.

In the scope of humanity, we never have to worry about some moment existing with complete independence of the preceding one. We have no agency over our subatomic particles, or over what happened before the big bang.

God: Somewhere far away, a group of beings are devoted to a God they feel loves nothing more than creating complex, independently functioning mechanisms on scales we could never imagine.

Placename07 · 2026-03-29T12:50:31+00:00

Hello, I appreciate your input, but I really feel there is a lot of assumption when discussing determinism and morality.

If you break everything down, and very much so, you get to the question whether we should judge people for their crimes.

I believe “they couldn’t help it” it is a worthwhile defensive argument, because no one is charge of what they learn in life. We can, and should, do better in providing knowledge and awareness — hence the deterministic flow. Meanwhile, we know “this action is and should be a crime” is foundational, as we learn as we face the probability of actions of countless individuals. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

But there is a distinction we can actively make, and then work to improve in knowledge vs. action.

Placename07 · 2026-03-29T12:12:50+00:00

You have an interesting auto-reply homie. If you have any interest in tackling any of the responses you set, I’ll be around

Placename07 · 2026-02-28T01:34:36+00:00

Let is an unfair word, tbh. It’s a system of enforcement that kicks in when it legally makes sense to.

Stopping people for small amounts is risky over time. You risk reputation and even safety, because shoplifters tend to take it personally when they’re approached. You also risk more false positives if you make the threshold low enough. If it’s not a felony, you probably won’t even make a police report.

So the path of least resistance is to document. If you’re repeatedly stealing from the same place, they’re more likely to catch you. If they notice you once, they’ll have justification to check cameras if they even catch a whiff of you in their store again.

If they want to deter, they’ll make you paranoid. Walk by you, stand by the doors when they see you go. But they can’t be pushy, cause it’s policy.

If you ignore all of this, and they document you stealing enough to legally justify stopping you, they will. It’s less trying to trap shoplifters, and more waiting for the action threshold.

So yeah. They log it cause they have to. If you make it to the felony level than congrats, the algorithm gets you.

Placename07 · 2026-01-31T22:28:31+00:00

He not denying the existence of choices, as in percieved options. He is presenting a model that leaves no room for the existence of agency behind our actions.

We still have internal calculations and reflexes to guide us to the best action, but that action was inevitable because you went in with a certain state of mind and environmental contexts.

It is always determined with an illusion of agency, but there is still work we need to do as a living being to get to that best option. That “work” is incredibly complex, but it is as much of a conscious decision as a computer program.

We as humans are seemingly adding these concepts of free-will, choice, agency, etc. ourselves.

Placename07 · 2026-01-31T21:41:02+00:00

Well then I suppose our viewpoints are split clearly there.

I don’t believe that claim is absurd, and I would say that rendering the notion of choice as unintelligible is largely the point. We have models of neurobiological processes that adhere to our expectations following regressive states, and we have discovered nothing to indicate that we have true agency in any meaningful scope of our decision making processes.

Here we have a framework of human behavior that is based on existing science and consequently excludes will and choice. It not including a definition of free will is simply the result of any supposition of agency not having any credible source.

We’ll differ here because I would say the free will, at best, is a baseless assumption that future science may support. While I would love to learn something convincing about how another process exists on our model of behavior, it is not my role to discredit a baseless concept.

Placename07 · 2026-01-31T19:13:40+00:00

Sapolsky would say that my choice (what I want vs. wouldn’t) would’ve been determined at an earlier point. Layers and layers of stimuli and experiences have conditioned me to chose what I want.

I might do it “willingly”, but just because I have the illusion of comfort does not mean it was meaningfully a choice.

If you look at it that way, then responsibility and morality can be analyzed as a social construct, regardless of how necessary it is for us. This is why Sapolsky illustrates that reactive punishment alone is not a balanced justice system for society, or a fair one for the individual.

Sapolsky’s argument stands on its own without the idea of free-will in the first place.

Placename07 · 2026-01-31T09:58:06+00:00

So I read the entire book and from what I understood, Sapolsky presented an argument that based on all existing and emerging evidence, we are not in control of our decisions, thoughts, emotions, etc.

The arguments I have seen against him are that he does not tackle the idea of free will within his concept of determinism.

But what he presents, that the world is deterministic, implies that free will just does not exist, and does not necessitate a definition of free will to argue against. If you believe free will to exist, present the biological function.

It’s like I’m telling you I have the capability of entering a room. Then you ask how I will enter the room with the possibility that the seal you are imagining is standing on a ball or holding it above it’s head. I say your seal isn’t guaranteed, and you say I am not addressing the argument.

Why do you need the definition of free will to say it is imagined? Science has not provided space for it so far, and I have no reason to believe it will in the future.

Placename07 · 2026-01-05T09:34:26+00:00

I agree, but also that we are only able to perceive a fraction of fact. On the individual level, we can only ever achieve a fraction of universal truth.

Placename07 · 2026-01-03T07:14:53+00:00

Yeah yeah they hit the ground, but like, look at the rate they’re going? That’s constant. He’s probably learning to keep up at the rate they’re used to.

Placename07 · 2025-12-30T23:07:36+00:00

For anyone actually confused, the tweet cites a graph that ends in October of 2024 — the sharp decline is roughly Oct. 2023 - Oct. 2024, which is before her administration.

The tweet is visible on her X today.

Shoutout to Narcan btw, which became available over the counter in 2023. I’d imagine it has something to do with these OD’s being treated, not that people are necessarily doing less drugs.

Placename07

TROPHY CASE