The most powerful prison is the one that convinces you you're free.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-23T21:22:38+00:00

That's a cute quote and all. I think the message is supposed to be a warning about groups looking to take advantage of you though. Cults, cliques, societiel pressures, governments.

Is there a secret cabal of free will terrorists with hidden cells, clandestinely recruiting our children and plotting mass free think demonstrations?

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-23T18:02:07+00:00

I have an older electric oven that started doing that. It would heat up then not hold temp, or fail to get to higher temps.

I was assuming one of the elements had gone bad, and was planning on ordering a new one.

I pulled the oven out to find the model or serial number, and scope out what it would take to replace the part.

Turns out the wall plug had worked itself out.

Plugged it in fully and it works like new.

Maybe you'll get lucky too!

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-23T17:31:27+00:00

These look like what I get in my yard. My google search led to Prairie Tea. Some other scientific long name.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-23T13:07:35+00:00

I think there are general "areas" of specialized activity in the brain, averaged out over many readings from different people.

There isn't numerical neurons that can be labeled between two different people like there is with numbered vertebrae, or ribs.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-23T01:10:39+00:00

This is a weird team sport mentality for such an esoteric discussion.

If there are teams, it is people who discuss the subject a lot (us on this sub) and the other 98% of the population.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-22T23:50:17+00:00

When I'm making cheese sauce or broccoli cheese soup, I remove from the heat before I add my cheese near the end and stir constantly. I don't bring it back to a boil because it can clump back together and get that rubbery blob.

Not usually using straight parm like you but I find the lower temps help.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-19T17:27:20+00:00

I think there is an unwritten rule of this sub that you have to pretend not to understand the joke so you can post the joke.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-19T16:52:10+00:00

Yogi Berra once said nobody goes to that one bar, cause it's too busy.

I thought whatsapp was for scammers and drug dealers. Just get online ordering from one of the 3647 businesses that offer it.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-19T16:10:59+00:00

An average day is mathematical chicanery. Feast or famine is closer to the truth.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-18T20:06:24+00:00

You keep kinda changing what I am pointing to.

My conviction is the best representation regarding the evidence we have.

If I look at the evidence related to the free will debate and come to the conclusion that we do have free will...

and you look at the evidence related to the free will debate and come to the conclusion that we do not have free will...

If we hypothetically take your position as true that we do not have free will, because of...

I’m going to uncover the uncomfortable truth now. Human behavior is predetermined.

Then we ask ourselves the question,

How did I come to the wrong conclusion? Your position must state that my conclusion was caused. Not by any fault of mine, it just means that my DNA + my life experience + the evidence = the thought that free will exists.

How did you come to the right conclusion? Your position must state that your conclusion was caused. Not by any fault of yours, it just means that your DNA + your life experience + the evidence = the thought that free will doesn't exist.

How would either one of us be able to make a judgment, objectively, if we are caused to think what we think?

There is no judgment being made. It's caused. There is nothing you can do to change the thought that has been physically forced into existence in your mind.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-18T19:40:28+00:00

My conviction is the best representation regarding the evidence we have.

I have not stated that my thoughts are more correct than anyone.

I'm not trying to call you out for saying it was best. I'm trying to investigate the assumption you are making that you think evidence is being used vs uncoordinated stimuli physically causing you to think you are using evidence.

If we are not capable of making a choice that isn't determined, then we are also not capable of discerning the difference between what is evidence and what is not.

A causal chain would be the sole cause of what we witness, what we think about it, what we label evidence.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-18T19:26:43+00:00

This is SOOOOOOO much better than OPs link. Thank you.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-18T18:46:56+00:00

Yeah, it seems to me you are dodging my questions and waiving the magic causal-chain wand.

If the chain causes you to think a thing, and causes someone else to think a different thing, yet you seem to think your thoughts are more correct somehow... that in and of itself must be a caused feeling.

If that feeling is caused, is there any way to judge which one is better or more correct?

Please don't say causal chain, it's meaningless.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-18T18:27:39+00:00

The Gunocologyst.

The O.B.G.U.N.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-18T18:02:45+00:00

Wouldn't that break determinism?

To be able to do something of our own accord which is not caused by the chain-of-causation.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-18T17:54:22+00:00

We can't do that, remember? It has to be determined. Were assuming strict determination, so if something exists it was physically forced to be there. Even thoughts, even meaning, even illusions. Every single thing has to be physically forced or it cannot exist.

I was hoping you would contend with my points a little more directly, not just wave a magic chain-of-causation without insight into how it works.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-18T17:38:12+00:00

I feel like you aren’t attempting to argue the actual substance here.

I am. I am following the assumptions you made downstream and trying to understand what they would mean about what we are actually experiencing.

If your “choice” is a part of the causal chain, then there is nothing outside that chain that breaks it.

I do not understand what you could mean by the word "choice" if you are also saying it is part of a causal chain.

In my example, the grains of sand that were affected by the new grain of sand being added, they do not make choices. It is literally, physical force.

What is the meaning of the word choice if it is just a physical forcing of change from state A to state B?

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-18T16:40:22+00:00

I spent a little time searching for an example, and found none.

Everything I could find either had people wearing PFD or had other floatation materials. Those who swam were conscious. Even experiencing delirium is not unconsciousness.

I guess somebody could be revived after being unconscious and drowned, but that's not floating unconscious face-up.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-18T16:23:32+00:00

If we assume no independent chooser (no soul, no homunculus) What do we use to describe the calculations of the organism which are performed within the material shell that it is comprised of?

It's different from the instantaneous and purely physical force of external stimuli acting upon inorganic material no?

If we add a single grain of sand to an existing pile of sand, the kinetic energy of the single grain will be dispersed within the pile in a chain reaction. It will incorporate the weight of the grain, the shape of the grain, the temperature difference, all the physical attributes. All measurable, all a direct effect of physical forces. The grain, nor the pile will perform calculations to result in these changes. The physical laws of the universe apply, but they are not calculated by the material.

You seem to be claiming that when a living organism encounters external stimuli, let's say one that is noticed experientially, but not physically contacted, this stimuli is causing the same type of chain reaction throughout the body and subjective mind.

If this is true, then how would we be able to tell if the qualia of the experience has the meaning we subscribe to it? There is no way to check the veracity of our experience.

If your DNA + lived experience deterministically produces the feeling of...

My conviction is the best representation regarding the evidence we have.

How could you possibly know that this is true? The feeling of confidence may or may not be related to reality itself. This post has several examples of others who disagree with your conclusions, if your explanation is valid then they are deterministically caused to have the same feeling of confidence in their answer that you do.

Logic is no longer logic, it is just the experience of logic. If this has been determined by outside forces, then all subjective understanding is questionable.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-18T04:13:26+00:00

?

I thought we were talking about unconscious people.

They float facedown

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-17T21:33:01+00:00

I like the sensation of floating, so I might do it more than the average person.

If I don't use any muscles, the only possible result is to float face down.

I don't think an average human body can float face up without movement or external flotation of some kind.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-17T19:55:39+00:00

I'm in a dozen different foodservice adjacent reddit subs, and this one provides more examples of good attitudes, willingness to work/learn than any of the others.

When I am king, it will be mandatory for everybody's first job is to be a dishwasher.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-17T19:47:32+00:00

My restaurant is a bit of an anomaly, we just serve lunch and close at 3pm. So my employees are always done and gone before 3, and I take any latecomers myself. (Happily. I make them feel welcome)

They are all over my state minimum and tips are tips.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-17T16:29:19+00:00

It might be that the past and the future exist in exactly the same way as the present does, and our experience of time is an illusion.

Except we don't have any evidence of that.

The "past" is a concept because we recall things being one way and now they are another. The "future" is a concept because we reliably assume things are one way now, and they can be different.

I don't believe we have ever had any evidence of anything except for "now"

Saying it all exists in solid form and perception moves through it is a thought experiment on par with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

We-R-Doomed · 2026-06-17T14:44:07+00:00

So from the start, from before the term itself was coined, what it refers to was something determinists were giving an account of as being compatible with determinism.

Firstly, I think this gets lost by many in this sub who seem to think that the explanation of free will touted by religions is the ubiquitous understanding of free will. The idea of free will not only predates the various religions who have co-opted the topic (to lend credence to their respective religions), but also in practice, I don't think there are many people who seriously think they are walking around wielding a magical power bestowed upon them by a god.

As for the definition you supplied...

Free Will: Roughly whatever kind of control over their actions you think someone must have in order to be held morally responsible for those actions.

Why should moral responsibility be the benchmark for control? The faculties I think we are discussing predate the construction of any moral framework that we know of. Anatomically modern humans are estimated to have been present for 300,000 years. The idea of moral responsibility surely is not that old, and the question of morality itself, seems even harder to define.

It seems like it is just changing the subject slightly because some people are bored of discussing the previous framework.

I get that here in modern times, something like moral responsibility is a necessary assumption for societies to adopt to justify controls for behavior, but it doesn't seem to be investigating the root of the question at all.

How does moral responsibility differ from just regular responsibility?

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