Have you went down any internet rabbit holes only to come out with a deep set existential crisis? If so, what are they?

  • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    That is all well and good.

    I’m an engineer, so I look at this from a physical sciences point of view. The main problem with the “no free will” argument is it provides no predictive power, there is no model that can say person X will do Y (instead of A, B, C or D) in situation Z.

    What is possible is giving probabilities of Y, A, B, C or D in experimental settings. But in the real world, there are too many variables interacting in a chaotic manner to even give reasonable probabilities; this is why we can only use population level statistics rather than individual level predictions.

    • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
      11·
      1 year ago

      I present, the Jim Twins:

      Twins separated at birth find each other and discover they’ve led identical lives source

      • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        The two men had married wives with the same first name and had similar interests and hobbies.

        Similar <> identical.

        This story has little to add to the debate about free will. How many identical twins separated at birth didn’t have similar lives?

        • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
          21·
          1 year ago

          It is anecdotal, but compelling. Determinism can’t be falsified, but neither can free will. The neuroscience is interesting, and shouldn’t be dismissed. Sapolsky’s debates are informative.

          • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            It only seems compelling, there is no base rate of non-similar twins separated at birth. Is this 1 in 2 sets end up like this, every one, 1 in 100,000?

            The neuroscience is interesting, but it is not in any way predictive. It is all post-hoc rationalisations of what did happen.

            As I said above, I’m an engineer and look at this from a physical sciences point of view. There is no model (as far as I’m aware) that can predict what will happen except in very specific psychological experiments.