• Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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    9 hours ago

    Do you think knowledge, reasoning, experience, and risks do not play any role in our decisions?

    Sure, it is inevitable that we will make the decision we make, but it’s not that the marble will fall down every time that makes our choices significant, it’s the fact that we don’t arbitrarily make decisions.

    If, because you know about determinism, you stop bothering to learn about the world, there will be a different outcome, even if that was inevitable, that’s how you influence the world. Free will doesn’t mean anything and isn’t important.

    Even if there was free will, those things would be vastly more important than it. Free will is totally unimportant.

    • eru@mouse.chitanda.moe
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      8 hours ago

      Do you think knowledge, reasoning, experience, and risks do not play any role in our decisions?

      if you accept physical determinism, then knowledge, reasoning, experience, etc. are part of the physical system (ie. your brain) which makes the decision. they only play a role in that they influence the physical system for the decision making. the problem remains that you are forced to make a certain decision according to physics. the knowledge, reasoning, etc. are significant insofar as they influence the physics.

      in determinism: you change the physics, you change the outcome. knowledge and reasoning changes the physics (the state of your mind), which changes the outcome. their influence on your decision making process does not imply free will.

      Even if there was free will, those things would be vastly more important than it. Free will is totally unimportant

      i gave an example of a tree accidentally falling and killing someone in the other comment, it is hard to imagine free will has nothing to do with why you don’t hold the tree morally responsible.

      anyway, i am going to stop replying, my original reply was just showing that the free will problem is very much an issue for any deterministic position. there are potentially good ways to salvage determinism and i give references to three in my first comment, but the point you put forth is not convincing.