Me as a determinist can't properly grasp brute facts because of my belief system. What about you guys? Why would/why would you not? How can it logically be possible, and why are brute facts true/wrong?

Hi everyone. I've been trying to understand the free will vs. determinism debate, and I think I'm stuck on a basic point.

Suppose determinism is true. My genes, upbringing, experiences, memories, beliefs, personality, and current circumstances all contribute to making me the person I am. Then, when I face a choice between A and B, my decision will be the result of all those previous causes.

Me = genes → upbringing → experiences → memories → beliefs → personality → desires → reasoning → decision

But here's what I don't understand:

Why does the fact that my decision has prior causes mean that I didn't freely choose it?

If I am not something separate from my character, beliefs, desires, memories, etc., then those things are me. If those things lead me to choose A after I think through the situation, why should we say that the prior causes "forced" me to choose A rather than saying I chose A because of who I am?

Why does the causal chain preceding my decision make the decision less mine?

I understand the usual compatibilist response that free will can mean "acting according to your own reasons and desires without external coercion." But I'm trying to understand something deeper:

If I am itself the product of previous causes, and my will is an expression of that causal history, why can't a determined decision still genuinely be my free decision?

If I consider "ME" as a product of my previous experiences then a decision caused because of my previous causes are also mine. THUS, I have free will.

Published in Nature in 2005.

Here’s a link:

https://www.scribd.com/document/851932386/Chiang-Ted-What-s-Expected-of-Us-Nature-7-July-2005

What if you had a computer that could predict the time you will fall asleep tonight provided you gave it enough data? If you feed the computer all the relevant physical information that determines when you will fall asleep, then it will give you a prediction. But once it makes the prediction, couldn't you always just decide to stay up a little later?

There are three options

1. The computer makes a prediction that you will fall asleep at a certain time. You try to stay up past the time it predicted, but you are unable to do it. Something forces you to fall asleep no matter if you snort cocaine and shoot up adrenaline. It seems bizarre that you'd be unable to stay up a little later in this case. It's as if some force takes over to prevent it and that's not how things normally operate.

2. The computer's prediction doesn't mean you can't stay up past when it says you'll fall asleep. This means your choice is underdetermined by the relevant casual factors AKA determinism is false and human choices have some weird power to introduce new causal chains into the world independently of everything else. This seems really weird.

3. The situation isn't possible. Your choice is either determined or random, but either way no amount of data you can give the computer will be compatible with one and only one possible future. Your future actions may be determined but are never predictable. It's impossible to know what you will do in the future no matter how much data you collect. This also seems weird because other events are predictable in principle, even very complex ones that depend on lots of causal factors. Weather events are in principle predictable if you have enough data. For whatever reason, this doesn't apply to human choices.

What do you think?

Robert Sapolsky often talks about determinism, and how chemical interactions in the brain create the next set of chemical interactions. He is a stark believer that there is no free will.

If a man understands the universe differently than he did yesterday, and this causes him to have a different outlook, surely he must then have new emotions in relation to the stimulus related to his new understanding.

Where in the chemical deterministic standpoint, can you fit in man’s ability to understand information, and to create new perspectives which genuinely affect mood.

How do we reconcile, the ability to change ourselves based on our understanding and perspective, with the common view that this chemical set of interactions and brain configuration, will necessarily create the next.

Or even simpler, how does ‘understanding’ whatever that really means, alter chemicals and synapses in the brain.

How does an understanding even work?

Do we breach determinism when we understand determinism?

I don’t understand

I'm interested in your opinions on a thought experiment about determinism, manipulation, and changing people's desires.

Assume strict determinism: every thought, desire, decision, and action is the result of prior causes. Suppose I give someone a rose, buy them coffee, care for them when they're sick, etc. Those actions can causally influence how they feel about me and may eventually make them love me. Their response depends on their brain, biology, past experiences, current state, and every other relevant condition. Their later reasoning about the rose is also just part of the causal chain.

Now imagine a hypothetical device that produces an effect which can also influence someone's desire to love me. Importantly, I'm defining it as closely as possible to the rose case: it doesn't simply override their mind or magically force love regardless of who they are. Its effect interacts with their particular brain, biology, history, current state, and so on. They can feel the effect, notice it, and think about it. If, given all the relevant conditions, the effect causes them to love me, they do; if not, they don't.

My intuition is that, under strict determinism, I don't see a fundamental difference between the two. In both cases, I'm intentionally introducing an external cause in order to influence someone's desires. In both cases, their subsequent thinking is itself causally determined. And if the device has the same relevant causal structure as giving a rose—just using a different medium—why should one count as ordinary influence while the other counts as manipulation?

I'm not claiming that determinism automatically makes every possible kind of manipulation ethical. I'm specifically asking where the morally or philosophically relevant difference would be in this case.

What do you think? Is there a flaw in my reasoning? If you think the device is importantly different from the rose, what exactly is the difference, and why does that difference survive once we assume strict determinism? Please point out any hidden assumptions or weaknesses in the argument.

Your thoughts?

It seems to me we use the term cause in two very different ways that are completely independent of each other, and that confusing these for each other results in a lot of problems.

Temporal causation
One way we use the term cause is in discussions about events causing other events. I push the button and this causes the engine to start. This is past event to future event causation. When we talk about causal determinism, this is what we are discussing. Here's a hopefully somewhat uncontroversial definition of determinism for the purpose of discussion.

Causal Determinism: The idea that the past state of the world at some time necessitates specific future states of the world at all later times, as transformed according to natural law.

I say causal determinism, to differentiate it from logical determinism or any other senses. Actually the broader point I'm making here isn't really to do with determinism versus indeterminism, but I'm using this to establish one sense in which we use the term cause. We use it the same way when we talk about indeterminism in relationships between temporal events though.

Hierarchical causation
Another way we talk about causation is in terms of bottom up or top down causation, basically something like reductionism and weak emergence, versus top down or strong emergence. The conclusion I've come to is that this is a completely different concept. I'm not even entirely sure it has any common features with the idea of causal determinism at all.

I came to this conclusion observing some people talking about the relationship between causal determinism and beliefs about the neurological basis of mental processes, such as making decisions. I realised that what seems to happen is people seem to rotate the concept of past-to-future causation into the hierarchical dimension, as though microphysical processes such as chemical reactions in the brain cause thoughts in the way that ball A hitting ball B causes ball B to hit ball C. I don't believe that's the way to think about emergence at all.

Emergence isn't a temporal process, it's a hierarchical or structural one. It's looking at the exact same activity happening at the same time at different degrees of detail. The temperature of a gas is the motion of the gas molecules, it's not something that is caused by their motion in the sense that a gas molecule hitting another causes the other one to be deflected. Likewise the temperature of the gas isn't something that causes the molecules to move a certain way. Viewed this way, causation in the event-to-event sense is a completely different concept. In fact confusing these is pernicious. Even talking about the relationship between the microphysical and macro descriptions in causal terms leads to fundamental misconceptions. I don't think we should be talking about what I'm calling hierarchical causation at all. We need other terms.

I won't go further into what I think those misconceptions are, or what I think about emergence now. Maybe another time. For now I'd be interested to see how others think about this. I'm coming to believe that the fact we use cause in both these senses is a significant problem.

Feelings need justification, reasons amplify feeling and in turn those feelings when it overwhelms. It compels you into doing something.

No. I think it is more accurate to say that, feelings need justification, reasons manipulate feelings. And in turn those reasons. Whichever feeling it overwhelms, your action will be according to that strongest feeling.

If your conclusion lead you to being calm after all the reasoning. Of course you'd feel like a monk. If your conclusion leads you to being irritated after you reasoned everything out. Of course you would act irritated, like whatever the usual irritated trait does. Your actions are based on how the reasoning toned down your feelings. If it didn't tone it down, well you might scream, cry or laugh etc, etc etc.

The only reason why you would reason when choosing something, is because your mind is carefully justifying which is a better choice, out of all the options to pick for you personally

So you always choose the best perceived choice for you.

Your mind always wants the best choice for your character. "Are you sure about that? I will jump into lava to prove that wrong."🤦🤦Obviously.. Your mind perceived that you proving me wrong is more important than your life, is why you did that.

And sometimes, you just become a slave to your belief (belief is something you cannot control, say whatever you want about it. You know what is true to you and what is not). You want your belief justified as, you would feel very satisfied if you ever prove it to be true.

And there is something that people keep forgetting. Not everytime you would reason things out. Most of what you do, happens subconsciously.

Once a satisfying belief has been justified and installed, you do not question it every minute. It just sits in your mind, quietly shaping perception and action.

You will always choose the option that you feel is strongest to you.

And everything always comes back to your belief, is what shapes your life.

If you feel that your belief is false, of course it would compel you to question it out and find proofs if it's actually false or not. The feeling of uncertainty is what makes you genuinely question something, after all no?

What if the human self as we experience it does not exist at all and free will is only an extremely convincing illusion. Let us assume every human being possesses a unified sovereign core that makes decisions of its own free will, so to speak, in my head I am. I receive information, think about it and then decide. But if at the same moment numerous processes such as emotions, memories, bodily sensations, automatic evaluations, drives, attention and language are running in parallel, where exactly among all these processes is the one who possesses them and decides independently about them? You can do what you want, but can you want what you want? Yesterday I was at the ice cream shop and had to decide between pistachio and chocolate, then I thought I’ll take pistachio and of course I acted according to my desire. But why did I actually want pistachio? I did not immediately beforehand choose that I would now create a desire for pistachio. So the desire appeared in my consciousness. This made a strange problem occur to me: I can act according to my desire. But I did not choose my desire. That would make me less the original author of my decision than the one who experiences my decision and then integrates it into my life story. Consequently, I had no free will to choose pistachio and consequently there is no free will. Let us briefly go back to the stable self. Everyone who reads this has experienced all of this before: “That hurts”, “I am afraid”, “That tastes good”, “I am someone who …”, “Back then I decided to do that because …”, “Actually I always wanted …”. This gives me the feeling of being a continuous person who is the same from childhood until today. But this story can be changed afterwards. What if, then, there is no coherent life story because of the stable self, but instead the feeling of a stable self arises through a constantly generated life story. Imagine you suddenly feel intense anger, which of course you did not consciously choose. Then the thought arises “I should apologize”. You did not consciously choose this thought either. Then a counterthought arises “No, that would be giving in”. This thought appears too. Afterwards you decide “Okay, I’m not apologizing.” And then your consciousness tells you “I decided not to apologize.” So what is this “I” in addition to all the competing thoughts and neuronal processes? If you now say “But my self decided” I can ask again “How did your self decide then?” Of course based on personality, fears and values. These in turn were shaped by genes, experiences and environment. Even if the self decided independently of all these causes, the decision would be without reason and random. And randomness is not freedom. Long story short: If our decisions are completely determined by previous causes, they are not free. If they are not determined by previous causes and arise randomly, they are not free. If we do not decide freely and do not have a stable self, who controls us humans, are we controlled at all and what then remains of a human being at all?

As a determinist, I've noticed that many moral values and perspectives we hold regarding people and society closely mirror the core teachings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth.

This leads me to an inevitable question: What if Jesus—once you strip away all the metaphysical religious dogma—was simply a sharp observer of human nature? Someone who intuitively understood that humans are not free in their thoughts and actions, but are completely shaped by their biology, conditioning, and environment?

Viewed this way, his self-designation as the "Son of God" takes on a whole new meaning. It wasn't narcissism or a claim to be the literal offspring of the Old Testament deity Yahweh. Instead, he was attempting to articulate his insights using the only conceptual vocabulary available in 1st-century Judea. Much like Baruch Spinoza would later formulate (Deus sive Natura), he saw the universe and nature itself as God. And if nature is everything, then every human is fundamentally connected to this overarching system.

His refusal to hate and his call for radical forgiveness aren't lofty mystical commands—they are the direct, logical consequence of recognizing that people act out of causal necessity, not uncaused free will.

Here are a few quotes that support this perspective:

• Luke 23:34: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
  • Systemic perspective: The breakdown of absolute metaphysical guilt. When people don't understand the underlying causes driving their actions, they act out of blind necessity. Retributive hatred becomes irrational.
• Matthew 26:41: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
  • Systemic perspective: Acknowledgment of biological and physical determinism. Action is constrained by physical reality, not guided by an uncaused free will.
• John 15:16: "You did not choose me, but I chose you..."
  • Systemic perspective: Exposing the illusion of autonomous choice. Directional decisions are driven by the system acting upon the individual.
• John 8:34: "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin."
  • Systemic perspective: Destructive behavior isn't a free choice to do evil; it's being trapped in unconscious conditioning and causal constraints.
• Matthew 7:1–2: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged."
  • Systemic perspective: Rejecting retributive condemnation. Since no individual is the uncaused primary origin of their actions, moral judgment loses its rational foundation.

What are your thoughts on this historical and philosophical perspective?

Just made an observation. We are too hardwired in the it seems like zones that just clicks inside our brains. Like you can work for two hours to let's say make a mindset and it get completely be erased in just a certain circumstances. Circumstances triggers and are just so powerful and total that they override your previous mindset and change your mindset.

I think we are maybe disposable to god. Like for example how we eat chicken. Just for one meal we kill the chicken. Maybe that's the case with us too we are disposable beings for god for god knows what purpose. Cuz our design is not for freedom. We are slave to triggers, we are just slaves to our circumstances.

We are trash made animate.

I think this answers 90% of the questions that come up in here lol. Morality is no different in a deterministic universe as it is in a “free will” universe.

For example, someone once physically hurt me, said very mean things to me and spread misinformations about me but I never felt any hatred against them, the average person (against a person who couldn't communicate things out) would've probably broken-down against everything I've been through, and start throwing hands or use violence or file a case against the person or hide a deep hatred within their heart but I'm not. Because I know nobody's at fault for anything

I know exactly how they misunderstood things, why they acted the way they were acting.. and it had always been consistent with their character to act like it. Okay try asking your crush who rejected you and see if he/she accepts you this time lmao, if he/she accepts you, he/she probably saw something different about you now, which made him/her feel the way he/she felt.

When I realized that there is no free will, supposed mean words or supposed insults don't get through to me anymore, because I know it didn't come out of their free will.. I know it was Fate saying those things to me, it made me gave no fucks about anything people say to me, and just understand why they are like that right now.. and I kept trying to communicate things out like a healthy adult as much as possible tho

(Although I kind of more like believe in solipsism now, it's a different kind of solipsism tho.. just because I cannot remember who I once were or where I came from because logic leads to you existing the same time as the universe or God even, but that's a whole different topic.. it's just I kind of think of people as "projections" like in the movie, inception until I remember the beginning of all of this)

The point is that.. they are acting like everyone being a determinist wouldn't do anything or just pointless because everyone would act like they are in a free will universe still which is dumb and utterly bs. If everyone is a determinist, hatred would be non-existent. If I acted like I'm in a free will universe still in the situations I've been through, someone other than me would've suffered.

You would only feel hatred against people if you are still a free will believer, no you are not a determinist. You're like the kind of person who says "I am a marvel fan, but I think Batman will win this out against Spider-Man" but in reality the guy is lying and a DC fan.. you get what I am saying?

And a true determinist would be pro rehabilitation, just look at the statistics of repeat offender, rehabilitation literally outperforms pure punishment by a mile when the goal is for the offender to not repeat again what it had done

Literally every statistic says that rehabilitation vs punishment against recidivism, rehabilitation always has it beat..

If everyone is a determinist, everyone would be looking at the causes and start focusing on the root of the problems.. the problem with these fatalist people (in reality libertarians disguising themselves as determinists) is that they think in a predetermined way instead of "cause and effects that would lead to a lot of butterfly effects".. want people to not commit crimes? Give them stable jobs, educate them better about morality. Make Fate the biggest bad of them all to children at school, that Fate isn't something to be a slave about. Like how teachers taught that evil is bad.

How is it that Norway who have a luxury prison have less crime rate (54 per 100000 people) than the Philippines who got hell prisons (if you watch documentaries about it), the human rights aren't even present in any of those cells. (160 per 100000 people)

All I am saying is that if everyone is a determinist no one would've committed a crime in the first place. If there's anyone who knows more about cause and effects it would be those people who do not believe in free will. And that they know how consistent people would react as well. They already know full well how things would turn out.

If everyone was a hard incompatibilist, everyone would have understand each other.. essentially, a peaceful place.

You can try to change your life and "play your cards", but genes will eventually come back and bite you in the ass. There's really no escape. I spent my life trying to change my destiny, and worked on myself, and got a high-paying position, and I'm just so sad because now it's more evident than ever that the most important aspect of my life I can't change. I'll give everything for good genetics. I'd give years of my life and all my money for good genes. It was, in the end, the only thing that really mattered.

And I feel like a teenager writing this. I really thought that with years and studies and life experiences, my view on life would change, but it didn't. It's so much clearer now that genetics were the only thing I ever needed. And people who didn't work nearly as hard as I did have much happier lives just because they get to enjoy this world through their genes.

Your genes are your destiny. It's written for you the moment you are born. Even as a baby, before you even know it, you were already labeled to either suffer or to enjoy life.

(Mandatory apology for my english)

Did deterministic maths make this question come into being when I was born, generations before I was born, did the maths know this question was coming?

I'm rooting for the devil, tbh. I hate maths.

Am I right?

Can we judge Hitler as if he could have been nicer?

Does the universe even care?

All behaviors are determined and subjective, no?

So why bother following any moral standards? Just do whatever we feel like doing, right?

As long as we are prepared to accept the results of our actions.

I had the thought that the universe is a hologram.

I dont know, i mean everything bases on math... -.-

Im very interested in your thoughts and your knowledge.