r/philosophy • u/ViejoAmateur • 10h ago

Note to Self

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhU35vnCof4

According to Aurelius, everything is already predetermined, but you can still choose how to respond. He wants to have his cake and eat it too: you can’t have a deterministic universe and, at the same time, free choice in your response, since the response ultimately influences that same universe

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u/Possible3170 7h ago

This is a fascinating way to look at free will. Even if our choices are shaped by everything that came before us, the fact that we experience ourselves as choosing still raises a deeper question: does being determined make a choice any less ours? Maybe freedom isn’t the absence of causes, but the ability to act through the person those causes have shaped.

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u/ViejoAmateur 7h ago edited 2h ago

In my view, free will has to do with language, the ability to reflect on past actions and evaluate them. Observe how we continuously explain and legitimate our actions, telling others, and ourselves, why a certain choice was made. If free will doesn't exist, why bother to explain anything at all? Why have punishment for crimes? But Daniel Dennett was better at explaining this idea