this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
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My thought recently has been:
The universe is physical, ie made of material stuff. There is just stuff and the forces between stuff
Stuff is governed by physical laws
The interractions between things are relatively simple, but get much more complex and seemingly ramdom the more stuff you add
This seeming randomness is not true randomness because the interractions between things are governed by predictable rules
We are made of stuff, down to the neurons in our brains
Our actions and thoughts are ultimately directly caused by neuronal activity that is (in theory) predictable and governed by laws
Free will and individuality aren't "real" in the way people typically mean. Our actions are determined entirely by the particles in our system interracting with the constituent parts of other systems.
My conclusion: this doesn't matter on a practical level. We still experience free will and individuality. But those things are illusions caused by the interractions of many complex systems.
This is called "determinism"
Take a look at this and it gives some room for flexibility (from a movie called Waking Life): https://youtu.be/4arOKZvuZK4
Watching this clip back on college is what solidified my love for philosophy.
Which part of that clip gives some room for flexibility? From my watching of the clip, he just says this is an old religious problem that we are now examining from the viewpoint of science, and that the apparent room for flexibility in quantum probabilities don't offer anything like actual free will. And he essentially concludes by saying that despite there being no evidence of any shred of anything like free will, that we still need to search for and strive for it.
what if you live in a computer simulation, and you just see chemicals because that's part of the simulation, but there are actually none?
Spoiler