• NABDad@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I was only commenting on the concept of free will. Doesn’t matter where you apply it, we’re all just following our programming.

        Obviously, the program is incredibly complex, otherwise the illusion of free will wouldn’t be so easy to believe.

        However, there are many examples where the programming becomes apparent.

        The best example of this is a radio lab episode about a woman with transient global amnesia. Her memory reset every 90 seconds, and she kept repeating the same conversation over and over for hours. Like a program stuck in a loop.

        Radiolab, Transient Global Amnesia - SoundCloud https://m.soundcloud.com/ssealy/radiolab-transient-global-amnesia

        She couldn’t choose to say something else. Given the same input, she would repeat the same response every time. She didn’t have the ability to realize she had already said it, so she just kept looping.

      • irmoz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Is that really the only scenario you can think of that limits your food choices?

        • MYCOOLNEJM@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          It’s

          “Hmmm this food that I have right now has a lot of calories, maybe I should change it or eat less of it”

          VS

          “ayyy lmao, it’s the big food industry leaving me no choice, imma destroy this fucking burger”

          • More like:

            “I can spend a ton of executive function thinking about and preparing food in a way contrary to what the food industry and their advertisers, food engineers, psychologist, etc., try to get a person to do while having only a slight chance at losing weight if I’ve already gained it. I’ll probably do so by getting involved in the super scammy diet industry.”

            Vs

            “I don’t want to spend that much of my life thinking about, preparing, tracking food (maybe because I have an eating disorder/medical issue/mental health issues, maybe because it’s just not worth it to me)”

            It’s also not just a choice, it’s dozens of choices every day, forever.

            You’re way oversimplifying it. We’re not going to magically get better humans, so maybe changing the systems would be a better way to get results than relying on people and industry to change their behavior (which is obviously not working).

        • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          Even if you only have access to garbage food you can still limit your caloric intake. I eat fast food every day I work and I’m a healthy weight. It’s not difficult at all.

      • NABDad@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t wear tinfoil hats. What about not believing in free will means I’d wear a tinfoil hat?

              • stjobe@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Plenty of philosophers over the centuries have thought long and hard about the free will problem, and not all of them have come out on the side of it existing. David Hume, for instance, had to resort to religion to solve his issues with it (God made us have free will), and several contemporary philosophers have come down firmly on the “deterministic but complex enough to look non-deterministic” side of the fence. in essence, that free will is an illusion, but a good enough one that we still feel like we have it.

                • YAMAPIKARIYA@lemmyfi.com
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                  1 year ago

                  Okay fair enough. But that’s philosophy and doesn’t really translate to the physical properties of the universe. I do understand what you’re saying from the philosophical point of view. I did read both responses you sent.