Published on 12, July, 2020
Causality has always been a fascinating subject to me. A fun thought exercise I like to do is trace back events that needed to happen for things in my life to exist as they do now, and see what's the most obscure thing that was vital to that series. That and the understanding of the probability of any given individual's existence has made me appreciate how intricate every single life is. We're all products of a specific series of events, consisting of a near incalculable number of nuances and distinctions that we might never hope to fully understand and appreciate.
I learned in recent years the concept of Laplace's Demon. A hypothetical being capable of observing every particle of the universe and its current momentum, if I recall it right. That such a being, with a sufficient intellect, could accurately predict the future if it could calculate where every particle has come from and in what it's present momentum is.
Thinking about these things has given me the opinion that chaos is just our inability to fully calculate the momentum of all of the contents of the universe. That every single thing that happens, could not have possibly happened any other way, because the series of events that lead to every moment were put in motion from the instant the universe was created.
I'm not an individual. I don't have free will. I don't make choices. Everything I do, I was always going to do exactly as it pans out. And any element of it that goes unpredictably is simply my lack of awareness of all the elements contributing to whatever comes out of it. But that even then, those elements were always guaranteed to come into play at that moment.
It might sound like I'm trying to absolve myself of responsibility for my decisions. But if I'm right, then I was always going to come to these conclusions, so who's to say what's right and wrong?
But in all things I try to keep an open mind. What do you all think?
Interesting take. You might want to read some of Sartre's work, such as The Roads to Freedom trilogy. His existential philosophy is about finding freedom in a meaningless world.
Libertarians (who are glorified right-wingers) make the argument for free will. It's the whole thrust of their stance, which is put in place to delude themselves from acknowledging the catastrophic failures of capitalism. In America there are over 60% of people living from paycheck to paycheck and libertarians are there boasting about "free will" as it's convenient for their avarice.
Organised religion has a big part in many of these flights of fancy.
When Leftists enjoying the best standard of living (If not quality of life) in recorded human history, describe the "catastrophic failures of capitalism", and completely miss how communism (their end goal) has created some of the most viciously poor and murdererous societies ever seen.
Even when we gloss over the fact that a NAZI is a NATIONAL SOCIALIST there is still Stalin and Pol Pot and other shining beacons of socialist leadership & sucess to cause plenty of cognitive dissonance with the left/right paradigm.
If you want to know who really rules you, ask who it is that you are not allowed to critise in any way.
It sure isn't any of the clowns that you "vote" into power, those are just carefully compromised puppets who do exactly as they are told by the people who selected and groomed them for their positions.
The left / right paradigm is clearly an illusion, if you watch it long enough as a dispassionate observer.
It bears repeating, both sides work for the same masters.
FFS, WAKE UP!!!
The right-wing stance is zero accountability at this point. The left is to blame (and immigrants). It's not the most convincing argument, I'm afraid, in the face of 13 years of extreme incompetence under Tory rule. We will be waving goodbye to the Tories at the next general election, so get used to the idea.
Total nonsense. You're taking the usual "they're all the same" rote stance and it's that vacuous mindset that's led to the catastrophes over the last 13 years. That is a very lazy mindset you've got and it's, frankly, quite embarrassing you're prophesying yourself to be adroit.
"The left / right paradigm is clearly an illusion, if you watch it long enough as a dispassionate observer."
This is a very obtuse stance I see rolled out by centrists, usually.
If you want to view the political spectrum as an "illusion", fine, but the ideologies have real world implications. And you can see the results of ultra-conservative rule vs left rule.
I didn't even like Tony Blair, but under his government we had affordable rents and no mass poverty crisis. The Tories have been catastrophic, which you're waving off in caustic fashion as it seems to just annoy your sense of intellectual ego.
As you so revealingly put it... FFS WAKE UP.
We'll be ruled by bumbling and compromised fools which ever of your "parties" gets in.
I'm already used to that thank you, I've seen a lot of it.