Schopenhauer, the ultimate red pill?

[Natalia]

I have been suffering from depression-induced cognitive impairment for a few months, so I apologize if I fail to get my point across, but this matter has been paramount for me for years.

Two years ago, I came up with a concept. I failed to find a name for it wherewith I was comfortable, but it was the grouping of the individual desires that are present in all living things. It had something to do with instinct, but went further than just that, for it included humans’ desires that do not directly come from mere instinct. That… thing, materialized itself in the existence of all living things and in everything humans have created. Sculptures, paintings, malls, fashion, capitalism as a whole, laws, morality, forests, mushrooms… they were no more than the manifestations of that collection of desires. It was the noumenon of Life, if you will. [i use the term “noumenon” loosely, for I believe that it is a group of physical elements found in the body and DNA of all life forms.]

Coming up with such concept made me question the possibility of such thing as a free will. “Is there any action at all without that [the noumenon of life]?” I asked myself, “if I created a robot with artificial intelligence, what would it do, apart from that which I, accidentally or not, programmed it to do?” What does it mean to be free, if you can do what you want, but you cannot choose what you want? Just as AI is programmed by humans, humans and other life forms are programmed by the billions of years of evolution that made their present existence possible. Even though Stefan and all of you are keen on free-will, I have never seen a rebuttal to that, to the fact that what you want is pretty much the same thing that all life forms do, although each individual pursues it differently—it’s not up to you, and it was decided billions of years before you were born, that the mere fact of your existence would intrinsically mean that you want to live and to reproduce, and that each of your desires is directly or indirectly related to that. The recognition that those desires are the noumenon of your existence would be the ultimate self-knowledge.

All of that will be familiar to you if you’ve read Schopenhauer. I did, last year, as a 15 year old, and noticed how Schopenhauer had given the name of “Wille”—“Will” in English—to a concept very similar to mine; different, however, in that Schopenhauer attributed to it the phenomenal existence of all things, including those that had nothing to do with life. He also explored the concept and its implications much more deeply than I ever had, and I thought to myself—“isn’t that the ultimate truth—the ultimate ‘red pill’? The Will—our own desires—is the matrix we all live in, and it’s the source of all suffering.”

“Meanwhile it surprises one to find, both in the world of human beings and in that of animals, that this great, manifold, and restless motion is sustained and kept going by the medium of two simple impulses—hunger and the instinct of sex, helped perhaps a little by boredom—and that these have the power to form the primum mobile of so complex a machinery, setting in motion the variegated show!”

Schopenhauer also thought of something similar to my AI analogy, in regards to free will. In his prize essay on the freedom of the will, he points out how freedom is a negative.

“The natural image of a free will is an empty set of scales. It hangs there at rest and will never lose its equilibrium unless something is laid on one of the pans. Free will can no more produce an action out of itself than a scale can produce a movement of itself, since nothing comes from nothing.”

Just as an intelligent computer not programmed to do anything (if such thing could possibly exist) would be technically free, and wouldn’t do anything, humans and the rest of the life forms, if we weren’t programmed by years of evolution to have certain wishes, wouldn’t do anything, if such beings were physically possible in the first place. Our very existence and actions deny free will.

“Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.”

[Man can do what he wills; he cannot, however, will what he wills.]

I disagree with Schopenhauer on many things, but in this particular matter presented here and in what it implies I see nothing but the ultimate truth. Would anyone here rebut that?

On a semi-related note, I made this meme which only people interested in philosophy would comprehend, here it is:



>inb4 ad hominem
>inb4 ad naturam strawman

[Will Torbald]

What does it mean to be free, if you can do what you want, but you cannot choose what you want?

 

It means to not be bound by the will of another even if you are bound to your own will.

 

“Is there any action at all without that [the numenon of life]?”

 

If you create a mystical concept, you can attach that concept to everything because it doesn't really exist. Detach your mind from concepts, see only what your senses show you. Only then can you escape the tyranny of concepts that cloud your mind.

 

that the mere fact of your existence would intrinsically mean that you want to live and to reproduce

 

Not necessarily. Life programs pains and reliefs, hunger and lust, but it doesn't program you for the result of the relief of those desires. Animals don't want to reproduce, they want to end a lust. They don't even know living means, but hunger keeps them alive. Only humans understand the result of those actions, and can determine themselves to achieve them directly instead of accidentally.

[Natalia]

What does it mean to be free, if you can do what you want, but you cannot choose what you want?

 

It means to not be bound by the will of another even if you are bound to your own will.

So you admit that we are bound. Do you realize that being bound and being free are antonyms?

 

 

that the mere fact of your existence would intrinsically mean that you want to live and to reproduce

 

Not necessarily. Life programs pains and reliefs, hunger and lust, but it doesn't program you for the result of the relief of those desires. Animals don't want to reproduce, they want to end a lust. They don't even know living means, but hunger keeps them alive. Only humans understand the result of those actions, and can determine themselves to achieve them directly instead of accidentally.

That's exactly what I mean, just worded differently. It's not really a counter-argument.

 

“Is there any action at all without that [the numenon of life]?”

 

If you create a mystical concept, you can attach that concept to everything because it doesn't really exist. Detach your mind from concepts, see only what your senses show you. Only then can you escape the tyranny of concepts that cloud your mind.

 

It's not a mystical concept. It's something very real and physical in all living beings. I have not yet researched the exact neurological mechanisms of all desires as I have with those of aggression, but desires for food, sex, social acceptance, love, money, are all very physical and chemical things, so much that some of them can be turned off with an antidepressant.

[Kevin Beal]

Depression comes about in response to a sense that life is out of one's control. Thinking that determinism will cure you of your depression is lunatic. It is the worst possible thing to do to a person, to make them believe that they do not have control over the quality of their own life. I'd say it is an act of malice and rage, in fact, if it were a conscious act.

 

It's the same kind of rage that a narcissistic abuser inflicts on a child, when they gaslight the child into obedience by divorcing the child from their own perception of control. They want the child to feel ineffective because they don't want them to continue some action they don't like.

 

The first thing I think whenever anybody argues against free will is: they are depressed. How could you not be?

 

But I fully concede that it doesn't prove free will to point out the clear connection between depression and determinism. I just want to point out that it's no coincidence that you would be drawn to it as an explanation, something which feels familiar.

 

---------------

 

You have a degree of control over what you desire insofar as you develop multiple competing desires. You may want to eat ice cream all day, but you want to live a healthy life even more. With increased knowledge, you can prioritize your time and energy. This is part of healthy normal maturation. You are responsible for gaining knowledge and prioritizing your desires in a rational way.

 

If someone were completely a slave to their immediate desires or instincts, then clearly that is not a conception of free will which could make sense. Free will, in order to be something recognizable, would have to involve rational decision making, deferring gratification, comparing actions to rational standards and resistance to unhealthy, immoral or otherwise irrational desires.

 

If that is actually what you experience, then the only barrier in the way of accepting free will is to say that this subjective experience is illusory. That is to say that being rational is illusory, or that following through on the reason is illusory. In either case, the position implodes in on itself logically.

 

Arguing for free will does not require a suspension of the laws of physics or chemistry or biology or logic. It's simply the acceptance that this subjective experience of rationally choosing one action over another, despite instinct or conflicting desire, is a true and accurate description of events.

 

Arguing for free will does not require randomness or that we can't have knowable outcomes for people's behavior. Setting up conditions such that they are exactly the same, getting the same behavior at the end and concluding that therefore free will is illusory, is not a meaningful test of anything. The only thing it says is that if everything is the same, then everything will be the same.

 

If determinism were true, then it would certainly be the ultimate red pill. Fortunately, it's not.

[Will Torbald]

So you admit that we are bound. Do you realize that being bound and being free are antonyms?

 

 

That's exactly what I mean, just worded differently. It's not really a counter-argument.

 

 

It's not a mystical concept. It's something very real and physical in all living beings. I have not yet researched the exact neurological mechanisms of all desires as I have with those of aggression, but desires for food, sex, social acceptance, love, money, are all very physical and chemical things, so much that some of them can be turned off with an antidepressant.

 

The freedom spoken in these places is political freedom, or liberty. It's a social and cultural freedom. But were not free from nature and biology, that I admit, but so does everyone else. I am not free to not eat and not die. A being free from nature would be a god.

 

You can't equate wanting to eat with wanting to live. I am arguing that you are making a mistake. The result of eating may extend your life, but it does not follow from a desire to live. It is entirely possible yet cruel for a person to eat and not want to live at the same time which would be depression.

 

It sounded mystical at least. But if you say that paintings exist people people had the desire to make paintings, I don't see how that is a profound revelation.

[dsayers]

Do you realize that being bound and being free are antonyms?

A person who's hands are bound but feet are not is free to walk. Thus context is necessary. When we say that people are/should be free, it means from without. The binding you're contemplating is from within. As such, these words are not antonyms in the context of this discussion.

 

I consider myself a pragmatist, so I often do not engage in contemplation I do not find useful. So you'll have to pardon me if I'm ill-equipped for this level of philosophizing. That said, it seems to me that the fact that people can and do act in self-destructive ways, in ways that are not good for them, and indeed in ways that override their own biological imperatives sufficiently refutes that we cannot will what we will.

 

For that matter, isn't the very suggestion that we cannot will what we will absurd? For if whomever would claim as much could be convinced that we could, then wouldn't they just say "Ah, but we cannot will what we will that we will," and so on? It's true that I cannot choose that blueberries, cherries, and peaches taste good to me and Monistat 7 doesn't, but how would this disprove free will?

 

Doesn't trying to discuss/convince others of a lack of free will a performative contradiction?

[Kevin Beal]

The freedom spoken in these places is political freedom, or liberty. It's a social and cultural freedom.

Please don't speak on everyone's behalf.

[Will Torbald]

Please don't speak on everyone's behalf.

 

I said nothing wrong, and that quote out of context misses the intention of what I was saying. She's saying that there's no freedom because people are bound to their own desires, which is a different kind of freedom from libertarian ideas - and since we're in a libertarian forum, it is an objective statement of fact. I'm not claiming to know what each individual person thinks, but what the theme of the place is. I was avoiding a confusion between two different kinds of freedom.

[Kevin Beal]

I was avoiding a confusion between two different kinds of freedom.

You were creating confusion by talking about exactly the wrong type of freedom. Freedom of the will is not the same freedom you are referring to.

[Natalia]

A person who's hands are bound but feet are not is free to walk. Thus context is necessary. When we say that people are/should be free, it means from without. The binding you're contemplating is from within. As such, these words are not antonyms in the context of this discussion.

I said nothing wrong, and that quote out of context misses the intention of what I was saying. She's saying that there's no freedom because people are bound to their own desires, which is a different kind of freedom from libertarian ideas - and since we're in a libertarian forum, it is an objective statement of fact. I'm not claiming to know what each individual person thinks, but what the theme of the place is. I was avoiding a confusion between two different kinds of freedom.

I refer here to free will, or freedom in the philosophical sense. I agree with the libertarian view that people should be free from outside constraints. But my philosophy goes much further than libertarianism, I believe.

 

I consider myself a pragmatist, so I often do not engage in contemplation I do not find useful. So you'll have to pardon me if I'm ill-equipped for this level of philosophizing. That said, it seems to me that the fact that people can and do act in self-destructive ways, in ways that are not good for them, and indeed in ways that override their own biological imperatives sufficiently refutes that we cannot will what we will.

 

No. I’d say that’s a byproduct of the fact that our instincts are outdated for modern life. Fast food tastes good, although it is unhealthy, because the nutrients that it has, throughout several generations of evolution, were rare and necessary in small quantities. For more about outdated instincts and supernormal stimuli, here is a friendly comic. People who consume fast-food, drugs and the like, are still exercising their will to live, in an animalistic, irrational sense.

 

You might also be referring to self-inflicted pain that has nothing to do with supernormal stimuli. I’d say that such things do not need to be self-destructive. I happen to cut my skin quite a lot, but I’ve never gotten close to dying from it.

 

Even suicide, however, would not be a negation of the Will. Suicide is often an act that comes directly from the will to avoid pain and suffering. It’s a futile, will-driven action just like all others.

 

For that matter, isn't the very suggestion that we cannot will what we will absurd? For if whomever would claim as much could be convinced that we could, then wouldn't they just say "Ah, but we cannot will what we will that we will," and so on? It's true that I cannot choose that blueberries, cherries, and peaches taste good to me and Monistat 7 doesn't, but how would this disprove free will?

 

I was reading what other people were saying about that quote, and I stumbled upon this Zeit article. This quote says that denying that we cannot will what we will is logically absurd:

 

“Der Mensch hat zwar einen Willen, aber er kann diesen Willen nicht selbst willentlich beeinflussen. Das ist auch logisch unmöglich: Wenn wir unseren Willen beeinflussen könnten – wodurch würde der Wille, der unseren Willen treibt, beeinflusst? Wieder durch einen Willen, einen dritten, vierten, fünften? Schon seit dem Mittelalter haben kluge Menschen dieses Problem der willentlichen Willenssteuerung erkannt.”

 

My rough translation, not entirely accurate because German word order is a bitch: “Man has indeed a will, but he cannot willfully influence his will. That is logically impossible: if we could influence our will, which will would influence our decision to do so? Another will, a third, fourth, fifth will? Since the Middle Ages wise men have recognized this problem with volitional will control.”

 

This matters because when making decisions, we weight the consequences of our actions and decide to do that which will have the consequences we want, or not have consequences we do not want. The Will goes much further than liking blueberries or not. You cannot change the fact that you desire money, or the comfort and opportunities it can bring, and therefore you seek it. You cannot choose to like someone or dislike them, and you act accordingly to how you feel. All of our actions, all the actions of all living beings, are determined by that which they want and have no logical reason whatsoever for wanting.

 

This is still valid when people control their will—if I am a devout Christian and find going to church boring, I will still go because that will bring me closer to heaven—the eternal life. Likewise, I won’t be promiscuous, even though I may like sex, because I wish to avoid the suffering in hell.

 

Doesn't trying to discuss/convince others of a lack of free will a performative contradiction?

I’ve heard that one before. I do not see how that is the case. People can and do change their minds, although they may require certain situations to do that, what differs from person to person.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

I think one fundamental difference between freedom of will and freedom from aggression, is that aggression requires will, but will does not require aggression.

 

Another way to say that is you can have the capacity to make choices as an effect of consciousness, whether you are under the threat of force or not. That you cannot exercise a capacity in any given moment does not mean the capacity does not exist in general. The government initiates the use of force or threatens such, but this does not erase the capacity for free will, but it changes the effects of certain actions compared to a situation without a government.

 

And for someone to initiate a threat of force requires that they have free will, because it is a deliberate choice unless they are also under threat of aggression, in which case someone still needs​ a will to threaten the initial act of force.

 

It's hard for me to say someone who hasn't processed their child hood trauma, or who hasn't discovered philosophy, has the capacity for free will. That said, it's just as hard to say they never ​had the capacity, because people do come into contact with values systems radically different from their own, and are likely to reflect on this at some point. People are obviously very skilled at deceiving themselves when it is convenient, so it wouldn't surprise me people come into contact with their capacity for free will and use it when it's convenient, and ignore or deny it when it's not. It's not like I've never done that either... So my experience at least tells me it's possible. 

 

I think the capacity for free will can be demonstrated by valuing rationality, because rationality is not the same standard as biological self interest. I think rationality as a value could one day be the standard of biological self interest, but it's not now and I see no reason to necessarily think it is so, because being rational in an irrational society does not seem to be a very successful strategy on average. But it might be, so I'll leave that for anyone else to figure out because I could be making children rather than figuring this out.

 

I'm working on my communication style so I'm sorry if it is still a bit esoteric or distant, because I'm discovering that is one of my verbal ticks and I definitely want to improve on that. After I make some more children I mean. I think it's something every one could work on, after all Stefan has put a lot of work into his... communication style

 

(no children were created as a consequence of this post)

[Gavitor]

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

 

You are free to do as you please, just remember that every action has a reaction otherwise known as a consequence...

[Natalia]

Depression comes about in response to a sense that life is out of one's control. Thinking that determinism will cure you of your depression is lunatic. It is the worst possible thing to do to a person, to make them believe that they do not have control over the quality of their own life. I'd say it is an act of malice and rage, in fact, if it were a conscious act.

 

It's the same kind of rage that a narcissistic abuser inflicts on a child, when they gaslight the child into obedience by divorcing the child from their own perception of control. They want the child to feel ineffective because they don't want them to continue some action they don't like.

 

The first thing I think whenever anybody argues against free will is: they are depressed. How could you not be?

 

But I fully concede that it doesn't prove free will to point out the clear connection between depression and determinism. I just want to point out that it's no coincidence that you would be drawn to it as an explanation, something which feels familiar.

 

 

There’s the ad hominem I was expecting. Determinism came to me in one of the happiest periods of my life, two years ago. Although I admit I am reminded of it now partially because of my recognition of how my Will, or more specifically, my love for someone, will invariably bring me suffering until it wears off. [it’s not necessarily about the quality of my life; one could argue I have a good life, but I suffer nevertheless, for one thing that I lack and can’t help but desire.] But then, if that does happen, I’ll fall in love with yet another person, and he’ll leave me, or most likely, never be interested in me in the first place, and I’ll be miserable yet again. I have thought and researched about that over and over for months.

 

You have a degree of control over what you desire insofar as you develop multiple competing desires. You may want to eat ice cream all day, but you want to live a healthy life even more. With increased knowledge, you can prioritize your time and energy. This is part of healthy normal maturation. You are responsible for gaining knowledge and prioritizing your desires in a rational way.

 

If someone were completely a slave to their immediate desires or instincts, then clearly that is not a conception of free will which could make sense. Free will, in order to be something recognizable, would have to involve rational decision making, deferring gratification, comparing actions to rational standards and resistance to unhealthy, immoral or otherwise irrational desires.

 

That’s a good argument, but it does not refute what I said. You do have multiple desires, but all of them are “hardwired” in your material existence. A K-selection strategy is just as instinctive and out of your control as an r-selection strategy. And the fact that you can choose which desire to subjugate yourself to does not mean that you are free from the other. You’ll still crave for the ice cream, whether you quench your desire or you decide not to, or are physically unable to.

 

This is something important about my argument that you failed to understand. The fact that you can delay gratification does not mean that you are free from your desires, since 1. you have something that you desire to achieve by delaying gratification in the first place, and 2. you don’t lose your other desires by ignoring them.

 

I think one fundamental difference between freedom of will and freedom from aggression, is that aggression requires will, but will does not require aggression.

 

Another way to say that is you can have the capacity to make choices as an effect of consciousness, whether you are under the threat of force or not. That you cannot exercise a capacity in any given moment does not mean the capacity does not exist in general. The government initiates the use of force or threatens such, but this does not erase the capacity for free will, but it changes the effects of certain actions compared to a situation without a government.

 

And for someone to initiate a threat of force requires that they have free will, because it is a deliberate choice unless they are also under threat of aggression, in which case someone still needs​ a will to threaten the initial act of force.

 

It's hard for me to say someone who hasn't processed their child hood trauma, or who hasn't discovered philosophy, has the capacity for free will. That said, it's just as hard to say they never ​had the capacity, because people do come into contact with values systems radically different from their own, and are likely to reflect on this at some point. People are obviously very skilled at deceiving themselves when it is convenient, so it wouldn't surprise me people come into contact with their capacity for free will and use it when it's convenient, and ignore or deny it when it's not. It's not like I've never done that either... So my experience at least tells me it's possible.

 

I think the capacity for free will can be demonstrated by valuing rationality, because rationality is not the same standard as biological self interest. I think rationality as a value could one day be the standard of biological self interest, but it's not now and I see no reason to necessarily think it is so, because being rational in an irrational society does not seem to be a very successful strategy on average. But it might be, so I'll leave that for anyone else to figure out because I could be making children rather than figuring this out.

 

I'm working on my communication style so I'm sorry if it is still a bit esoteric or distant, because I'm discovering that is one of my verbal ticks and I definitely want to improve on that. After I make some more children I mean. I think it's something every one could work on, after all Stefan has put a lot of work into his... communication style

 

(no children were created as a consequence of this post)

It is interesting that you implied a desire to create children. The fact that all of us was conceived because of someone else’s desire—and that is true for trees and cows and grass and bacteria, each to the extent the complexity or lack thereof of their existence allows them to—just adds to my argument that desire is the noumenon of life.

 

You can't equate wanting to eat with wanting to live. I am arguing that you are making a mistake. The result of eating may extend your life, but it does not follow from a desire to live. It is entirely possible yet cruel for a person to eat and not want to live at the same time which would be depression.

Perhaps not consciously, but unconsciously, they’re the same. A person can desire not to live (which would still be an irrational desire, since it’s the wish to end suffering or pain) but they can't change the fact that their body sure as hell wants to live.

[mkaru]

Two years ago, I came up with a concept. I failed to find a name for it wherewith I was comfortable, but it was the grouping of the individual desires that are present in all living things. It had something to do with instinct, but went further than just that, for it included humans’ desires that do not directly come from mere instinct. That… thing, materialized itself in the existence of all living things and in everything humans have created. Sculptures, paintings, malls, fashion, capitalism as a whole, laws, morality, forests, mushrooms… they were no more than the manifestations of that collection of desires. It was the noumenon of Life, if you will. [i use the term “noumenon” loosely, for I believe that it is a group of physical elements found in the body and DNA of all life forms.] 

 

I think you got this very well, this is what Schopenhauer meant. I would not go so far to reduce this only to physical or material things/substances like DNA, hormones etc. - since those are only "phaenomena", while Schopenhauer (if I recall correctly) uses the term "noumenon" to characterize what he names "the will". (Schopenhauer is coming from Kant here, he says the Will is what Kant thought to be the thing in itself.). How did you come up with the term "noumenon"?

 

Anyways, those are some quite deep metaphysical thoughts you are having there. I'm surprised to read that you are only 15 or 16 years old, one wouldn't expect that, really. Particularly: I hope you don't fall for the philosophically superficial arguments some tried to give you here (trying to make the points that e. g. "there is a free will", "determinism is lunatic" etc.; I say: to understand, accept and settle with the thought of an unfree will is not "weak" or "depressing", it is calming and shows a strong intellect.). But your intellect seems to be set up for metaphysically deeper thoughts, really, and I think that you've already left those common sense standpoints and reasonings behind you.

 

I disagree with Schopenhauer on many things, but in this particular matter presented here and in what it implies I see nothing but the ultimate truth. Would anyone here rebut that?

 

 

Yes, well, maybe not rebut but expand or overcome (überwinden). I wouldn't stop at Schopenhauer. I know German philosophy very well (I am a philosopher from Germany) and I would point you to Nietzsche as a next step. Nietzsche is the antidote to Schopenhauerian pessimism. Do you speak German? Your translation of that passage is perfect (and your Schopenhauer meme is quite witty, by the way.)

[rosencrantz]

To Schopenhauer's black pill, there is an iron pill provided by Nietzsche and a non-pill coming from mindfulness meditation. The ultimate test that any philosphy must pass is how to deal with yourself and the world if there is no reason behind it all. Both approaches offer different ways to a solution.

[labmath2]

I have been suffering from depression-induced cognitive impairment for a few months, so I apologize if I fail to get my point across, but this matter has been paramount for me for years.

 

Two years ago, I came up with a concept. I failed to find a name for it wherewith I was comfortable, but it was the grouping of the individual desires that are present in all living things. It had something to do with instinct, but went further than just that, for it included humans’ desires that do not directly come from mere instinct. That… thing, materialized itself in the existence of all living things and in everything humans have created. Sculptures, paintings, malls, fashion, capitalism as a whole, laws, morality, forests, mushrooms… they were no more than the manifestations of that collection of desires. It was the noumenon of Life, if you will. [i use the term “noumenon” loosely, for I believe that it is a group of physical elements found in the body and DNA of all life forms.]

 

Coming up with such concept made me question the possibility of such thing as a free will. “Is there any action at all without that [the noumenon of life]?” I asked myself, “if I created a robot with artificial intelligence, what would it do, apart from that which I, accidentally or not, programmed it to do?” What does it mean to be free, if you can do what you want, but you cannot choose what you want? Just as AI is programmed by humans, humans and other life forms are programmed by the billions of years of evolution that made their present existence possible. Even though Stefan and all of you are keen on free-will, I have never seen a rebuttal to that, to the fact that what you want is pretty much the same thing that all life forms do, although each individual pursues it differently—it’s not up to you, and it was decided billions of years before you were born, that the mere fact of your existence would intrinsically mean that you want to live and to reproduce, and that each of your desires is directly or indirectly related to that. The recognition that those desires are the noumenon of your existence would be the ultimate self-knowledge.

 

All of that will be familiar to you if you’ve read Schopenhauer. I did, last year, as a 15 year old, and noticed how Schopenhauer had given the name of “Wille”—“Will” in English—to a concept very similar to mine; different, however, in that Schopenhauer attributed to it the phenomenal existence of all things, including those that had nothing to do with life. He also explored the concept and its implications much more deeply than I ever had, and I thought to myself—“isn’t that the ultimate truth—the ultimate ‘red pill’? The Will—our own desires—is the matrix we all live in, and it’s the source of all suffering.”

 

“Meanwhile it surprises one to find, both in the world of human beings and in that of animals, that this great, manifold, and restless motion is sustained and kept going by the medium of two simple impulses—hunger and the instinct of sex, helped perhaps a little by boredom—and that these have the power to form the primum mobile of so complex a machinery, setting in motion the variegated show!”

 

Schopenhauer also thought of something similar to my AI analogy, in regards to free will. In his prize essay on the freedom of the will, he points out how freedom is a negative.

 

“The natural image of a free will is an empty set of scales. It hangs there at rest and will never lose its equilibrium unless something is laid on one of the pans. Free will can no more produce an action out of itself than a scale can produce a movement of itself, since nothing comes from nothing.”

 

Just as an intelligent computer not programmed to do anything (if such thing could possibly exist) would be technically free, and wouldn’t do anything, humans and the rest of the life forms, if we weren’t programmed by years of evolution to have certain wishes, wouldn’t do anything, if such beings were physically possible in the first place. Our very existence and actions deny free will.

 

“Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.”

 

[Man can do what he wills; he cannot, however, will what he wills.]

 

I disagree with Schopenhauer on many things, but in this particular matter presented here and in what it implies I see nothing but the ultimate truth. Would anyone here rebut that?

 

On a semi-related note, I made this meme which only people interested in philosophy would comprehend, here it is:

 

 

>inb4 ad hominem

>inb4 ad naturam strawman

There are two solutions to the determinism problem.

The first is even if your proposition were true, there is no free will, what effect does that produce. A man walks into a restaurant, the waiter hands him the menu and returns in a few minutes to take his order, the man responds "i am a determinist, so i am waiting to see what i will order." (Sam Harris joke). This clearly doesn't make much sense. He will have to choose what he is having to see what he chose. We can only live through the minute by minute choices we make which has no appearnce of determinism even if it were determinism.

 

The second solution which is my theory, is that consciousness arises from the brain and we have some influence over our brains. Our psychology and immediate environment seems to have some effect on our brain development. There are things you can do to influence your psychology like therapy, drugs, sleep, exercise, meditation, etc. You can also remove yourself from a toxic situation to find a better match for you. Many famous academics had to move because they needed to go to a place more compatible with their interest (higher institutions of learning). The degree to which you can change these things is the degree to which you are free.

[Will Torbald]

I refer here to free will, or freedom in the philosophical sense. I agree with the libertarian view that people should be free from outside constraints. But my philosophy goes much further than libertarianism, I believe.

 

If we discuss free will as an absolute ability of choice, I would disagree. I do realize people are bound by their instincts, their evolution, the stimuli, their hormones, biology, and so on. Babies don't choose to cry, they cannot do anything but cry when they are born. We develop more abilities as we grow and mature even if we're never divorced from instinct. There is however a point when we can say that a person chose to act in a certain way amongst other possibilites available. Then we say that was a free choice even if we can't say he wasn't influenced from within by his reptile brain or something like that. The only path there is to increase the degree of freedom we experience internally is to increase the fortitude of the higher brain, the neocortex and human abilities to subdue the lower instincts that feel like we're being controlled. But we're not born with that ability, it is developed through maturity and conscious training. Like an enlightened buddha, I'd say. What I wouldn't sign on to is to agree that there is no degree of unbound will at all - I think the capacity to day dream, imagine the impossible, to determine foresight and create new things, ideas, inventions - those things were not programed by evolution of stimuli. There is no instinct saying "build iphone" as far as I know.

[Natalia]

I think you got this very well, this is what Schopenhauer meant. I would not go so far to reduce this only to physical or material things/substances like DNA, hormones etc. - since those are only "phaenomena", while Schopenhauer (if I recall correctly) uses the term "noumenon" to characterize what he names "the will". (Schopenhauer is coming from Kant here, he says the Will is what Kant thought to be the thing in itself.). How did you come up with the term "noumenon"?

 

 

Schopenhauer did use the term “Will” to refer to an immaterial entity, but I do not believe in immaterial things. I still think his concept makes a lot of sense, and there’s no real difference in the outcome whether the Will is material or immaterial. Same thing for “noumenon.” I still felt that was the right word to use, regardless of my disbelief of anything outside of the laws of physics.

 

Anyways, those are some quite deep metaphysical thoughts you are having there. I'm surprised to read that you are only 15 or 16 years old, one wouldn't expect that, really. Particularly: I hope you don't fall for the philosophically superficial arguments some tried to give you here (trying to make the points that e. g. "there is a free will", "determinism is lunatic" etc.; I say: to understand, accept and settle with the thought of an unfree will is not "weak" or "depressing", it is calming and shows a strong intellect.). But your intellect seems to be set up for metaphysically deeper thoughts, really, and I think that you've already left those common sense standpoints and reasonings behind you.

 

 

Yes, well, maybe not rebut but expand or overcome (überwinden). I wouldn't stop at Schopenhauer. I know German philosophy very well (I am a philosopher from Germany) and I would point you to Nietzsche as a next step. Nietzsche is the antidote to Schopenhauerian pessimism. Do you speak German? Your translation of that passage is perfect (and your Schopenhauer meme is quite witty, by the way.)

I have indeed read Nietzsche. Also Sprach Zarathustra is my favorite book and the one I used to teach myself German. I agree with you that Nietzsche does not rebut, but rather überwindet Schopenhauer. While I fully agree with Schopenhauer in the fundamental message of his philosophy (that man can do what he wills but not will what he wills), I do enjoy Nietzsche’s way of overcoming that.

 

I taught myself German last year, but I’m kind of rusty now. It’s easier for me to read something in German than to write it. I’m glad my translation was accurate.

 

And indeed, I don’t see Schopenhauer as depressing. He’s basically telling me that all I suffer from has no objective meaning, that in the end, nothing really matters. He gives me the ultimate perspective of my own life and of the world, I believe.

 

There are two solutions to the determinism problem.

The first is even if your proposition were true, there is no free will, what effect does that produce. A man walks into a restaurant, the waiter hands him the menu and returns in a few minutes to take his order, the man responds "i am a determinist, so i am waiting to see what i will order." (Sam Harris joke). This clearly doesn't make much sense. He will have to choose what he is having to see what he chose. We can only live through the minute by minute choices we make which has no appearnce of determinism even if it were determinism.

Determinism is paramount to self-knowledge, as I see it. People over here seem to equate self-knowledge with scapegoating their parents to a certain extent. Steven Pinker, in his book “The Blank Slate,” pointed out that most parenting research is useless because it does not control for hereditariness. I’m not saying that treating children right isn’t important, but it’s not all. If you accept that a monkey reared by wealthy and virtuous parents will not even become a person, you accept that a monkey is not a monkey because it was reared by monkeys, but rather because it has the DNA of a monkey. You accept thereby that an organism’s personhood or lack thereof and much of its personality is dependent upon its DNA, which varies across individuals and populations.

 

Caspi et al. 2002 is a good study showing how our genetic makeup mediates the effects of childhood abuse. Keep in mind that they researched ONE polymorphism in ONE gene. You have 20,000+ protein coding genes, each whereof may have a couple of polymorphisms.

 

The second solution which is my theory, is that consciousness arises from the brain and we have some influence over our brains. Our psychology and immediate environment seems to have some effect on our brain development. There are things you can do to influence your psychology like therapy, drugs, sleep, exercise, meditation, etc. You can also remove yourself from a toxic situation to find a better match for you. Many famous academics had to move because they needed to go to a place more compatible with their interest (higher institutions of learning). The degree to which you can change these things is the degree to which you are free.

I agree that you can change those things. However, that does not address my argument that you have certain intrinsic desires which you did not chose, which you just have, and all of your actions are based upon them.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

It is interesting that you implied a desire to create children. The fact that all of us was conceived because of someone else’s desire—and that is true for trees and cows and grass and bacteria, each to the extent the complexity or lack thereof of their existence allows them to—just adds to my argument that desire is the noumenon of life.

 

Yes, but unlike all those other things, I can regulate my desire to create children by rationally evaluating the effects such an action would have. I think the most abstract form of this is by arguing against the morality of having children you cannot support. I can see why that might be associated with K selection, but from what I understand that's just a description of how I came to a conclusion, and it doesn't nullify the methodology that I use to come to the conclusion. Donald Trump is highly K selected, but I wouldn't say he is the best parent; although maybe a good one, he spends more of his time gathering resources then contemplating the morality of having a lot of children. Then you have Stefan who is also K selected, but he only has one child because he spends his time arguing for the world to be more virtuous, and therefore he has to put virtue above mere resource gathering in his personal life. I think free will is much less broad than the unconscious desire to reproduce. That is present in everything. What is not present in everything is the ability to debate the morality of having children, or to judge it against the future of the human species as a collective.

 

As someone who is also struggling through depression, I appreciate Kevin's post and I even have a hard time understanding what free will feels like. What I think of most when I think of free will are those furious or passionate moments I've had in my life to reach beyond the daily drudgery, the monotonous platitudes that fill my subconscious, and break free from them to pass over the surface like a penguin shooting out from beneath arctic ice to fly into the sky, as if its biological characteristics were dwarfed by its mere capacity to imagine an alternative existence. I have had moments where creativity made a passionate stand against my subconscious desires, and where I wanted to emerge as something completely unique in the world, in distinct opposition to a previous path I was following. I think the capacity to follow the untraveled path is a artifact of free will, and the subconscious friction that is inevitably encountered only strengthens and further emerges the will once it is continually, systematically conquered.

[Natalia]

There is no instinct saying "build iphone" as far as I know.

Are you implying that capitalism is not bound to instincts? There are instincts for wanting to be important and do something remarkable that other people will appreciate. Those that have the most social approval have the highest chances of reproducing successfully. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s still an innate desire you have no control over.

[Will Torbald]

Are you implying that capitalism is not bound to instincts? There are instincts for wanting to be important and do something remarkable that other people will appreciate. Those that have the most social approval have the highest chances of reproducing successfully. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s still an innate desire you have no control over.

 

There are so many people in the world, and so few people change it. The instinct for wanting to do something remarkable would have to be an extreme anomaly, a freak mutation, for it to represent reality. But my point about the iphone was not "sell iphone" but the creativity that it took to make one from scratch at all. That is a degree of freedom of mind. Wanting to have resources and a successful business can only be sustained by a free mind capable of imagining what hasn't been done before.

[dsayers]

You cannot choose to like someone or dislike them

How do you know? My values are very different than they were 5 years ago. As a result, who I would allow in my life to varying degrees is very different than how it was 5 years ago. You're essentially saying that you cannot move the shadow while disregarding that you CAN move the object that casts the shadow, thus effectively moving the shadow.

 

I’ve heard that one before. I do not see how that is the case.

Simple. If you truly believed that we have no free will, you would not engage in behavior engineered for the purpose of encouraging others to exercise that free will. You would arrive at the conclusion that people believe what they believe and that's that. To move beyond that is to establish that you (and all of us) are capable of moving beyond that. Or at the very least that you believe that we are capable of moving beyond that, while claiming that we can't. A performative contradiction.

 

Using your Christian analogy, the moment you see a "Christian" buckle their seat belt, you know they don't believe in a deity or an afterlife. Otherwise they would accept that God is going to take them when He sees fit no matter what they do, and it would be to their benefit since they would get to go to a better place.

[myclippedwings]

Natalia, are you into self kowledge? How do you deal with your emotions and feelings?

I get this impression that you intellectualise to not feel, honestly?

[mkaru]

Schopenhauer did use the term “Will” to refer to an immaterial entity, but I do not believe in immaterial things. I still think his concept makes a lot of sense, and there’s no real difference in the outcome whether the Will is material or immaterial. Same thing for “noumenon.” I still felt that was the right word to use, regardless of my disbelief of anything outside of the laws of physics.

 

"I do not believe in immaterial things" – well, you probably should. Here's a list of things that you do believe in and that are immaterial (I'd argue):

 

- The laws of nature, that is the laws governing the behaviour of matter (you articulate a "disbelief of anything outside the laws of physics". but the laws of physics themselves must obviously lie outside the laws of physics)

- relations/configurations of matter (a relation between material thinks can not itself be a material thing)

- The laws of reason, that is the laws governing rational thought 

- beliefs

- concepts and senses (in Frege's sense)

- intentionality

- dispositions/potentialities 

 

I don't think this list is complete.

[Gavitor]

I never understood why people who believe in determinism spend their time trying to convince people who are "determined" to believe otherwise...

 

 

Just as AI is programmed by humans, humans and other life forms are programmed by the billions of years of evolution that made their present existence possible. Even though Stefan and all of you are keen on free-will, I have never seen a rebuttal to that, to the fact that what you want is pretty much the same thing that all life forms do, although each individual pursues it differently—it’s not up to you, and it was decided billions of years before you were born, that the mere fact of your existence would intrinsically mean that you want to live and to reproduce, and that each of your desires is directly or indirectly related to that. The recognition that those desires are the noumenon of your existence would be the ultimate self-knowledge.

 

This statement makes no sense...

 

First of all there is an element of surprise that exists in the universe, hence why you cannot accurately predict the future. That element of surprise facilitates choice.

 

If people are just doing as programmed how do you explain suicide?

 

People go against their biological programming all the time.

 

What happens when AI IGNORES its programming and disobeys a directive?

 

What does it mean to want? Also people don't all want the same thing.

 

Why can't you will what you will? Surely a weaker will can be overtaken/replaced by a stronger one.

[Natalia]

How do you know? My values are very different than they were 5 years ago. As a result, who I would allow in my life to varying degrees is very different than how it was 5 years ago. You're essentially saying that you cannot move the shadow while disregarding that you CAN move the object that casts the shadow, thus effectively moving the shadow.

 

Simple. If you truly believed that we have no free will, you would not engage in behavior engineered for the purpose of encouraging others to exercise that free will. You would arrive at the conclusion that people believe what they believe and that's that. To move beyond that is to establish that you (and all of us) are capable of moving beyond that. Or at the very least that you believe that we are capable of moving beyond that, while claiming that we can't. A performative contradiction.

 

Using your Christian analogy, the moment you see a "Christian" buckle their seat belt, you know they don't believe in a deity or an afterlife. Otherwise they would accept that God is going to take them when He sees fit no matter what they do, and it would be to their benefit since they would get to go to a better place.

Do you realize you’re using a trite against an argument you’ve probably never heard before? When did I imply people cannot change their opinions about a certain matter? It's just not a conscious decision.

 

Just as there is no action or choice without Schopenhauer’s Will, there's no action or choice without an environment and circumstance.

 

Ultimately, the choices you make are based upon what you want and don't want for your life, you try to achieve happiness and pleasure and avoid physical or emotional pain. And what brings you either of those was contrived by billions of years of evolution in order for life to maintain itself—it’s not something you chose.

 

You can't decide what other people believe in for them. Christians buckling their seat belt would be what Max Weber called an action based on tradition or something like that. They don't ever think of what you do. It doesn't cross their mind. Besides, at least in my country it’s illegal to ride a car without everyone's seatbelt buckled.

 

Besides,

exercise that free will.

In his prize essay on the freedom of the will, he points out how freedom is a negative.

 

“The natural image of a free will is an empty set of scales. It hangs there at rest and will never lose its equilibrium unless something is laid on one of the pans. Free will can no more produce an action out of itself than a scale can produce a movement of itself, since nothing comes from nothing.”

“if I created a robot with artificial intelligence, what would it do, apart from that which I, accidentally or not, programmed it to do?”

 

Natalia, are you into self kowledge? How do you deal with your emotions and feelings?

I get this impression that you intellectualise to not feel, honestly?

If only I could, haha.

 

"I do not believe in immaterial things" – well, you probably should. Here's a list of things that you do believe in and that are immaterial (I'd argue):

 

- The laws of nature, that is the laws governing the behaviour of matter (you articulate a "disbelief of anything outside the laws of physics". but the laws of physics themselves must obviously lie outside the laws of physics)

- relations/configurations of matter (a relation between material thinks can not itself be a material thing)

- The laws of reason, that is the laws governing rational thought

 

- beliefs

 

- concepts and senses (in Frege's sense)

- intentionality

- dispositions/potentialities

 

I don't think this list is complete.

All of those depend on material things to exist. I believe there's a grammar term for that kind of noun. At least in Portuguese there is, but I can't remember right now…

[mkaru]

All of those depend on material things to exist. I believe there's a grammar term for that kind of noun. At least in Portuguese there is, but I can't remember right now…

Yes, I wouldn't argue against that for some (not all) of the examples I listed. But that something depends on something material does not mean that this something is itself material. (And again and aswell, "dependence" itself is clearly not something material (how could one explain "dependence" in strictly material or physical terms/concepts? it is a logical relation); same of course for "existence", which, according to Kant, can not be a "real predicate"). The examples were to show that your not believing in "immaterial things" is not philosophically reasonable.

 

I would also point out that the thought that a law "depends" on that which is governed by it, can be plausible only in a very narrow sense. In the cases that are relevant here, "depending" on something material does not mean that the "existence" depends, but only the instantiation. Natural laws (or philosophically more abstract: "form") are a good example here: They exist not because of matter but a natural law of course "depends" on matter insofar it is to be instantiated or to be actualized.

[dsayers]

Do you realize you’re using a trite against an argument you’ve probably never heard before? When did I imply people cannot change their opinions about a certain matter? It's just not a conscious decision.

Shouldn't I be let off the hook though since you're asserting that I wasn't able to choose that anyways?

 

I think you may have missed my point, so I'll try and frame it a different way. I have never once considered walking outside and picking up my garage. The reason for that is because I am convinced that I would be unable to lift it. The focus isn't the inability, but the way that perception frames our decisions. If you thought people couldn't choose, you wouldn't engage in behaviors designed to solicit that choice.

 

You haven't done anything to address this contradiction. Do you experience no cognitive dissonance? Is this an indication that you NEED for this to be true even if it doesn't bear out? I mean, look at how many appeals to authority are being used. Even the thread itself is predicated on one.

 

Also, if you want to make the case that free will = nothing, typing it larger will not make it so, make it axiomatic, or dispense with the need for the case to be made. Also, the very idea that nothing comes from nothing is poisoning the well. For if validity was based on source, where does something come from? Where did where it came from come from? Infinite regression. Would you agree?

[Kevin Beal]

There’s the ad hominem I was expecting. Determinism came to me in one of the happiest periods of my life, two years ago. Although I admit I am reminded of it now partially because of my recognition of how my Will, or more specifically, my love for someone, will invariably bring me suffering until it wears off. [it’s not necessarily about the quality of my life; one could argue I have a good life, but I suffer nevertheless, for one thing that I lack and can’t help but desire.] But then, if that does happen, I’ll fall in love with yet another person, and he’ll leave me, or most likely, never be interested in me in the first place, and I’ll be miserable yet again. I have thought and researched about that over and over for months.

It's not an ad hominem. I even conceded that it doesn't make you wrong. It is however extremely important to consider. When you first became convinced is of no concern to me, since it's the familiarity I'm talking about, not a person's present mood.

 

 

That’s a good argument, but it does not refute what I said. You do have multiple desires, but all of them are “hardwired” in your material existence. A K-selection strategy is just as instinctive and out of your control as an r-selection strategy. And the fact that you can choose which desire to subjugate yourself to does not mean that you are free from the other. You’ll still crave for the ice cream, whether you quench your desire or you decide not to, or are physically unable to.

 

This is something important about my argument that you failed to understand. The fact that you can delay gratification does not mean that you are free from your desires, since 1. you have something that you desire to achieve by delaying gratification in the first place, and 2. you don’t lose your other desires by ignoring them

I didn't say free will was free from desire and I do not accept this premise as given that to have desires is to be a slave to them. The very idea being ridiculous. Of course you want to satisfy desires. What point would there be in having free will except to get what you want? You failed to understand what I said, not the other way around.

 

And you're wrong, again. A K-selection strategy is in your control. I'm wired for r-selection by my own estimation, but I made a commitment to myself to live a more principled life. You use "hardwired" and "instinctive" like they are logical arguments, but they are vague terms that seemed to be used more out of convenience than to clarify. At least, it doesn't help me understand anything more about why it should be described deterministically.

 

You've used multiple examples of situations which definitely are in your control that you claim are out of your control. That's a problem for sanity, self esteem, happiness.

 

You need more personal responsibility (e.x. you chose the guys you did).

[Eh Steve]

My motivation in responding here is that I care about you and your well-being.  That I want you to have people in your life whom truly care about you.  I care about you feeling happy, cared about and protected. From what I can tell in your posts, having people in your life whom genuinely care about your well being might be a very new thing for you.

 

 If determinism at all helps you feel happy and safer in this world I do not want to fight against it. My only desire to disagree with that belief would be out of concern for your happiness, and I don't believe disagreeing intellectually is going to help that at all.  I am thankful that determinism brought you some solace and comfort in an otherwise stressful and confusing life.  In my life I have felt very emotionally compelling reasons to believe in determinism at times and i believe it offers a useful and accurate view of reality in someways.

 

Perhaps this will help:

 

How can we tell if we desire something we have never had before?  How can we desire something for all we know may not even exist?  Is it possible that a change in our environment, that a change in the people around us, will change what it is we desire?  If you learned that a mile away there was a city of loving, caring, friendly people who would love nothing more than to help you and care about you, would you find yourself walking towards it?  If such a place existed right down the street and there was zero doubt these people would take you in, care about you, help you, connect with you, and listen to you...would you go?

 

My hope is that within your imagination you can find there may be such a place.  That the feelings of care and connection with others may exist.  And while you may not have been born into it, you may be able to venture outward in search of this place, these people and these feelings.  I wish to offer you if only on an unconscious level that there are people in this world whom if you look for them will offer you love, care, compassion, and nurturing. 

 

I truly wish there was such a place I could offer you.  And I truly wish you had been born into such an environment, family, and community.  I wish the same for everyone I have known and may come to know.  I would offer such a community of connection and care to you if I had it.  For now I can offer you someone to talk to, words of encouragement, and hopefully convey the feeling that I truly do sympathize with you and feel strongly that you deserve people who care about you.   That you will be able to find other people in this world who can offer you this same care and connection.

 

Though we are raised in an R-selected environment, if we search for K-selected people we can adapt to this new environment, this new way of relating, these new people and these new feelings.  You do not need to be born into this tribe to become a part of it.  People will accept you and care about you and you will be able to adapt

 

There are people in this world who will never abandon you.  People who will care about you and love you until the day you die.

 

I hope for you to find within your heart this possibility and to cultivate the desire to search out (whether by choice or not) such people.

 

You deserve it.

 

[Dermot]

That's a beautiful message Eh Steve. 

[Kevin Beal]

If determinism at all helps you feel happy and safer in this world I do not want to fight against it.

I would, vehemently. Because it could only ever be a fleeting kind of happiness at the expense of long term happiness.

 

Are you a determinist? Are you happy? If you are basically a determinist, and if you are ultimately unhappy, and your fatalistic view of the world contributes to your unhappiness, then encouraging her in this is kinda messed up. Because you have empirical evidence of why not to be a determinist.

 

Having people in your life who care about you is clearly important, but a determinist position is going to get in the way of that. Winning the admiration and love of other adults can only work with personal responsibility, otherwise it's just pity. And determinism is absolute poison for personal responsibility.

 

Finding good people is not a passive process, it's an active one. A passive life is the life of so many children whose best friends are the kid they happen to sit next to in class. The kid whose day's activities are chosen for them, and whose neglectful parents have not helped them grow into self directed adults.

 

Determinism is finding yourself in your situation and not fighting to change it. It's feeling overwhelmed and resigning yourself to some fate. It's avoiding taking personal responsibility because "that's just how things are."

 

I can't stress this enough.

[mkaru]

 

Determinism is finding yourself in your situation and not fighting to change it. It's feeling overwhelmed and resigning yourself to some fate. It's avoiding taking personal responsibility because "that's just how things are."

 

 

I doubt that. Look at history and you will find that some of the greatest, most original and productive thinkers were determinists. Were they resigning? (I intend to mean only philosophers here but the same case could surely be said about great men in other fields of human endeavour..)

 

It seems to me that in this discussion here there are very different understandings of what "determinism" (as a technical term in philosophy) means. 

[neeeel]

 

The second solution which is my theory, is that consciousness arises from the brain and we have some influence over our brains. 

 

Huh? this doesnt make sense. what is it that has some influence over the brain? consciousness?

[Will Torbald]

I doubt that. Look at history and you will find that some of the greatest, most original and productive thinkers were determinists. Were they resigning? (I intend to mean only philosophers here but the same case could surely be said about great men in other fields of human endeavour..)

 

It seems to me that in this discussion here there are very different understandings of what "determinism" (as a technical term in philosophy) means. 

 

Yeah, even Einstein was a physical determinist, and he turned out fine. It's the conflation of fatalism/pessimism/nihilism with some form of biological/physical-determinism that is the subject of discord.