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Assuming we don't have free will, why do we have the illusion that we do? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by frankPodmore@slrpnk.net to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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Three possibilities come to mind:

Is there an evolutionary purpose?

Does it arise as a consequence of our mental activities, a sort of side effect of our thinking?

Is it given a priori (something we have to think in order to think at all)?

EDIT: Thanks for all the responses! Just one thing I saw come up a few times I'd like to address: a lot of people are asking 'Why assume this?' The answer is: it's purely rhetorical! That said, I'm happy with a well thought-out 'I dispute the premiss' answer.

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[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Things can be true on different levels and false on others. The earth is locally flat, it is as a whole a near sphere.

I don't know if we have free will or not, I strongly suspect that physics can explain our minds fully, but I don't know. At the same time even if physics could fully explain our minds in practice we are so complicated we give the impression that we have a limited amount of free will. So yeah the earth is round but it is easier for us to assume flat most of the time.

this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024

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