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submitted 1 week ago by zedgeist@lemm.ee to c/me_irl@lemmy.world

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[-] FundMECFSResearch 58 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

To be fair, the if you look at the scientific evidence at face value, free will and the sense of self are probably both illusions that work because our brain is not a magic computer but a survival machine. It’s made to process input and help use information to aid survival. It simplifies, cuts corners, and creates an illusion of a narrative self.

(the sense of self)

“you” are just a narrative heuristic for your brain. An effective simplification/method to make decisions based on finite data and finite computational power in a world with near infinite complexity.

[-] django@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 1 week ago

I would enjoy talking to you at a party.

[-] Oneser@lemm.ee 9 points 1 week ago

Got any books in this direction?

[-] Emptiness@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

"Free Will" by Sam Harris is a good one. Also "Why Buddhism is true" by Robert Wright. If these tickled your fancy there are tons more. It's a surprisingly flourishing area of science. Also, remember, nothing of this is anything you have to believe in, it can all be tested by yourself. All very free of "woo woo". If that is something you would like to explore then I recommend Sam Harris app "Waking Up". Enjoy!

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

But our consciousness influences our mind (we can store in our memory what we feel/sense for example), so my take is that the self has a role, probably in survival because it's cheaper energy wise, but still. What do you think?

Not saying it's free will, just that "we" influence our lives from time to time.

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

Yeah, but your consciousness was itself shaped by your experiences and genetic predispositios. There's no "you" that can be separated from your material circumstances.

[-] Emptiness@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Self is made of thought, there is no control center anywhere that is "self". Thoughts appear by themselves spontaneously, you can't stop them, you can't make them, you can't foretell what they will be. And thought has been proven time and time again to appear after the fact that a decision is made, a movement is started. There's science behind this but you can also experiment with this by yourself.

It is not for the faint of heart and it may lead to a rabbit hole of other insights that might feel scary. The good thing about that is there have been many walking that path, so there is guidance to be had and that scary feeling is also "just thoughts".

[-] Emptiness@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Very well put! I love that you explained it from the scientific perspective.

[-] Hegar@fedia.io 32 points 1 week ago

People who think they're in control of their life are just like maggie driving the car in the simpsons intro. It only looks like control because of a narrow viewpoint. A wider understanding shows this can't possibly be true. We no more control our lives than a mountain controls how erosion shapes it.

[-] TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

The asexual experience, stumbling through kinks to see if anything hits. (It won't)

[-] Draegur@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago

mood.

at best I've been able to finagle some kind of gerry rig of empathy where i can tell that someone else is enjoying it and i can kinda emulate it...

... this has been little more than a survival camouflage, however, to blend in temporarily and only long enough to slip by.

only after realizing and accepting that I'm asexual does it finally click why the "locker room banter" I'd always encountered in life felt so DEEPLY UNCOMFORTABLE for me. relationships too when we got close to particular milestones. then i wouldn't be able to maintain the illusion and they would recognize SOMETHING was "off" about me and become obsessed with trying to "solve" me like i was some kind of riddle... OR WORSE: they began assuming that whatever i "must" have "really" been into "HAD" to have been some really fucked up shit.

these people were literally incapable of comprehending that shit didn't do anything for me.

at least i can appreciate aesthetic beauty in the same way that i appreciate waterfalls or sunsets or shit like that but I've never wanted to fuck those either >_>;

[-] quinkin@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

The real NPCs were inside us all along.

[-] q5VtXnYt@infosec.pub 11 points 1 week ago

This is what a burnout and depression can feel like.

[-] Katrisia@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago

PTSD/C-PTSD too. Trauma can lead to a state of numbness and partial dissociation, like you're just floating (kind of apathetically) through your own life.

[-] LordWiggle@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

[-] aviationeast@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

And boys is how your mother found me at the gang bang.

[-] Draegur@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago

I'm in a long distance relationship with my own body, fam.

[-] Hexarei@programming.dev 3 points 1 week ago

I had this feeling until my egg cracked and I realized I'm trans. Apparently it's one of many signs of dysphoria.

[-] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

I feel that and I plan for the future like crazy but the best laid plans and all. Heck nowadays I have actions for plans for different scenarios that to some degree contradict each other.

[-] KulunkelBoom@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

...again...

this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025

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