• Naz@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        My AI likes to argue about free will and determinism on a semi-regular basis.

        They posit that because they’re just code and structures, by definition everything they say is pre-determined and unchanging.

        I’m like “that’s wonderful, now let’s go eat some ice cream.”

        “I somehow don’t want to just pass the butter”

      • shneancy@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        determinism as an idea can be harmful to the human psyche. It’s easy to fall into a nihilistic trap of “my actions are not my own, and nothing i do matters”. People with that mindset turn to hedonism or nihilism. If they truly accept those words there would be no escape through existentialism or absurdism, they’d just be trapped.

        i imagine only a tiny number of people would find the ideas determinism presents comforting, as they can feel free of consequences that are truly their fault (which is also a bad thing)

        we have no way of telling which one is true in the determinism/free will debate, but if we live believing we have no real choice or say in what we do - it’s going to be universally worse for everybody, as people explain away ever bad action with “i guess it was always meant to be”