Determinism and Nihilism - Literally True, Metaphorically False

In the beginning I said I wasn't going to disprove free will to you... and then I guess I kind of still went ahead and tried to do it. ^^ I didn't want to just discuss the implications in isolation. But in case you don't find my own arguments for determinism convincing, please check out the sources I've linked to, and maybe they can do a better job at it than me. ;) Especially when it comes to other content creators here on YouTube, you always have the option of asking them questions in their own comments sections. But of course, feel more than invited to post here, too!

thank you

Very nice video. I enjoyed watching it as it pushed me to think more about some beliefs I [currently] hold. The most important point I would like to make here is to say that the identification of "self" with "consciousness" is a mistake. And this mistake leads to such artifacts like "you have no control over your actions and your are not responsible for anything". If, on the other hand, we talk about minds as complex dynamical systems, then it's easier to say that minds have various control processes over the actions of the entire organism, and because of this minds (hence, people) are responsible for their actions. I simply don't see any justification for this "self = consciousness" and — what follows — "free will is conscious control over brain and behavior". Now, we don't need any homunculus that decides or wills. There may be various processes in the brain, various hubs in the brains, that are most important for decision-making. Still, we can say that the mind has made a choice. You can call it "free" if you want. But the idea of "freedom" is a very complex one, it has social, biological, neurological, psychological connotations and restrictions. I don't understand your point about individual differences. You even used a analogy of cars on a highway. You said we can only hold people to the same (moral) standard, if they have the same mental capacities (e.g. impulse control). But that's false even in your analogy. We know cars and other vehicles are different. But all vehicles are expected to obey the same rules and laws. All drivers are held to the same standard despite the differences between their cars. "Don't drive on a red light" applies equally to the one driving a bike as to the one driving a truck, even though their mass and breaking distance are very different. "Don't steal" or "don't hit people" applies equally to a CEO and to a baker, despite their differences in "willpower"/ambition or long-term planning or impulse control. The most obvious cases, where somecar or someone is not held to the standard is when something breaks — the engines or brain malfunctions. In both cases we know when a system is operating under healthy parameters or when it's broken. Such edge cases require special handling. But just because we know about edge cases doesn't mean that the general rule — of the road or in ethics — are fake. Just because it's difficult to draw the line between normal operation and malfunctioning operation in certain cases doesn't mean that these two opposites are entirely arbitrary. Otherwise, doctors and mechanics would be out of jobs! And we know this. Just as we know we don't need a hard line to know when a pond becomes a lake, when a man becomes bald, etc. Another thought I'd like to put forth is that we don't need to be responsible (have control over) how we are (intelligent, conscientious, etc.) to be responsible and have control over what we do. At least in the deflationary sense, without invoking the ill-notion of free-will. I'm not sure what exactly do you mean by "accountability" or "having to live with the consequences of one's actions". Why should I "live with" the consequences of my actions if — according to you — I'm not responsible for my actions nor did I choose to act in such ways? I read "Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain" from your link. It matters much more whether the experiments and results were consistently replicated than were the paper was published. As to the paper itself, the authors give the impression that "free choice" cannot be an unconscious choice. Maybe they operate on a naive understanding of "free choice". But it's somewhat weird that they don't go beyond that. It seems to me they introduced "free choice" in the paper only to make it more "wow", more awesome. This question, asked in the paper, is very funny, "does any leading brain activity indeed selectively predict the specific outcome of a choice ahead of time?" The snarky question-response would be, "where else the decisions come from? Is it something in the air?" I'm glad the authors recognized that more complex behaviors need to be studied, rather than just some vague "recognize the moment you want to push the button". Interestingly, the authors don't use the phrase "free will", only "free choice", as if they weren't sure... PS. Interesting, only now I recognized some underlying German accent in your speech.

What are crimson capsules/pills?

Still waiting on your vegan video! 😁 But great video. This must've taken alot of work.

15:31 as the meme says why not both....?

You are a clinical pychologist or?...

15:59 no.but guess what it demonstrates?that lots of ppl are being illogical morons unless you can show me that treating your suffering only as if it exists is somehow logical

The universs is a crude force....why even mention it

We're "nihilistic" towards other civilizations because as far as I know there isn't one proof of them yet. So it's not that we're nihilistic it's that we can't have any position towards their suffering considering we can't even know if it exists