>>11304387>do you seriously go throw your life without thinking terms of choice, possibilities, reflecting what you could have done otherwise, simulating counterfactuals, holding people responsible for some things and not for others? if a concept is indispensable for basic functioning then it's pretty damn real.>choiceI am pre-determined to feel like I am making them, and pre-determined to feel as if I could choose otherwise, but in reality I cannot.
>possibilitiesI am pre-determined to feel like there are possibilities other than that which happens, but in reality there is not.
>reflecting what you could have done otherwiseWhether I reflect, and in which ways I reflect, and the conclusions of those reflections are all pre-determined.
>holding people responsibleWhether anyone should or should not be held responsible is beside the point. Maybe they should or maybe they shouldn't, but in either case whether we do or do not hold them responsible is pre-determined.
>basic functioningWe function automatically and inevitably, just like animals, plants, and cells. Whether we do or do not function at any moment is pre-determined by a chain of physical and cosmic causality, and if we do function then the manner in which we function is also pre-determined.
I am not saying that you don't feel and experience the process of choosing, I am saying it was always and inevitably pre-determined that the creature that is you, in the exact form it is in now, would come to be at this point in time, and that your feelings and experiences of being a chooser with choices is also pre-determined, and what you end up thinking, deciding, and actioning is also pre-determined, and that the feeling of being able to choose is a complete illusion, and that this illusion occurring in the exact manner it is occurring is also pre-determined.
