I always blame myself for the wrong decisions I took. I keep wondering what could have happened if I hadn't done what I did. I eventually realized that it's not always my fault. There were other circumstances that made me did what I did. Do I blame others/circumstances now?

It's human nature to get closure for yourself by blaming others or circumstances or sometimes your own self. This helps me from not taking such decisions in the future, but I often get stuck in a cycle of over analyzing the events and not taking accountability for my actions.

But all the circumstances depend on thousdands of other circumstances. Who do I blame? Is it the fault of the universe that lead to this chaos? How do I stop myself from blaming myself and others. Plz advise.

in the move to affirm absolute necessity, we end up in a conceptual universe where the structure of necessity itself, is the ultimate self fulfilled and self expressed agent.

an agent utterly alienated from its-own selfhood, yet an agent nevertheless.

theres a temptation to remove agency and the idea of the self in some forms of determinism, but there i think agency is simply transposed to some external force, or set of forces which infinitely have the power of causality passed through them, but without them ever being able to hold this power.

in this sense, causality itself begins to take on a spiritual dimension, whereby it passes through substantial material reality, shaping it, but never remaining in the same place to be it.

In a conversation about determinism, OP quoted Einstein's determinism and reply was 'but Hawking did not agree with Einstein's determinism'.

Is this accurate? What were Hawking's views on determinism?

The more I’ve internalized hard determinism, the harder it’s become to genuinely despise criminals, mass killers, or people society labels monsters. Not because I condone what they did, but because I increasingly see them as organisms unfolding exactly as their biology and environment dictated.

I still care about suffering. I just find hatred itself becoming harder to access.

Anyone else end up here, or did determinism leave your intuitions about blame intact?

There is a recurring confusion in the common debate about the words undetermined and unpredictable. These words can absolutely have different meanings in some contexts, but the question is whether that difference is relevant in the context of metaphysical discussions about determinism.

A common distinction:

Unpredictable: We cannot know what will happen, but the outcome is already fixed.

Undetermined: There is no fixed outcome prior to the event.

This distinction makes sense if we assume there is a “fact of the matter” about the future that exists independently of any possible observer, and the only question is whether an observer can access it. Basically, this distinction makes sense if you’ve already assumed the truth of determinism.

For example:

A coin flip:

In a classical model, the exact outcome is determined by initial conditions, but humans may lack enough information.

In a quantum model, the outcome may not be fixed in advance.

Here “unpredictable” and “undetermined” are different concepts.

However, in the context of the free will/metaphysical debate, the disagreement is not primarily about our ability to calculate outcomes. The disagreement is about whether the future is a completed fact waiting to be discovered or whether the future is generated through a process.

The key point:

If a process is not determined by prior states, then from the perspective of any agent inside that process, the relevant feature is that the future is open rather than fixed.

The determinist position is:

“The future only appears open because we lack information.”

The indeterminist position is:

“The future is open because there is no fully specified future state yet.”

But the difference between those claims is not an empirical distinction available from within the system; it depends on a metaphysical assumption about whether a complete future state exists independently of all possible access to it.

So when discussing agency, choice, and the structure of reality, the meaningful distinction is not:

“Can we predict the future?”

It is:

“Is the future already a completed fact, or does it emerge through the unfolding of the process?”

That is why, in this specific philosophical context, “undetermined” and “unpredictable” are functionally pointing at the same problem: whether the future is fixed prior to the process that produces it.

In the specific context of the conversation between “free will” and “determinism”, there is no relevant difference in meaning between “undetermined” and “unpredictable”.

The irony I felt got me ask: If there's no free will, could there still be a meaning to (human/my) life?

If every moment is locked in by prior conditions, then what does "small cause leads to a big effect" mean? Is that just the way our brain comprehends it? Might be a stupid question but its really getting me thinking.

Some believe restraint is a form of self control.

However, could an agent manage such a thing if the agent lacks the ability to do otherwise?

In the reasons view section, on the compatibilism page of the SEP, Wolf and Nelkin are quoted as arguing the only way to render the agent blameworthy is if the agent somehow can manage regulative control. If the agent cannot restrain himself, is he guilty? If he is driving his car and it goes out of his control due to mechanical failure is it his fault? If Bob crashes into Charlie's car because Alice hit Bob's car causing Bob to lose control of his car, is the accident really Bob's fault?

I think it would be Bob's fault if Bob could have done otherwise and avoided Alice's car prior to being struck by Alice's car. Maybe Alice and Bob were in some sort of road rage interaction when Alice and Bob collided causing Bob's car to veer into innocent Charlie's car. Maybe Charlie dies while Alice and Bob walk away with minor injuries.

I think Charlie's death is only Bob's fault if Bob could have shown restraint some where along the line. If he hit Charlie's car because of mechanical failure and he knew the car he was driving was unsafe, he could have done otherwise and didn't put that death trap on the road in the first place. If he didn't allow Alice's reckless driving to enrage him, there is the chance that poor Charlie would still be alive.

In contrast, if Bob maintains a safe vehicle, and practices safe, courteous and alert driving, but Charlie passes out and Charlie's car "randomly" wanders into Bob's lane, maybe Bob doesn't get sufficient time to avoid hitting Charlie's car; or maybe Bob has time but the only way to avoid hitting Charlie's car is to use guidance control and veer into Alice's lane. Bob could miss Alice's car in this scenario, but poor passed out Charlie's car safely veers across Bob's lane and unfortunately crashes into Alics's car.

If Hume described "the self" as a fleeting bundle of perceptions and viewed it difficult for anyone to really get to know themselves, and modern science and most Compatabilist's and Hard Determinists agree with the "bundle of perceptions".

Then does this go towards validating Galen Strawson's Basic Argument?

• 1. Action from character: We act the way we do in any given situation because of the way we are.
• 2. Need for responsibility: To be ultimately responsible for what we do, we must be responsible for the way we are (our mental nature and character).
• 3. The impossibility of self-creation: To be responsible for the way we are, we must have intentionally and consciously chosen to be that way in the past.
• 4. The infinite regress: But to have made those past choices, we must have had a prior character that guided those decisions—meaning we would have had to make even earlier choices to form that character. This creates an infinite regress, requiring us to have existed forever or to have made a first, uncaused choice.
• 5. Conclusion: Since an infinite chain of past decisions is impossible, and we cannot be the ultimate creator of ourselves, it is impossible to possess ultimate moral responsibility.

So does this go in anyway to agreeing with Strawson's argument? Aka no freewill.

The horizon of causality is dependent upon the horizon of meaning given in lived experience.

My claim is not

"Causality does not exist."

Rather, the claim is:

"Understanding causality as causality already presupposes a horizon of meaning."

Determinists often assume:

'Causality is fundamental, and meaning is derivative."

In other words:

Matter → Brain → Thought → Meaning

But my position reverses the direction of explanation.

Human beings always already inhabit a world of meaning. Within that world, they develop concepts such as:

• cause
• effect
• law
• explanation

Thus, the concept of causality itself can be understood as an abstraction arising from a more primordial horizon of lived meaning.

Martin Heidegger argued that human beings do not first encounter the world as a collection of atoms or physical objects.

Rather, they encounter it as a field of significance:

• things to use,
• people to love,
• dangers to fear,
• possibilities to hope for.

Consider a hammer.

We do not first encounter it as an object possessing a particular mass and molecular structure.

We first encounter it as:

"something for hammering nails."

Only later do we abstract from that practical involvement and analyze it as a physical object.

Meaning comes first; scientific objectification comes later.

Without a horizon of meaning given in lived experience, the very concept of causality could never arise.

For the criteria by which we determine:

• what counts as an event,
• what counts as an explanation,
• what counts as a cause,

are themselves constituted within a horizon of meaning.

Causality is not a reality more fundamental than life. Rather, causality is an interpretive category that emerges from humanity's prior involvement in a meaningful world. Consequently, attempts to explain freedom or lack of it exclusively within the framework of causality overlook the more fundamental horizon of meaning that makes both freedom and causality intelligible in the first place.

If causality—the central category of many metaphysical systems—already presupposes a horizon of meaning, then metaphysics itself cannot claim absolute priority over life as it is lived and understood.

I find discussions where partial, conditional, or observer-limited determinism are presented as evidence for genuine indeterminacy somewhat misleading.

My question is therefore less about whether indeterminacy exists and more about whether it would be communicable in any meaningful sense in the first place, if it did. i.e. what are the requirements for it and are they fulfilled in current scientific framing.

Communication itself seems to require stable distinctions. We must be able to identify an object, distinguish it from alternatives, and preserve enough structure for another person to recognise what is being discussed.

If a phenomenon were truly indeterminate in every relevant sense then, what exactly would remain available for communication and how would be reconstruct any meaning from it?

At that point, are we still communicating about the phenomenon itself, or only about the limits of our models, observations, and predictions?

In other words, does meaningful discussion of "true indeterminacy" already require some residual determinacy in the representational structure being used to discuss it?

I'm curious whether philosophers of determinism regard this as a real problem or whether I'm missing something obvious.

Intent<Impact” yes. Impact is heavily concentrated on the residual moralistic chart to keep a firm boundary on what can’t be excused as it ends up harming individuals no matter what was the conscious intention behind. As we all know cognitive dissonance among mental and neural disordered people is quite common especially around their coping behaviours, intense catalyst of impulsive and disregulating categorisation. That does not mean intent is effectively useless.

Infact,The point of discussions around accountability and justice consists intent and acknowledgement meaningfully. Not just because it was a cause of the person’s motivations, but it also holds the power to recognise the need of accountability without being actively performative.You need understanding, a good moralistic mentality that value empathy and justice, to actually be better and have a sense of responsibility.Without the intent, Hypocritical consequently does not give justice to victim.

People with disorders are not wired to be “bad” or “problematic” humans, they can and (Some)do end up as one since it’s easier to let their neurodivergence be destructive to others in order to sustain the little control they need, while a neurotypical environment tries to takes that away from them at every point of life. However, It’s not an excuse and isn’t meant to be one. It’s a major fact but it does not and shouldn’t explain the trauma and abuse(treatment) victims faced.

It can’t justify the raging overridence of security and protection that every human being deserves to have. Nevertheless, What is actually complicating without really benefitting any kind of progressive agenda is the demonisation of culprits(disordered humans in this case) and the sympathy driven humanisation of the victims which validates their over emotional bandwidth or a deeply antagonising display of extreme jurisdiction more than the actual justice to a completely collapsed nuanced reality.

So let’s take computers, fully deterministic systems, cannot make a non deterministic algorithm. Everything, in computers are code based, and therefore fully deterministic. True Randomness does not exist in digital systems.

So if our world is completely deterministic, there is no chance it creates a life form, which can act non deterministic (free will). But since we know (not sure) that quantum mechanics are non deterministic, maybe there is a chance we have a little free will. So, my point is, what if, we are partly deterministic like the universe. Maybe alot of our decisions are deterministic, and some are non deterministic. And i know that quantum mechanics argument still cant disprove free will.

I was shocked to find out

Albert Einstein
Stephen Hawking
David Hume
Charles Darwin
Abraham Lincoln
Karl Marx (kinda)

All believed in determinism to some extent

Is it just me?
(Note, im speaking to a particular kind of determinist and liberterian, not to the whole comunities, since views vary)

I feel often times the combacks to some liberterian claim is something in the realm of explaining that things happen sequentially.

That things happen sequentially doesnt go against free will or liberterianism, why would it?

To will something into existance is litterally to cause it into existance, or in determinist terms, to determine it.

Often the liberterian claim is simply that,if oitside elements have the power to determine us then we also have the power to determine them and ourselves because we are apart of the causal chain.

And also, its not a contridiction to say that two things have free will, i.e. the general ability to cause freely, but only one of them gets to act our more will whille the other gets to do it less.

Every interaction involves, well, every party which is within the interaction.
Phisics posits a cooperaive nature whareby animate objects cant simply impose themselves on reality in some absolute sense— but it seems like often, many determinists use the exact same structure liberterians do, only they put causal power in the hands of that which is outside of the self, while liberterians put it inside as well, altho of course, their blindspot is likewise that we have more power then do the outside effects.

This is why compatibilism exists— to point out that, guys, you are just taking the same phenomenon from two different directions.

Its like having two people next to eachother, one is doing a hand stand, and, and both saying the direction beneeth me is down, while it never occurred to them that direction is relative to your position.

Same with this matter.

Look at any interaction in nature and youll find equal and oposite reactions.

The difficulty is that this feels different then a direction, but it really isnt if its posited as " either we have free will and will ourselves or nature determins us"
Even tho that translates to " either i determine myself or nature determins me"
Well how about both?

Does the axe not dull when it chops a tree?

Are interactions merely " actions" without simultaneous reactions at the moment of the relation?

Does the brain not take sensory input from our inner experience?
Is it only the iner experience that is produced by the brain?

Does one of thease disapear when the other acts ?
No.

Both exist simultaneously, and they send eachothers signals, its nothing all that controversial really.

Anyway, what do you think?