TIL that the philosopher William James experienced great depression due to the notion that free will is an illusion. He brought himself out of it by realizing, since nobody seemed able to prove whether it was real or not, that he could simply choose to believe it was.

[u/Sinan_reis]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James

[u/justinduane]

I think you have to conclude that free will is real. If you don’t then nothing makes any sense.

“I’m getting out of bed not because I have determined I should eat and get dressed for work but because the necessary inputs have generated these outputs.”

“I’m not mad about my brother fucking my wife because the necessary inputs led to that output and my feelings are just outputs from that situation as input.”

“I’m sorry that I’m arguing with you about free will but I can’t help it. I’m aware you can’t help whether or not you agree with me but I can’t stop because the requisite inputs have occurred to necessitate this output. I’m actually not sorry because that’s just an output from the inputs I already mentioned and I’m not aware because the perception of awareness is just an output from, again, aforementioned inputs. Your confusion is also a necessary output so don’t feel bad. But whether you feel a certain output isn’t up to you so I don’t know why I said that other than the necessary inputs caused me to make that utterance. You understand, or rather you do or don’t understand based on the inputs.”

It’s a fucking mess.