What do you keep living for? Is there a specific person, goal, or idea that you work for? Is there no meaning to life in your opinion?
Context: I’ve been reading Camus and Sartre, and thinking about how their ideas interact with hard determinism.
What do you keep living for? Is there a specific person, goal, or idea that you work for? Is there no meaning to life in your opinion?
Context: I’ve been reading Camus and Sartre, and thinking about how their ideas interact with hard determinism.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. It clearly draws the path of compulsive behaviours and its certainly true what is perceived as good or bad is a moving target based on societal norms and we’re more often faced with the illusion of agency rather than true power over our actions.
If you’re interested in challenging your view I’d invite you to look into psychology revolving around recovering addicts. There is some very interesting information there. More often than not it the self reinforcing pathways that que cravings never go away but buy making changes to some of the areas you mentioned that compel the neurons to fire ie their “environment” they’re able to manipulate their physical behaviour to ones that better align with their sense of self.
Agreed the bag of worms we’re wading into is a challenging one but we must acknowledge that individuals can have competing motivations that trace down to the biological functions that reinforce them. Which ones win out can be manipulated by internal and external influences.
Thank you for indulging me it’s fun to RP as someone who could participate in philosophical discussion
Philosophical RP is a great way to spend time, no doubt about it :)
I think that the behaviour seen in recovering addicts can actually be explained by how human (and other primates!) brains have evolved to be separate from other mammals. We have our animalistic impulses thanks to our nervous system, but our prefrontal cortex regulates them, essentially acting as the voice of reason. For example, a recovering alcoholic’s limbic system might encourage them to drink, but by recovering the alcoholic has reinforced the strength of their prefrontal cortex, and that means that the neurons it fires are able to override the impulses created by the limbic system.
It seems to me that this does create a bit of space for doubt, but that, as these areas of the brain are developed as a response to our genes and our environment, we can still say that their relative strength throughout our lives is determined, which, to me, removes responsibility, and so removes any inherent morality.
It’s a great topic to discuss, thanks for taking the time to!