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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 28m

That’s probably why I like it, lol.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 34m

“You meet your fate on the road that you choose to avoid.”

Hah, I’ve never heard that, but I like it. A lot.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 1h

Mostly musing that a chunk of Brexiters complained about immigrants, but once the European immigrants started applying less, the non-European immigrants picked up the slack.

Which the Brexiters wanted even less, heh.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 2h

Before Brexit, British job vacancies could be filled from within Europe without visa hassles. Europeans now have to go through significantly more bureaucracy, so many are less likely to apply.

That means a higher percentage of immigrants moving there for work will be from non-European countries.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 12h

The belief in absolute free will is the psychological equivalent of believing in the privileged reference frame that Einstein’s Relativity says doesn’t exist.

Both arise from the same cognitive bias - the mind’s tendency to imagine itself outside and independent of the system that it is a part of.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 17h

You also thought that Buddhism conceptualized the self as a manifestation of the divine perceiver, despite the fact that non-self being a clear core element of the philosophy.

Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 22h

If religion (which is largely one’s metaphysical axioms) requires free will, then explain why Buddhism, Daoism, and Hinduism all reject the notion of absolute free will?

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 22h

You said that most religions have free will. That is false, as I pointed out three in this thread that reject the notion of absolute free will.

There’s no way of getting around it. When did the self make the decision, and what caused it?

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 1d

Well, we strayed because you’re introducing free will into the equation without having demonstrated it to exist in the first place, thereby shifting the burden.

I pointed out that you need to identify when the “self” made the decision, and then identify what caused that decision.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 1d

We haven’t, really. You argued that most religions have free will, which is categorically false. The free will argument requires an independent self to make the choice in the first place.

Is free will not a necessary and sufficient condition of your worldview?

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Reposted by Crown Prince Thutmose

Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · May 8

With all this talk of mind-viruses, let’s explore this concept. A virus is a “non-living”, self-replicating biological entity that hijacks the machinery of a host organism to reproduce, often at the host’s expense.

Extending this to the mind, I want to use Dawkins’ coined concept of the Meme…

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t follow JP, but whenever I hear his name in the news these days, it’s usually because of some latest health problem that he’s suffering from.

Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 1d

Well, Buddhism’s view is that the “self” is Maya, a cognitive illusion. The non-self, or Anatta, is one of the Three Marks of Existence in the philosophy.

There’s no independent decision-maker here. All decisions are ontologically bound by previous events that placed future constraints on choices.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 1d

I’m not sure what that means or how it demonstrates absolute free will.

What does Buddhism say about the “self”?

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 1d

What caused the self? You tell me. The free will argument requires it.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 2d

Right, so to add in free will you would need to identify when the “self” made the first decision, and then identify what caused that.

You mentioned that most religions have free will, but it’s more common in Abrahamic faiths. In Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism, absolute free will makes no sense.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 2d

What caused the decision? Let’s walk through it. So, a decision (ie. an event) is made. That event has a cause (ie. another event). Then what? What caused that event?

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 2d

I’m not talking about Sapolsky. I’m talking about you.

You have to address the hole because you just agreed that previous events are necessary for the decision to be made.

An event without a cause would contradict relativity. You would need to demonstrate that the decision is unbound by physics.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 2d

Let’s do this.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 3d

Well, the buddhist understanding is that you couldn’t have made the decision without previous events. If you’re going for scientific rigour, then you would need to acknowledge that the lack of evidence for events unbound by physics. Can you think of any examples of events that don’t have a cause?

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 3d

Relevant. You made an argument, and now we’re seeing you backtrack again.

Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 3d

I’m not sure I’m following. If we agree that free will is an illusion and that one can’t make a decision without having the brain wired to allow for it, why the fixation on free will?

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 3d

An interesting hypothesis. Where are your definitions from? Just give us a reference.

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 3d

You admitted it. :)

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Crown Prince Thutmose @thutmose.bsky.social · 3d

You just asserted that your definitions predate mine by over 2 centuries. Yet you can’t demonstrate how. Show us.