Nihilism

[Edwardo Piet]

I just currently read about the problem of free will. And whilst doing that i discovered that free will doesnt actually exist. This has thrown me into some kind of Nihilistic Worldview...
Any thoughtsß

My thoughts is that it's a good thing. An absence of negative meaning is not a lack of positive meaning. Go figure!

---

Just because there is no free will, that doesn't imply a lack of values.

If we take free will out of the equation, we haven't said that people don't make choices. It's simply that their choices have causes which are out of their control-- they have WILL, just not FREE will. We can use this knowledge to better (ie more accurately) understand people's choices and motives.

Also, while I tend toward a rejection of free will, I'm no nihilist. I think that violence and crime are bad, but I don't reduce them to a simple free choice by the perpetrators of such actions.

Also, the matter of free will is far from settled.

Please elaborate on why "no free will = nihilism"

I agree that the fact our decisions are predetermined doesn't mean they don't exist.

However if our 'choices' are ultimately entirely caused by events entirely beyond our control... would it really make much sense to call them 'choices'?

I'd say our brains make decisions for us, and we have no choices, but that doesn't mean the decisions don't matter. They certainly matter. They're just not really up to us.

The key difference between fatalism and determinism is not a difference in responsibility and choice. In either case we have no responsiblity and choice. The key difference is that the fatalist irrationally pretends like our actions and mental events aren't part of the causal stream when they obviously are. Our future actions will be entirely caused ultimately by events entirely beyond our control but they won't be caused regardless of what we do.

What we do still matters. It's just that ultimately... it's not us doing it.