RE: Nihilism
January 13, 2018 at 10:05 pm
(This post was last modified: January 13, 2018 at 10:08 pm by GrandizerII.)
(January 13, 2018 at 8:54 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:(January 13, 2018 at 8:41 pm)emjay Wrote: My view on all this is that determinism is not the same thing as fatalism... that fatalism is a huge misunderstanding of determinism, confusing the notions of fate and destiny with causality. Say for instance I had won the lottery in the past... and it was thus part of the causally determined path of my life... then fatalism would be akin to me hypothetically being informed in the past that I was destined to win the lottery, and with that information concluding 'if I'm destined to win the lottery, I may as well not buy a ticket', which is just silly.
Very well put. Hopefully Grandizer reads your post because he expressed some concerns about the insignificance of all actions in a deterministic universe. But, as you have shown, actions are just as significant in a determined universe as they are in a universe with free will.
No, that's not accurate regarding what I think, but I will only blame myself for the misunderstanding since I don't do words as well as people trained in academic philosophy do.
If we're talking just this one deterministic world (excluding other parallel worlds and quantum mechanics), then yes, our actions do matter. If we're talking deterministism in quantum context (parallel worlds per many worlds interpretation and assuming quantum), then no, our actions won't matter.
Indeterminism: clearly actions don't matter.
Anyhow, let me read emjay's post carefully now, and then I might get back to this after reading.
