u/Different_Arm402

for some reason there's this concept that the two are separate and not the same thing but under a different term?

to begin with, i don't particularly care for concepts like 'you and your choices are influenced by your environment and the shape you take when you are born (like diseases, disorders etc.)' as i don't think they're really related to the idea of free will and are mostly beating about the bush

compatibilism just to me sounds like re-defining free will to something else so it sticks (i.e. the concept of "agency") as in if it feels like we have a choice then we must

if determinism states that everything is just down to atoms taking a pre-determined path like a storybook beginning and concluding then your agency was also pre-determined and so was me typing this reddit post and you answering it etc. etc.

there's also the idea that it's an illusion so strong that we must live by it, i'm not particulary certain if this is much more than a coping mechanism for fatalism, you will lead your life operating with the infohazard that you're infact operating in a pre-determined fashion, and all living consciousness will have to carry on with this until a big crunch or big rip ends all matter anyways - i cannot foresee this being anything but an ultimate nihilism

this is what happens when you spend all week inside
this has been going on for ~~two~~ (three? i have no sense of time anymore) days.

it goes like this:

i think of the question of free will

if god exists, then everything is pre-determined, because god is omnipotent, but then god is a liar because there is no free will afforded to reject or believe in religion and thus existence simply becomes a sadistic game for god (this is the gnostic notion) <- this is all built on the assumption of abrahamism

but whether god exists or if he's a liar is completely meaningless to me as a person since we can't prove his existence or prove his non-existence, so it's fine to live in absurdity as it's beyond our comprehension or our sensible logic/account of reality

up until i encased myself in the thought game of free will through a supposedly fully scientific & secular method

neuroscientists think our entire existence is a machination of a predetermined universe

this has obviously highly distressed me
because determinism ends up being fatalism no matter how you look at it
and compatibilism just tries to re-establish the concept of free will into something that ends up being fatalism anyways

and it is impossible to be a fatalist without being a depressed nihilist
absurdism, optimism, existentialism don't do anything to my worldview anymore, since there is absolutely no point in making a meaning out of something predetermined, should free will exist i would have been 100% content with albert camus' ideas

then i also have to think about the idea of what really entails a living being, if it's all just atoms anyways? is everything made up? materialism is a terrible state of mind

even if i try to reconcile with absurdism physical cosmology comes in and shatters every inch of clawing to life i still have
what's the point of living on if scientific progress inevitably turns us into this? all that science has been concerned with is the elimination of suffering, but we're not used to that existence of no-suffering, in a world of immortality (or even, a greatly increased lifetime that everything human pales in respect), what truly matters anymore? am i just fearing evolution?

and beyond that, as far as we can tell, the universe is cyclic, come 40 billion years and if humanity ('s very evolved predecessor) still exists as a type-whatever civilization, all that exists will be wiped nonetheless

perhaps the way out of this is a sort of eastern religious philosophy like buddhism but i can't honestly in good faith interact with that faith system instead of finding a way out through suicide, since it locks you into another sort of faith-based system of having to persevere lest you wanna be reborn into something lesser and re-continue the cycle... and that's totally unprovable, and as far as i'm concerned any secular account of that is entirely nihilism in a different package anyways

this is probably my worst depressive episode yet, good lord, i have never felt this way in my life, i feel disoriented in a royal way, confused yet not so in a manner like nothing i've ever had to deal with, like a walking contradiction, everything feels fake and claustrophobic now, there are feelings arising when i look myself in the mirror, when i talk to my parents, that are overwhelming (in a bad way) and also very novel

and yet in a strong irony i find myself also feeling stress about my final exams in a month, wanting to masturbate, wanting to hit the gym, and all those other fleeting whatever-the-hell human desires despite being clearly met with knowledge beyond my deepest intellect

is this what a manic episode feels like? my psych gave me olanzapine for my szpd, i have some left i think, i see no way out, i'll self-medicate and see where that takes me

I legitimately do not see how determinism can lead into anything but fatalism