this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
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me_irl
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People who think they're in control of their life are just like maggie driving the car in the simpsons intro. It only looks like control because of a narrow viewpoint. A wider understanding shows this can't possibly be true. We no more control our lives than a mountain controls how erosion shapes it.
We live in a deterministic universe and control is just not real. It's not something that could possibly exist.
I do find that funny in a lot of ways, and the universe is cruel is many ways. But mostly I find the illusion of control a silly joke, or sometimes a kind joke.
Wether it is deterministic or not is not written into stone though. Determinism and free will have been debated heavily in the philosophy in the last centuries. Just stating "we live in a deterministic universe" is a point of view, but not a scientific fact.
It is a scientific fact. We definitely live in a deterministic universe - all branches of science confirm this. Well I think there's some dwindling hope for non-determinism in some interpretations of quantum physics.
At the moment the debate is between hard determinism and compatiblism, which states that the universe is deterministic but we can still meaningfully talk about free will, because even though it's an illusion our brains create, the fact that our brains create this illusion makes it real enough for our purposes.
We literally do not, processes on the micro scale that in sum determine the outcome on a macro scale are all at bane of the uncertainty principle, randomness and noise.
Random because we cannot obtain the correct perspective to see the order.
There are concepts like pilot wave theory that remove the non-deterministic.
When you realize the math doesn't care you'll be one step closer to truly understanding what quantum mechanics actually means and that it's not much different to how ancient astronomy explained planet movement in a earth centric universe as wanderers such that planet translated to wanderer in Ancient Greek.
To put that another way, wuantum mechanics is not unlike the ancient's ability to measure and predict the movement of planets but the description and of why is because their perspective was entirely wrong.
There is as much proof for that statement as when you would have said "God determines everything"
I think you and u/deur are talking about 2 different levels of control, similar to the difference between weather and climate.
I control when I get up in the morning, I control what job I sell out or stay at, etc., etc. But I have no control over the wildfire/tornado/hurricane/flood/landslide that takes out my house. I don't have control over the mass shooter/suicide bomber/terrorist attack that takes me out. I don't have control over a government insistent on destroying foreign relations and weakening the spending power of my dollar.
Individuals have control on a micro scale. The larger the scale gets, the less control one has. The only real control we have is how we react to the world around us.