I was told by someone on here that in order to be a Communist, I must "believe" in "Free Will." Somehow, I doubt this is truly a prerequisite, but if it really is the case, then so be it.
Before getting into "Free Will," there is no good evidence that human beings possess an immaterial “soul” that thinks, chooses, or survives bodily death. All available evidence indicates that what we have hitherto called a “person,” is an activity of a living brain in a living body. Mental states reliably track brain states; damage the brain and you damage memory, personality, judgment, and agency; destroy it entirely and the person disappears. No additional essence remains.
Human brains are biological systems governed by physical law. They are extraordinarily complex, adaptive, and self-modeling, which produces the powerful subjective experience and outward appearnce of "authorship" and "choice," but nothing in neuroscience suggests that brains initiate actions independently of prior physical causes. Also, introducing indeterminism or randomness does not rescue “free will” in the libertarian sense, since randomness adds noise, rather than control.
The popular notion of "Free Will" as an uncaused, self-originating power of the "soul" or of the brain, in more secular accounts of "Free Will," is therefore unsupported. What exists instead are constrained decision-making processes embedded in biology, development, and environment. Responsibility is not metaphysical; it is a social practice invented and enforced by humans to shape behavior while brains are still alive and responsive to incentives.
There is no evidence that accountability survives death. When the brain permanently ceases to function, the person is gone. What remains is matter, not an observing subject.
These conclusions are not radical inventions of modern science. The dependence of mind on the condition of the brain has been observable since antiquity through injury, disease, and degeneration, and has been progressively clarified by advances in biology, chemistry, and physics. What is new is not the insight itself, but the precision.
Resistance to these conclusions is understandable. They undermine comforting narratives of cosmic justice, personal exceptionality, and ultimate moral reckoning. Many cultures have developed religious and metaphysical systems that posit souls, absolute free will, and post-mortem reward or punishment. Whatever other functions these systems serve, they also operate as tools of behavioral regulation, offering meaning and order in exchange for compliance.
None of this "proves" that such metaphysical entities "cannot" exist, it merely establishes that we have no reason to believe they do, and that our best explanations of human behavior, morality, and identity do not require them. Nevertheless, those who make positive claims must provide evidence. If I propose ridiculous things without providing evidence, others are not obliged to "disprove" my claims, especially if they cannot be tested and/or concern alleged entities which exist beyond measurable matter and energy.
206 posts and 28 image replies omitted.any form of "free will" thus requires it, some might call this extreme but it's the logical conclusion of the idea, for example, anyone with an intellectual disability should have the ability to simply become abled through the power of thought if they just try hard enough, since their thinking has to be acausal
>>2670125I mean it depends what disability, but yeah even if someone figures out how to be fully functioning, they're going to be operating differently due to structural difference. That's how neurotypes happen, I think.
Like you can't just cast "be normal" and be normal, you gotta work with the cards in your hand.
>>2670117recognizing the necessity of something is not the same thing as recognition of necessity. you have completely lost the plot. try actually reading the engels text you found
>>2670125you are deliberately confusing free will with omnipotence, i.e unconstrained will, This is the equivalence of saying that since you can't create atoms from thin air then there is a limitation to your range of action, which means to you dont have free will after all hue hue hue
this is the typical rhetorical device for determinists, they will raise the bar for what qualifies as 'free will' so high to the point of absurdity because they're trying to reconcile believing in the concept of agency and not believing in free will.
>>2670113>>2670121like look at the gaggle of imbeciles. They literally say that you can make choices but it dun mean they believe in free will cuz when u make choices you are influenced by other factors!!!!
That what free will advocates meant by free will dumbass. Nobody in our side thinks that free will means having the ability to make uncaused choice because that is an attribute that is literally avaliable to God only. You people believe in free will, but since free will is not epic materialism coded you deliberately change the definition of free will into absurd extremes so you can believe in agency without having to say that you believe in free will, its such a farce
>>2670140>recognizing the necessity of something is not the same thing as recognition of necessity. it is a particular instance of the general fact of recognizing necessity.
>you have completely lost the plot. try actually reading the engels text you foundEngels got that from Hegel anyway, and sometimes the "recognition of necessity in the chapter XI of Anti-Duhring is translated as "insight into necessity" which it is on Marxists.org.
You can look at the Hegel glossary
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/glossary.htmBut you can also look at this chapter of Anti-Duhring
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch09.htm
>Freedom does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, […]i.e. it is not Christian "Free Will"
>[…] but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends. Again, this is Hegel's (and Engels's…) "Freedom"
not "Free Will," which Engels calls
so-called Free Will mockingly:
>It is hard to deal with morality and law without coming up against the question of so-called free will, of man's mental responsibility, of the relation between necessity and freedom. And the philosophy of reality also has not only one but even two solutions of this problem.let alone Christian Free Will, which is an immaterial metaphysical self-driving entity inside the person's Mind or Soul. That doesn't exist. That is what OP refuted.
Why do we keep calling Hegelian "Freedom" by the name
Free Will? What does it add? It is neither Free nor Will. Reminds me of how Voltaire joked that the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire.
>>2670147it's not a confusion, it's explaining what free will actually is, what you see is autonomy that is dependendent, that is to say, it is a causal form of decision making, conflating this with "free will" is pretending they are the same positions, it's not a delusion of "being a heckin' epic materialist" either, nor is there a farce
>>2670149>That what free will advocates meant by free will dumbassno they do not, they implicitly reject the causal nature of thinking, pretending that erm askhsually they're all secular atheists who reasonably deduced free will when the common argument of free will, even ones uttered on this website implies exactly what i'm talking about while calling people like myself "imbeciles" is silly
>>2670152>it is a particular instance of the general fact of recognizing necessity.which is wholly different from recognition of necessity itself
>Engels got that from Hegel anywayyes which is why it has a super special poetic definition and not an arbitrary vulgar one where you can substitute "knowing stuff" with it
you are arguing a priori that actually free will is causal, and really is shaped by the naturalistic reality we live in, this is despite the fact that almost every advocate of a "free will" goes mostly like how i described it, it is acausal reasoning, your seemingly made up minority of real people who simply do not believe in that has not been shown or proven, humans have agency but they do not have a "free will", you can say "erm akshually you believe in a free will by virtue of stating this" but i don't, because it isn't free, you are not only shaped by everything around you, but your decisions are not entirely your own either, at best i argued this was autonomy, but that this is free is absurd, how you can argue this is actually the same thing but we're just renaming it to sound cool seems more or less like a declaration made without actually understanding why people like myself call it supernatural thinking
>>2670162It is absolutely a farce. You are attempting to shove an extreme incompatibilist position vis a vis free will and agency i e van Inwagen's strong thesis
>I am able to do something such that, if I did it, it would constitute a law of nature’s being broken or would cause a law of nature to be broken.This is an extremely contentious argument, no less because we have to define what natural law is, whether you choosing to not break natural when you cant do it constitutes as free will via tha categorical argument, etc, but what is happening here is that you are pushing the definition of free will into the realm of absurdity so retards like
>>2670165 or
>>2670170 can de facto believe in free will without calling it free will. Because for them its not really a debate about free will vs determinism but soyence vs "magical thinking".
>>2670170nah its pretty obvious you are a fedora tipper who got beat by nuns or something so you cant into dialectics
because you think its spooky and your ego is wrapped up in being a serious scientist that needs to appeal to mainstream liberal idealist norms to defend that. congrats on learning to mimic marxists but you obviously have no idea what a dialectic is
>>2665533>I was told by someone on here that in order to be a Communist, I must "believe" in "Free Will."Marxist "free will" is the capacity of a historically constituted social class to achieve consciousness of the objective laws of its own determination and, through collective revolutionary praxis, to transform those determining conditions, thereby becoming the conscious subject of history rather than its passive object. A rationally planned economy unleashing the forces of production would also enable this collective free will on the level of the individual for the first time. In a sense Communism is the realization of free will, which is something that currently does not exist but can exist in the future, so it would be wrong to not "believe" in it or rule it out in principle as an impossibility.
>>2670094>free will not being real doesn't limit your future possibilities, you are still capable of realizing/doing anything, it's just a matter of how the universe plays out rather than you personally willing anything. Do you not see how that is contradictory? You are not capably of realizing/doing anything if your choices are limited by "how the universe plays out".
>there is no uncaused self-originating power. You are at the total mercy of physical processes, but those same physical processes have given you memory, and the illusion of choice. Tts not an illusion. Your thinking too mechanically. As if matter comes first and then brain and then "illusion of choice" so the matter determines the "choice", but this isn't how it works. Matter comes first and then brain and then real choice and that real choice effects matter and then that matter effects the brain and then it goes back around again. That means the choice is free because it is self-determined, not self originating. Your making a mistake by thinking you have to reduce back to the origin when the scope of the investigation of choice does not start at the origin nor does this linear mechanical structure accurately reflect the reality of how materialism operates.
>>2670113>there is no free will, only an autonomy of choices, you do not work independently, but within them, this however means you do make choices, albeit not ones that are "free" or independentBut the choices change the choices, which means you have the capacity to change the determinants of the choices, which means it is free.
>>2670121>there is no uncaused autonomy, only caused autonomy acting in accordance with material conditionsAnd that caused autonomy can change the material conditions giving itself a new set of causes that it freely chose.
>>2670051>whether physics is "random" or "deterministic",And what that means is that physics is neither "random" nor "deterministic" but capable of being directed by conscious free choice of will, and this is practice
or physics is neither random nor deterministic in its historical-social outcomes. It is a field of potentiality that is given specific, novel, and goal-directed form by the conscious, practical activity of humanity. The "free choice of will" is the initiating moment in a material chain of praxis that harnesses necessity to create new realities.
>>2670152>Again, this is Hegel's (and Engels's…) "Freedom" not "Free Will,"Freedom is a precondition for free will.
Free will is when there is your ideal perfect finalized self in a platonic dimension of thoughts that is making your physical body do things. It is dualism, or something. And dualism is le bad and everyone wanted to surpass dualized and get to monism, o algo
>>2670175*get over dualism
Marx was a monist, btw. Trust me bro
>>2670175If monism is true then there is no room for dialectical movement. This is why i am more indisposed to the qualified non-dualism of vishishtadvaita
>>2670152so like do you believe in predestination or what
Guys, dont marxoids say that action precedes consciousness?
>>2670180uygha if everything is one all along how come there is class conflict? How came Krishna chase after Radha? Why is there movement from A to B if A and B are the same thing?
>>2670181What is your issue with religion in its historical context? Religion is a form of knowledge like science is, all the gripes you have with religion are caused by idealist scholars. Believing in free will is just as much religgery if not more
>>2670186i meant predeterminism(from the second image in that post) but was making a pun about scientism being a religion
>>2670185I am not qualified to have this conversation and to answer this question. You are a voluntarist though
why r u pretending u rnt op?
>>2670185There is a class conflict and the world can be studied. Society and its history can be studied. Society, which is made of humans is determinate.
>>2670188Trve i have never hide my position as a spooked moralist and voluntarist thoughbeit i am just mad when leftoids believe in the same thing i do but then cover it up under a cloak of epic materialism instead of embracing the fact that you can and should believe in contradictory things
people really do be dumb as hell how do they get like that i wonder
>>2670191Voluntarism leads to many deviations. Commies care about that.
>>2670191Good luck on trying to force history though.
>>2665920Yes commies care about purging heresy and making sure that their beliefs are dogmatically sound more than winning things just like Catholics
>>2670197>commies care about purging the heresyLemme get le Lenin's text… Here!
>We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighbouring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now some among us begin to cry out: Let us go into the marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort: What backward people you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the liberty to invite you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don’t clutch at us and don’t besmirch the grand word freedom, for we too are ‘free’ to go where we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh! >>2670171i'm sorry but how is what you're arguing for a "free" will? because you are implicitly stating that "human thoughts and emotions rise out of natural phenomena", a position that implicitly denies a free will, exactly what is "free" there?
>>2670197i'm sorry that the evidence we have come to has infuriated you this much
>>2670166> which is why it has a super special poetic definition and not an arbitrary vulgar onenot him but why is everything in marxism like this? you read it, you think you understand it, then next thing you know everyone is yelling at you for vulgarizing some super hegelian concept and even if you go to a "hegelian glossary" or something and look it up it turns out its definition is dependent and interconnected with 50 other words Hegel hs super special poetic definitions for.
Lenin even says
<‘It is impossible completely to understand Marx’s Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel’s Logic.’… maybe 1% of proles (if you're lucky) read Volume 1 of Capital, and of that 1% maybe 0.1% of them have also "thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel’s Logic."
But then you have anons on here who
insist that nearly every worker in the 1800s read Capital with massive ease and that you "think workers are dumb" if you find this stuff hard or confusing. It's a never ending "conversation" where it's supposedly "so easy" but you're always an "idiot who doesn't understand anything" no matter how much you read or how many times you read it.
>>2670503if you're asking why Marxists have their own jargon… it's for the same reason every other field of study has its own jargon.
If you're asking why they specifically use terms that already have "colloquial" definitions which are completely different and easily confused with their special poetic definitions inherited from Hegel? My advice is blame Hegel.
>>2670181Predestination is a religious form of determinism, that anon clearly is not religious.
>>2670149>that is an attribute that is literally avaliable to God only.but wasn't theological christian free will invented precisely as a theological device to explain away the problem of predestination? like calvinists and shit believe in predestination where god basically creates your soul on a railroad to heaven or hell, but other christians believe in an uncaused self-originating power of the soul (not the brain) that allows souls to influence the course of outcomes in the material world, specifically in the flesh they pilot, so that they can reasonably avoid mortal sins and repent and so on. So…. that's what "free will" usually means and that's what it originally comes from:
<"free will" (liberum arbitrium) was introduced by Christian philosophy (4th century CE). It has traditionally meant (until the Enlightenment proposed its own meanings) lack of necessity in human will, so that "the will is free" meant "the will does not have to be such as it is". This requirement was universally embraced by both incompatibilists and compatibilists.How did Hegelians manage to transform the original definition: "lack of necessity in human will" into the opposite "recognition of necessity" and then have the gall to act like everyone else is pseuds for not knowing their super secret handshake definition?
<oh but you don't understand, you need to read the entire science of logic and phenomenology of spirit to understand what "recognition" and "necessity" mean and you will still get it wrong because you are le pseudAt some point Feynman's principle of teaching needs to apply:
<true understanding comes from the ability to explain concepts clearly and simply, often as if teaching them to a child. He believed that if you cannot explain something in simple terms, it indicates a lack of understanding of the topic. >>2670149but even God lacks free will since he is bound to the Good.
>>2670528augustine spoke of predestination before luther and calvin. even paul discusses it where he says that we are either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness. Christ also says that all things are known by the Father, including the day of judgement. prophecy also confirms that the future is written before it occurs. this was not an uncommon belief in antiquity, since astrology played a part in determining future events, like the magi ("wise men") using stars to find Christ.
the protestant purpose of presdestination is to prove their form of soteriology (salvation), since if man cannot save himself, then he is redeemed by sola fide (faith alone), since only God can forgive sin (not priests). so then, one's salvation lies in God, not himself. the latter belief is a form of pride.
>>2670513yes but they are subscribing to a hard determinism where everything is predetermined, so its just like a secular predestination without the heaven or hell part
>>2670503>not him but why is everything in marxism like this? thats how all of science and philosophy is because the enlightenment came out of religious scholars in the middle ages where the church was the center of education and everyone was bi-tri-lingual and studied latin and greek.
also when you have to distinguish between two closely related concepts. like knowing and understanding. they arent inventing technical differences they are just being precise
>But then you have anons on here who insist that nearly every worker in the 1800s read Capital with massive ease people do say that but they are wrong. workers werent reading capital they were reading pamphlets. you dont have to read it to participate but the leaders of the vanguard should know what they are talking about
>>2670509>If you're asking why they specifically use terms that already have "colloquial" definitions which are completely different and easily confused with their special poetic definitions inherited from Hegel?i think its the other way around. the words had specific definitions that get watered down by their popularization
>>2670528>How did Hegelians manage to transform the original definition: no its the other way around
><true understanding comes from the ability to explain concepts clearly and simply, often as if teaching them to a child.nah thats just anti-intellectualism. learning any science takes just as much work some things are just complex and dumbing it down loses the meaning such that the explanation does not map onto the subject
>but wasn't theological christian free will inventedpretty sure they got it from people who came before them
>>2670925free will isn't real whether or not the universe is "random" or "deterministic"
>>2670944>nah thats just anti-intellectualism. learning any science takes just as much work some things are just complex and dumbing it down loses the meaning such that the explanation does not map onto the subject it's hard to walk the tightrope between vulgarization, i.e. "watering stuff down" and obscurantism, i.e. "making it hard and confusing on purpose to limit who gets in."
both are anti-intellectualism imo
>>2671264>it's hard to walk the tightrope between vulgarization, i.e. "watering stuff down" and obscurantism, i.e. "making it hard and confusing on purpose to limit who gets in."
>both are anti-intellectualism imoAgreed. You see this a lot.
Vulgarization: “Quantum physics proves reality isn’t real, man.”
Obscurantism: “Nonlocal ontological indeterminacy arises from Hilbert space formalism.”
Tightrope: “At very small scales, particles don’t behave like everyday objects, and we need probability to describe them.”
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