Actually I have this kind of conversations. I don’t care so much about monkey problems
Wife and I have a longstanding argument over whether free-will exists.
I say it does and she has no choice but to say otherwise.
One time I was talking about this with my friends. I said I believe it exists and they all laughed and said “particles have rules, you’re made of particles.” 🥺
and she has no choice
I am forced to see what you did there :D
Consider this, free will can still be pre-planned. We can choose what we want to do, so what if it was pre planned? I still chose it.
Why do we need to bother executing it then? Choice has no value if agency to exercise it is revoked at any stage.
if we don’t, then the predetermined outcome won’t happen!
Not executing it would also be predetermined. The only thing you can do is pretend to choose.
that thought affects your brain, and therefore the future! :D
But you didn’t choose to have the thought did you?
Quick think of a city and then explain to me why you didn’t pick Cairo
speaking of brains, mine just exploded!
btw the text before the spoiler doesn’t show up on jerboa
I like to change definitions to secure my position also
what definition did I change?
The meaning of free will.
The meaning of free will is exactly what people are discussing when they talk about whether or not it exists. What does and what doesn’t count as free will is what’s up for discussion.
I think free will as a concept is kinda stupid I’ve yet to talk to anyone who can actually give it a solid definition that isn’t something like “it means we can do what we want”
Either your decision is based on your personality, meaning it’s not free it’s a set calculation based on genetics and accumulated experience or it’s completely random meaning it’s not will at all
If you just start talking to some random person about it, then you’re unlikely to get a high-quality conversation; because most of the stuff people will say about it is inane or obvious or obviously wrong, etc. But there are definitely interesting discussions and thoughts that can be had about it. I’ve had countless garbage conversations about, and a handful of good ones. Probably my favoutite take is from Daniel Dennett’s book “Freedom Evolves”. He is very careful to build up a strong picture of what is it that we’re talking about and what the ‘obvious’ problems are, before then carefully and systematically showing those things aren’t really problems with what we were talking about anyway. Before reading that book, I was hard line in the camp of “obviously free will doesn’t exist; that’s a scientific fact”; but after reading it… well, I’d now say “it depends exactly what you mean, but probably the free will you’re talking about does exist.”.
Can your free will be restricted in any way? Someone in prison has less agency than you or I, if that means his free will is restricted then we have more free will than he does. Therefore it exists.
Free will as a philosophical concept has less to do with “I can do what I want” and more to do with “I have control over my actions/thoughts.” This gets into all sorts of interesting corners, such as:
- if God exists and is all-knowing, can God know what you’re about to do? If God does, is it really your choice, or just something God planned long ago?
- if God doesn’t exist, then we’re all products of everything that came before. Assuming that’s the case, a sufficiently powerful computer with a sufficiently large amount of data could determine what you’re about to do. If that’s the case, is it really your choice, or are you just a really complex automaton where the inputs (your life experiences and current situation) exactly determine your actions?
- in either of the above cases, if you’re unaware that another observer knows what you’ll do, do you retain free will? Does free will disappear the moment you learn of this observer? Can knowing about the observer change your actions in an unpredictable way, or can actions always be predicted?
And so on. There are some interesting discussions there at the edges, like at what point AI gains free will. That can have very real moral implications (i.e. when does AI get personhood?), so it’s not just idle chat.
How is it a choice if there is no other options?
/woosh
It’s really not much of a whoosh when some people hold that position legitimately
Free will exists because I can change my mind about liking or wanting something.
I want to rebuke you but you name is even more triggering. There is no linear chaos, you need non-linearities or discontinuities for chaos.
Glad I could be of use.
The concept behind linear chaos is that the chaos is bound at one point. The theoretical cone of influence can only move in one direction and widen at a set rate. Kind of a mashup of chaos over time.
Ah that’s really cool. So maybe similar to how turbulence can form at one point while the preceding flow remains laminar?
Yeah, chaos crops up in linear systems sometimes in unexpected places.
There are a couple of scientific papers on it, and at least one textbook. Even at that I’m not sure it’s a well-accepted theory, but the idea suits me.
What if I told you: People who hate small talk only have meaningful relationships. It’s the shallow relationships they lack.
This. This exactly. I’m friends with few people, but I’m very good friends with them.
Sometimes you don’t need to fill the silence with sounds. I’d rather be in a relationship with someone that we can sit down and be quiet together
Or fuck.
For most couples that takes up like 15 minutes once every 3-5 days or possibly much longer.
Longer than 15 minutes?
Longer than 3-5 days I think
I don’t know if I have the stamina to go for 3 to 5 days, let alone longer!
Or you can use literal sounds instead of words. My spouse and I have this thing going on where we make this kind of squeak/baloon sound with our mouth which has the same effect as “hi, nice to see you”.
Me and my gf usually say Ahoozles (shortened from Anyhoozles) and just a way of saying “I want to talk to you, I just don’t know what I want to talk about
We just say “you know…” and then the other person will either say “yep/same” or “no I don’t know” depending on the mood. And if the cat makes noise we’ll also just say “I know buddy me too”
Hahahaha I love hearing about other people’s microcultures
Oh thank god my partner and I aren’t the only ones. Don’t get me wrong, we know and like that we’re weird, but it’s nice to have company.
A few steps away from becoming furries.
/satire
My wife and I do things in threes: three taps, three nudges, three blinks, three noises, whatever. It means “I love you”. It’s a nice way to say it when you’re too tired to say it. I think it originated when we’d say it as we were falling asleep.
Talking philosophy is small talk.
Person: Hey you having a good morning?
Me: Depends… What does it mean to be a good person?
Define “good”.
“You see? We ended up at a semantic argument again!”
Idk that I really do small talk OR do philosophical conversations with my partner but I’ll let you judge. Here’s the sort of things me and my partner say to each other throughout the day:
- wanna play [whatever co-op we’re into lately]? (Then several hours of strategy discussions)
- did you eat all the chips again you FUCKER followed by BITCH WHAT IF I DID YOU ATE ALL THE OREOS???
- If all dogs go to heaven do their people have to be there for it to be a dog heaven and does that mean hitler is in heaven because he had a dog?
- miscellaneous bitching about our jobs
- wanna fuck
- the dog pissed in the elevator again it’s your turn to go clean it
- did you see the sweater I put the cat in?
- Debates about whether or not a taco is a hot dog or vice versa
- how many toys do you wanna get out for the fucking and more importantly how many are you willing to clean
- that book you made me read is really melodramatic but I agree it’s about black mold.
- we should go visit the hot tub vs no it’s too fucking cold vs that is the point of it being a HOT tub
- wanna play cards against humanity with the cat
- debates about who will hold the cat while we trim her claws
- yelling at each other for being too loud while the other is sleeping and which offense is fundamentally more heinous (dayshifter vs nightshifter)
- discussing the biopunk visuals in lexx and how they would have made all the butthole windows out of fabric
- random nonsense words and noises like doing an entire karaoke bit but all the words are “doodoodoodoo doodley dooooot doo”
- discussions about farscape’s costuming department’s extensive use of bondage gear
- putting peanut butter on TOP of the dog’s snout then filming her
- what if we feel like we’re seeing God when we’re on mushrooms because the mushrooms ARE god and we’re all just fundamentally here to feed them
- blaming each other for the peanut butter thing to get the other person to clean it up
- talking about weird internet personalities like chrischan or the tile patterns guy
- calling each other old for stuff like heartburn after pizza or chronic injuries flaring up with the weather
talking about weird internet personalities like chrischan or the tile patterns guy
Oh my god, there’s fuckery on the internet?! I’m out of the loop on the tile patterns guy. What happened?
Deadwingdork has a great 4chan series
Ok what is this melodramatic book about black mold? Any other fungus books you can recommend?
Troubled Blood by JK Rowling
Lmao the black mold is taking over, she’s writing books about it now
Someone once pointed out to me that what I consider small talk might be someone else’s important.
Sure it might seem like gossip or chat about the weather just for the sake of talking but it can equally be someone trying to say that they are lonely and need reassurance.
I think about that a lot and I’ve become a lot more tolerant. Besides, you can segue into some pretty big chat from such humble starts.
The issue is that a lot of small talk is superficial or even dishonest, like the stereotypical question of how you are. Because, no, they don’t actually want to hear about your problems. They want you to say “good and you?”, and will answer equally dishonest. It’s one of my biggest issues with it because I really don’t care about talking about things that none of us actually care about. If you don’t want to know how I am, don’t ask. If you have nothing better to say than moan about the weather (which is almost always either too hot, or too cold, or too rainy, or too snowy, etc), then don’t even bother with yapping me up.
This is a great way to think about it, goes along nicely with the idea that even the smallest acts of care can have a huge impact on someone’s day. Simply engaging with someone a little can be enough to make them feel better. It might even be fair to say it’s What We Owe To Each Other (for fans of moral philosophy, and/or The Good Place 😉).
I also had a workplace where the admin kept accusing us of “gossiping” about them. The misogynistic implications were not lost on a group of (mostly) female nurses who were actually mostly discussing how they were being horribly mistreated by their superiors. These people were really tryna act like we were bullying them; our bosses. YOU CAN’T BULLY YOUR BOSS.
If my partner can’t handle silence, then there’s something seriously wrong. We usually have something to do and if we don’t we just cuddle up. There’s no need for constant noise.
I always took it as an early red flag that the person is way too intense and stressful to be around if every conversation has to be a do or die dynamic.
The only people in real life i have met who have ever complained about small talk were in the context of “i do not care enough about [the people around me] to pay attention to anything [they] say not directly relevant to me/my hyperfocus” and i just realize they’re the “everyone else is an npc” crowd and let them be sulky all the time and hate every social thing they have to do, and I’ll have a fine time chatting with the cashier about her day! These are always the same people who say everyone else is boring, not that they have given anyone the time of day.
Tbh if they see others like that im happy to not give them my time and show interest in them either. All social is give and take on every level and those people are always takers. We’re where we are now because of people who can’t bother to care about the lives of others.
As a person who doesn’t really like to talk to most people and believe silence is fine… Let us have this do or die conversation.
Then return back to where you came from.
I was here first so no, I’m not going away or to ‘where I cam from’. Especially considering You’re the one who invited yourself here. You seem pretty desperate to have interaction with someone who is fine with small talk. I would have thought you’d catch that drift and go back to where you came… I even left the warning there for you to avoid. I wasn’t exactly hiding it. Small talk isn’t going away. But you can choose to avoid it or cry about it more, fragility.
Uh wut you took this really personally. It was a comment.
You okay?
It’s not that it has to be that exciting. Just don’t talk endlessly about shit that doesn’t matter. You bought a new kind of mustard, I don’t need a 20 minute explanation on why. To me, someone who can’t exist without noise, or making noise is a red flag. That being said, early on in the relationship is different because you’re still trying to get to know them.
I think you’re viewing this wrong. If my friend is a foodie and really excited about their new mustard I’d want to hear them be excited about it and know why they like it.
Not a foodie. A talker.
Yup. If my SO and I don’t have anything more urgent to say, we generally talk about upcoming plans, like next year’s vacations, shopping lists, etc. We almost never talk about the weather unless we’re planning to be out in it.
Been together >10 years, small talk is pretty rare and largely reserved for entertaining guests.
I’m sorry that’s a red flag. Some of us honestly just want to share what excites us with the person(s) who we are excited to be around.
Small talk imo is those “feeler” questions. Hows the weather? See that thing on TV? How was traffic? You having the case of the Mondays?
It’s just noise to break the silence. I don’t have patience for it. Speak your intentions.
You wanna talk about your train collection? Do it. That’s not small talk, that’s a topic.
“I had the worse weekend. Can I tell you about it?” Straight to the point with their Intention.
“Did you know there’s a New Mustard based on ancient seeds found in Mongolia?” Real direct intention.
I agree. I think they’re looking at this wrong or maybe just picked a poor example of what they’re trying to explain. Talking about hobbies and things that excite you isn’t a red flag at all.
That’s it. Hobbies? Interesting musings? Sure. Even how their day was. But nobody is excited enough about mustard to hear about it for that long. Or people who “think out loud” they say something and I’m like “what?” They respond “just thinking out loud” or “talking to the dog” and then get mad at me for not listening to the important stuff because I simply don’t have the time or mental capacity to filter that.
But nobody is excited enough about mustard to hear about it for that long
I think this is different.
The issue is people who can’t read the room. People just blabbing and talking AT someone. That’s not even small talk. That’s just holding someone verbally hostage.
Yes! Thank you! That was a better way to word it.
But nobody is excited enough about mustard to hear about it for that long.
Some people are, but more importantly it’s about sharing your conversation partner’s excitement because you care about them, not the mustard.
(Also, life’s more fun when you let yourself be excited by the mundane. We all die some day.)
Right, but like I pointed out several times, they’re not any more excited about the mustard than I am. They just like hearing themselves talk. And it wasn’t about trying the new one, it was just 20 minutes about why the mustard she used to get wasnt good enough anymore. Like 20 minutes of mustard bashing just to say “I thought I’d like to try a new one”.
they’re not any more excited about the mustard than I am
Obviously they were if they were talking about it for 20 minutes.
Extrovert cannot comprehend being quiet.
Not just extroverts. I’m pretty introverted but I’m also the type of person who is very heavy on verbal communication and I tend to get a lot of my affirmation through words.
Being “still” is a learned skill for me.
Wonder if Twitter person who made that comment just has people who don’t want to have small talk with them
My wife is a VERY quiet person. She doesn’t say a lot but when she does it’s because she actually has something to say. This made me nervous when we were first dating but I’ve learned to embrace it. Silence is OK. She definitely talks more than she used to but we don’t have to talk all the time. Sometimes she just looks at me and smiles without saying anything and in those moments I know that I am loved.
She’s thinking of how she’ll dispose of the bodies. 😁
Drag doesn’t like jokes about how people who socialise differently are serial killers.
This poor individual has never been in a lasting relationship.
If you can’t talk, in full, with your partner such that you somehow need small talk, that’s not a relationship, it’s a one night stand that happens to last for 3 months to a year.
As other people in this thread have said, it’s usually more about the person than it is the topic. I’m happy to hear my wife talk about the weather tomorrow but if the guy behind me in line at the store does it I’m answering in grunts and annoyed expressions.
Ha, jokes on them! I haven’t been in a relationship in about a decade and I don’t see that ever changing so I don’t need small talk!
…wait. Who’s the joke on?
:P
In my perspective (a lonely person generally accustomed with my loneliness), small talk doesn’t seem to be the problem. The problem is the lack of people’s interest in deep topics, such as the aforementioned nature of reality: people either don’t have the needed patience, time, or both. People are so busy running through the survival game of the mundane existence that deep topics are left for their afterlives (if there’s one), when human ideologies and need for survival cease to exist. Small talk is like “sorry I got no time to think about the ultimate question of life, universe and everything else, gotta go to my modern slavery where I’m not paid to think but to obey, bye!”. Deep inside, seems like a fear of becoming lonely as those that, just like me, likes to think about the depths of the reality and breaking paradigms (for example, “shouldn’t we discuss how existence is so fleetingly finite in the grand scheme of cosmos and how futile is to accumulate wealth and goods?” is a granted source of loneliness).
There’s someone out there that would love talking about that stuff with you if you haven’t already found them just so you know! ❤️
Everyone’s got a person with a similar wave length as long as they don’t settle before then!
That doesn’t mean they will ever meet though… 😅
Not the OP, but I seem to share at least some form of his experience and I actually think this “song” does a really good job of summarizing how I feel about it.
I am as sure there is someone out there for me as I am of anything else I have a high degree of confidence in. On the matter of whether we will ever meet or not though, that I can’t say. Maybe the world is too large and time is too great. In the grand scheme of things we will find out soon enough.
Well if they settle before then, they’ll for sure never meet.
Of course, though unfortunately the decision is not a binary one. If a person spends their whole life searching and not finding, it could be that putting the same amount of time and energy into something else would have resulted in a more fulfilling life. There are shades of gray with this too since it’s not one or the other. Like most things it’s all about balance.
Well said
The problem is the lack of people’s interest in deep topics,
I’m not sure about that. I think small talk serves occasions where you might want to keep it polite as deeper topics tend to become emotionally loaded disputes.
For example, going to a bubble tea shop. Usually, you don’t want to discuss the meaning of life with the shop keeper, but it may be a nice gesture to talk a bit about the small things in life. Small talk is a good way to share a pleasant conversation and appreciate each other.
Furthermore, small talk can serve as an opener to deeper topics if the occasion arises and everyone seems to be in the mood for such deeper topics.Anyway, my wife and I are friends with the shop keeper now and we’ve talked about the weather, religions, vacations and how to raise children.
If you can question free will, you have free will.
Yes, I’m aware of how people like to take science and jump to conclusions that kinda sound like they fit with the science, but they do not actually. This is called pseudoscience
I’m not arguing for either determinism or non-deterministism here, but let me ask you this:
If every action has a cause, and every action has a subsequent reaction, and all these chains of events follow predictable rules, what is the factor of “randomness” that allows for free will to exist?
Genuinely curious to hear your opinion seeing your stance on this is very strong.
Just adding to this: any modern arguments using the probabilistic nature of quantum phenomena to fight determinism are wrong. Einstein made a theory called ‘hidden variable theory’ saying there were causes we couldn’t see (duh). A guy named Bell ‘proved it wrong’ by arguing against something einstein said in it about data being in multiple places simultaneously. Had nothing to do with whether hidden variables exist. But the headlines were ‘hidden variable theory proved wrong’ implying to the public that there are somehow no causes of things below a certain level and that an illogical foundation of ‘probability’ somehow underlies everything. Einstein once said it was silly to think an electron is in an undetermined state until measured when he can see it’s path in a cloud chamber. It clearly is a thing constantly existing.
With the errors of the foundational days of quantum physics out of the way, how can one argue against a thought or action having causes preceding it? Even if we are in woowoo land where everyone is spirits with minds existing separately in different worlds, there are still variables determining what those minds think. Only seeming alternative explanation so far is the faulty quantum probability field… which is wrong.
Bell did prove mathematically that a local hidden variables theory is unable to explain observed quantum mechanics. This doesn’t rule out nonlocal hidden variable theories, but a) that is called superdeterminism, and b) that would mean that there would be faster-than-light interactions, and that is in many ways weirder.
I disagree. “Einstein once said it was silly to think an electron is in an undetermined state until measured when he can see it’s path in a cloud chamber.” I am definitely of the einstein view and not the mainstream quantum scientist view. According to me, things, like einstein’s electron DO have actual states when not ‘observed’ and do not need to ‘be observed and collapse in to a form at that time’. At every point in it’s path thru that cloud chamber the electron has it’s form WHICH IS SUPEROBVIOUS TO SEE even tho the quantum math has no idea what to do about it and is like ‘no does not fit in the math thus cannot exist’. In reality, the electron does not need to be measured to have it’s form. Same with the ‘entangled’ particles Bell uses. Just because it is measured later does not mean it did not have it’s form while not measured ~which is common sense to me and blows up Bell’s Theorem before even having to reach to exotic theories. Weird to me stuff like that is not common sense. But I personally think quantum physics went wrong waaaaaay at the start and is riddled with exotic theories based on good data but faulty definitions and conclusions (such as the doubleslit experiment being touted as ‘a single photon being let thru’ when it’s a guy shining a very dim light for a month and taking a slow exposure pic. Shining light for 1 month = 1 Photon. Does not match common sense. Throws off future work. But is definitionwise accurate as quanta is ‘a level of energy’). So meh. Disagree. Nice you know your stuff tho.
“You do not mention the path of the electron at all, Heisenberg. But yet when you look in a cloud chamber the electron’s track can be observed quite directly.” “Don’t you think that it’s strange to say that there is a path for the electron in the cloud chamber, but there is no path for the electron in the atom?” ~Einstein
Yeah weird it would then be pure probability with no causes when it’s inside the atom because that’s what matches the mathematical framework of Quantum Physics while when it’s in a cloud chamber ITS EXACT LOCATION AS A DISTINCT OBJECT IS CLEARLY VISIBLE. So yeah I’m with reality instead of that mathematical framework and don’t see any issue with the same concept of ‘having a form’ applying to entanglement ~which 100% blows up Bell’s theorem before it gets to multilocation.
Bell’s Theorem —> 💥
Possibility of Hidden Variables —> 👍
Well first off we are seeing more and more that there are quantum effects in the brain, and we don’t know what they all do or what role if any they play in conciousness… We just know quantum shit is random and hard to predict while only really affecting things on the smallest possible levels. Second some elements are hard to predict because two things are equally probable.
Like if I go to get Ice Cream and I really like strawberry, but they’re out and I can only choose Vanilla or Chocolate, then it’s a 50/50 and the only thing that decides which I choose is my own decision.
Some things simply cannot be measured.
How do you record a dream? How do you measure someone’s luck?
why?
Or were you predestined to question it?
I’m a naturalistic determinist, I literally can’t not question free will
