Jan 1, 2026 12:48 AM
(This post was last modified: Jan 1, 2026 12:56 AM by C C.)
I'll have to wait at least an hour to comment on it, to avoid the separate posts from being combined, by the system. (Long enough, with excessive structure, as it is.)
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ESSENTIA FOUNDATION (Bernardo Kastrup as guest)
https://youtu.be/y2eOtzEB8D8
VIDEO EXCERPTS: There is no external environment beyond the nature to impose choices on nature. What the nature chooses to do comes out of itself. Therefore it comes out of its being. It's a result of what it is. So nature wills what it must will, given what it is.
But it does make choices. It couldn't make different choices because it isn't different. Nature is what it is and not something else. It does make choices, but its choices are a direct consequence of what it is.
So from that perspective, what nature wills is what it must. What nature must is exactly what it wills. So there is no distinction at the level of nature between free will and determinism.
And that's why we can both say that you have free will because you are part of nature. And nature has free will.
But why does nature have free will? Because it's the same as determinism, and determinism is true. So by the same token, you could also say everything's deterministic.
Why? Because free will is true. But free will is the same thing as determinism. So everything is deterministic.
That was the point that I was trying to get across. Of course we all make choices. We are part of nature. We make choices every day, thousands of choices every day. Starting from whether you touch the ground with your left or your right foot the moment you step out of bed.
The idea of determinism does not deny the obvious empirical fact that we are always making choices. What it denies is the abstraction that we call 'the could have been' . I could have chosen differently.
Then I would say you could only have chosen differently if you were different, but you were what you were. Nature was what it was. So the 'could have been' is an abstraction. And I think it's a fantasy.
And it helps me in a sense that the opposite of determinism s a randomness, right? And as you put in your essay, that is not what we mean when we say I have free will.
You don't say it's random. No, you mean it is determined, but It is determined by what you prefer it to be determined by. Right? That's that what you like to think?
Yeah.
I want it to be determined by my wish to sit down here with Bernardo, made me sit here down with Bernardo. But then again, it is determined, right? It's not random.
So that's also where you run into philosophical problems. So I think analytically, your point is very clear...
Why free will & determinism are the same ... https://youtu.be/y2eOtzEB8D8
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/y2eOtzEB8D8
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(Dec 31, 2025 10:42 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [...] Bernardo Kastrup says there is no such thing as "could've been." There is no difference between freewill and determinism. Everything came to be because that's what it was. It couldn't have been any other way because it couldn't have been anything other than what it was at the time.
ESSENTIA FOUNDATION (Bernardo Kastrup as guest)
https://youtu.be/y2eOtzEB8D8
VIDEO EXCERPTS: There is no external environment beyond the nature to impose choices on nature. What the nature chooses to do comes out of itself. Therefore it comes out of its being. It's a result of what it is. So nature wills what it must will, given what it is.
But it does make choices. It couldn't make different choices because it isn't different. Nature is what it is and not something else. It does make choices, but its choices are a direct consequence of what it is.
So from that perspective, what nature wills is what it must. What nature must is exactly what it wills. So there is no distinction at the level of nature between free will and determinism.
And that's why we can both say that you have free will because you are part of nature. And nature has free will.
But why does nature have free will? Because it's the same as determinism, and determinism is true. So by the same token, you could also say everything's deterministic.
Why? Because free will is true. But free will is the same thing as determinism. So everything is deterministic.
That was the point that I was trying to get across. Of course we all make choices. We are part of nature. We make choices every day, thousands of choices every day. Starting from whether you touch the ground with your left or your right foot the moment you step out of bed.
The idea of determinism does not deny the obvious empirical fact that we are always making choices. What it denies is the abstraction that we call 'the could have been' . I could have chosen differently.
Then I would say you could only have chosen differently if you were different, but you were what you were. Nature was what it was. So the 'could have been' is an abstraction. And I think it's a fantasy.
And it helps me in a sense that the opposite of determinism s a randomness, right? And as you put in your essay, that is not what we mean when we say I have free will.
You don't say it's random. No, you mean it is determined, but It is determined by what you prefer it to be determined by. Right? That's that what you like to think?
Yeah.
I want it to be determined by my wish to sit down here with Bernardo, made me sit here down with Bernardo. But then again, it is determined, right? It's not random.
So that's also where you run into philosophical problems. So I think analytically, your point is very clear...
Why free will & determinism are the same ... https://youtu.be/y2eOtzEB8D8
