Thread 33513176

This is something that I didn’t really think about much before but the older I get I do. Is there any new research on this shit you know about? I’m genuinely wondering how much of our personality is just predetermined shit outside our control. really makes life weird because that would be like us all being biological robots for the most part with a small bit of ability to make our own choices. It would make the good people in this world a bit less good and the bad people a bit less bad because they were always destined for those behaviors from the start. It makes me wonder how god if they exist objectively views your actions in spite of this.

>>33513176 (OP)
>Is our personality predetermined?
Your core personality is semi-predetermined. Your 'core' is your knee jerk reactions, your thoughtless routine behaviours, the shit you say and do on autopilot. Your subconscious mind basically. That is not created by (you). It's co-created, 50% your parents and 50% your environment (social peers, life events, and the physical environs you were raised in).

Your outward personality, your conscious mind, your 'ego', that's not predetermined. That's consciously chosen by you. And you gain full control of that when you reach the age of reason. That age varies from culture to culture, some war-torn shit holes have it early, their children think like adults too quickly to survive. Complacent and lax cultures like ours in the west means no threats to life lurking around as much. This is why we got many 18-21 year olds who haven't reached the age of reason, and live like teens or even children in their thinking.

Once you reach the age of reason (self actualisation), you can begin to change your core personality slowly over deliberate processes. You then gain full control and it stops being predetermined. This is why I use the word 'semi-predetermined'

>It makes me wonder how god if they exist objectively views your actions in spite of this.
Actions are a choice. The minute you become aware of your own free will means you don't have an excuse. All you can have is an explanation ("my parents conditioned abuse into me as a child and I thought it was normal/not a big deal") but that's all.

>>33513176 (OP)
All is predetermined but people keep it under their hat when they figure it out because if everyone knew, a bunch of people would start acting fools. Idk how much science there is to a thought experiment but our existence came to being through no control of our own and then every thing that happens to us determines how we react. Even what you decide to eat for dinner is the result of outside influence. Choose forgiveness when you can.

>>33513176 (OP)
Yes, personality is largely determined by genetics, epigenetics, prenatal hormone exposure, early childhood environment. The way you process stimuli, your temperament, even your proclivity toward empathy or aggression: a lot of that is baked in before you're even aware of having preferences. You're not crazy for seeing people as robots on tracks. We basically are, most of us to an extreme degree.

But that doesn't get you off the hook. And it doesn't make good people "less good" or bad people "less bad." That's a moral sleight of hand. There's no fixed "self" and no ghost in the machine making sovereign choices. What you think of as "you" is just a temporary stack: body, sensation, perception, mental formations, consciousness. Those are the five aggregates, and none of them are you. They're all conditioned. They arise due to causes. You don’t pilot them, you can't control what thought you will have next, all these things ARE you, fleetingly, for a brief moment.

We don't excuse the murderer because he was always fated to murder. We restrain him because the murder still happened and someone suffered. Preventing more suffering matters more than whether someone had agency in a metaphysical sense. You're not culpable in the Western liberal autonomous-individual way but you're still responsible, and still face your moral just-deserts.

And as for God, if they exist, then surely they judge not based on your programming, but on what you do with the constraints you're under. But you're a morally entangled meat puppet. No escape.

If so much of who we are is basically predetermined it makes me wonder what our true wants and desires are. Not the me that I’m aware of that is largely just biological hardwiring who I am familiar with but the me that exists beyond that. The me that is formed from life experiences and growth. if there is a soul and you die I would imagine you would lose a large part of your personality and you would be left with the second version which would be seperate from the first. this is starting to sound schizo I’m sure. it just makes me wonder what we actually want in life because a deeper or perhaps higher part of us wants that, and it makes me wonder how much of our desires and goals we have in our hardwired sections of our personality we should fully discard because they are not legitimate. I’m sure people are hardwired to desire certain goals but if it’s just hardwiring then is it valid in anyway? That sounds more like an illusion. would it not be better to just ignore those? Or would you be fighting against those desires for your entire life?

>being biological robots
Most apt description of life in the universe yes

>>33513176 (OP)
>small bit of ability to make our own choices
In which part of your brain this ability originates?
In which neuron? In what physical principle is based? What energy fuels it?
What is you?
What if free will it's just an illusion that animals express, and that's all?

>>33513176 (OP)
Yeah but you can steer it or change it