One Thought Can Change You Forever

casey had had this sort of experience before but never quite like this it wasn't a panic attack per se but certainly somewhere in the same vein of experience a moment where everything he understood and felt to be true started to crack and peel back the world shedding its skin and revealing an entirely new image of itself to him casey had just finished watching another video on the topic of free will or more specifically the lack thereof up until more recently casey never really paid much interest to this or any similar kind of topic that sort of stuff always seemed distant abstract and unnecessary to him of course he had free will he felt it in every moment what could possibly be the issue or question but more recently as he had become slightly older and more curious he found it a bit harder to see things so simply and find meaning so easily consequently he had become more interested in topics of philosophy looking further into different ideas in attempts of better self-understanding and ways of life and now after having finished this last video casey began to question the obviousness of his own free will specifically the video was about the concept of determinism which argues that all events including human actions are determined exclusively by prior causes it argues for this by claiming that since all particles and phenomena in the universe operate off of cause and effect patterns in which there is always a continual chain of preceding explanations then like all other things in the universe so too are human action and choice subject to the same deterministic system logically this made complete sense to casey he did not choose the parents he was born to where he was born the brain or genetics he was born with nor the first thoughts and experiences he had and yet these things directly affected and led to every thought and experience he had thereafter in an unbroken linear sequence of cause and effect a cascading of forces in circumstances that he was not in control of nor totally aware of at any point and thus every new spur thereafter everything that felt like his choosing was yet another product of some causal fixed thing that he didn't choose beforehand as a sort of cliche attempt at a witty example the video he just watched even said within the video itself how he clicked on the video without choosing all as a result of the sequence of events tracking back to and beyond his birth the advent of the internet the invention of the computer the formation of the earth all the way back to the beginning of the universe fundamentally casey agreed with this premise of determinism but he struggled to see how its implications could possibly be true he struggled to agree with the idea that he himself did not have the free will that he felt in every moment and in this case he experienced the intense disorienting dissonance that occurs when a truth that one feels intuitively confronts and contradicts with the truth that one knows logically and his intuition fought back he wondered to himself what could possibly be the point of life if this were true the video he just watched seemed to claim that he could still choose to enjoy life and find meaning in it but how what sense did this make how could he choose anything now how can you reconcile the belief that all of existence is deterministic with the belief that you can find your own meaning in the absurdity it mustn't be completely true then casey rationalized in his head over the following several days casey considered and tried a number of different things in a hopeful effort to prove this to himself to find a flaw in the argument against free will on the tuesday of that week on his way home from work casey stopped at a small park not far from his apartment to get some fresh air and relax for a little he sat on a bench looking out at the pond and people flow around the park ruminating to himself eventually still struggling to shake the topic off the surface of his mind casey found himself thinking about the concept of free will again he considered how in this moment he and he alone wanted to stop at the park there was no specific reason or event that caused him to do so no biological or physiological necessity no external force nothing other than his own willful desire he wanted to stop at the park and so he chose to and since he chose to he did how was this not free will he wandered to himself while continuing to think back and forth a park goer's dog happened to run up to where casey was sitting sniffing the ground around him profusely after circling around casey a couple of times the dog went on in the other direction continuing to sniff and follow its nose as casey amusingly observed the dog he considered to himself if the dog had any free will clearly the dog wanted to find what it was smelling and it was choosing to follow what it wanted but was it choosing to want what it was smelling no casey obviously concluded it was being pulled by a desire that it had no say in of course casey knew that he was at least some good amount more conscious than the dog but did this fundamentally allow him to decide what he did or didn't want any more than the dog he could choose to do what he wanted but could he choose to want what he wanted sure he chose to go to the park because he wanted to but why did he want to he reflected on where this desire came from and couldn't find anything other than a void it simply emerged into his consciousness from some unknown stream of events and information and thoughts and desires that he was mostly unaware of and did not control if he could have wanted to want to go to the park wouldn't he have also had to have wanted to want to want to and then he would have had to have wanted to want to want to want to and so on and so forth into infinity which of course he did not and could not have done in truth he concluded he was no different than the dog being pulled by its nose conditioned by the treats it finds along the way he was sitting at the park under no free will of his own three days later on friday night casey was out getting dinner and drinks with a few friends once they were sat at the restaurant casey decided fairly quickly what he wanted to order honey barbecue chicken wings while he waited for the rest of the group to decide what they wanted casey ruminated in his head about this and that at some point of course the topic emerged again and casey suddenly had the idea to try something to choose to order something else that he didn't and wouldn't ever actually want to eat surely he thought to himself since i'd be doing what i don't want for no reason without being forced to by anyone or anything other than myself i'd be acting on my own free will and overriding any deterministic sequence logically in this moment this made great sense to casey and so when the waiter came he ordered a completely different fish meal that he had no desire to eat when he did knowing that it was something casey didn't like two of his friends reacted with surprise one asked him if he liked fish now casey trying not to sound too crazy briefly explained to them why he ordered what he did inevitably he sounded pretty crazy after briefly discussing the idea together casually one of his friends said but technically didn't you still do what you wanted this simple question shut the whole thing down for casey he immediately realized his friend was right in truth he wanted to prove his sense of free will to himself more than he wanted to order a meal that he would have otherwise wanted to eat this although convoluted was just another want that he didn't ultimately choose why he wanted to prove his free will in this moment more than getting the meal casey could not say it emerged the same way as all other desires a result of all the information and thoughts and qualities of his temperament leading up to that moment going all the way back to his birth and beyond and so this attempt to escape the cause and effect sequence was itself determined by the very same sequence in trying to escape the system and prove he had free will casey only stepped forward right into it revealing that he did not the only difference was now he had a meal he didn't want [Music] on the following monday on his way to work casey stopped at a local coffee shop upon ordering the barista asked casey if he wanted cream or sugar in his coffee for some reason this question suddenly spurred an insight and idea in casey's mind somewhat awkwardly he replied i don't know and then waited to see what would happen naturally the barista paused and waited in confusion assuming casey would follow through and make the decision casey did nothing after a few extra long seconds in order to finally cut the moment the barista spoke up and said wait so you don't want them or you don't know if you want them after another brief pause casey replied yeah you just pick it doesn't really work like that the barista replied with a somewhat impatient confusion you either want cream and sugar or you don't casey thinking about how foolish this statement sounded to him now took a coin out of the little tip container on the counter flipped it into the air and caught it he saw that it landed heads on his hand and then clumsily said no creamer sugar sorry thank you and put the coin back into the container while waiting for his order casey considered how since he had left the decision up to chance the outcome was totally random not determined by any cause and effect sequence nor any internal or external force leading up to the outcome for the moment he felt an excited sense that he was perhaps onto something a breaking of the whole system during the rest of his drive to work casey drank some of his coffee wishing he had gotten cream and sugar it didn't take more than a few sips for him to realize the absurdity of what he just did he wanted cream and sugar but got black coffee where was the free will in that he had no say in the random outcome of the coin flip and so sure it was random but how could there be any free will and randomness if anything he realized this encounter with the barista was only an elaborate example of even less free will with just some additional awkwardness and no cream or sugar as more days passed casey found himself incapable of finding any loopholes any cases where he could conclusively find examples of the free will that he once felt and knew he had he watched countless videos read books and essays on the topic and so on at this point he found it nearly impossible to deny the sense that he was the controlling force of his life it seemed was in fact an illusion and this was no longer some abstract idea now he felt it clearly and totally the switch clicked and the world looked different the weight of this troublesome truth hit casey fairly hard as it fell down onto his shoulders he now found himself in the unfortunate position that afflicts all human beings he couldn't unknow what he now knew even if he wanted to he couldn't go back to ignorance ignorance is certainly not a choice one cannot choose to truly be ignorant of what they already know for this would require they didn't know it to begin with and casey realized now that he never even really had a choice in knowing what he did or didn't at all that night he experienced what can only be described as one of the hardest existential crises he'd yet experienced in his life he struggled to see any point anymore any meaning this built up so heavily that later that same night casey decided to essentially stop caring stop trying stop doing anything really after all since he was never really doing anything to begin with what difference would this make he thought for the rest of the night he sat on his couch and stared at the wall with no intention of intentionally doing anything else a renunciation of his life in a radical act of complete fatalism after several hours of sitting around midnight casey got kind of hungry naturally after tolerating the hunger for as long as he could he got up and made himself a grilled cheese sandwich with a little pizza sauce then he returned to the couch and ate it he enjoyed it thoroughly at around 12 55 he felt that he had to use the bathroom and naturally after no longer being able to tolerate the feeling he got up and went then he returned to the couch feeling much better eventually at around 2 45 a.m casey became sufficiently tired and dozed off to sleep over the next couple days he continued on sitting trying to do nothing scrolling through his phone most of the time in between staring at the wall it took no more than a day and a half to begin to feel the absolute absurdity of what he was doing still weighed down by his sense of pointlessness though he stayed put acting as passively as he could eventually the boredom and desire to do something became so bad he took out a video game which he couldn't even remember the last time he played any video game for that matter he was surprised the console even still worked he started playing and quickly fell into the game starting the story mode from the beginning enjoying all the various tasks and challenges along the way before he even realized how long he was playing for he finished the game granted he had already played and beaten the same game when he was younger but nonetheless it still felt nice the time seemed to fly right by as you watched the final scene of the video game story conclude in the sort of corny typical video game tone one of the characters said everything is mostly sorted out now couldn't have done it without you not a total happy ending but good enough between all the time casey had to think over the last two days and this line in the video game in this moment it hit casey the missing piece that put the whole thing back together he realized he had just thoroughly enjoyed a video game that he knew was fake and had already played all of the challenges in the game were predetermined and pre-coded and the game operated with specific borders rules and controls that all work towards a story that essentially had just one single path to one single predetermined end casey fundamentally had no control over how the game was played and where it went he was just following the storyline as it already existed experiencing the illusion of him actually creating and performing it and yet despite this and his knowledge of it there he had been totally and fully immersed enjoying and finding meaning in it the whole way through and his active participation was entirely necessary to the experience and the game playing through casey realized to himself there was no other way to live there was no escaping the illusion if the illusion was him but there was no need to knowing something is an illusion does not stop the illusion from working illusions are illusions because they work i am not my perceptions he thought to himself not my choices not my actions but i am still the experiencer of the whole an observer of a consciousness that can observe and navigate and find meaning in the world the greatest and most beautiful illusion ever created and experienced and i have a front row seat to it nothing changes the illusion is real not too long after this moment one of casey's friends called him and asked if he wanted to meet him and a few friends at a local bar casey said he did and within the hour he got ready left his apartment met up with his friends and enjoyed the rest of the night the same as he always had [Music] you

Channel: Pursuit of Wonder

Views: 674,309

Rating: 4.9398918 out of 5

Keywords: freewill, free will, sam harris, compatibilism, determinism, predetermined, do we have free will, illusion, is everything, philosophy, cosmic skeptic, vsauce, exurb1a, school of life, aperture, why you didn't choose if you clicked on this video, thoughts that change everything

Id: WagdzxAH8EQ

Length: 16min 39sec (999 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 28 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/AnonymousCat12345]

I literally came here after watching the video. Awesome!

[u/SandwichMaster10]

brilliant!