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Re:How parasites manipulate the behavior of their hosts by KronisLV on Thursday September 15, 2022 @04:28AM (#32848898)
> ...there is no soul, but free will does exist.

This is an interesting one, depending on whether you subscribe to the beliefs that the universe is deterministic or not. If determinism were to be truly possible, then technically with enough information you could predict what is going to happen next, what anyone is going to think, say, do etc.

In that case "free will" wouldn't be an entirely correct description. Then again, even if that were to be true, the amount of processing power to see how this "preordained" sequence of events would play out might be orders of magnitude more than laws of physics might permit, making it all a bit of a moot point.

That said, there was a cool science fiction story about the concept, "What's expected of us": https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a

Of course, I doubt whether "free will" being real or not would matter that much to people in actuality.

For example, my current understanding of the world makes me feel that once I eventually die, there will be nothing after that and I'll cease to exist. A moment in which my consciousness will exist and then another one in which it will no longer do so and will never do so, until the heat death of the universe (it won't matter to me then because there won't be a "me", but knowing that whilst being alive is the most horrible thought ever).

It's quite dreadful, yet somehow I still get up for menial programming work every morning. :')

Re:How parasites manipulate the behavior of their hosts by nobody9999 on Thursday September 15, 2022 @07:46AM (#32850306)
My parasites only allow me to say "My particular mix of parasites tells me to say that there is no soul, but free will does exist" and "My parasites only allow me to say 'My particular mix of parasites tells me to say that there is no soul, but free will does exist'."