xoxo

1. Free will is AN ILLUSION A METAPHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY!! If you really had free will you'd be able to go back and forth in time, live parallel lives, erase mistakes and basically do whatever the fuck you want. Unfortunately humans are subject to their natures and circumstances. Of course we are able to make some choices out of that but we are desperately limited in both our capacities and the possibilities the world is willing to offer to us. We don't really have a choice except to make do. There is of course, paradoxically, some empowerment to be found in a clearer understanding of our helplessness.

2. Beliefs are not equatable to knowledge!! Yes, we can only know what we believe. However, you're free to believe what you might not know i.e. what you cannot find justification for. The phenomenology of belief is separate from that which makes knowledge (some kind of epistemic justification like reasoning, inference or observation). Maybe that'll give you some basis for belief, but is it necessary or sufficient? NO. Where exactly do we find the basis for belief? Epistemic and psychological immediacy. No time to explain that now but I think what this means is this: the only way to change your mind isn't to talk yourself out of your beliefs, but to game your brain out of it!

God, I'm restless. After I hand in my essay on Monday I am going to drink myself to death.