Well uhh If we consume something, such as this video, we can't choose whether we enjoy it or not. Many people have something that they WANT to like or WANT to get into, but just can't. And on the other side, people have guilty pleasures, they like something that they WANT to dislike. So we're not free in the sense that we can choose what we enjoy and what we don't enjoy.
S;G Okabe - This is the choise of the Steins Gate. S;G-0 Okabe - This is my choise (in the last episode). It has more clues to deconstruction of the S;G determinism, like theme of opening and many quotes in the plot. If I get it right series tries to tell us that our world is determined and the only way we can break over it is by our own pure and honest will. Truth or not, it's pretty romantic. Hope you'll watch it (worth it) and make video about S;G-0 as well, such analysing materials is truly intresting. El.Psy.Congroo.
Well it was his choice at that moment , which was influenced by a series of events .. Well that series of events was the Choice of Steins Gate.. So the final Okabe(the Steins Gate one) agrees that it is indeed the Choice of Steins Gate at the last episode of the series(technically the last episode is Steins Gate ep 24) .
@@herrogamer2606 I have to disagree. While the final Okabe is under the illusion that it was Steins Gate's choice, the SG0 Okabe is the one who chose to go through all those time leaps.
The way I see is that the universe was correcting the instability of time lines just like nature like things to be in the lowest state of energy possible, Okabe's ability reading steiner only exists to achieve that since he was the one who started all of this. In conclusion, you can or can not be the one to push the ball down of the table, but it will happen eventually for sure.
The great thing about Steins;Gate is that it deconstructs the notion of having choice at all, in the sense presented in this video. The idea of a choice between two equal but different outcomes, either of which we could have taken, is mostly unrealistic. For we don't care about most things equally; there's a sort of unspoken priority in most people's minds of who/what you would save in a burning building and in what order, even if you wouldn't acknowledge or want to find out what that priority was yourself. But Steins;Gate does present us with that scenario: the choice between the lives of Mayuri and Kurisu, two people Okabe cares about deeply. Instead of making a hard choice, like he had in the past, when Okabe was presented with two equally bad options, he simply couldn't make a decision. Because he could have gone either way, he didn't. In the end, Kurisu had to make the decision for him, since she saw things differently. Okabe prioritized both Mayuri's and Kurisu's happiness, making it a perfect zero-sum scenario, whereas Kurisu prioritized Okabe's and Mayuri's happiness, which would be fulfilled much more by her own death than Mayuri's. Presented with the same scenario, Kurisu was free to actually make her decision. And that might be the key to free will. A choice is just the ability to cause one of multiple possible outcomes, and maybe we could consider free will as getting to use one's own unique priority list to make a decision, instead of being forced onto one outcome by an outside force. In that sense, Okabe does exert free will: he had options that would have fulfilled some or most of his priorities, and he chose between them, instead of being railroaded down that path. Nobody was forcing their decisions onto him. The tangled mess of if-statements and priorities that was Okabe's brain made those decisions on its own.
I agree with this, particularly that Okabe was free to choose - he just could not foresee or control the outcome of his choices. I'd also say he made a choice to not accept the choices presented to him. His rebellion against the laws of nature is a great expression of free will imo, regardless of the outcome.
No. When he says it is the choice of steins;gate, he doesn't mean everything is according to fate. The whole story is based around a man's struggle to fight the will of the world. He may have believed in fate in the earlier episodes as you pointed out. But that ending phrase is just his way of saying "I have went through all this trouble to reach the steins;gate, that has a set course of future(fate) that I have chosen."
Yeah the interpretation of the line in this video is completely wrong. At least in the VN, Okabe mentions multiple times that the phrase has no meaning, and is just something he made up to sound cool, especially in his more naive times at the beginning of the story. As things get more and more tragic and hopeless for Okabe, he leans on the persona of Hououin Kyoma less and less, dismissing the persona as childish. Then, when he said his lowest, most hopeless point it has completely given up, he receives a message from his future self. The older Okabe tells him all of his suffering was not meaningless and was in fact crucial to changing the world line, all the while acting like younger, “childish” Okabe who adopts the silly mad scientist persona. This gives him hope, and he realizes that his actions matter whether or not they technically change the future. In the end, when Okabe meets with Kurisu, he once again starts acting like Hououin Kyoma, a relic of his more hopeful life before the trauma of time travel. When he says, “This is the choice of Steins;gate,” he isn’t speaking literally about determinism, since he and we both know this phrase is meaningless. He’s demonstrating that he is beginning to heal from his hopelessness and self-loathing in a new world line where no one knows what the future holds.
Well, I was thinking about this question as I am adapting Steins;Gate to a paper RPG. And I have to say, there is an instant of free will. One single moment. In Steins;Gate (there are more in the Steins;Gate 0 Visual novel), there is the very moment when he decided whether or not he would delete his history in the CERN database - thus killing Kurisu. This event is leading to attractor field β. But... this is the only event (in the original Steins;Gate) when a decision, without any time machine implied, is changing the wordline. Now what does that mean ? A worldline is supposed to be stable, and leading to a coherent world. When Okabe finally retrieves the IBM 5100, he should have been thrown in attractor field β directly : further actions should be eluded, and he should already be in the new worldline at that point. So why didn't it happen? For drama purpose only? In fact, I don't feel so. In Steins;Gate 0 VN (not in the anime, because they couldn't adapt the whole plot in the serie), you can make choices that lead to worldline changes. The PhoneWave has been destroyed but Okabe is ultimatly able to influence both future and past without any kind of f*** time machine. Why? Because Okabe is not part of any worldline anymore. His Reading Steiner ability has turned him into a God, though he's not concious of it. So yes, people on worldlines in Steins;Gate are 100% determined and cannot make any choice. But Rintaro with his Reading Steiner become free. Or rather, have a determinism of his own based on experience of events that did not occured. And... he's not the only one with Reading Steiner. The original VN made it clear that everybody has a bit of Reading Steiner inside them. The Steins;Gate 0 VN explores further this point. Although Steins;Gate appears to be against free will theories, it support a way to get rid of it, to change our future based on informations coming from intuition, those intuitions coming from parallel universe with never-occuring events. This is the way to be free, this is the will of Steins;Gate : a world WE chose because WE believe it is the best world. No God decided it at the Big Bang. In this universe, one can assume that, in fact, we are all making those kind of decisions based on something outside reality. While I agree some determinist would point out that this is not changing the matter, this is truly an amazing point of this story, missed by almost all viewers and players. I encourage you to play Steins;Gate 0 VN with that idea in mind ;)
Yeah, I think the same) Even in the game, we can make a choice only after the first shifting of the world line. I think at this moment the causality for Okabe was broken.
When Okabe deletes the message in SERN's database it affects the worldline because in the future SERN would use that information to track down the future gadget lab and communicate it to their operatives in the past. So when the message is deleted it changes what SERN will send back in the future, which causes Reading Steiner to activate.
Wow I am taking an intro to philosophy class and many of your videos capture the essence of these big philosophical debates really well. I see that's it has been a while since you have made any content, but I truly hope there is more to come.
Quantum mechanics isn't much of an argument for free will, because it's ultimately random. The fact that it's unpredictable and undetermined doesn't make that your "choice" (and this already assuming that it directly affects consciousness).
Exactly. There's no way hypothetical ways for free will to exist, except that it is "magic beyond human comprehension", which is why it's a religious construct. The only ways to explain why something happened, is that it was determined by something else or completely random. To believe in free will, you either need to redefine what "free will" means into something else (compatibilism) or believe in literal unexplainable magic.
This video seriously gave me chills. You make such excellent use of the series's music, and your ideas flow so competently and forcefully. Your videos are really some of the best in anime analysis, and I'm always impressed by them.
Wow the video was amazing! Great content! The reading reccomendations are a great touch for the overall description. Subscribed, please keep up the great work!
Simultaneously the most important and most useless question. Do we really ever have a choice? Regardless of the answer, we'll keep going as if we do. As luck would have it, we have no other option. subbed asf
I have a choice of replying to this comment, but then was it determined by fate that I would write it right now? Did I not reply in another time/universe? this shit's too deep man
its by no means a useless question. we have already accepted that some individuals do not have free will and treat them differently from other adults both in court and in every day life.
@@pumpernickel1955 I don't know what you're talking about but I can already tell it has nothing to do with this existential free will issue. We can't "decide" who has free will. The whole point of the idea is contemplating whether or not any one of us truly has the ability to "decide" anything for ourselves. It's got nothing to do with trying to limit someone else's options. It isn't some kind of right or privilege. It's a question about the way human's can ever potentially behave.
@@neonknight5857 well i couldnt disagree more. i think the idea of even questioning wether we have free will is absurd. you should read kant on that topic. judges decide based on psychologist recommendation wether someone has the capability to choose freely. we also think that children cant choose freely either. compatibilism is the only viable way to look at this topic without getting into pradox territory
I like the idea (I think it was from Schoppenhauer) that our will is predetermined but because we are able to execute our will if the will itself arises you can say that our will is free. I know that this Approach is Kind of redefining but I'm fine with that :D
Put off watching this for so long because it's my last one of hers ;c~ I hope she makes more of these ~ I love the message she gives at the end after delivering such a neutral position. I hope we can see more soon
I know this comment is super late but I just wanted to put a little caveat on your point about Okabe’s final line. On its surface, it definitely might seem like this is him submitting to some higher power but you’ve got to remember the origins of the phrase. Episode three establishes that Okabe’s talk about steins gate is comepletely meaningless. The phrase has no given meaning or value beyond that Okabe uses it. In many ways, the show works to break this part of Okabe down. Throughout the show, Mayuri does again and again as Pkabe is powerless to do anything, Okabe is at the will of determinism. But the show doesn’t see this determinism as an immutable thing. If it did then then Okabe would likely have never saved Kurisu. He would have lived on in the alpha line and called this a victory. Instead, he doesn’t stop there, he pushes on and rewrites the world to suite his own design. ‘Steins gate’ as a phrase is symbolic of Okabe’s force of will and desire to overcome these issues.
Wow amazing content. I've had these exact thoughts about Steins;Gate and about life in general, and to see you pull literally every single thought I've ever had on this philosophical debate and lay it out so smoothly and eloquently has impressed me a lot. Instant subscriber. I hope you tackle Psycho Pass one day. That show soaks itself in philosophical debates. My favourite observation was how the protagonists fight for a reality that would be absurd to us (in today's time), but the villains fight for a reality that we want (in today's time). Really opens your mind to asking what is the right kind of reality we should create - the pros and cons of creating something like the Sibyl system. Anyway, enjoy your day. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your stuff.
This is why I love stiens;gate, amazing video btw! PLEASE break down the movie - load region of déjà vu, it ties into this theory nicely. Below is my take on it. It's like trying to alter a divergence comes at the cost of sanity, and having the ability to read Steiner is almost a 4th dimensional property which humans have at their clutches, yet aren't supposed to have, therefore SPOILER ALERT: Okabe is blipped out of existence into what for me seemed like the 4th dimension, in a space or time which he was omniscient of what consequences each action would forgo, or at least how to alter any given point in time which diverges. The show almost suggests that free will is granted (or taken for granted) but there is a possibility that we as humans can create a change big enough to alter divergences in the future without our knowledge, I mean it doesn't even have to be limited to just one person either or a group, it's like a clock where the cogs intersect without our knowledge of the bigger picture, I wonder then, if humans can create an alternative divergence or "alpha/beta" worldline where they are destined to align at the divergence? And does that mean we have free will? The show is almost saying that humans have a limited perception on what free will is but that is open to discussion.
Being in controll of ones fate and having free will are two different things: I can have free will and no crontroll over anything, since my actual freedom and controll of anything depends not only on the freedom of my will, but also the state of the world (for example that it allows meaningful actions in the first place, or that it provides me with sufficient means to successfully pursue my goals etc.). Therefore free will is not freedom. (A prisoner has as much free will as anyone who is not imprisoned, but certainly less freedom.) I think this video does not make this distinction. I would, of course, go with Kant: Everything is determined by causal laws - insofar as things as appearances are concerned. That says nothing about things onto themselves, and therefore we can postulate free will (but not prove it) according to reason used in a practical way.
I subscribed to all the youtubers that mathwiz put in your his video and if this is the video you're putting out at my first impression I can't wait to see what you make next!
Its all predetermined. But that doesnt mean we should pretend we dont matter. Our being predetermined doesnt change a thing about our affecting this world. We affect the world, even if only being its reaction. That.. is Steins Gate
We definitly are not free. We are bound to things like bills we gotta pay, people we have to take care of, rules we gotta follow, we gotta eat and drink, gotta stay clean and healthy. About the only thing we are free on, is our thoughts and imagination. But as far as choices and lifestyle, i argue we arent free
Explanation Point sent me here. Really nice to see an anime channel tackling philosophy. I've been contemplating my own free will this last month and it really was terrifying at first. Am I actually making my own choices? We really do feel like we are. After doing a lot of research, I've come to the conclusion that even if we don't have free will, It doesn't have to matter. What matters is that my brain can construct the reality I'm seeing. A reality that may or may not actually be real, but my brain can be happy in the one it conceives. I can feel things right here and now. We may not have free will, but I don't need to be free to be happy.
ZAP ARTS man it still doesnt work absolutely, a man s main objective could not be happiness, as for me happiness seen in different ways can also be being free
Freedom is Slavery. This video points out one perspective that a (potentiality) "the best" feeling of "freedom" is found when the slavery and freedoms of determinism favorably overlaps with the slavery and freedoms of inherent chaotic forces. Also want to point out that a human's "happiness" is not formed from the emotion of "happiness" but of the inclusion of all of the wants and needs of the inherent human structure, developed personalities and physical states being met with proper values (not too little not too much). Err at least when considering the slang-y-ness of the word happiness.
Reminds me of The Matrix, everyone from Morpheus, The Architect, to Agent Smith regardless if they are friend or foe keep telling Neo that it's up to fate, pre determined structure or that his sruggle is futile and defeat is inevitable. Neo rejects this and finds a way to overcome because he chooses to, The Matrix is a retelling of the myth of Sisyphus, though instead of the rock falling, he finds a way to break the cycle itself
Scott McConnell except those are just stories, in which the actions of the characters are decided by the writers. In the end, stories that attempt to support free will only disprove it, because the choices they make and the actions they take are all part of the script.
I always like to imagine that the Macro world (Stars, planets, economics, politics) is deterministic and is governed by Newtonian Physics, while the Micro world of Quantum Physics (with each individual representing a quark) is chaotic.
I think the word freewill mentioned in the video is different than the ones I use in normal life. Freewill to me is something that includes the element of restrain. Is about working with restrain. Let say, instead of wanting to drink a specific drink like coffee or water or tea. My determination right at this time is to decided to have something to drink except poisons, I am thrill, essentially. Then, when I go to fridge, I found out that there's water, dr.pepper, tea, milk...etc (any array of item as long there's MORE THAN 1). I will essentially solved my thrill by consuming one of those item, or 2 , but I solve my problem and felt content. The point is I can't have a tea magically appear in front of me without obeying the physic's law. But most of the time, I do have at least one option to choose and act on, essentially making my self content. It's all about chemicals in my brain that causes my action. But I have the freewill to choose, base on that restriction. And I believe that's what freewill suppose to be like. Because what defines freewill if you have no limit? In one perspective, you have your conscious coming into this "game", where the first thing you realize is that it have rules. Either rules from your body or outside your body. In a sense, you are bounded with the chemicals in your body. But you can choose to upgrade it, or downgrade it, of course do whatever all based on upon your body. Brain gives you a more complex cognitive thinking, your sensory organs, biological systems, all these are rules, but you have options to deal with them. On the other hand, if I am born as an entity that all my actions are depended upon my own will.(Essentially the freewill that's in this video.) My will is the only presentation that I am a cognitive being that can think and determine, and I can literally do anything as long I can think of it. But the thing is, if I don't know what walking is, do I know how to walk on sand, ice, road, lands? No. How about walking on seas, sky, outer space, lava? No. Can I say that in a way I am not free because I don't have these rules on me? Yes, using the definition mentioned in the video, yes. Here's the kicker, let say I am absolutely free! 0 restrain, I have no body, I have no conscious, I have nothing! So I am not bounded to problems in any kind of wild life on earth or any other planet. I have no need because I am not bounded to any wishes. I am absolutely free off everything! And that is just nothing. Absolute freedom or freewill whatever you call it is just nothing. No color, no shapes from the eye. No need to worry, sure, he is free of those things. But in a way, because I have more rules bounded with me, so I have options. I can say that I know what free is more than that entity. Freewill and freedom is just having ways to go around the obstacles,which essentially is the restrain that brings me in an emotional content. Is like, if I am not bored, not angry, not anxious or feeling other emotions other than content, I never know what content is like.
I would say in response to the quote at 7:40 that just because time travel shows the response of free will doesn't negate it. Merely (merely?) being able to see the outcomes of every decision in response to a future event doesn't nullify your need to make a decision, in fact reinforces it. When you come to that point in time you have to decide, even if your decision is to not to decide. Everything is inevitable, until you choose. Then only 1 outcome is inevitable, barring the choices of others.
If we go by determinism, a basis of the philosophy of science, then we are not free, but that does not mean we are uncapable of taking a decision, just that such is strongly based on previous and current stimulation, and the anticipation of possible consequences. Even when we learn by observing, we associate certain actions to certain consequences so selection by consequences still applies. This is basic in scientific psychology, we cannot go against the fact that our behavior is determined, but what we can do, is understand how it is determined, to stimulate ourselves into taking certain actions, and feeling and thinking differently too (even then, something pushed you to that interest). In the end, at least from my POV, we are not free, but we do not need to be free to feel as such. Now about the indeterminism bit, it is possible that the laws we "discover" are more likely just artificial notions that we try to build to get closer to the real world as we experience it and try to describe, explain, predict and control it, and that some things do not really follow that rule but, even if that notion os artificial, it is necessary to build knowledge. I am in love with this show exactly for these kind of notions. And yes I agree; while I am a bit of a nihilist, I dont think Morale is necesary or holds any value of its own and its rather the way we feel about it, but is definetly necesary to survive as a society, thats why any social change its recieved with such hostility. Also, your voice is quite something, it quite fits the mature tone of this show and the topic of the video. I really feel like subscribing, perhaps that already had a higher probability of happening tho.
The ending is, in general, hopeful. From a literary standpoint (not philosophical), the tone would suggest that man has triumphed over nature. It is inconsistent for the series to be stating that there is no such thing as free will, which the characters ascribe value to, while at the same time coming to a close on a happy note. Also, it is not we must believe in free will and be kind for the good of society. That is arbitrary intuitionism. "Is the world to go to pot or am I to have my tea?" Of course, the vast majority agrees with this mindset though; the herd. If unnoticable, micro-causations are seen to have huge effects in Steins Gate, the firing of a single neuron (or even the flap of a butterfly's wings, halfway around the world) can likewise change everything. This chaoes theory contradicts determinism. However, as you pointed out, certain events repeated, seeming inevitable. There is definitely a peculiar and interesting balance in this series, worthy of contemplation.
When okabe let christina finding album in book shelf ,I saw three book in Janpanes title:critique of pure reason, kant and the problem of metaphysics and existence and time
Maybe I'm wrong, but I associate Steins; gate with Nietzsche's theory of the eternal return. Okabe lives in a time line where Kurisu lives but Mayuri dies. He can't take Mayuri's death and he find a way to prevent it but (oh no!), to live in a universe where Mayuri is alive, he have to let Kurisu die. He can't take any of those time lines. So, In order to fullfill his desire of having the most beloved women of his life alive, he fools destinity and create the steins; gate timeline. Nietzsche suggest us to create the universe that we would like to be repeated over and over again with the eternal return theory, and that is what Okabe does creating the steins; gate timeline, that time line is the universe that he would like to live over and over again, a universe with Kurisu and Mayuri alive. In that order, Okabe is an overman, in my opinion. English is not my native language, sorry if I make mistakes trying to explain myself.
So agree with your explaination.. Even newer comments are saying the Future Okabe 0 had free will (kindof) but still his actions were predetermined according to the story that went on.. If we just ignore the concept of time travel in Steins Gate for a moment , and watch Okabe living a normal life with doing normal stuff( like just playing a video game related to timetravel), his actions are predetermined again. Basically we will always live with the notion of having free will even if we will achieve time travel , but still everything is predetermined in such a beautiful way that we can't just find the difference.
I feel that determinism and free will are compatible. You have to have a certain rational deep thinking to agree. Thanks for this wholesale food for thought video, even if it is 2 years ago, I really wanted to hear more from you. Thank you.
Beautiful :) You don't see a ton of videos and knowledge like these out there for anime. Love your videos. My kind of stuff..lol Hoping to see more like this eventually. Goodluck!!!
"if you could predict the movement of every atom in the universe, then you would be able to predict the future" reminds me of rascal does not dream of bunny senpai
even before finding steins;gate, i used to watch sorts of science-y videos during my elementary school days. maybe i can say that it was one of the major reasons why i rlly like the show, that it kinda remind of those days of amazement. but i remember, one vid i once watched said that scientists reject the existence of fate. it said that u either believe in "fate" and continue with fantasies, or embrace that it is all simply unexplained science. the more i watch those vids, the more i get to understand that time travel isnt possible. even after watching s;g, i wasnt convinced that mails can be send to the past by connecting it to a mini blackhole. it is in fact that the closer you get to a blackhole, the slower your time would pass. but that cannot make mails go back in the time. even if it is slow, it still moves forward. those days, i thought: "if fate rlly exists, and it is something scientists cant explain so they said it isnt real, then its as if someone's manipulating us. even the fact that i thought of that 'someone who is manipulating me' was on coordinate by them as well." it felt as if im stuck in a book as my life is being written on it. yet, in fantasy stories, once the charas talk about it, its what ppl call "breaking the 4th wall" --but im not saying i broke my book's 4th wall. i'd say that 'that' someone manipulating my every move is my author, which ppl may also call 'our god'. in the story "Steins;Gate", the god is the author, Chiyomaru. it is true that every move the characters made were scripted by him, and not by the chara's free will. now, it is crazy to think that their god is a human living with us today. truly, that felt like they broke the wall. but since it is not on their own will, it IS not breaking the 4th wall. who knows that all of these we call reality is simply a story written by a being way more superior than we can be. i rlly love this video. fate is something i've been believing for a long time, along with miracles, the 'equal' rule of the universe, god, coincidences, and stuff. im grateful of this vid. edit: though, if i dont group our universe to theirs, i'd say that after recieving dmails, and timeleaps, okabe's actions after then are those not scripted by their 'god'. after recieving messages or warning concerning of the future, the actions of those who recieved it will be led astray their supposedly path, which is controlled by fate. if fate and time are connected, then as long as one cannot manipulate time, he cannot overcome fate, which binds his every action. if one's future to connected to one's past as if they're parallel to each other, he can have his own free will that opposes time and fate. if so, then my guess is that attractor fields exists to correct these actions that went away from the certain actions and results. that so, even if the action was changed, the result wont.
Yo, just found your channel and gotta admit, your videos are damn good. You have this wise and chill charisma, it‘s pretty difficult to put in words tho. But one thing, don‘t make me cry :‘(, that music and the scenes with mayuri gave me a mental breakdown haha.
I would also say that it relies entirely on the scientific and philosophical analysis of time as well. If you view time as a physical thing, a continuum which you can travel through. Then unless you live in a multiverse or "world line" style universe. The course of time is an irrelevance. Because if time is fixed like a rail you can only travel along that rail and as such the events of time are relevant to your position in it, rather than time fluxing around you. As such everything that has happened, will happen and is happening simultaneously. It is simply a matter of which position you are perceiving it from. The theory of relativity applied to temporal mechanics as it were. If you at any point play a part in events, then those events in turn are always going to happen and have already happened. It is just specific to your own time stream. Essentially we have already done everything we are going to do in life. Its just our being and consciousness have not reached the point in time where we do them. Including me typing this comment.
I don‘t think the idea of Determinism rejects the responsibility for your own actions. Even if everything you do is predetermined, at some point in your life (most likely your teenage years) the experiences that you had and the things that you did, even though they were predetermined, begin to influence you as well. Sure this is still determinism at its finest but when your predetermined actions had an influence on your future predetermined actions you are still responsible for these actions, since you were the one that comitted them. Taking responsibility or rather being responsible for your actions, even if you had no choice but to do them is the only glimpse of free will we as humans are allowed to see in a world that is ruled by determinism. But these are just my own thoughts everybody may have their own opinion :)
All that is Possible .. IS. Determinism is a narrow concept that assumes THIS world-line is the only one there is. Free-Will and Chance split and splice .. thread and braid the infinite parallel worlds which encompass every choice, every option, every accident, every coincidence. We Are Stein's Gate. Our choice is the choice of Stein's Gate. You say, Okabe claims not to believe in Fate ... Well ... The Multiverse nearly drives him MAD as he relentlessly tries to save Mayuri .. but he does NOT give up .. refuses to Learn The Lesson the Multiverse it trying to force on him .. And He WINS.
Westworld gives a pretty satisfying answer to the way free will might work. I find some similarities between WW and S;G, while also somewhat reflecting Pascal's approach to decision making. If you've seen Westworld, and mostly its third season, you probably remember that circle that represented events, choices throughout the world. I'll get back to it. Pascal was mainly talking about what outcomes we can expect from our decisions, our actions. Briefly, he represented these in a Bell curve diagram (look it up, if you don't know what it is). We can use this diagram to account for people's decisions. The more likely it is that someone will make a certain decisions, the closer those will be found to the centre of the diagram. Same goes with the circle from Westworld. The more likely a decision is to be made, that is, the easier it is to predict or determine it, the closer it is to the surface of the circle. In this way, free will is not defined by a certain boundary, but is rather transitional. The closer a decision gets to the tail of the bell's curve, or the further it goes from the surface of the circle, the higher degree of free will it represents. In Steins;Gate this meant a complex set of decisions, leading up to the world that is found somewhere between the alpha and beta timelines. That's why it was so hard to achieve, it needed decisions so unlikely that I doubt anyone except Okabe would have been able to make. Quoting from WW: "Free will does exist. It's just fucking hard."
I agree with Okabe. It's painful to watch him trying to save them both. And knowing that free will is an illusion. But... Even without free will, never give up trying to find Steins; Gate. I love the anime and your videos!
As a RUclipsr who applies Marxism and Hegelian Dialectics to Anime (Tongue and Cheek quite often) - I am annoyed I've only just discovered this channel. Its magnificent.
This is the choice of steins gate means " ohh so.. this (good thing) have to happen in this world line(steins;gate line) wow!! " Okabe says it at the end of anime.
I'm fascinated by the way your mind works! I could watch this video 10 times with out taking all in. Though I've questioned my self about free will many times, I'm still not sure to what to think of this, However u have to admit that if we don't have free will our knowledge of the fact that we might not! is rather curious!
The question if we have free will or if we have an effective choice is not the same question, since sometimes we decide something which isn't an option.
All things are more about probability that they are about free will or determinism. the probability that an atom will react one way or another is governed by probability due to quantum mechanics. What is the difference between a atom inside a brain and one outside? I would say there isn't a difference and thus probability is the key to understanding why we feel we have free will. Great content you deserve more viewers, subscribers, and praise!
Great video. I would believe some events are inevitably led to a certain outcome however no matter what we do before leading up to it, it will be that certain outcome regardless of actions taken beforehand. The only free will would be between cataclysmic events that greatly affect certain aspects in time and space. Whether it’d be death of an individual, a certain declaration, a law being governed, so on and so forth. It is to be. Free will lies upon the individual but the cause and effect will be the same from such things
In Steins;Gate, as I understood from the anime, free will exists until something big happens on the life lane that you can't run from, like Mayuri's death if D mails exist, so free will exists when determinism is not strong enough, to change those big things you need to change the past. In real life, (un)fortunately time travel doesn't exist, so we are at the mercy of our past decisions, which have consequences on the present, but in any moment with enough effort and luck almost anything is possible, so free will exists.
Well, I believe we're not free, well at least not "entirely" free, we are somewhat "guided" in our choices, but never forced, think of it like this, you walk on a road that you didn't choose to be in ( life ) and you find obstacles along the way, now, you don't control the circumstances and what kind of circumstances appear before you ( obstacles ), but you control your reaction to them, or at least you have the possibility to do so, so in the end, you are "partly" free.. Okabe had no choice but to discover ( invent?) the time machine, that was a circumstance forced upon him, and he had no choice in the matter, but he had a choice on what to do with it, how to deal with it, and how to feel about it, just like he chose to try and save his childhood friend from the "fate" of dying, I think the creator of the story was touching on the subject of multiple universes and multiple realities that coexist and shift based on one's choice, I'm not sure though, I could be wrong..
I totally agree with your statement "Okabe had no choice but to discover ( invent?) the time machine, that was a circumstance forced upon him" . Okabe's choice either the future one or the current one was never exactly free because it was influenced by the prior events.
What is it called when, instead of believing that things happen because they are predetermined, that things only happen because the conditions are right? I've always considered the power of mere coincidence, probability, and ideal conditions to explain why things happen when they do. For instance, I've pondered about the Primordial Soup theory that extremely basic lifeforms originated all because the conditions were adequate enough for organic molecules to combine in the way that they did. And that because of the certain specific conditions for which those molecules combined, they were able to survive long enough to thrive and proliferate. In short, I think that things happen, or potentially happen, only because of ambient circumstances and probability of success; things would not happen otherwise. To apply that to the discussion of free will, I'd say that I act due to both causation/stimulation and ideal circumstances. To be prompted into choosing between tea and coffee, I must first be motivated into doing so, like with thirst or desire for warmth or comfort. Thus what Hume was talking about. Also, I can't choose between tea and coffee if I don't have both choices existing simultaneously in front of me. If tea is the only thing there, then I'd have to pick it by default. Or perhaps there is only tea and hot chocolate in front of me. Then the dilemma of "tea or coffee" becomes moot because the conditions for that dilemma's existence are all gone.
I also like to use this belief of mine to explain the origin of human life. I was taught that there’s a certain probability that a single sperm cell would be the very one that fertilizes the egg. All the other sperm cells are rejected. Which means that the conditions had to be right for which the probability could exist to begin with, and that if the conditions were not ideal, no fertilization would ever happen. And the conditions had to be right for that one sperm cell to be the winner, of sorts. I wouldn’t necessarily say that fate let us all be born. Just that we are the consequences formed from probability and specific conditions. I’d interpret fate as “this specific event is guaranteed to happen,” so that when I speak of probability, it’s more vague and interpreted as “this specific event could happen, or could not.”
Predictability doesn't disprove free will. We always have influence and reason for our action. If someone knows me and knows that I hate coffee, she could accurately predict I will choose the tea.
Colin Velius _"What is it called when, instead of believing that things happen because they are predetermined, that things only happen because the conditions are right?"_ This is Determinalism (sorry if I'm spelling that wrong). The idea that things are predetermined is Fatalism. I think the author of this video muddled them together a bit to much. The main distinction is that Determinalism and Fatalism is that Fatalism says that our future is predetermined, by some cosmic force or entity (Fate or God usually) and usually has specific outcomes in mind. Determanlism on the other hand has no outcome it is trying to reach, our actions are merely the result of past events.
Both of those theories as you present them, Fatalism and Determinalism, are exactly the same theory? Both of them state that our future is fixed and the only pseudo distinction between the two is that Fatalism says that the future is fixed while Determinalism blindly ignores that aspect without bothering to deny it. They both begin and end the exact same way and as such have no real distinction between them. It is the whole poe-tae-toe, poe-ta-toe dilemma, two different ways of saying the same thing. In both the future is the product of logical inevitability and by extension, so are our actions. I don't know a lot about the subject. My comment was entirely based on what you said as you presented it and does not mean anything beyond that.
“It is absolutely impossible for a man to forget for a single instant, or to stop being persuaded that he is free. This, then, is the first point. Second point: is being persuaded that one is free the same thing as actually being free? I respond: this is not the same thing, but it produces the same moral effects. Man is then free, since he is intimately persuaded of being so, and since that is worth as much as freedom? This is the mechanism of the universe explained as clearly as spring water. If there were a single free being in the universe, there would be no more God, there would be no more ties between beings. The universe would fall apart; and if man were not intimately, essentially, and always convinced that he is free, human morality would not continue as it does. The conviction that one is free is enough to establish a conscience, remorse, justice, rewards and punishments. It is enough for everything, and here is the world explained in two words.” - excerpt from Abbé Galiani’s letters to Madame d’Epinay
Since I'm on my way of slowly working myself through the Science adventure series, I just wanna through some things from robotics;notes and robotics; notes DaSH in hrere: the little poem subtitle reads: The science itself may prove cynical. However, one mustn't forget that there is a scientific element in all things. The important truth is this: I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. specially the line "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my Soul" is a nice exclamation of free will. there'S also an interesting thing of Okabe tweeping about everyone having a Steins; Gate inside them and if they have conviction they will end up there through all routes. and Steins; Gate being part of someones self makes the choice of Steins; Gate the chopice of someone, kind of.
One could also approach this from the Buddhist philosophy of mind: most sentient beings live through series of cause and effect, and patterned reactive perception, or "karma" in other words. However, the librated mind of a buddha is not slave to karmically patterned perception, and therefore has a free will. On the other hand one is not a separate individual isolated from the rest of the universe, therefore action of a liberated being happens in communication with the rest of the universe; this communication being manifest as compassionate action. Form is Emptiness. Emptiness is form. With his "Reading Steiner", Okabe manifests compassionate communication by shifting the world lines in harmony with how the universe does its thing.
In response to your closing discussion prompt is, in my opinion, does it matter? Regardless of which exists, we would be unable to change the natural system without proving the base hypothesis, that everything is deterministic or free will existing, is incorrect. Though I can't say I often hear of a story where someone wants to compress a free will universe to a deterministic one.. for what? Being able to control everything or tell the future? Also was half expecting at least a passing reference to Laplace's Demon as it likes to pop up in Japanese media at times (unless you did mention it and I missed it). It's just a thought experiment of what if there was an entity capable of knowing all the various states in the universe, and by doing so can determine the future?
![NLE Choppa - Or What ft. 41 (Orchestra Mix) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/biOFASEgSOM/mqdefault.jpg)
Okabe says he doesn't believe in fate, so fate mentally tortures him until he believes.
Ratboy Raticus bruh
actual bruh moment
then he becomes god and destroy fate
And then future okabe destroys that belief.
@@unhommequicourt he was viewed as a god in the anime once, or at least referred to.
This video is completely wrong, everyone knows the central philosophy of Steins; Gate is “Doctor Pepper is Delicious.”
Inquisitor Thomas u nailed it man
But of course. I only consume the intellectual drink of the chosen ones!
Blasphemy! JAPANESE SHAMAN GIRL is the center of steins;gate philosphy!
Damn you are right, Doctor Pepper mever changed in every world line
@@dreacleoson1609 WRONG AGAIN! JAPANESE SHAMAN BOYS IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF STEINS;GATE!
We are free to enjoy your amazing content.
Life has no free will?
Hasan Shahriar What is free will?
Well uhh
If we consume something, such as this video, we can't choose whether we enjoy it or not. Many people have something that they WANT to like or WANT to get into, but just can't. And on the other side, people have guilty pleasures, they like something that they WANT to dislike. So we're not free in the sense that we can choose what we enjoy and what we don't enjoy.
GetSchwifty! Eh, maybe they don't actually like it.
Htoo Doh shut up im trying to look smart
This comment was inevitable.
My answer to this comment wasn't coincidence
i just did this 4 de lols
Cynical Kazu Yup yup aaaaaaand yup
My response to this comment wasn't inevitable, it was determined by consultation with a random number generator.
@@astral2048 isn't that alternatively Fatalism and not determinism ?
The real tragedy of the ending is that Mayushi didn't get her rare metal Upa
:(
S;G Okabe - This is the choise of the Steins Gate.
S;G-0 Okabe - This is my choise (in the last episode). It has more clues to deconstruction of the S;G determinism, like theme of opening and many quotes in the plot.
If I get it right series tries to tell us that our world is determined and the only way we can break over it is by our own pure and honest will. Truth or not, it's pretty romantic.
Hope you'll watch it (worth it) and make video about S;G-0 as well, such analysing materials is truly intresting.
El.Psy.Congroo.
i was just thinking about this.
when he said this was my choice that hit me. Really hit me.
Well it was his choice at that moment , which was influenced by a series of events .. Well that series of events was the Choice of Steins Gate..
So the final Okabe(the Steins Gate one) agrees that it is indeed the Choice of Steins Gate at the last episode of the series(technically the last episode is Steins Gate ep 24) .
@@herrogamer2606 I have to disagree. While the final Okabe is under the illusion that it was Steins Gate's choice, the SG0 Okabe is the one who chose to go through all those time leaps.
The way I see is that the universe was correcting the instability of time lines just like nature like things to be in the lowest state of energy possible, Okabe's ability reading steiner only exists to achieve that since he was the one who started all of this. In conclusion, you can or can not be the one to push the ball down of the table, but it will happen eventually for sure.
All events are the choices of doctor pepper
A video about my favourite anime by my favourite anime channel. This is a pretty good end to my tuesday
Was thinking the same thing...
I think Okabe said it best in Ep 1,when talking about the Llamaman. That it's useless to think about, and to use that time to fight the organization.
But what if the Llamaman is part of the organization?
The great thing about Steins;Gate is that it deconstructs the notion of having choice at all, in the sense presented in this video. The idea of a choice between two equal but different outcomes, either of which we could have taken, is mostly unrealistic. For we don't care about most things equally; there's a sort of unspoken priority in most people's minds of who/what you would save in a burning building and in what order, even if you wouldn't acknowledge or want to find out what that priority was yourself.
But Steins;Gate does present us with that scenario: the choice between the lives of Mayuri and Kurisu, two people Okabe cares about deeply. Instead of making a hard choice, like he had in the past, when Okabe was presented with two equally bad options, he simply couldn't make a decision. Because he could have gone either way, he didn't. In the end, Kurisu had to make the decision for him, since she saw things differently. Okabe prioritized both Mayuri's and Kurisu's happiness, making it a perfect zero-sum scenario, whereas Kurisu prioritized Okabe's and Mayuri's happiness, which would be fulfilled much more by her own death than Mayuri's. Presented with the same scenario, Kurisu was free to actually make her decision.
And that might be the key to free will. A choice is just the ability to cause one of multiple possible outcomes, and maybe we could consider free will as getting to use one's own unique priority list to make a decision, instead of being forced onto one outcome by an outside force. In that sense, Okabe does exert free will: he had options that would have fulfilled some or most of his priorities, and he chose between them, instead of being railroaded down that path. Nobody was forcing their decisions onto him. The tangled mess of if-statements and priorities that was Okabe's brain made those decisions on its own.
I agree with this, particularly that Okabe was free to choose - he just could not foresee or control the outcome of his choices. I'd also say he made a choice to not accept the choices presented to him. His rebellion against the laws of nature is a great expression of free will imo, regardless of the outcome.
Agreed.
Beautifully put.
Thank you so much. Finally someone made a video analysing my favourite anime😢
No. When he says it is the choice of steins;gate, he doesn't mean everything is according to fate. The whole story is based around a man's struggle to fight the will of the world. He may have believed in fate in the earlier episodes as you pointed out. But that ending phrase is just his way of saying "I have went through all this trouble to reach the steins;gate, that has a set course of future(fate) that I have chosen."
I agree with you, this makes more sense
Yeah I didn’t realize this double meaning until i read the vn
Yeah the interpretation of the line in this video is completely wrong. At least in the VN, Okabe mentions multiple times that the phrase has no meaning, and is just something he made up to sound cool, especially in his more naive times at the beginning of the story. As things get more and more tragic and hopeless for Okabe, he leans on the persona of Hououin Kyoma less and less, dismissing the persona as childish. Then, when he said his lowest, most hopeless point it has completely given up, he receives a message from his future self. The older Okabe tells him all of his suffering was not meaningless and was in fact crucial to changing the world line, all the while acting like younger, “childish” Okabe who adopts the silly mad scientist persona. This gives him hope, and he realizes that his actions matter whether or not they technically change the future.
In the end, when Okabe meets with Kurisu, he once again starts acting like Hououin Kyoma, a relic of his more hopeful life before the trauma of time travel. When he says, “This is the choice of Steins;gate,” he isn’t speaking literally about determinism, since he and we both know this phrase is meaningless. He’s demonstrating that he is beginning to heal from his hopelessness and self-loathing in a new world line where no one knows what the future holds.
So... anyone up for the Philosophy of Ergo Proxy? “I think, therefore, you are!”
yissss
Well, I was thinking about this question as I am adapting Steins;Gate to a paper RPG. And I have to say, there is an instant of free will. One single moment. In Steins;Gate (there are more in the Steins;Gate 0 Visual novel), there is the very moment when he decided whether or not he would delete his history in the CERN database - thus killing Kurisu.
This event is leading to attractor field β. But... this is the only event (in the original Steins;Gate) when a decision, without any time machine implied, is changing the wordline.
Now what does that mean ? A worldline is supposed to be stable, and leading to a coherent world. When Okabe finally retrieves the IBM 5100, he should have been thrown in attractor field β directly : further actions should be eluded, and he should already be in the new worldline at that point.
So why didn't it happen? For drama purpose only? In fact, I don't feel so.
In Steins;Gate 0 VN (not in the anime, because they couldn't adapt the whole plot in the serie), you can make choices that lead to worldline changes. The PhoneWave has been destroyed but Okabe is ultimatly able to influence both future and past without any kind of f*** time machine.
Why? Because Okabe is not part of any worldline anymore. His Reading Steiner ability has turned him into a God, though he's not concious of it.
So yes, people on worldlines in Steins;Gate are 100% determined and cannot make any choice. But Rintaro with his Reading Steiner become free. Or rather, have a determinism of his own based on experience of events that did not occured.
And... he's not the only one with Reading Steiner. The original VN made it clear that everybody has a bit of Reading Steiner inside them. The Steins;Gate 0 VN explores further this point. Although Steins;Gate appears to be against free will theories, it support a way to get rid of it, to change our future based on informations coming from intuition, those intuitions coming from parallel universe with never-occuring events.
This is the way to be free, this is the will of Steins;Gate : a world WE chose because WE believe it is the best world. No God decided it at the Big Bang.
In this universe, one can assume that, in fact, we are all making those kind of decisions based on something outside reality. While I agree some determinist would point out that this is not changing the matter, this is truly an amazing point of this story, missed by almost all viewers and players.
I encourage you to play Steins;Gate 0 VN with that idea in mind ;)
Yeah, I think the same) Even in the game, we can make a choice only after the first shifting of the world line. I think at this moment the causality for Okabe was broken.
When Okabe deletes the message in SERN's database it affects the worldline because in the future SERN would use that information to track down the future gadget lab and communicate it to their operatives in the past. So when the message is deleted it changes what SERN will send back in the future, which causes Reading Steiner to activate.
Wow I am taking an intro to philosophy class and many of your videos capture the essence of these big philosophical debates really well. I see that's it has been a while since you have made any content, but I truly hope there is more to come.
your voice is so mesmerizing. i can listen to you whole day.
I want a damn nixie tube clock that looks like divergence meter
Quantum mechanics isn't much of an argument for free will, because it's ultimately random. The fact that it's unpredictable and undetermined doesn't make that your "choice" (and this already assuming that it directly affects consciousness).
Exactly. There's no way hypothetical ways for free will to exist, except that it is "magic beyond human comprehension", which is why it's a religious construct. The only ways to explain why something happened, is that it was determined by something else or completely random. To believe in free will, you either need to redefine what "free will" means into something else (compatibilism) or believe in literal unexplainable magic.
This video seriously gave me chills. You make such excellent use of the series's music, and your ideas flow so competently and forcefully. Your videos are really some of the best in anime analysis, and I'm always impressed by them.
Your voice tickles my ears
Wow the video was amazing! Great content! The reading reccomendations are a great touch for the overall description. Subscribed, please keep up the great work!
Simultaneously the most important and most useless question.
Do we really ever have a choice? Regardless of the answer, we'll keep going as if we do. As luck would have it, we have no other option.
subbed asf
I have a choice of replying to this comment, but then was it determined by fate that I would write it right now? Did I not reply in another time/universe? this shit's too deep man
its by no means a useless question. we have already accepted that some individuals do not have free will and treat them differently from other adults both in court and in every day life.
@@pumpernickel1955 I don't know what you're talking about but I can already tell it has nothing to do with this existential free will issue. We can't "decide" who has free will. The whole point of the idea is contemplating whether or not any one of us truly has the ability to "decide" anything for ourselves. It's got nothing to do with trying to limit someone else's options. It isn't some kind of right or privilege. It's a question about the way human's can ever potentially behave.
@@neonknight5857 well i couldnt disagree more. i think the idea of even questioning wether we have free will is absurd. you should read kant on that topic. judges decide based on psychologist recommendation wether someone has the capability to choose freely. we also think that children cant choose freely either. compatibilism is the only viable way to look at this topic without getting into pradox territory
Closed minded it seems (The guy directly above)
I like the idea (I think it was from Schoppenhauer) that our will is predetermined but because we are able to execute our will if the will itself arises you can say that our will is free.
I know that this Approach is Kind of redefining but I'm fine with that :D
Put off watching this for so long because it's my last one of hers ;c~ I hope she makes more of these ~ I love the message she gives at the end after delivering such a neutral position. I hope we can see more soon
The last words indicated the convergence of timelines of meeting of okabe with kirusu. That was the choice of Steins gate
This is an excellent video that got me thinking. Not enough stuff on RUclips does that. Thanks!
I know this comment is super late but I just wanted to put a little caveat on your point about Okabe’s final line.
On its surface, it definitely might seem like this is him submitting to some higher power but you’ve got to remember the origins of the phrase.
Episode three establishes that Okabe’s talk about steins gate is comepletely meaningless. The phrase has no given meaning or value beyond that Okabe uses it. In many ways, the show works to break this part of Okabe down. Throughout the show, Mayuri does again and again as Pkabe is powerless to do anything, Okabe is at the will of determinism.
But the show doesn’t see this determinism as an immutable thing. If it did then then Okabe would likely have never saved Kurisu. He would have lived on in the alpha line and called this a victory. Instead, he doesn’t stop there, he pushes on and rewrites the world to suite his own design.
‘Steins gate’ as a phrase is symbolic of Okabe’s force of will and desire to overcome these issues.
Wow amazing content. I've had these exact thoughts about Steins;Gate and about life in general, and to see you pull literally every single thought I've ever had on this philosophical debate and lay it out so smoothly and eloquently has impressed me a lot. Instant subscriber.
I hope you tackle Psycho Pass one day. That show soaks itself in philosophical debates. My favourite observation was how the protagonists fight for a reality that would be absurd to us (in today's time), but the villains fight for a reality that we want (in today's time). Really opens your mind to asking what is the right kind of reality we should create - the pros and cons of creating something like the Sibyl system. Anyway, enjoy your day. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your stuff.
when i first heard of the Mandela Effect "Steins Gate" poped up in my head!
Why is your voice and choice of words so perfect?
This is why I love stiens;gate, amazing video btw!
PLEASE break down the movie - load region of déjà vu, it ties into this theory nicely. Below is my take on it.
It's like trying to alter a divergence comes at the cost of sanity, and having the ability to read Steiner is almost a 4th dimensional property which humans have at their clutches, yet aren't supposed to have, therefore SPOILER ALERT:
Okabe is blipped out of existence into what for me seemed like the 4th dimension, in a space or time which he was omniscient of what consequences each action would forgo, or at least how to alter any given point in time which diverges.
The show almost suggests that free will is granted (or taken for granted) but there is a possibility that we as humans can create a change big enough to alter divergences in the future without our knowledge, I mean it doesn't even have to be limited to just one person either or a group, it's like a clock where the cogs intersect without our knowledge of the bigger picture, I wonder then, if humans can create an alternative divergence or "alpha/beta" worldline where they are destined to align at the divergence? And does that mean we have free will?
The show is almost saying that humans have a limited perception on what free will is but that is open to discussion.
Really glad that Berserk content you made popped up in my feed. Your content is excellent.
“Man has no control. Even over his own will.”
this is the best video I have seen so far this year
Brownian motion and electron positional collapse kind of go against prediction of the future regardless... right?
Good point
Humans: *debate on determinism vs free will*
Quantum Uncertainties: Allow us to introduce ourselves
*Superdeterminism* enters chat
Absolutely gutted you dont have any recent videos! This was incredibly interesting
Being in controll of ones fate and having free will are two different things: I can have free will and no crontroll over anything, since my actual freedom and controll of anything depends not only on the freedom of my will, but also the state of the world (for example that it allows meaningful actions in the first place, or that it provides me with sufficient means to successfully pursue my goals etc.). Therefore free will is not freedom. (A prisoner has as much free will as anyone who is not imprisoned, but certainly less freedom.) I think this video does not make this distinction.
I would, of course, go with Kant: Everything is determined by causal laws - insofar as things as appearances are concerned. That says nothing about things onto themselves, and therefore we can postulate free will (but not prove it) according to reason used in a practical way.
I totally agree.
If anything, Steins;Gate has proven the video wrong. While make distinction between free will and ability to control one’s fate.
I don't know why you've stopped posting. I really enjoyed your videos.
I subscribed to all the youtubers that mathwiz put in your his video and if this is the video you're putting out at my first impression I can't wait to see what you make next!
Steins Gate is a deep anime that keeps you thinking about possibilities and what if our choices really in the greater scope.
omg your voice is amazing
Love your videos plz come back whenever your ready your analyzes skills are unmatched hope you get what ever your getting through ❣️
Its all predetermined. But that doesnt mean we should pretend we dont matter. Our being predetermined doesnt change a thing about our affecting this world. We affect the world, even if only being its reaction. That.. is Steins Gate
We definitly are not free. We are bound to things like bills we gotta pay, people we have to take care of, rules we gotta follow, we gotta eat and drink, gotta stay clean and healthy. About the only thing we are free on, is our thoughts and imagination. But as far as choices and lifestyle, i argue we arent free
This comment is underrated.
Explanation Point sent me here. Really nice to see an anime channel tackling philosophy. I've been contemplating my own free will this last month and it really was terrifying at first. Am I actually making my own choices? We really do feel like we are. After doing a lot of research, I've come to the conclusion that even if we don't have free will, It doesn't have to matter. What matters is that my brain can construct the reality I'm seeing. A reality that may or may not actually be real, but my brain can be happy in the one it conceives. I can feel things right here and now. We may not have free will, but I don't need to be free to be happy.
ZAP ARTS man it still doesnt work absolutely, a man s main objective could not be happiness, as for me happiness seen in different ways can also be being free
So with a mindset like that would be able to be locked up and happy without freedom?
Freedom is Slavery. This video points out one perspective that a (potentiality) "the best" feeling of "freedom" is found when the slavery and freedoms of determinism favorably overlaps with the slavery and freedoms of inherent chaotic forces.
Also want to point out that a human's "happiness" is not formed from the emotion of "happiness" but of the inclusion of all of the wants and needs of the inherent human structure, developed personalities and physical states being met with proper values (not too little not too much). Err at least when considering the slang-y-ness of the word happiness.
Dejavu
That's what I feel too
This is an amazing video. Keep up the good work mate!
Reminds me of The Matrix, everyone from Morpheus, The Architect, to Agent Smith regardless if they are friend or foe keep telling Neo that it's up to fate, pre determined structure or that his sruggle is futile and defeat is inevitable. Neo rejects this and finds a way to overcome because he chooses to, The Matrix is a retelling of the myth of Sisyphus, though instead of the rock falling, he finds a way to break the cycle itself
Scott McConnell except those are just stories, in which the actions of the characters are decided by the writers. In the end, stories that attempt to support free will only disprove it, because the choices they make and the actions they take are all part of the script.
I always like to imagine that the Macro world (Stars, planets, economics, politics) is deterministic and is governed by Newtonian Physics, while the Micro world of Quantum Physics (with each individual representing a quark) is chaotic.
Just found this channel as I and I enjoy the way you approach philosophy through anime.
I think the word freewill mentioned in the video is different than the ones I use in normal life.
Freewill to me is something that includes the element of restrain. Is about working with restrain.
Let say, instead of wanting to drink a specific drink like coffee or water or tea.
My determination right at this time is to decided to have something to drink except poisons, I am thrill, essentially.
Then, when I go to fridge, I found out that there's water, dr.pepper, tea, milk...etc (any array of item as long there's MORE THAN 1).
I will essentially solved my thrill by consuming one of those item, or 2 , but I solve my problem and felt content.
The point is I can't have a tea magically appear in front of me without obeying the physic's law. But most of the time, I do have at least one option to choose and act on, essentially making my self content. It's all about chemicals in my brain that causes my action. But I have the freewill to choose, base on that restriction. And I believe that's what freewill suppose to be like.
Because what defines freewill if you have no limit?
In one perspective, you have your conscious coming into this "game", where the first thing you realize is that it have rules. Either rules from your body or outside your body. In a sense, you are bounded with the chemicals in your body. But you can choose to upgrade it, or downgrade it, of course do whatever all based on upon your body. Brain gives you a more complex cognitive thinking, your sensory organs, biological systems, all these are rules, but you have options to deal with them.
On the other hand, if I am born as an entity that all my actions are depended upon my own will.(Essentially the freewill that's in this video.) My will is the only presentation that I am a cognitive being that can think and determine, and I can literally do anything as long I can think of it.
But the thing is, if I don't know what walking is, do I know how to walk on sand, ice, road, lands? No.
How about walking on seas, sky, outer space, lava? No.
Can I say that in a way I am not free because I don't have these rules on me? Yes, using the definition mentioned in the video, yes.
Here's the kicker, let say I am absolutely free! 0 restrain, I have no body, I have no conscious, I have nothing!
So I am not bounded to problems in any kind of wild life on earth or any other planet.
I have no need because I am not bounded to any wishes.
I am absolutely free off everything!
And that is just nothing. Absolute freedom or freewill whatever you call it is just nothing.
No color, no shapes from the eye.
No need to worry, sure, he is free of those things.
But in a way, because I have more rules bounded with me, so I have options. I can say that I know what free is more than that entity.
Freewill and freedom is just having ways to go around the obstacles,which essentially is the restrain that brings me in an emotional content.
Is like, if I am not bored, not angry, not anxious or feeling other emotions other than content, I never know what content is like.
I would say in response to the quote at 7:40 that just because time travel shows the response of free will doesn't negate it. Merely (merely?) being able to see the outcomes of every decision in response to a future event doesn't nullify your need to make a decision, in fact reinforces it. When you come to that point in time you have to decide, even if your decision is to not to decide. Everything is inevitable, until you choose. Then only 1 outcome is inevitable, barring the choices of others.
If we go by determinism, a basis of the philosophy of science, then we are not free, but that does not mean we are uncapable of taking a decision, just that such is strongly based on previous and current stimulation, and the anticipation of possible consequences. Even when we learn by observing, we associate certain actions to certain consequences so selection by consequences still applies. This is basic in scientific psychology, we cannot go against the fact that our behavior is determined, but what we can do, is understand how it is determined, to stimulate ourselves into taking certain actions, and feeling and thinking differently too (even then, something pushed you to that interest). In the end, at least from my POV, we are not free, but we do not need to be free to feel as such.
Now about the indeterminism bit, it is possible that the laws we "discover" are more likely just artificial notions that we try to build to get closer to the real world as we experience it and try to describe, explain, predict and control it, and that some things do not really follow that rule but, even if that notion os artificial, it is necessary to build knowledge.
I am in love with this show exactly for these kind of notions.
And yes I agree; while I am a bit of a nihilist, I dont think Morale is necesary or holds any value of its own and its rather the way we feel about it, but is definetly necesary to survive as a society, thats why any social change its recieved with such hostility.
Also, your voice is quite something, it quite fits the mature tone of this show and the topic of the video. I really feel like subscribing, perhaps that already had a higher probability of happening tho.
I FUCKING LOVE THIS ANIME
The ending is, in general, hopeful. From a literary standpoint (not philosophical), the tone would suggest that man has triumphed over nature. It is inconsistent for the series to be stating that there is no such thing as free will, which the characters ascribe value to, while at the same time coming to a close on a happy note.
Also, it is not we must believe in free will and be kind for the good of society. That is arbitrary intuitionism. "Is the world to go to pot or am I to have my tea?" Of course, the vast majority agrees with this mindset though; the herd.
If unnoticable, micro-causations are seen to have huge effects in Steins Gate, the firing of a single neuron (or even the flap of a butterfly's wings, halfway around the world) can likewise change everything. This chaoes theory contradicts determinism. However, as you pointed out, certain events repeated, seeming inevitable. There is definitely a peculiar and interesting balance in this series, worthy of contemplation.
This was great - amazing
I think fate exists but we have the free will to change it.
When okabe let christina finding album in book shelf ,I saw three book in Janpanes title:critique of pure reason, kant and the problem of metaphysics and existence and time
Maybe I'm wrong, but I associate Steins; gate with Nietzsche's theory of the eternal return. Okabe lives in a time line where Kurisu lives but Mayuri dies. He can't take Mayuri's death and he find a way to prevent it but (oh no!), to live in a universe where Mayuri is alive, he have to let Kurisu die. He can't take any of those time lines. So, In order to fullfill his desire of having the most beloved women of his life alive, he fools destinity and create the steins; gate timeline. Nietzsche suggest us to create the universe that we would like to be repeated over and over again with the eternal return theory, and that is what Okabe does creating the steins; gate timeline, that time line is the universe that he would like to live over and over again, a universe with Kurisu and Mayuri alive. In that order, Okabe is an overman, in my opinion.
English is not my native language, sorry if I make mistakes trying to explain myself.
we do not have free will but we need to act like we do. the universe is weird.
So agree with your explaination.. Even newer comments are saying the Future Okabe 0 had free will (kindof) but still his actions were predetermined according to the story that went on..
If we just ignore the concept of time travel in Steins Gate for a moment , and watch Okabe living a normal life with doing normal stuff( like just playing a video game related to timetravel), his actions are predetermined again.
Basically we will always live with the notion of having free will even if we will achieve time travel , but still everything is predetermined in such a beautiful way that we can't just find the difference.
I would say that since "we" are the physical processes in our brains, those acts of physics are our "will"
I feel that determinism and free will are compatible. You have to have a certain rational deep thinking to agree. Thanks for this wholesale food for thought video, even if it is 2 years ago, I really wanted to hear more from you. Thank you.
Beautiful :)
You don't see a ton of videos and knowledge like these out there for anime. Love your videos. My kind of stuff..lol
Hoping to see more like this eventually. Goodluck!!!
Amazing video, have a new subscriber! It's definitely predetermined that this channel will always have more amazing videos!
14 thousand subscribers that’s crazy there should be more . This some good stuff 😋
"if you could predict the movement of every atom in the universe, then you would be able to predict the future" reminds me of rascal does not dream of bunny senpai
I feel that the fact that Steins;Gate Zero exists proves that free will exists in that universe.
Or that timeline? Alpha or beta line whichever zero takes place in
@@DaemonGenius beta since that is the one that Kurisu died in
even before finding steins;gate, i used to watch sorts of science-y videos during my elementary school days. maybe i can say that it was one of the major reasons why i rlly like the show, that it kinda remind of those days of amazement. but i remember, one vid i once watched said that scientists reject the existence of fate. it said that u either believe in "fate" and continue with fantasies, or embrace that it is all simply unexplained science. the more i watch those vids, the more i get to understand that time travel isnt possible. even after watching s;g, i wasnt convinced that mails can be send to the past by connecting it to a mini blackhole. it is in fact that the closer you get to a blackhole, the slower your time would pass. but that cannot make mails go back in the time. even if it is slow, it still moves forward.
those days, i thought: "if fate rlly exists, and it is something scientists cant explain so they said it isnt real, then its as if someone's manipulating us. even the fact that i thought of that 'someone who is manipulating me' was on coordinate by them as well." it felt as if im stuck in a book as my life is being written on it. yet, in fantasy stories, once the charas talk about it, its what ppl call "breaking the 4th wall" --but im not saying i broke my book's 4th wall. i'd say that 'that' someone manipulating my every move is my author, which ppl may also call 'our god'. in the story "Steins;Gate", the god is the author, Chiyomaru. it is true that every move the characters made were scripted by him, and not by the chara's free will. now, it is crazy to think that their god is a human living with us today. truly, that felt like they broke the wall. but since it is not on their own will, it IS not breaking the 4th wall. who knows that all of these we call reality is simply a story written by a being way more superior than we can be.
i rlly love this video. fate is something i've been believing for a long time, along with miracles, the 'equal' rule of the universe, god, coincidences, and stuff. im grateful of this vid.
edit: though, if i dont group our universe to theirs, i'd say that after recieving dmails, and timeleaps, okabe's actions after then are those not scripted by their 'god'. after recieving messages or warning concerning of the future, the actions of those who recieved it will be led astray their supposedly path, which is controlled by fate. if fate and time are connected, then as long as one cannot manipulate time, he cannot overcome fate, which binds his every action. if one's future to connected to one's past as if they're parallel to each other, he can have his own free will that opposes time and fate. if so, then my guess is that attractor fields exists to correct these actions that went away from the certain actions and results. that so, even if the action was changed, the result wont.
Yo, just found your channel and gotta admit, your videos are damn good. You have this wise and chill charisma, it‘s pretty difficult to put in words tho.
But one thing, don‘t make me cry :‘(, that music and the scenes with mayuri gave me a mental breakdown haha.
I would also say that it relies entirely on the scientific and philosophical analysis of time as well. If you view time as a physical thing, a continuum which you can travel through. Then unless you live in a multiverse or "world line" style universe. The course of time is an irrelevance. Because if time is fixed like a rail you can only travel along that rail and as such the events of time are relevant to your position in it, rather than time fluxing around you. As such everything that has happened, will happen and is happening simultaneously. It is simply a matter of which position you are perceiving it from. The theory of relativity applied to temporal mechanics as it were. If you at any point play a part in events, then those events in turn are always going to happen and have already happened. It is just specific to your own time stream. Essentially we have already done everything we are going to do in life. Its just our being and consciousness have not reached the point in time where we do them. Including me typing this comment.
I don‘t think the idea of Determinism rejects the responsibility for your own actions. Even if everything you do is predetermined, at some point in your life (most likely your teenage years) the experiences that you had and the things that you did, even though they were predetermined, begin to influence you as well. Sure this is still determinism at its finest but when your predetermined actions had an influence on your future predetermined actions you are still responsible for these actions, since you were the one that comitted them. Taking responsibility or rather being responsible for your actions, even if you had no choice but to do them is the only glimpse of free will we as humans are allowed to see in a world that is ruled by determinism.
But these are just my own thoughts everybody may have their own opinion :)
Anyone else cry in the sad scenes of SG 0?
I personally lean towards compatibilism.
Okabe was free to choose the timeline
Nothing is set unless...
All that is Possible .. IS. Determinism is a narrow concept that assumes THIS world-line is the only one there is. Free-Will and Chance split and splice .. thread and braid the infinite parallel worlds which encompass every choice, every option, every accident, every coincidence. We Are Stein's Gate. Our choice is the choice of Stein's Gate. You say, Okabe claims not to believe in Fate ... Well ... The Multiverse nearly drives him MAD as he relentlessly tries to save Mayuri .. but he does NOT give up .. refuses to Learn The Lesson the Multiverse it trying to force on him .. And He WINS.
Was brought here by Aleczaxndxr, was not disappointed
Same❤️
Westworld gives a pretty satisfying answer to the way free will might work.
I find some similarities between WW and S;G, while also somewhat reflecting Pascal's approach to decision making.
If you've seen Westworld, and mostly its third season, you probably remember that circle that represented events, choices throughout the world. I'll get back to it.
Pascal was mainly talking about what outcomes we can expect from our decisions, our actions. Briefly, he represented these in a Bell curve diagram (look it up, if you don't know what it is). We can use this diagram to account for people's decisions. The more likely it is that someone will make a certain decisions, the closer those will be found to the centre of the diagram.
Same goes with the circle from Westworld. The more likely a decision is to be made, that is, the easier it is to predict or determine it, the closer it is to the surface of the circle.
In this way, free will is not defined by a certain boundary, but is rather transitional. The closer a decision gets to the tail of the bell's curve, or the further it goes from the surface of the circle, the higher degree of free will it represents.
In Steins;Gate this meant a complex set of decisions, leading up to the world that is found somewhere between the alpha and beta timelines. That's why it was so hard to achieve, it needed decisions so unlikely that I doubt anyone except Okabe would have been able to make.
Quoting from WW: "Free will does exist. It's just fucking hard."
I agree with Okabe. It's painful to watch him trying to save them both. And knowing that free will is an illusion. But...
Even without free will, never give up trying to find Steins; Gate.
I love the anime and your videos!
As a RUclipsr who applies Marxism and Hegelian Dialectics to Anime (Tongue and Cheek quite often) - I am annoyed I've only just discovered this channel. Its magnificent.
This is the choice of steins gate means " ohh so.. this (good thing) have to happen in this world line(steins;gate line) wow!! " Okabe says it at the end of anime.
Can you just tell me why your vids don t have something like milions of hundreds of thousands of views? Because they re just incredible
My head is about to blow, jeez!
Awesome vid and congrats on 1500 subs.
Thank you!
+Anime Philosopher Quantum mechanics called. They disagree.
I'm fascinated by the way your mind works! I could watch this video 10 times with out taking all in. Though I've questioned my self about free will many times, I'm still not sure to what to think of this, However u have to admit that if we don't have free will our knowledge of the fact that we might not! is rather curious!
Holy shit your content is SO GOOD
The question if we have free will or if we have an effective choice is not the same question, since sometimes we decide something which isn't an option.
All things are more about probability that they are about free will or determinism. the probability that an atom will react one way or another is governed by probability due to quantum mechanics. What is the difference between a atom inside a brain and one outside? I would say there isn't a difference and thus probability is the key to understanding why we feel we have free will.
Great content you deserve more viewers, subscribers, and praise!
Great video. I would believe some events are inevitably led to a certain outcome however no matter what we do before leading up to it, it will be that certain outcome regardless of actions taken beforehand.
The only free will would be between cataclysmic events that greatly affect certain aspects in time and space. Whether it’d be death of an individual, a certain declaration, a law being governed, so on and so forth. It is to be.
Free will lies upon the individual but the cause and effect will be the same from such things
A video like this on the entire Science Adventure franchise would be nice.
In Steins;Gate, as I understood from the anime, free will exists until something big happens on the life lane that you can't run from, like Mayuri's death if D mails exist, so free will exists when determinism is not strong enough, to change those big things you need to change the past. In real life, (un)fortunately time travel doesn't exist, so we are at the mercy of our past decisions, which have consequences on the present, but in any moment with enough effort and luck almost anything is possible, so free will exists.
Well, I believe we're not free, well at least not "entirely" free, we are somewhat "guided" in our choices, but never forced, think of it like this, you walk on a road that you didn't choose to be in ( life ) and you find obstacles along the way, now, you don't control the circumstances and what kind of circumstances appear before you ( obstacles ), but you control your reaction to them, or at least you have the possibility to do so, so in the end, you are "partly" free.. Okabe had no choice but to discover ( invent?) the time machine, that was a circumstance forced upon him, and he had no choice in the matter, but he had a choice on what to do with it, how to deal with it, and how to feel about it, just like he chose to try and save his childhood friend from the "fate" of dying, I think the creator of the story was touching on the subject of multiple universes and multiple realities that coexist and shift based on one's choice, I'm not sure though, I could be wrong..
I totally agree with your statement "Okabe had no choice but to discover ( invent?) the time machine, that was a circumstance forced upon him" .
Okabe's choice either the future one or the current one was never exactly free because it was influenced by the prior events.
What is it called when, instead of believing that things happen because they are predetermined, that things only happen because the conditions are right? I've always considered the power of mere coincidence, probability, and ideal conditions to explain why things happen when they do. For instance, I've pondered about the Primordial Soup theory that extremely basic lifeforms originated all because the conditions were adequate enough for organic molecules to combine in the way that they did. And that because of the certain specific conditions for which those molecules combined, they were able to survive long enough to thrive and proliferate.
In short, I think that things happen, or potentially happen, only because of ambient circumstances and probability of success; things would not happen otherwise. To apply that to the discussion of free will, I'd say that I act due to both causation/stimulation and ideal circumstances. To be prompted into choosing between tea and coffee, I must first be motivated into doing so, like with thirst or desire for warmth or comfort. Thus what Hume was talking about.
Also, I can't choose between tea and coffee if I don't have both choices existing simultaneously in front of me. If tea is the only thing there, then I'd have to pick it by default. Or perhaps there is only tea and hot chocolate in front of me. Then the dilemma of "tea or coffee" becomes moot because the conditions for that dilemma's existence are all gone.
I also like to use this belief of mine to explain the origin of human life. I was taught that there’s a certain probability that a single sperm cell would be the very one that fertilizes the egg. All the other sperm cells are rejected. Which means that the conditions had to be right for which the probability could exist to begin with, and that if the conditions were not ideal, no fertilization would ever happen. And the conditions had to be right for that one sperm cell to be the winner, of sorts.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that fate let us all be born. Just that we are the consequences formed from probability and specific conditions. I’d interpret fate as “this specific event is guaranteed to happen,” so that when I speak of probability, it’s more vague and interpreted as “this specific event could happen, or could not.”
Colin Velius Interesting.
Predictability doesn't disprove free will. We always have influence and reason for our action. If someone knows me and knows that I hate coffee, she could accurately predict I will choose the tea.
Colin Velius
_"What is it called when, instead of believing that things happen because they are predetermined, that things only happen because the conditions are right?"_
This is Determinalism (sorry if I'm spelling that wrong). The idea that things are predetermined is Fatalism. I think the author of this video muddled them together a bit to much. The main distinction is that Determinalism and Fatalism is that Fatalism says that our future is predetermined, by some cosmic force or entity (Fate or God usually) and usually has specific outcomes in mind. Determanlism on the other hand has no outcome it is trying to reach, our actions are merely the result of past events.
Both of those theories as you present them, Fatalism and Determinalism, are exactly the same theory? Both of them state that our future is fixed and the only pseudo distinction between the two is that Fatalism says that the future is fixed while Determinalism blindly ignores that aspect without bothering to deny it. They both begin and end the exact same way and as such have no real distinction between them. It is the whole poe-tae-toe, poe-ta-toe dilemma, two different ways of saying the same thing. In both the future is the product of logical inevitability and by extension, so are our actions.
I don't know a lot about the subject. My comment was entirely based on what you said as you presented it and does not mean anything beyond that.
:What is life's greatest illusion?
:Innocence, my brother.
“It is absolutely impossible for a man to forget for a single instant, or to stop being persuaded that he is free. This, then, is the first point. Second point: is being persuaded that one is free the same thing as actually being free? I respond: this is not the same thing, but it produces the same moral effects. Man is then free, since he is intimately persuaded of being so, and since that is worth as much as freedom? This is the mechanism of the universe explained as clearly as spring water. If there were a single free being in the universe, there would be no more God, there would be no more ties between beings. The universe would fall apart; and if man were not intimately, essentially, and always convinced that he is free, human morality would not continue as it does. The conviction that one is free is enough to establish a conscience, remorse, justice, rewards and punishments. It is enough for everything, and here is the world explained in two words.” - excerpt from Abbé Galiani’s letters to Madame d’Epinay
Since I'm on my way of slowly working myself through the Science adventure series, I just wanna through some things from robotics;notes and robotics; notes DaSH in hrere:
the little poem subtitle reads:
The science itself may prove cynical. However, one mustn't forget that there is a scientific element in all things. The important truth is this: I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
specially the line "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my Soul" is a nice exclamation of free will.
there'S also an interesting thing of Okabe tweeping about everyone having a Steins; Gate inside them and if they have conviction they will end up there through all routes. and Steins; Gate being part of someones self makes the choice of Steins; Gate the chopice of someone, kind of.
One could also approach this from the Buddhist philosophy of mind: most sentient beings live through series of cause and effect, and patterned reactive perception, or "karma" in other words. However, the librated mind of a buddha is not slave to karmically patterned perception, and therefore has a free will. On the other hand one is not a separate individual isolated from the rest of the universe, therefore action of a liberated being happens in communication with the rest of the universe; this communication being manifest as compassionate action.
Form is Emptiness. Emptiness is form.
With his "Reading Steiner", Okabe manifests compassionate communication by shifting the world lines in harmony with how the universe does its thing.
In response to your closing discussion prompt is, in my opinion, does it matter? Regardless of which exists, we would be unable to change the natural system without proving the base hypothesis, that everything is deterministic or free will existing, is incorrect. Though I can't say I often hear of a story where someone wants to compress a free will universe to a deterministic one.. for what? Being able to control everything or tell the future?
Also was half expecting at least a passing reference to Laplace's Demon as it likes to pop up in Japanese media at times (unless you did mention it and I missed it). It's just a thought experiment of what if there was an entity capable of knowing all the various states in the universe, and by doing so can determine the future?
Great video 👍 I really like Steins;Gate 😢