Things you can't get your head around...

[SpacedX]

51 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

No problem. Gave me an opportunity to be an even bigger smart arse! 

 

I was too young to see them in their heyday but that song came out when I was a messed-up 15-year-old and had a massive impact on me.

I saw them (as Eddie & the Hot Rods) about 3-4 times in the last 20 years, though only Barrie Masters, the singer, was from the original band. 

 

Sadly, he died suddenly about 18 months ago, though the band plan to continue, it seems.

 

Yes, I remember hearing about another band named The Rods, as you say - US heavy metal/rock, I think, but never heard anything by them.

And Graeme Douglas - ex Kursaal Flyers. That whole Southend movement.

 

Great to see that Wilko is still on the road after the removal of half of his internal organs. 

[Blarmy]

This is some properly niche music chat, good stuff

[Royston.]

On 23/04/2021 at 11:33, Lako42 said:

I've been with 60 year olds in hostels 

 

 

[oakman]

Dogecoin being worth more than Barclays / Ford / Kraft Foods

[Matt]

I thought given the last year we've had - not being allowed out e.t.c it would make people appreciate going out, meeting up abit more but nope, people I know would still sooner sit and stare at their own 4 walls, each to their own, not for me, especially given the last 12 months.

 

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, it was like they were almost 'scared' to go out before this, this will have just made them worse.

 

Edited 29 April 2021 by Matt

[Benguin]

1 hour ago, oakman said:

Dogecoin being worth more than Barclays / Ford / Kraft Foods

It’s insane. All though those companies are likely to remain multi billion dollar companies whereas doge and most other cryptos will be 0 in the not so distant future. 

[BenTheFox]

How Radiohead are one of the biggest bands on the planet. I'm not saying it's a bad thing at all, I like Radiohead, but their music for the most part is really obscure and not what you would consider at all commercially viable. I see them them very much as being an artist's/musician's band, yet they still sell out big arenas worldwide. 

[SemperEadem]

Going to watch cover bands.

[potter3]

Harking back to the more metaphysical content from the first couple of pages of this topic, and I think it's been posted in here previously, but, infinity. I can get my head around time going on forever into the unknown future, but something having existed forever, without a defined beginning? To me it's just incomprehensible.

[Sly]

4 hours ago, potter3 said:

Harking back to the more metaphysical content from the first couple of pages of this topic, and I think it's been posted in here previously, but, infinity. I can get my head around time going on forever into the unknown future, but something having existed forever, without a defined beginning? To me it's just incomprehensible.

To put a different spin on that then, the universe only has an infinite number of atoms. 
 

Therefore the atoms that make up your body, have been around for billions of years. 
 

The atoms that make up your human body, could have previously been part of a dinosaur, Elvia Presley, Cleopatra, a tree or an aeroplane. I suppose the question is, do atoms have memory? 
 

P.S ….   I don’t get Radiohead either, I think they’re beyond obscure and I’m really not a fan (at all). They’re sort of on par with the RedNex for me. 

[leicsmac]

5 hours ago, potter3 said:

Harking back to the more metaphysical content from the first couple of pages of this topic, and I think it's been posted in here previously, but, infinity. I can get my head around time going on forever into the unknown future, but something having existed forever, without a defined beginning? To me it's just incomprehensible.

 

13 minutes ago, Sly said:

To put a different spin on that then, the universe only has an infinite number of atoms. 
 

Therefore the atoms that make up your body, have been around for billions of years. 
 

The atoms that make up your human body, could have previously been part of a dinosaur, Elvia Presley, Cleopatra, a tree or an aeroplane. I suppose the question is, do atoms have memory? 
 

P.S ….   I don’t get Radiohead either, I think they’re beyond obscure and I’m really not a fan (at all). They’re sort of on par with the RedNex for me. 

It helps if you think as time as an entirely human construct, just like spatial dimensions.

 

The idea of something existing "before" the expansion event that began our universe is redundant because time itself didn't exist as a dimension then either.

[Rain King]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

 

It helps if you think as time as an entirely human construct, just like spatial dimensions.

 

The idea of something existing "before" the expansion event that began our universe is redundant because time itself didn't exist as a dimension then either.

Doesn't help 😆

[ozleicester]

On 30/04/2021 at 01:37, Benguin said:

It’s insane. All though those companies are likely to remain multi billion dollar companies whereas doge and most other cryptos will be 0 in the not so distant future. 

not neccessarily... you just have to believe 

[murphy]

On 20/11/2021 at 06:45, leicsmac said:

 

It helps if you think as time as an entirely human construct, just like spatial dimensions.

 

The idea of something existing "before" the expansion event that began our universe is redundant because time itself didn't exist as a dimension then either.

But for how long?  

[Stuntman_Mike]

[yorkie1999]

That Tommy Banner from the wurzels is still bouncing on stage at 80 years old.. went to Cardiff on Saturday to see them, awesome. Still going strong…ish.

[Sampson]

I've been thinking about free will vs determinism recently and every time I do I just feel like the concept of free will is extremely unlikely and I find that hard to get my head round. 

Like, instinctively, how can you consciously override the neurons in your brain? If you go to a curtain shop and you may get a conscious thought in your brain that you decide to choose between striped pattern curtains or spotted pattern curtains. But then when you really think about it and what makes your neurons in your brains fire in that particular way - all the billions of things that have been fed into your brain by others and by your culture and family and teachers and tv and random people in the street and the laws of the land and society and mix that with your in built DNA and in built brain wiring. And that's not to mention that the human brain itself is only wired that way due to the non-choice-based/random process of evolution.

It just seems incredibly unlikely that no matter how much I can think about things in my head that every conscious thought I have in my head isn't just a result of billions of years of space dust slowly turning into this neuron-firing meat thing in my skull and all the billions of things that have gone in there since the day I was born, most of which I was entirely unconscious of.

I dunno, it just seems like a very far-fetched concept that I somehow have one part of my brain that can somehow override 14 billions years worth of nature and every second of my life experiences and that I can actively overpower this and that in fact when I think I overpower this that isn't just the way my neurons are set to fire given the situation of life I was in in that particular second and everything in the universe that has led up to it.

Like if I think about it, every action since the Big Bang was not actually a conscious action, but actually a reaction to everything that came before it, including how the human brain is wired and how my particular neurons in my brain fire. It's hard to think about.

[ozleicester]

1 minute ago, Sampson said:

I've been thinking about free will vs determinism recently and every time I do I just feel like the concept of free will is extremely unlikely and I find that hard to get my head round. 

Like, instinctively, how can you consciously override the neurons in your brain? If you go to a curtain shop and you may get a conscious thought in your brain that you decide to choose between striped pattern curtains or spotted pattern curtains. But then when you really think about it and what makes your neurons in your brains fire in that particular way - all the billions of things that have been fed into your brain by others and by your culture and family and teachers and tv and random people in the street and the laws of the land and society and mix that with your in built DNA and in built brain wiring. And that's not to mention that the human brain itself is only wired that way due to the non-choice-based/random process of evolution.

It just seems incredibly unlikely that no matter how much I can think about things in my head that every conscious thought I have in my head isn't just a result of billions of years of space dust slowly turning into this neuron-firing meat thing in my skull and all the billions of things that have gone in there since the day I was born, most of which I was entirely unconscious of.

I dunno, it just seems like a very far-fetched concept that I somehow have one part of my brain that can somehow override 14 billions years worth of nature and every second of my life experiences and that I can actively overpower this and that in fact when I think I overpower this that isn't just the way my neurons are set to fire given the situation of life I was in in that particular second and everything in the universe that has led up to it.

Like if I think about it, every action since the Big Bang was not actually a conscious action, but actually a reaction to everything that came before it, including how the human brain is wired and how my particular neurons in my brain fire. It's hard to think about.

yep

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, Sampson said:

I've been thinking about free will vs determinism recently and every time I do I just feel like the concept of free will is extremely unlikely and I find that hard to get my head round. 

Like, instinctively, how can you consciously override the neurons in your brain? If you go to a curtain shop and you may get a conscious thought in your brain that you decide to choose between striped pattern curtains or spotted pattern curtains. But then when you really think about it and what makes your neurons in your brains fire in that particular way - all the billions of things that have been fed into your brain by others and by your culture and family and teachers and tv and random people in the street and the laws of the land and society and mix that with your in built DNA and in built brain wiring. And that's not to mention that the human brain itself is only wired that way due to the non-choice-based/random process of evolution.

It just seems incredibly unlikely that no matter how much I can think about things in my head that every conscious thought I have in my head isn't just a result of billions of years of space dust slowly turning into this neuron-firing meat thing in my skull and all the billions of things that have gone in there since the day I was born, most of which I was entirely unconscious of.

I dunno, it just seems like a very far-fetched concept that I somehow have one part of my brain that can somehow override 14 billions years worth of nature and every second of my life experiences and that I can actively overpower this and that in fact when I think I overpower this that isn't just the way my neurons are set to fire given the situation of life I was in in that particular second and everything in the universe that has led up to it.

Like if I think about it, every action since the Big Bang was not actually a conscious action, but actually a reaction to everything that came before it, including how the human brain is wired and how my particular neurons in my brain fire. It's hard to think about.

You make a fair argument tbh.

 

I think differently, but the strongest counterargument I can make is that until we can prove that such a level of determinism exists that governs human behaviour (and we may never be able to because our very success or failure of that would be dictated by the very same) then the idea of free will can and must remain the null hypothesis for human behaviour, simply for the sake of our own sanity.

 

If people really got to know that they didn't have control of their own lives in at least some small way, then quite frankly I think a lot of them would take control of the one thing they still felt they did have control over (is suicide an act of free will or deterministic, I wonder?) and that really wouldn't be good for us as a species.

 

And looking at it from a more empirical perspective, we simply don't know nearly enough about how things operate at the most basic level to be sure either way right now. Both free will and determinism are as likely as each other due to that lack of data, IMO.

 

[Sampson]

46 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

You make a fair argument tbh.

 

I think differently, but the strongest counterargument I can make is that until we can prove that such a level of determinism exists that governs human behaviour (and we may never be able to because our very success or failure of that would be dictated by the very same) then the idea of free will can and must remain the null hypothesis for human behaviour, simply for the sake of our own sanity.

 

If people really got to know that they didn't have control of their own lives in at least some small way, then quite frankly I think a lot of them would take control of the one thing they still felt they did have control over (is suicide an act of free will or deterministic, I wonder?) and that really wouldn't be good for us as a species.

 

And looking at it from a more empirical perspective, we simply don't know nearly enough about how things operate at the most basic level to be sure either way right now. Both free will and determinism are as likely as each other due to that lack of data, IMO.

 

I disagree. I think a lack of free will has to remain the null hypothesis of human behaviour as that is the hypothesis of all fundamental human nature. No one believes the sea or the sun or the mountains have free will. Most people don't even believe trees or sunflowers or starfish or dogs or even chimpanzees have free will, yet you'll find the majority of people think they do have free will just because it feels like it. We are all made of the same fundamental parts of nature and your brain is just as much a piece of meat of physics, biology and chemistry as anything else in the universe and the human brain is as bound by their rules as anything. Therefore to say that the null hypothesis is that we have free will seems fundamentally unscientific imo and implies that human brains have some kind of special override mechanic that goes against everything else we know in nature.

Sanity is nothing to do with it really. I think you can still enjoy your life and enjoy the things that make you happy even if you believe you are just a slave to your pre-coded biology and the input of the world around you exactly as a computer programme or a robot or an amoeba is.

If anything I think it helps people to be more empathetic, more understanding of other people's mistakes and more caring to one another's flaws.

There are also all kinds of example in medical history of perfectly everyday people committing heinous crimes out of nowhere and they cannot explain why they suddenly thought that way or started committing these actions, only for it to turn out that they have tumours inhibiting parts of their brain - many serious mental illnesses have now been shown to be from the result of brain chemistry - to what extent is this different to just someone who has different neurological makeup in certain areas due to dna and past events? I'm not sure.

It seems as illogical to me that suicide is a free choice as much as any other choice, so I don't see why they'd be led to that conclusion really. If anything I would say suicide is usually a pretty straight forward example of the influence of other events and the current and past environment or of people's brain chemistry that all culminate at a very specific time. Plenty of animals with pretty undeveloped and instinctive brains commit suicide. I see no reason why a complex enough robot or AI would not have the ability to commit suicide in the culmination of certain past and present internal and external chemistry and environments either.

I disagree about the lack of data really. We do fundamentally know that brain activity is shown several seconds before someone makes a conscious choice. We also know that the brain is a physical and biologic construct which is bound by the laws of physics and biology as much as anything else. The idea that part of that brain can fundamentally overhaul the laws of that is borderline religious thinking that assumes that the human brain has something special inside it that can override pretty much everything we fundamentally know about nature and can control nature itself. The human brain is just as much quarks spinning and chemical electrons coupling and uncoupling as the flow of the oceans or the creations of thunder storms are and is governed by all the same rules.

I don't know if the universe is one long chain of cause and effect which could all be predicted or it is random dice rolls (I think quantum mechanics suggests there is a tiny element of randomness to it, but nothing that really plays its part in the space of our lifetime on our scale of size) - so i don't know whether if you pressed play on the big bang all over again whether the universe would end up exactly the same or not, but the idea that the human brain somehow has control to override this path of events that are either one long chain of cause and effect or quantum dice rolls just seems extremely far-fetched to me and bordering on old fashioned mythical concept of the soul a little bit.

Edited 14 December 2021 by Sampson

[leicsmac]

31 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I disagree. I think a lack of free will has to remain the null hypothesis of human behaviour as that is the hypothesis of all fundamental human nature. No one believes the sea or the sun or the mountains have free will. Most people don't even believe trees or sunflowers or starfish or dogs or even chimpanzees have free will, yet you'll find the majority of people think they do have free will just because it feels like it. We are all made of the same fundamental parts of nature and your brain is just as much a piece of meat of physics, biology and chemistry as anything else in the universe and the human brain is as bound by their rules as anything. Therefore to say that the null hypothesis is that we have free will seems fundamentally unscientific imo and implies that human brains have some kind of special override mechanic that goes against everything else we know in nature.

 

Not without data to prove the determinism IMO.

 

An equally compelling argument is that other animals act using free will in a way that we simply cannot comprehend because we cannot communicate with them sufficiently well.

 

31 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Sanity is nothing to do with it really. I think you can still enjoy your life and enjoy the things that make you happy even if you believe you are just a slave to your pre-coded biology and the input of the world around you exactly as a computer programme or a robot or an amoeba is.

If anything I think it helps people to be more empathetic, more understanding of other people's mistakes and more caring to one another's flaws.

 

People are going nuts right now over being mandated to take a vaccine that might save their lives and the lives of those around them because of the lack of freedom of choice, how do you think those people would react if you proved to them that nothing in their life was in their control and it was all dictated to by an outside force? They'd go insane, I'm not sure how that would be in question.

 

31 minutes ago, Sampson said:

It seems as illogical to me that suicide is a free choice as much as any other choice, so I don't see why they'd be led to that conclusion really. If anything I would say suicide is usually a pretty straight forward example of the influence of other events and the current and past environment or of people's brain chemistry that all culminate at a very specific time. Plenty of animals with pretty undeveloped and instinctive brains commit suicide. I see no reason why a complex enough robot or AI would not have the ability to commit suicide in the culmination of certain past and present internal and external chemistry and environments either.

 

I do actually agree with you here - if determinism is proven, then the choice of the "way out", as it were, would fall under its auspices too.

 

31 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I disagree about the lack of data really. We do fundamentally know that brain activity is shown several seconds before someone makes a conscious choice. We also know that the brain is a physical and biologic construct which is bound by the laws of physics and biology as much as anything else. The idea that part of that brain can fundamentally overhaul the laws of that is borderline religious thinking that assumes that the human brain has something special inside it that can override pretty much everything we fundamentally know about nature and can control nature itself. The human brain is just as much quarks spinning and chemical electrons coupling and uncoupling as the flow of the oceans or the creations of thunder storms are and is governed by all the same rules.
 

See above here - I think it isn't just a matter of human exceptionalism, but that of exceptionalism of all sapient beings that we simply don't know enough about yet.

 

I would agree, however, that there are some situations where brain chemistry can and does intervene directly and that is unavoidable. I just don't think that same idea applies in every area of human behaviour and interaction without conclusive proof. I think that we need to get to know a lot more about the area to be sure, but perhaps we disagree there.

 

There's a quote that I remember regarding this: "We are all subject to the Fates. But we must act if we are not, or die of despair."

Edited 14 December 2021 by leicsmac

[Sampson]

23 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Not without data to prove the determinism IMO.

 

An equally compelling argument is that other animals act using free will in a way that we simply cannot comprehend because we cannot communicate with them sufficiently well.

 

People are going nuts right now over being mandated to take a vaccine that might save their lives and the lives of those around them because of the lack of freedom of choice, how do you think those people would react if you proved to them that nothing in their life was in their control and it was all dictated to by an outside force? They'd go insane, I'm not sure how that would be in question.

 

I do actually agree with you here - if determinism is proven, then the choice of the "way out", as it were, would fall under its auspices too.

 

See above here - I think it isn't just a matter of human exceptionalism, but that of exceptionalism of all sapient beings that we simply don't know enough about yet.

 

I would agree, however, that there are some situations where brain chemistry can and does intervene directly and that is unavoidable. I just don't think that same idea applies in every area of human behaviour and interaction without conclusive proof. I think that we need to get to know a lot more about the area to be sure, but perhaps we disagree there.

I would say it's not about proving determinism, it's about proving free will because that's the one that is at complete odds with our model of the universe. I think quantum physics has proven quite conclusively that the universe is either deterministic or else has a tiny amount of randomness to it (which probably is not even noticeable at our scale within the scale of our lifetimes) - and that either of those options is fundamentally at odds with human free will. 

For me it boils down to this - our brains are made up of quarks and electrons and neutrons uncoupling and coupling up with other atoms just as much as anything else. I think in theory there's absolutely no scientifically reasonable reason to think that we shouldn't be able to isolate why we make every single decision we make if we knew enough about our brain chemistry and the physics behind all the quarks and electrons in there just as you could isolate about where exactly thunder storms will form 6,000 years in the future if you knew the placement of every molecule in the universe. I think the human brain could easily be "solved" exactly the same way as the genetic code was at the turning of the century, which used to seem impossible to scientists. I think as we build more and more complex AI we may even accidentally stumble over this.

Does the concept of free will though not fundamentally assume that we have freedom from our own brains, or even the power to override the laws of physics within our own brains by the free choice of our own brains? As the ability to make free choice surely implies that there is a particular section in our brains (and this section is made up of atoms coupling and uncouple a trillion times a second much like anything else) which can consciously override how our atoms and quarks are formed in our brains to cause a conscious choice to fire the neurons in our brain in a different way than they would have done otherwise if these atoms were just left up to the random or determined cause-and-effect nature of the universe (as they would if these atoms were in space, a mountain or a tree?

Even the fact that you are thinking about making a choice is just a collection of atoms coupling and uncoupling causing neurons to fire and that if human free will were to exist it would mean that something in the meat of the human brain could somehow control quantum physics and quantum probabilities?

So in that sense even the act of making a decision is surely either predetermined or random and if it isn't then the act of making a decision about making a decision is predetermined or random etc. etc. And once you peel it back far enough, you essentially get down to a point where everything that is going on in your brain is as predetermined or as random as anything else in the universe.

I'm not a scientist like you so I may be wrong about all this, but from an instinctive level everything about free will just seems entirely illogical because it almost implies by definition some kind of supernatural ability of the brain the override the laws of physics.

Edited 14 December 2021 by Sampson

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I would say it's not about proving determinism, it's about proving free will because that's the one that is at complete odds with our model of the universe. I think quantum physics has proven quite conclusively that the universe is either deterministic or else has a tiny amount of randomness to it (which probably is not even noticeable at our scale within the scale of our lifetimes) - and that either of those options is fundamentally at odds with human free will. 

For me it boils down to this - our brains are made up of quarks and electrons and neutrons uncoupling and coupling up with other atoms just as much as anything else. I think in theory you should be able to isolate why we make every single decision we make if we knew enough about our brain chemistry and the physics behind all the quarks and electrons in there just as you could isolate about where exactly thunder storms will form 6,000 years in the future if you knew the placement of every molecule in the universe. I think the human brain could easily be "solved" exactly the same way as the genetic code was at the turning of the century, which used to seem impossible to scientists. I think as we build more and more complex AI we may even accidentally stumble over this.

Does the concept of free will though not fundamentally assume that we have freedom from our own brains, or even the power to override the laws of physics within our own brains by the free choice of our own brains? As the ability to make free choice surely implies that there is a particular section in our brains (and this section is made up of atoms coupling and uncouple a trillion times a second much like anything else) which can consciously override how our atoms and quarks are formed in our brains to cause a conscious choice to fire the neurons in our brain in a different way than they would have done otherwise if these atoms were just left up to the random or determined cause-and-effect nature of the universe (as they would if these atoms were in space, a mountain or a tree?

Even the fact that you are thinking about making a choice is just a collection of atoms coupling and uncoupling causing neurons to fire and that if human free will were to exist it would mean that something in the meat of the human brain could somehow control quantum physics and quantum probabilities?

I'm going to be honest, you could well be right, and rationally it does make sense.

 

I just fear for the human response should it ever be proven conclusively that we are entirely bound by the fates in that way, though. I don't think that people could handle it.

[Sampson]

15 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I'm going to be honest, you could well be right, and rationally it does make sense.

 

I just fear for the human response should it ever be proven conclusively that we are entirely bound by the fates in that way, though. I don't think that people could handle it.

Fate is the wrong word I think and I think pre-determined is too as it suggests a higher power.

Whereas I more think that it's all either one long chain of events going back to the big bang (or likely even well before that) where if you played the big bang exactly the same things would happen OR there is a small element of randomness built into the universe so it wouldn't turn out exactly the same if you played the universe again from the big bang. But either way it seems far fetched that we would be able to control and actually effect either that randomness or chain of events in the universe within our own brain by our own brain.

I kind of get what you're saying. But that's true about human society as a whole, it's why we have had religion and political movements and football teams to support because we all want to feel part of something and like we have a story to tell. I think that's part of the bane of consciousness and the human condition sadly.

I don't think losing the faith of free will would cause any more destruction than losing the importance of religion has done really, thinking that you have no free will is not really is equivalent to thinking when you die you die and you don't go to an afterlife - most people won't go crazy or commit suicide because there's still friends and family and hobbies and just the want to see your friends and family grow up in this world. It won't stop you being with the person you love and wanting to live to see man land on Mars or Leicester win the Premier League, FA Cup, Champions League. I think like how a loss of religion can bring many people to a freer mindset and understand how authoritarian following religious doctrine can be, I also think a loss of belief in free will can cause people to become more empathetic and understand of other people's mistakes and behaviours. There's loads of other beliefs that you can latch onto, they say political ideology filled the void of religion in the post-enlightenment era after all.

Edited 14 December 2021 by Sampson

[leicsmac]

15 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Fate is the wrong word I think and I think pre-determined is too as it suggests a higher power.

Whereas I more think that it's all either one long chain of events going back to the big bang (or likely even well before that) where if you played the big bang exactly the same things would happen OR there is a small element of randomness built into the universe so it wouldn't turn out exactly the same if you played the universe again from the big bang. But either way it seems far fetched that we would be able to control and actually effect either that randomness or chain of events in the universe within our own brain by our own brain.

I kind of get what you're saying. But that's true about human society as a whole, it's why we have had religion and political movements and football teams to support because we all want to feel part of something and like we have a story to tell. I think that's part of the bane of consciousness and the human condition sadly.

I don't think losing the faith of free will would cause any more destruction than losing the importance of religion has done really, thinking that you have no free will is not really is equivalent to thinking when you die you die and you don't go to an afterlife - most people won't go crazy or commit suicide because there's still friends and family and hobbies and just the want to see your friends and family grow up in this world. It won't stop you being with the person you love and wanting to live to see man land on Mars or Leicester win the Premier League, FA Cup, Champions League. I think like how a loss of religion can bring many people to a freer mindset and understand how authoritarian following religious doctrine can be, I also think a loss of belief in free will can cause people to become more empathetic and understand of other people's mistakes and behaviours. There's loads of other beliefs that you can latch onto, they say political ideology filled the void of religion in the post-enlightenment era after all.

What is determinism, if taken as absolute, if not a "higher power" that determines the actions we are going to take and as such are beyond our control? Perhaps "fate" is the wrong word but the effect is the same IMO - what you do is based on circumstances beyond your control and laid out by a pattern you cannot influence and are merely part of.

 

Perhaps people would take that idea, if proven, less harshly than I think they might. But as you say, people like to have a sense of importance in themselves that often manifests itself around control of at least their own lives and belonging, it's the human condition. Knowing that such a belief is a lie would strip that away, in brutal fashion and I'm not sure how well people would take it.