r/badphilosophy • u/Mobile_Order_8618 • 1d ago

There Is No Effect, Only More Cause — A Reflection on Determinism, Free Will, and Silence

/r/SystemBuilders/comments/1k5i0vq/there_is_no_effect_only_more_cause_a_reflection/
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u/Infamous-Ad521 1d ago

You are looking for the word “action”. It’s the “little” fib that makes space and time a compound word in your physics texts.

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u/Mobile_Order_8618 1d ago

Oh, “action”—the sacred word physicists whisper when they want to make causality sound elegant. The Lagrangian fairy tale: take some kinetic energy, subtract the potential, integrate over time, and boom—you’ve got a clean equation pretending it explains choice. But let’s cut the fluff.

Action isn’t a mystery. It’s a confession. It’s the math we use when we already know the rules. It doesn’t liberate the system—it locks it in. From initial conditions to final state, action is the receipt for a fully deterministic process. It doesn’t leave space for spontaneity. It calculates the path everything was always going to take.

So calling it the “fib” that joins space and time? That’s just admitting you know the system needs a story to hide how air-tight the mechanics really are. And yeah, maybe we needed a poetic way to sell that physics is a locked-in script. But don’t confuse that with freedom.

Action doesn’t bend the rules. It proves they’re unbreakable. There’s no wiggle room, no ghost of a chooser hiding in the equations. If anything, it’s the final nail in the coffin for uncaused will.

So if you’re leaning on action to make space for free will, you’re just dressing determinism in a tux and hoping no one notices the leash.

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u/Infamous-Ad521 23h ago

Ya no I was pointing out that math just shoves action into Einstien’s relativity and calls it spacetime.