The Experience of the Tragic

4. The Existential Limit of Prediction

Mental models are internal cognitive structures through which we interpret and predict the world. These models help us navigate life by constructing more or less accurate representations of reality. However, like any other tool, they are limited. Mental models, akin to filters of the mind through which we perceive the world, are inevitably simplifications based on experience and expectations, allowing us to interact with the environment more efficiently. Yet, as with any tool, these models cannot always reflect reality accurately, as the world does not always conform to the frameworks we impose upon it.

These ideas found continuation in Plato’s philosophy. In his famous allegory of the cave, Plato portrays people sitting in a dark cave, seeing only shadows cast by objects in front of a fire. These shadows represent a distorted perception of reality, taken to be truth because the cave’s inhabitants have never seen the light. Only the one who escapes the cave can behold the true reality hidden behind the shadows (Plato, 1990). Plato’s allegory symbolizes the limits of our perception, which reflects only a fragment of the full picture of the world.

Later, Immanuel Kant discussed that we do not perceive the world as it is as a Thing-in-itself (Ding an sich), but rather through the a priori forms of reason, thus helping us understand the nature of these limitations. Kant maintained that our knowledge of reality will always be constrained by the categories of reason, such as space, time, and causality, which are imposed upon our experience and do not exist in the world as a Thing-in-itself. (Kant, 1983) This means that human perception will always be bounded by these a priori forms, and we can understand and predict only those aspects of the world that conform to these frameworks..

The idea that our perception of the world is always limited was further developed in the later work of Thomas Bayes, whom we discussed earlier. Bayes used the example of the rising and setting sun to illustrate how our models of the world can be updated based on observations. For instance, a person emerging from a cave for the first time observes a sunrise and wonders: does this happen every day? With each new observation, the person updates their belief using Bayesian reasoning. Each additional sunrise strengthens the hypothesis that the sun indeed rises daily. However, should this prediction one day fail – if the sun does not rise or does not appear in the expected location – then the model of the world must be revised in light of the new data.

In this way, the Bayesian approach reveals a process of continuous updating of our mental models based on new observations, which also echoes Plato’s idea of seeking the true reality beyond distorted perception. Bayes emphasizes that the perception and prediction of the world are dynamic processes, always subject to revision, and that the reality we attempt to grasp may always run deeper than what our current model of perception allows.

These ideas were expanded upon by Nate Silver, who examined the principles of prediction under uncertainty. Silver argues that successful forecasting depends on the ability to distinguish between “signal” (important information) and “noise” (random or irrelevant data), a process closely related to Bayesian model updating. (Silver, 2019)

However, Silver goes further by emphasizing that not all models can be corrected by simply including new data. In a world full of uncertainty and randomness, many predictions fail even when the correct methodology is followed. He stresses how people often overestimate their ability to interpret data, relying on forecasts that seem plausible but are in fact driven by perceptual errors and cognitive biases. According to Silver, it is not enough to account for new data – we must also understand the context in which it arises. In this sense, as in the Bayesian framework, correcting mental models requires not only observation, but an awareness of the epistemic constraints we face in interpreting the world. Silver also highlights that the importance of “noise” in data is often underestimated, and that without the ability to separate noise from signal, we cannot build adequate predictive models, even with the most advanced analytical techniques.

Thus, like Bayes, Silver emphasizes the necessity of constantly reassessing our assumptions and revising our models of the world. However, unlike classical Bayesian theory, Silver underscores the difficulty of prediction in the real world, where signal is often hard to distinguish from noise, and our ability to make accurate forecasts remains inherently limited.

And yet, even though our mental models can be updated in response to new observations – despite the complexity of prediction – the process of adaptation is not infinite. When the world becomes too complex, or when our expectations encounter fundamentally novel and unpredictable phenomena, our models confront limits that cannot be overcome by ordinary means of correction. This presents the mind with an unbridgeable rupture – a moment when we are no longer able to adapt our predictions to reality.

In such moments, when even the most flexible models fail, the mind undergoes a crisis – a rupture caused by the impossibility of forecasting or understanding what is happening. This confrontation with uncertainty generates an existential tension that calls into question the very capacity of reason to make sense of the world. Despite all efforts at updating and revising our models, it becomes evident that human cognition inevitably encounters boundaries that cannot be transcended by any familiar predictive mechanism.

The Existential Limit of Prediction refers to the boundary at which the human brain encounters fundamentally unpredictable phenomena – phenomena that cannot be integrated into predictive models due to a lack of data, experience, or the capacity for error correction. When the brain reaches the limits of its cognitive capabilities, this results in an irresolvable cognitive conflict, giving rise to profound existential experiences.

The existential limit of prediction has served as a point of departure for the emergence of various philosophical movements such as pessimism, existentialism, and nihilism. These traditions arose from a confrontation with the boundaries of human understanding – moments in which conventional models of perceiving the world prove insufficient to account for profound existential questions and the radical uncertainty of existence. Errors that arise from encountering the existential limit may begin to escalate, spiraling into a state of despair that takes the form of philosophical pessimism, deep existentialism, or nihilism.

Philosophical pessimism, as a stance affirming the predominance of suffering or negativity in life, is directly linked to the inability to cope with uncertainty or to anticipate the future under conditions of profound crisis. When one is confronted with phenomena that defy incorporation into familiar models of meaning, the mind may begin to seek answers through extremes. The pessimistic worldview often rests on the acceptance of uncertainty and negative expectations as inevitable features of existence.

One notable example of pessimism is the philosophy of Philipp Mainländer, a German thinker who advanced the idea that existence is inherently marked by suffering and meaninglessness. His thought, focused on the idea of infinite suffering and the futility of life, stands as a striking example of how the existential limit may be interpreted as a tragic inevitability of the human condition. For Mainländer, life lacks any ultimate goal – a conclusion drawn from his experience of existential uncertainty, which leads to a deeply pessimistic worldview.

Another radical voice of pessimism is the philosopher Ulrich Horstmann (pseudonym of Klaus Steintal), whose thought takes the logic of pessimism to an extreme. In his controversial work Das Untier (“The Beast”), Horstmann argues that voluntary human extinction should be achieved through deliberate global thermonuclear destruction. He views existence as so fundamentally absurd and painful that, in his view, the only viable escape is the complete eradication of the human species. His philosophy represents an extreme form of misanthropic pessimism, wherein the experience of suffering and the futility of life culminates in a call for annihilation. (Horstmann, 2004)

Existentialism, in turn, emerged as a response to the awareness of these limits and the struggle with the fact that man cannot find absolute meaning in life, and his predictions and answers to existential questions turn out to be superficial or erroneous. Existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger set themselves the task of realizing freedom, responsibility and finitude, but their works often sound anxious and unrealizable in their full understanding of existence (Sartre, 1943; Heidegger, 1927)

Existentialism, in turn, emerged as a response to the recognition of these limits and the struggle with the fact that human beings are incapable of discovering any absolute meaning in life. Their predictions and answers to existential questions often prove superficial or flawed. Existentialist thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger sought to confront themes of freedom, responsibility, and finitude; yet their works are often permeated with a sense of anxiety and the unattainability of complete understanding of existence (Sartre, 1943; Heidegger, 1927).

However, existentialism may begin from mistaken premises about human nature, leading to extremes in interpretations of freedom and the search for meaning. If we understand existentialism as originating in an internal crisis, then philosophical systems like Heidegger’s can be seen as products of the impossibility of discovering ultimate meaning in a world where predictions about the future are inherently unstable or unreliable.

Nihilism may be understood as the most radical response to the existential limit of prediction. Nihilists assert that life possesses neither meaning nor value. They proceed from the conviction that all moral, social, and metaphysical foundations are ultimately meaningless. The notion that all human efforts to generate meaning are doomed to failure arises from a deep existential void – an experience that emerges when one is confronted with the boundaries of understanding.

Friedrich Nietzsche stands as a quintessential representative of this position. He describes the world as chaotic, devoid of inherent order or meaning. For Nietzsche, the world is a stage of struggle and suffering, and all human striving collapses into futility when it seeks meaning in a reality that offers none. He argues that traditional moral and religious frameworks are incapable of providing genuine meaning, and that the individual must forge their own path by confronting and overcoming this existential vacuum. In his work, one finds a direct confrontation with the existential limit – an acknowledgment that it is impossible to construct a cognitive model of the world that would resolve all contradictions or liberate humanity from existential darkness (Nietzsche, 2013).

Nihilism, developing out of a profound crisis of belief in our predictive capacities, can thus be viewed as the ultimate phase in the spiral of error. When one fails to resolve uncertainty, the mind may conclude that nothing exists beyond subjective perception – and, consequently, that nothing in the world truly matters. This leads to a wholesale rejection of all values and purposes.

Pessimism, existentialism, and nihilism are not merely abstract philosophical doctrines, but processes of predictive breakdown – born from erroneous expectations and overextended forecasts. What begins as an attempt to explain uncertainty or crisis can devolve into a spiral of extremity, amplifying the problem until it culminates in despair and philosophical nihilism. We will examine this in greater detail in Chapter 3.

These philosophies, to some extent, appear as logical consequences of how predictive errors and misjudgments about uncertainty can lead to radical reinterpretations of human nature and humanity’s place in the world. While they do not always offer solutions, they raise some of the most important questions about our capacity to construct meaningful lives in the face of uncertainty.

A more honest approach within the existentialist tradition is found in the work of Albert Camus. Camus highlights the moment when Sisyphus, the absurd hero of his essay, becomes aware of the futility of his existence and his condemnation to endless repetition (Camus, 1989). However, Camus does not propose a rejection of reality, but rather its acceptance. For Sisyphus, despite recognizing the absurdity of his condition, life does not lose its value. Sisyphus becomes happy precisely because he is conscious of his fate and embraces it – not with resignation, but with defiance. This acceptance is not passive, but an active act of rebellion through which he achieves inner freedom and harmony, continuing his labor despite its futility. Camus insists that while the struggle is absurd, it is precisely within this absurdity that meaning and joy can be found – if we abandon the search for final answers and accept reality as it is.

Chapter 2. Confronting the Unknown and Forms of Adaptation

In the first chapter, we arrived at the realization that the world as it is results from random interactions and self-organization, devoid of purpose or higher design. This understanding – alongside chaos and unpredictability – presents a profound existential challenge to the human mind. How is one to make decisions or act when the future cannot be forecasted?

In this chapter, we examine existential fears and the limits of human reason, such as free will, death, and the complete absence of meaning, through the lens of scientific and philosophical works. These are perennial themes, destined to persist as long as there exists a consciousness capable of self-reflection. Rather than reiterating the ideas of every great thinker of the past, we will focus on the contributions of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, insofar as their works have, in many respects, already synthesized the legacy of prior thought.

The following sections investigates free will as an adaptive instrument. We will examine its neurobiological and cognitive foundations, the influence of genetics and environment on its formation, and the illusory nature of the concept in the light of contemporary research. Through this lens, we will understand how free will functions as a means of imposing order on chaos and as a mechanism of adaptation in the face of the extreme complexity of existence.

1. Free Will as a Mode of Information Processing

Although the brain operates within specific laws and predictive mechanisms, we continue to experience a sense of free will. This is due to the fact that the brain does not process all incoming information directly, but instead works with the most probable hypotheses and models. As a result, we perceive ourselves as autonomous agents who make decisions, even though, at a deeper level, our brains are always functioning within deterministic frameworks. These predictive patterns simplify perception and enhance adaptive efficiency.

This also explains why we feel free even when, on a more fundamental level, the brain is guided by probabilistic models. The brain conserves energy by processing only the most likely events rather than the full spectrum of possible inputs, making it more flexible and adaptive. This economization allows for rapid responses to environmental changes without expending excessive cognitive resources. Ultimately, this generates the subjective experience of free will.

To clarify this argument, I draw attention in this book to Robert Sapolsky’s most recent work, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, which synthesizes neurobiology, genetics, endocrinology, evolutionary biology, and psychology to offer a comprehensive account of human behavior. I will not attempt a detailed exegesis of Sapolsky’s work here; Rather, I will isolate its core insights that help illuminate the nature of determinism and the fundamental questions it raises.

Robert Sapolsky is an American neuroendocrinologist, biologist, anthropologist, and author, renowned for his research on human behavior, its biological foundations, and the mechanisms of stress. He holds a professorship at Stanford University and has spent over three decades investigating how neurobiology, genetics, and environment interact to shape human behavior. Beyond his primary scientific contributions, Sapolsky is well known for his popular books, such as Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst and Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. These works challenge traditional conceptions of free will and moral responsibility by offering a biologically grounded perspective on human action.

Neurobiological Evidence

Sapolsky refers to the work of Michael Gazzaniga, who conducted research on patients with a severed corpus callosum, to illustrate the absence of free will. These “split-brain” patients exhibited striking examples of how consciousness constructs post hoc interpretations of actions that were not the result of deliberate decision-making. When one hemisphere performs an action, the patient is not always able to explain why it occurred. Gazzaniga discovered that the left hemisphere – responsible for language and narrative construction – frequently invents justifications for actions initiated by the right hemisphere. This demonstrates that conscious awareness is not necessarily aligned with the actual processes involved in decision-making.

“Neurobiology shows that we are often unaware of the true causes of our behavior. When the left hemisphere explains the actions of the right, it does so based on its own perceptions rather than on the actual cause” (Sapolsky, 2023).3

This example illustrates the notion that we perceive ourselves as free agents, yet many of our choices and actions stem from unconscious processes. The narrative self, primarily constructed by the left hemisphere, functions less as an origin of behavior and more as a retrospective interpreter – offering plausible, but not necessarily accurate, accounts of why we acted as we did.

The Illusion of Free Will

One of the central aspects of Sapolsky’s work is the concept of the “illusion of free will.” He argues that despite our conviction of having free choice, in reality, all our decisions are determined by biological, neurobiological, and social factors. We perceive ourselves as free agents because we are unable to consciously grasp the entire chain of mechanisms that actually lead to our behavior. Sapolsky uses the metaphor of an “illusion”: we see ourselves as free agents because we fail to notice the deeper underlying mechanisms influencing our actions.

“We believe we control our actions because we do not see the chain of biological factors leading to our decisions. It is simply an illusion that we make decisions consciously.”

He provides examples where reactions to external stimuli occur before we become consciously aware of them. For instance, when a person faces danger, their body may immediately respond based on instinctive reactions (such as an increase in adrenaline levels) before the individual consciously realizes what has happened. This confirms that our behavior is often predetermined by responses occurring at an unconscious level in the brain.

Genetics and Behavioral Influence

Sapolsky also emphasizes the importance of genetics in the determinism of our behavior. He cites examples of genetic mutations, such as changes in the MAOA gene, which are associated with increased predisposition to aggression. Such genetic influences can significantly alter behavior, and according to Sapolsky, these data demonstrate that our personality and behavior are largely predetermined by our genome rather than being the result of free choice.

“Genetics plays a major role in shaping our personality. Even traits such as a propensity for aggression can be predetermined by our genes.”

The Influence of Environment and Upbringing

Environment and upbringing also play a significant role in shaping our behavior. Sapolsky emphasizes how stressful events can strongly affect decision-making. In particular, stress can reduce our capacity for rational thought, making us more prone to impulsive decisions. This also confirms that our actions are largely predetermined by external circumstances rather than by free will.

“When we are under stress, our brain starts to function differently, which makes us more prone to aggression or impulsive acts. This means that even in moments of tension, our actions are determined.”

The Role of Neuropeptides and Hormones in Behavior

Sapolsky discusses in detail how hormones such as oxytocin can strongly influence our social interactions. He provides examples showing that an increase in oxytocin levels can make us more trusting and altruistic, while its decrease can lead to aggression and distrust.

“Hormones like oxytocin play a crucial role in our behavior. We cannot control their levels, and it is precisely they who often determine how we relate to other people.”

Decoherence and Classical Reality

In chapter nine of his work, Robert Sapolsky acknowledges that quantum mechanics violates classical Laplacian determinism at the subatomic level. However, as I will show further, quantum randomness does not provide grounds for the existence of free will. Let us begin with quantum decoherence.

Quantum decoherence is the loss of quantum coherence. Quantum decoherence has been studied in order to understand how quantum systems transform into systems explainable by classical mechanics. The theory, which emerged from attempts to deepen the understanding of quantum mechanics, developed in several directions, and experimental research confirmed some key points.

At the macroscopic level, quantum effects become “blurred” due to interaction of quantum systems with their environment. This process, called decoherence, explains why the macroscopic world is strictly deterministic.

Decoherence shows that quantum systems transition into states that appear classically deterministic to the observer. Thus, quantum uncertainty does not “penetrate” into the macroscopic world, where Newton’s laws dominate.

Bell’s Experiment

Bell’s experiment demonstrates that quantum mechanics violates Bell inequalities, indicating the presence of quantum nonlocality. This phenomenon is often interpreted as a challenge to classical notions of determinism. However, Sapolsky emphasizes that even quantum nonlocality does not provide “free will,” since outcomes still fully depend on the system’s parameters and its initial state.

Misinterpretations of quantum nonlocality are connected to the perception of quantum event randomness as an opportunity for the existence of will free from determining factors. However, quantum randomness does not make events free; it merely makes them unpredictable.

Physical Determinism and System Complexity

Pierre-Simon Laplace’s ideas that knowledge of all initial conditions could allow prediction of the future are discussed in the context of chaos theories and quantum uncertainty. Sapolsky points out that even in a complex physical system (such as the brain) no “freedom” arises; everything remains predetermined by physical laws. Despite the potential quantum uncertainty, its influence on the level of conscious decisions is minimal and does not rescue the concept of free will.

Laplace’s demon, according to Laplace’s theory, is a hypothetical entity which, knowing the position and velocity of every particle in the universe at a given moment in time, can precisely predict the future. If you understand the physical laws shaping the universe and know the exact position of every particle in it, you can precisely predict what happened at every moment from the beginning of time and what will happen at every subsequent moment until the end of time (Laplace, 1814). This means that everything that happens in the universe was destined to happen (in the mathematical, not theological, sense).