Cecil’s talk about a “god” and a “first cause” got me thinking.
This “first cause,” be it intelligent or merely mechanical, has started a chain reaction, creating of the universe, creating of our solar system, yada yada yada, creating life, to creating an individual. Now, when that individual makes a decision, there are chemical and electrical signals that cause it, which are caused by the signals before it, yada yada yada, set in motion by the “first cause”. All environmental factors that go into the decisions are also a result of the “first cause”. Therefore, everything is a straight line, with only one outcome possible, thus, predestination must exist and free will is merely an illusion. (This assumes the absence of what one might call a “soul” or some meddling, extraphysical influence(s) one might call “god(s)” either of which could alter the path set in motion by the “first cause”. This also renders the multiverse “theory” a bit limp, unless of course there are multiple first causes, but, as I tend to do, I digress) On the contrary, whether or not one did, is, and always will be making the same decision, in the frame of reference of an instant, that decision is still at the will of the individual, thus free will must exist.
So which is it, predestination, free will… or maybe… both?
Related question: ff you can’t know both the position and velocity of a particle, as Heiesenberg’s Uncertainty Principle says, does that mean that one can’t accurately predict at the quantum level? Thus the uncertainty principle solving the issue of predetermination because there is no plotable chain of events at that scale?
Tbh, while I hold the idea of free will in heavy skepticism, things like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and other parts of “Quantum Wierdness” make predetermination also more or less a non-option. It’s not free will, but rather uncontrolled randomness.
I think that the idea of free will as described is internally incoherent and actually rather frightening. Such a thing may be possible, but certainly not for human beings. It’s certainly not desirable at any rate.
That said, the existence of purely random processes like radioactive decay and chaos theory pretty much make determinism completely impossible as we know it.
How so, exactly? Strictly speaking there isn’t a “Free Will theory,” but a passal of them. Most suggest humans can choose what they choose: that given a range of alternatives humans may pick for whatever reason they wish. Good reasons or bad.
I don’t see how natural randomness disproves predeterminism. It’s certainly not an act of will to produce this randomness. For all we know it’s the work of unknown forces.
They don’t agree. Some believe in divine power, or that the universe we see is simply a reflection of “deeper” reality (which is certainly true), or that the brain does actively discard some ifluences and accepts others.
And if the decision was made as a product of previous influences and preferences (which may or may not have been initiated by the actor) how could there have been any outcome other than what the person selected unless there was an outside actor - which pretty obviously subverts free will - or some kind of random process in the decision-making - which also subverts free will, since you do not choose random processes?
It seems pretty clear to me that if one perfectly recreated all of the previous events of your life, no matter how trivial, that went into the lead-up of your decision of deciding to go with banana ice cream over chocolate that no matter how many time you repeated the experiment you’d always go with banana. The choice is pretty much an illusion as you were railroaded into picking banana ice cream well before that. Can you think of how someone would decide to go with chocolate ice cream without some kind of outside or internally random influence?
It would seem that all you’re really saying here is that you’re unable to imagine free will. You insist that any thing which I perceive as a choice must be the result of “some kind of outside or internally random influence”. But to me and most other people, it’s simply natural to experience my own actions as my choices. I’m at the ice cream stand and multiple paths of action are open before me. I can order chocolate or banana or strawberry or mint or even, if I desire something truly outrageous, rocky road with colored sprinkles. The actor, myself, mentally assesses the possibilities and by an act of will picks one of them.
The notion that my choice is predetermined doesn’t match up with the best experimental evidence we have, namely that when I go to the same ice cream stand multiple times in very similar circumstances, I do not order the same thing every time. Obviously this is not a perfect experiment, but it is the best we can do. As for the notion that any repeated human choice which isn’t predetermined must be random, your argument seems to use that as an axiom rather than as a conclusion that can be logically reasoned to.
One issue the Uncertainty Principle suggests is that some things cannot be known as we would like. Those random or seemingly-random changes destroy our ability to predict small events. WHile large events aggregate, they are still subject to randomness.
Though it’s not absolutely known to be a factual problem. Other posters disagreed with me on this very point in the past, saying that simply because we can’t know it does not mean it cannot be known ahead of time by some theoreticaly super-analysis. I would answer that it most certainly does: The Uncertainty Principle implies that the information does not, and never can, exist. If the information does not exist, it cannot be known by any knowledge.
The only way 'round this is the possibility that, were we outside time and able to observe perfectly, then the problem would not for us exist. it wouldn’t matter when an event occurred or how the randomness shaped events, because we see before and after the event.
Ultimately, any Will - you can call it Free or not; the phrase means nothing more or less than the ability to choose between Good and Evil, True or Untrue - either exists or it does not. If it exists, it exists in a particular degree. If you cannot choose, however, then even the act of debating is a philosophical nullity. You don’t believe in the things you argue for, and the trueness or falsity is completely irrelevant to your belief.
Yeah; it’s not that we’re not technically competent enough yet to determine both the position and momentum of a particle, it’s that that information cannot be known at all.
Something to do with it just being probability smears or some such. Goes well beyond me.
“Free will” and “having choices” are not the same thing. I’m predisposed, through experience, to pick chocolate ice cream. After a few times, I might get bored of chocolate and be predisposed to make a change, so I get strawberry. Another time, I might be feeling adventurous and pick rocky road, but I’d be predisposed to it by feeling adventurous.
Free will suggests that I’d have an equal chance of picking any flavour, every time, with no preference for one over the others. Without that pre-determined preference, it would be impossible for me to make a choice.
Well, that we pretty much know isn’t true. Matter hasn’t always been here, and won’t always be here (the accelerating universe leads to the Big Rip), and time began with the Big Bang.
To me free will does not suggest any such thing. Everyone can tell that for any human being in any situation, there are an unlimited number of possible courses of action opening up, but a fairly small proportion have any likelihood of happening. Right now, for instance, I could finish writing this post or I could stand up and walk around the room. Both those possibilities have a decent likelihood. On the other hand, the possibility of me simply ramming my head into the wall over and over until
I pass out, while it is one of the courses of action open to me, is extremely unlikely.
Everyone knows that among all things that are physically possible for us to do, only a very small sliver of them are reasonable things to do.
Yes and no: As far as we know, the unvierse simply didn’t exist at some point. It’s ahrd to use tersm like, “Before the universe existed,” because as far as we can tell there was no “before” for there to be. That is, it didn’t exist before there was time for it to exist.
We can still comprehend that other causes may have gone before the existence of our form of time. Other universe might exist, and probably do. This universe is likely neither the first nor the last (if the terms first and last mean anything). Many scientists think that black holes spawn new universes frmo the singularity point.
However, we don’t know of any way to contact any such universes, which might have extremely similar or extremely different natural laws, and doing so simply may not be possible, at least from this end. Given enough universes, one would presumably have sufficiently flexible laws to allow them to work something from their end.
Now, as to this universe’s end, that’s something we can’t quite predict. Given a logn enough period, there are four possibilities:
1: The universe tears itself to nothing.
2: The universe, all energy and matter having decayed, grows perfectly even, cold and dark.
3:The universe collapses back down, possibly leading to another Big Bang, possibly after #2.
4: The hella I know, foo?! Mr. T don’t need no stinking physics!
Matter did not exist in the early existence of the universe. It was all energy. It was hundreds of thousands of years till it cooled enough for matter.
So matter did not always exist. We know of a time in our own universe when it didn’t.
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We can still comprehend that other causes may have gone before the existence of our form of time. Other universe might exist, and probably do. This universe is likely neither the first nor the last (if the terms first and last mean anything). Many scientists think that black holes spawn new universes frmo the singularity point.
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There’s no “likely” about it at all. There are various theories (none of which have a shred of evidence) but you are overestimating scientific consensus on this.
Nobody thinks it will recollapse. The discovery that expansion was accelerating put paid to that theory in 1998.
Current consensus is infinite expansion. Matter will cease to be in this model.