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Yes, this is a thread on TL that involves religion, but I hate to think that our policy should be to blindly close every such thread. Sam Harris is a writer whose books are both insightful and have sparked many good discussions in the past and as long as the thread doesn't derail I'd like to leave it open. This should be the basic premise for every such thread, no matter how high the odds of it derailing. In that light, these posts that just predict the downfall of this thread (whether it be pre-determined or not) are 1) Not contributing to the discussion 2) Backseat moderating 3) Annoying 4) Actually contributing towards derailing it. I'll keep 2 daying people for this. | ||
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Gegenschein
Canada107 Posts
On March 11 2012 22:25 paralleluniverse wrote: But the universe is not deterministic, the universe is random. What are MiraMax and you are arguing about, then? It seems you both believe that the universe is random. : D | ||
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
On March 11 2012 22:32 Gegenschein wrote: What are MiraMax and you are arguing about, then? It seems you both believe that the universe is random. : D MiraMax believes we have free will, because he can choose to do what is on a randomly drawn card. I'm saying you have no choice in that. You were always going to do that. The randomness in the universe is at the subatomic level, it doesn't in general apply to macro-objects like people, cards, computers, etc. | ||
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Maenander
Germany4926 Posts
On March 11 2012 22:37 paralleluniverse wrote: MiraMax believes we have free will, because he can choose to do what is on a randomly drawn card. I'm saying you have no choice in that. You were always going to do that. The randomness in the universe is at the subatomic level, it doesn't in general apply to macro-objects like people, cards, computers, etc. There are quite a number of macroscopic dynamic systems that are so sensitive to initial conditions that any randomness at the (sub)atomic level will make them unpredictable even on small timescales. So what exactly are you trying to say? Confining "the randomness of the universe" to the subatomic level does not work. Btw as long as it is impossible for anyone in the universe to predict the future it doesn't matter if the universe is deterministic or not, there will always be the illusion of free will. Free will is a concept that has its place more in psychology than in physics anyway. | ||
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MiraMax
Germany532 Posts
On March 11 2012 22:37 paralleluniverse wrote: MiraMax believes we have free will, because he can choose to do what is on a randomly drawn card. I'm saying you have no choice in that. You were always going to do that. The randomness in the universe is at the subatomic level, it doesn't in general apply to macro-objects like people, cards, computers, etc. To try to be even more precise: I am arguing that the possible fact that "I was always going to do X (in the sense that only one actual world possibly exists) does not and cannot even in principle limit my 'freedom' of choice in any relevant, comprehensible sense of the words "freedom" and "choice". My evolution example was meant to show that by following your train of thought, I could insist that it is 'really' false to say that "evironmental conditions X at point in time t select for the procreation of organism Y" because this would imply that organism "Y" was not selected for in any possible world. Since only the actual world is possible, organism Y was necessarily procreating, nothing was 'really' selected for and thus there is nothing to learn from such an observation. Our accepted "explanations" don't work like that. They allow us to consider counterfactuals and say: "Were environmental conditions X not present, but environmental conditions Z, organism Y could not have been selected for at time t". In exactly the same relevant sense I claim it is true to say that "had I not chosen to do X, I could have chosen to do Y at time t" irrespective of whether in actuality I chose X as a consequence of a chain of deterministic processes which were started at the beginning of the universe. This is all the relevant freedom I could ever have and want to have with regard to choices irrespective of determinism or indeterminism or the like. | ||
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
On March 11 2012 22:55 MiraMax wrote: To try to be even more precise: I am arguing that the possible fact that "I was always going to do X (in the sense that only one actual world possibly exists) does not and cannot even in principle limit my 'freedom' of choice in any relevant, comprehensible sense of the words "freedom" and "choice". My evolution example was meant to show that by following your train of thought, I could insist that it is 'really' false to say that "evironmental conditions X at point in time t select for the procreation of organism Y" because this would imply that organism "Y" was not selected for in any possible world. Since only the actual world is possible, organism Y was necessarily procreating, nothing was 'really' selected for and thus there is nothing to learn from such an observation. Our accepted "explanations" don't work like that. They allow us to consider counterfactuals and say: "Were environmental conditions X not present, but environmental conditions Z, organism Y could not have been selected for at time t". In exactly the same relevant sense I claim it is true to say that "had I not chosen to do X, I could have chosen to do Y at time t" irrespective of whether in actuality I chose X as a consequence of a chain of deterministic processes which were started at the beginning of the universe. This is all the relevant freedom I could ever have and want to have with regard to choices irrespective of determinism or indeterminism or the like. Your point about experiments making no sense in a deterministic universe is rather wonky, and is something I've already addressed in a previous post. The universe follows physical laws, so it's no surprise that even in a deterministic universe, when we make a experiment, we would be measuring these laws in some sense. Then it is obviously not surprising that we can ask what would happen if we applied these laws to some particular situation. It would make sense if the situation was in the past and never occurred, such as what would happen on earth if dinosaurs weren't wiped out. It would make sense if the situation was something that is likely to occur in the future, such as how to make more efficient solar panels. It would make sense if the situation was a timeless property of the universe, such as how much vacuum energy there is in an empty unit of space. It always makes sense to ask legitimate questions of science. Your argument taken to the extreme seems to imply, if we are in a deterministic universe, then we should immediately cease all science, because it is ultimately pointless. | ||
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MiraMax
Germany532 Posts
On March 11 2012 23:41 paralleluniverse wrote: Your point about experiments making no sense in a deterministic universe is rather wonky, and is something I've already addressed in a previous post. The universe follows physical laws, so it's no surprise that even in a deterministic universe, when we make a experiment, we would be measuring these laws in some sense. Then it is obviously not surprising that we can ask what would happen if we applied these laws to some particular situation. It would make sense if the situation was in the past and never occurred, such as what would happen on earth if dinosaurs weren't wiped out. It would make sense if the situation was something that is likely to occur in the future, such as how to make more efficient solar panels. It would make sense if the situation was a timeless property of the universe, such as how much vacuum energy there is in an empty unit of space. It always makes sense to ask legitimate questions of science. Your argument taken to the extreme seems to imply, if we are in a deterministic universe, then we should immediately cease all science, because it is ultimately pointless. Exactly! With the only caveat that it is not originally "my argument" taken to the extreme, but in fact what is implied if "your argument" is taken to the extreme. We can setup exactly the same kind of experiments for testing the consequences of free will and 'real' choices and none of our findings there are compromised by the possible fact that it was all predetermined to be so in the particular situation of the experiment. That is exactly why determinism cannot take anything away from the power and validity of any explanation including free will. Our will is free because we have real choices, because we can act otherwise even if this is only in the sense of counterfactuals, because if actuality is the only 'really possible' world any and all alternatives are 'merely' counterfactual, including our alternative modes of action. Or you conclude that free will is only an "illusion" since all things could never be otherwise (including our choices), but then any other explanation above the level of "basic constituents and the deterministic law(s) governing them", like evolution or gravity are just "illusions" of regularity. I find this latter view unintuitive since it seemingly fails to fully account for their predictive power. I would happily agree that free will is "as illusory" as is gravity, however. Would you? | ||
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
On March 12 2012 00:12 MiraMax wrote: Exactly! With the only caveat that it is not originally "my argument" taken to the extreme, but in fact what is implied if "your argument" is taken to the extreme. We can setup exactly the same kind of experiments for testing the consequences of free will and 'real' choices and none of our findings there are compromised by the possible fact that it was all predetermined to be so in the particular situation of the experiment. That is exactly why determinism cannot take anything away from the power and validity of any explanation including free will. Our will is free because we have real choices, because we can act otherwise even if this is only in the sense of counterfactuals, because if actuality is the only 'really possible' world any and all alternatives are 'merely' counterfactual, including our alternative modes of action. Or you conclude that free will is only an "illusion" since all things could never be otherwise (including our choices), but then any other explanation above the level of "basic constituents and the deterministic law(s) governing them", like evolution or gravity are just "illusions" of regularity. I find this latter view unintuitive since it seemingly fails to fully account for their predictive power. I would happily agree that free will is "as illusory" as is gravity, however. Would you? Gravity is not an illusion. There are laws governing gravity. Free will, on the other hand, is a violation of the physical laws, and therefore absurd. Determinism does not compromise experiments, because the underlying thing we are experimenting on is governed by physical laws that the experiment will pick up. Counterfactuals still make sense in a deterministic universe, because having learned about the laws of nature we can ask what would happen when they are applied to certain situations. This helps us with future predictions. To think that in a deterministic universe we should cease all science is confusing determinism with fatalism. It's like saying, if the universe is deterministic, why do anything at all? Firstly, not doing anything is doing something and will lead to certain outcomes likely unfavorable, secondly if the universe is deterministic, you have no choice, if you do nothing you were always going to do nothing. Applied to science, doing no science is stupid because it would stop human progress, secondly, we would have no choice on whether we stopped doing science or not, it was already determined. | ||
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xrapture
United States1644 Posts
On March 11 2012 22:37 paralleluniverse wrote: MiraMax believes we have free will, because he can choose to do what is on a randomly drawn card. I'm saying you have no choice in that. You were always going to do that. The randomness in the universe is at the subatomic level, it doesn't in general apply to macro-objects like people, cards, computers, etc. Even if the universe was random, wouldn't that still be an argument against free will? If everything is random you obviously have no control of your actions. | ||
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SiroKO
France721 Posts
It's a matter of definition, like often in philosophy. If you choose an overly stupid definition of free-will, then that quote of Nietzsche obviously shred it to pieces far better than the 42 previous pages on TL Nietzsche in the Ante-Christ The desire for "freedom of will" in the superlative, metaphysical sense, such as still holds sway, unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated, the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one's actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society therefrom, involves nothing less than to be precisely this causa sui, and, with more than Munchausen daring, to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the slough of nothingness. | ||
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Pahimarus
United States17 Posts
On March 05 2012 21:37 paralleluniverse wrote: The only reason theologians and religious people latch on to the completely unscientific notion of free will is to "explain" why bad things happen. If God is good, then why did he let the genocide in Rwanda happen? Why does he not intervene in the the mass-murder being conducted by the Syrian government, as we speak? Why is there evil in the world. Because God gave us free will, allegedly. This is then neatly tied into the Original Sin myth, whereby Eve exerted free will and chose to eat from the Garden of Eden, and this frivolous reason somehow necessitated that Jesus die on the cross. Or perhaps those theologians disagree with your fundamental assumption that the laws of science are the only laws that govern the universe. Every belief system has a set of philosophical underpinnings which are assumptive in nature and cannot be proven. I think it is unfair for you to judge the ideas of the 'theologians' strictly on the basis of your own philosophical assumptions. Essentially you are using the internal consistency of their argument as evidence of fabrication, yet at the same time arguing that your argument is correct because it is itself internally consistent. If one of these "theologians" was to come to you and argue that your view was wrong on the basis of the teaching of the Bible (and I would be surprised if someone hasn't  ), I suspect you would be spectacularly unconvinced by their arguments since you reject their fundamental belief that scripture is an authoritative source of knowledge. Similarly, since they reject your belief that science is the only authoritative source of knowledge, your argument that science "proves" free will to be impossible, is essentially irrelevant. | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
I think people are too obsessed with this idea of choosing decisions. It's deeper than that. Your consciousness is also determinable by physical and chemical properties. What you want and what you desire are determinable if you somehow know everything. It's not like you don't want things and you're just following "destiny." It's that your wants and desires are also determinable, and they react with your environment and everything around you. It's even worse than that. Because we react to abstract concepts as well. Now, I have no idea how abstract concepts are represented with chemical and physical reactions. I have no idea, but that seems to be the case. If I arrange a meeting with my friend Joe at 5:00 at the park. I recognize that at 4:45 I need to leave so I get to the park in time to meet Joe. Somehow, this is represented chemically and physically. Your understanding of these words is also represented chemically and physically. Once you realize the depth at which things are "determinable," you begin to realize that the discussion seems rather silly. What does it matter if everything about you is fundamentally determinable? Does that somehow reduce meaning of your life or consciousness? Does that somehow mean life, misery, and happiness, is meaningless? Not really. It doesn't really affect things. Your will is still your will, and your choices are still your choices. Responsibility doesn't even go away, because we do react to ideas of "self-control" and "law." So of course the world is determinable. On March 12 2012 01:15 Pahimarus wrote: Or perhaps those theologians disagree with your fundamental assumption that the laws of science are the only laws that govern the universe. Every belief system has a set of philosophical underpinnings which are assumptive in nature and cannot be proven. I think it is unfair for you to judge the ideas of the 'theologians' strictly on the basis of your own philosophical assumptions. Essentially you are using the internal consistency of their argument as evidence of fabrication, yet at the same time arguing that your argument is correct because it is itself internally consistent. If one of these "theologians" was to come to you and argue that your view was wrong on the basis of the teaching of the Bible (and I would be surprised if someone hasn't ), I suspect you would be spectacularly unconvinced by their arguments since you reject their fundamental belief that scripture is an authoritative source of knowledge. Similarly, since they reject your belief that science is the only authoritative source of knowledge, your argument that science "proves" free will to be impossible, is essentially irrelevant.What evidence is there that there are any other laws that govern reality? He is simply using the rules of evidence and falsification to determine what's true. That's objective. And "science" is fundamentally true, as it is basically just the understanding of how Reality works. If religion disagrees with science, then you are literally saying that religion disagrees with reality. Reality wins. That should be obvious. And if something isn't internally consistent then it is necessarily false. I don't know what you mean by that. If something is internal inconsistent and true, then it must be trivial. See the principle of explosion. | ||
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SpiritoftheTunA
United States20903 Posts
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
On March 11 2012 04:31 LaughingTulkas wrote: We need to do it as opposed to what? What is our other choice (if all our choices are determined)? Do you understand now? You're still concluding that we need to act as if we had free choice, but we don't under the assumptions are you already granted (complete determinism). Lets say I grant you (irrationally) that good and evil exits objectively in some way in a deterministic universe. How do I choose good over evil if all my choices are determined? And then it follows if neither evil or good can be chosen, how can I myself be good or evil? Are they words which really contain meaning in a determined world? And the obvious conclusion is no, they do not hold meaning, and so we conclude that our original assumption was wrong, and that they do not exist. I don't think this world is deterministic, but influenced by true randomness which cannot be controlled. For the good-or-evil question this has little impact, though, as I agree that there is no free will. But there is will and desire. One can feel pain and joy. Even if a murder did not do it because of he free will (since free will is an illusion) he still did it with intent to harm. This is evil. Lets talk about two situations. A man kills his girlfriend. He admits that he did it because he suspected her to not be faithful. Anyone who talks to that person considers the man mentally intact, but he has the view that he owns his girl so that he can kill her if she is not faithful. The second situation is similar. A man kills his girlfriend, but as he is brought before a judge it soon becomes clear that he is not sane. He felt haunted and truly believes that his action was justified. While the outcome is the same, I see the question of guilt very different. If one kills (or commits another crime) even though he is capable to reason, he did something evil. If someone kills someone (or commits another crime) with no intent to harm, he did something bad, not not something evil. Regardless of free will. The possession of reason renders you responsible. It also allows for an "ought". Even with no free will, I see an ought to do good. This now looks like a biiig contradiction. I will have to think this through. edit: I didn't even finished the Moral Landscape yet. When I am done, should I read Harris's Lying next, or Free Will? | ||
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run.at.me
Australia550 Posts
From a philosophical point of view, and not a scientific one, when I was like 14 I argued that we never 'choose' to do anything, every decision we are going to make we didn't 'choose' to make it.. The basis of my argument was that I didn't 'choose' which parents I had, or my intellectual capabilities, and every decision I made was just a result of past experiences, stimuli, etc etc. And then gathered that no one is essentially 'responsible' for their actions, in the sense that, they didn't choose to behave the way they did for the reasons mentioned above. From what I gather, the deterministic argument uses physical laws to reach a similar conclusion that I had made, in that the laws of the universe govern the chemistry of our brain, etc etc as all deterministic posters have explained. Combining the two notions, nature and nurture, wouldn't it be theoretically possible to create a formula that uses all past events (yes, specific to each person, stepping on a rock to having alcoholic parents or whatever)- bound by the laws of the universe, to predict future events? What I imagined this formula to be is a number of constants, (laws of universe) and several probability functions (likelihood of x occurring given y), This is where I find it hard to be deterministic, because the deterministic perspective says that it is not a probability of x occurring - as x was always going to occur. Logically, that suggests we could determine future events, in which case, we could change future events by changing the present (causal factors), which nullifies the notion that it is predetermined. It becomes a big loop, and is incomprehensible. I feel like I am confusing concepts here, and if so please correct me... I believe that there is a probability that an action is going to occur given (constants, and causal factors), and if you regressed 'life' i guess, the probability functions are what I would call 'free will' even though bound by several constraints | ||
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Don.681
Philippines189 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + On March 06 2012 13:16 Don.681 wrote: This is the thought process that convinced me that there is no free will: Start from 1 particle. Imagine that the universe is just 1 particle. I don't know what kind of particle it is or what are it's properties but imagine it's alone. It has nothing to react to. It just sits there. Does it have free will? What is required for this particle to get free will? Add another particle. It can be same as the first one or a unique particle with properties different form the 1st. Does each of the 2 particles have free will? Do the 2 particles have free will when thought of collectively? What is required for this set of particles to get free will? Add more particles. Every time you add 1 ask the questions I asked above. At some point, you reach the number of particles in the universe. At what point will there be an answer, "yes, this set of particles have free will"? Now, I would like to tackle complexity. The argument for free will (FFW) is that once you have the particles that compose a human, those set of particles have free will. This is because the distinct configuration of the human form, which includes the human brain, allows the human set of particles to act free and on it's own. So argument #1 FFW: individual and sets of particles under the laws of the universe do not have free will. However, sets of particles reaching a certain complexity in a certain configuration still under the laws of the universe can have free will. Another possible argument, #2 FFW: Something or someone outside the laws of the universe allows humans to have free will. This is where religion and mysticism come in. Frankly, there is no point arguing against this but I would like to state this here for reference. Now, the argument against free will (AFW) is that everything in the universe is governed by the laws of the universe. No mater how complex and no mater how the configuration --weather the nature of the laws deterministic or random-- unless you invoke agument #2 FFW, nothing can have free will. Nothing can go against the laws. You cannot break the laws unless you break the universe itself. Determinism or randomness is moot. The question is autonomy. Acting alone and by which mechanism. A will is one thing, but a will free from the universe is another. Lets start with 1 cell. Previously, my thought process discussed only particles. But since the argument #1 FFW tackles how special the human configuration is, we go directly to what comprises it. Obviously 1 Cell does not have free will. AFW: 1 Cell does not have free will. 1 Sperm does not have it, 1 Egg does not have it, 1 Neuron does not have it. FFW: Agreed, 1 Cell is too simple, of course it does not have free will. Now comes the complexity argument. I've googled that the estimate for the number of cells in the human body is 6X10 to the power of 13. That's a lot. We can argue on and on, but I don't think it would be explained anytime soon how a certain configuration of 6x10^13 cells can or cannot have free will. However, as I've said. Lets start with one Cell. Lets look at how the human body reaches that number starting from cell 1. Basic biology teaches us that we start with 1 fertilized egg that divides into a few trillion. So naturally, free will comes in somewhere in between. AFW: An embryo, a fetus, a child or an adult --nope, they are all the same. There is no free will. Yes, we become sentient and self aware at some point, but that's all that it is. We can process more information than any other configuration in the universe, and base actions/decide from that.. but that's it. We are merely interfacing with the universe as with any other living thing or object. Our concepts of morality and science and religion and mysticism and this idea of free will is also a result of that. FFW: No, sometime in human development, free will is gained. The complexity of the human configuration allows it to autonomously act. AFW: So we need to define When/Where does this happen exactly.. Or, just an estimate.. Sometime between a baby's first word and fertilization perhaps? Is it exclusive to the human configuration? Does a Dog have free will as well? | ||
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
On March 08 2012 18:42 EatThePath wrote: What...? That means it's either true or undecidable. I've been flirting with responding in this thread, but nothing has really presented itself as a good launchpad. The topic of religion is a distraction. But this has grabbed me because it's both the point, and an introduction to the thing that this thread has missed so far. You're right -- this argument is purely pedantic because it can't affect the life you live. Indeed, your perception is always that you have free will, and make decisions for yourself. Even if you admit that free will doesn't exist, you still experience it constantly. As far as anyone can say, functionally we have free will. Think about that. Functionally we have free will. This is the explanation of the problem. That being, it is rather easy to reason that there is no free will, or at the very least "free will" is a meaningless term. We experience free will because we cannot know what our choices will be. They arise as the product of unthinkably many real physical events. Some of these may be literally impossible to know/observe/measure, if the veil of quantum mechanics is never pierced. In any case it's impossible to know all of the things that go into a choice. This is more than just because it's an unwieldy task. The physical cost of observation and computation prohibits it. The universe is bounded, and cannot perfectly observe itself. As an aside, think of Godel's theorem in analogue, if that helps. Anyway, it's literally physically impossible to attain the perfect information and compute it in a way that would demonstrate what a choice would be before it is made. Put another way, it's impossible to build a universe-predictor, because we are within the universe. The only way to learn the choice is to watch everything play out... and see the thing itself. To come back to our individual experience: what is that other than one's observation of one's self? This is indeed just self awareness, consciousness. Thus, we experience free will as a retroactive phenomenon. This is not at odds with a deterministic universe; it is in fact the result thereof. At heart, this puzzle can be understood most broadly under the umbrella of thermodynamics. In a way it is rather liberating. A deterministic universe provides knowable things but we can't ever know them all! Not even what we will do next. This book walks you through everything I just tried to say; it's very neatly done. There's some random topical stuff but the core is well worth the read. I think your post raises many interesting points, which I agree with. We certainly feel like we have free will, and for all intents and purposes of living life, that is sufficient. However, your claim that we feel like we have free will because we cannot trace through the billions of variables that affect our choices to the origin of that choice, is an argument I've heard before. I think it's probably true, and it does make sense, although I'm not as convinced of its truth as some of the other things I've claimed in this thread. However, I offer a possible complementary explanation below. I also agree with your argument that in a deterministic universe, it's not possible to know everything, and so there is still point in learning and doing science. This is another good counter against the argument that doing science in a deterministic universe is pointless, as someone in several posts above has been arguing. Coincidentally, I've also said a very similar thing to your claim that we experience free will as a retroactive phenomenon, on the previous page of this thread, although it might be possible that I've misinterpreted what you meant by this statement. I said that motivations arise in the brain as a result of stimulus, genetics, experiences, influences, etc, and none of this is free. So while motivations do not arise freely in the brain, the fact that humans are able to act out their motivations, makes actions which seem like a free exercise of ones will, actually a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby one does according to their own motivations, which did not freely arise. So one's feeling of free will is the feeling that one has the ability to act out motivations that are genuinely theirs, although these motivations didn't freely arise. | ||
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MiraMax
Germany532 Posts
On March 12 2012 00:20 paralleluniverse wrote: Gravity is not an illusion. There are laws governing gravity. Free will, on the other hand, is a violation of the physical laws, and therefore absurd. Determinism does not compromise experiments, because the underlying thing we are experimenting on is governed by physical laws that the experiment will pick up. Counterfactuals still make sense in a deterministic universe, because having learned about the laws of nature we can ask what would happen when they are applied to certain situations. This helps us with future predictions. To think that in a deterministic universe we should cease all science is confusing determinism with fatalism. It's like saying, if the universe is deterministic, why do anything at all? Firstly, not doing anything is doing something and will lead to certain outcomes likely unfavorable, secondly if the universe is deterministic, you have no choice, if you do nothing you were always going to do nothing. Applied to science, doing no science is stupid because it would stop human progress, secondly, we would have no choice on whether we stopped doing science or not, it was already determined. You seem to have all that it takes! So why don't you listen to your own advice and simply abandon the fatalistic notion that just because a causal chain determines my free choice and that - in a deterministic universe - I will therefore always do the same thing given a sufficiently specific situaton this could somehow limit the freedom of my will or the freedom of my choice. It just doesn't follow. | ||
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
On March 12 2012 16:27 MiraMax wrote: You seem to have all that it takes! So why don't you listen to your own advice and simply abandon the fatalistic notion that just because a causal chain determines my free choice and that - in a deterministic universe - I will therefore always do the same thing given a sufficiently specific situaton this could somehow limit the freedom of my will or the freedom of my choice. It just doesn't follow. It doesn't follow because the free will you're talking about in the statement is the compatiblist's free will. In which case, you're right, not even determinism can take that away from you. | ||
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Myrddraal
Australia937 Posts
This is the thought process that convinced me that there is no free will: Start from 1 particle. Imagine that the universe is just 1 particle. I don't know what kind of particle it is or what are it's properties but imagine it's alone. It has nothing to react to. It just sits there. Does it have free will? What is required for this particle to get free will? Add another particle. It can be same as the first one or a unique particle with properties different form the 1st. Does each of the 2 particles have free will? Do the 2 particles have free will when thought of collectively? What is required for this set of particles to get free will? Add more particles. Every time you add 1 ask the questions I asked above. At some point, you reach the number of particles in the universe. At what point will there be an answer, "yes, this set of particles have free will"? The problem I have with this argument, is at what point will you be able to say that there is life? The universe that you have described seems to be missing energy, which makes the equation a lot more complex, without energy you cannot have life, without life you cannot have free will. | ||
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cydial
United States750 Posts
Free will does exist to an extent, but your environment definetly restricts it severely. | ||
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