Is Everything Predetermined?

How does free will not exist

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???

 

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I just explained that in my previous post! Read it.

But ...the will to do something can't be "free" if you know anything at all about the conditions, situation, or knowledge of the outcome. If you know anything about it, then your action is ....INFLUENCED. And if it's influenced, then it's not free.

Baron Max

 

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We have free will. I could just as easily have chosen to not post this.

 

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Nope. Even that was influenced by what you read in the previous posts.

Baron Max

 

Enmos
''We have free will. I could just as easily have chosen to not post this''

Ah... But you did. Choice and free-will are the biggest illusion of them all.

Reiku - live and be happy

 

but we DONT know the outcome do we?

influenced yes ,controled by someone else nope.
WE decide what to do...or not do

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free will,yes

 

Baron Max:

I have apparently caught you, in my ceaseless nonsencial posts. Maybe I have unconsciously lured you into the debate becoming more fragile or care taken to such a thread, as "free will" determins our lifes and cannot be taken lightly....

I would warn you the thread starter is obviously asking a question to which he is getting replies such as : free will does not exist.

Just as the damn feministits would have us believe such and such and such and such is the truth... Those radical women theives who do nothing much except for harp feminism. I suppose that is how truth works, anyhow, after the garbage...

How does free will not exist?
Indeed!
It must and you know it as well exist in at least some form.
Idea? Sure, ideas are important to your life as well as mine.
But action. That is where free will comes into play at. If you had intended on arguing a defination of free will, then you would be forced to come to the debate at an open end. Existabrent because I like the existentialists and the ideas put forward by them anyone?

Simply, I at this very moment are capable of believing that free will does infact exist. In my actions, which are entirely free- everything deterministic is nothing but an excuse. You are the top example of that. Refute this Baron Max. Your action is not examinend. If it were, you would decide that free will is a possibility.

 

Hi existabrent

''I have apparently caught you, in my ceaseless nonsencial posts. Maybe I have unconsciously lured you into the debate becoming more fragile or care taken to such a thread, as "free will" determins our lifes and cannot be taken lightly....

I would warn you the thread starter is obviously asking a question to which he is getting replies such as : free will does not exist.

Just as the damn feministits would have us believe such and such and such and such is the truth... Those radical women theives who do nothing much except for harp feminism. I suppose that is how truth works, anyhow, after the garbage...
How does free will not exist?
Indeed!
It must and you know it as well exist in at least some form.
Idea? Sure, ideas are important to your life as well as mine.
But action. That is where free will comes into play at. If you had intended on arguing a defination of free will, then you would be forced to come to the debate at an open end. Existabrent because I like the existentialists and the ideas put forward by them anyone?

Simply, I at this very moment are capable of believing that free will does infact exist. In my actions, which are entirely free- everything deterministic is nothing but an excuse. You are the top example of that. Refute this Baron Max. Your action is not examinend. If it were, you would decide that free will is a possibility.''

Well, i disagree. I'll give you a more technical overview of conscious experience, such as the experience to believe you are chosing to do somthing against something which you haven't.
Your brain consists of billions upon billions of atoms. Just to grasp how many atoms we are dealing with, you could fit a billion neurons in the head of a pin. Now, you are not in control of all of these atoms. In fact, we never concern ourselves with them in everyday life.
It just so happens though, that any thought i have, any action i do, or any percpetion at all, has to do with a fundamental collapse inside my brain. Now, since i don't control these tiny statistical averages, how can i say i bring to rise any kind of function at all? Am i independant of the matter?
My choice to do something, for all materialistic scientists, will believe it all has to do with the electrons and hydrogen atoms inside my head. Non-materialistic scientists will say that consciousness arises as a non-local effect of matter. If it is, then free-will is even harder to dismiss. But not entirely.
If i chose to do something, can i say for sure it wasn't predetermined? What is somehow matter provides the necessery chemicals to allow my psyche, or being, to believe that what it does is totally unique? We already know of cases where chemicals alter perception, and allows us to believe that perhaps time has just flown by much quicker than what it should have... but in reality, it couldn't be further from the truth.
In effect, life and matter is a drug. It warps the consciousness, just as much as it warps space and time. Free will is just an illusion of a being wishing to be mindful of its existence, and only his/hers existence. I'm sure it is very possible to collect variables, and unwind them so that they appear ''free''... it happens all the time.

Reiku :m:

 

I didn't say that we "know" the outcome, I said we have "knowledge" of the outcome. The possibilities, the probabilities, of what will or will not happen ...IF... we do a certain action.

If you've never picked up a hot piece of steel, your basic knowledge of life will tell you that it's probably pretty fuckin' hot, and will burn your hand. So ....you don't pick it up. That alone shows that picking up the hot iron is NOT in the list of actions for your "free will" .....ie., you've been influenced.

Now look at the actions of a baby in that situation; he doesn't have any knowledge of what the hot iron will do to him ....so he just grabs it because he wants to do it. The baby has "free will", he's not influenced in any of his actions ...he just does it. But he probably won't do it ever again ....and he's thus lost part of his "free will". And the more he learns about things and life, the less "free will" he'll have.

Nope, decisions that are influenced by an outside force or inner knowledge is not "free will" .....it's "influenced will".

Baron Max

 

whether or not we have 'free will' has no consequences for the question if everyting is predetermined, since free will is just one process.

From biology, we do know that not all is predetermined.

 

How do you know that? I don't understand how you can say that ...perhaps you can explain how biology proves anything about predetermination or free will.

Baron Max

 

If one process is not predetermined it is already evidence to counter the argument that everything is predetermined.

 

"IF"? If is a very big word and covers a lot of territory! ...LOL!

Baron Max

 

No, it is a word used in the English language. In this case it is used to indicate a condition that makes another condition false.

They teach these things in school.

 

Which was all predetermined before the experiment ever started.

Do you believe everything that's taught in schools?

Baron Max

 

Sadly, most posting here do not have the slightest understanding of the problem of making physic and "free will" mutually compatible. Perhaps the Baron does, but he does not state it as I have in my essay. As few bother to read that careful discussion of this problem, I will briefly summarize now:

If one accepts that all movement of all matter, especially the movement of neurotransmitter across the synaptic gaps between the neurons, is controlled by the laws of nature (physics) and that humans are controlled by the movement of these neurotransmitters, which collectively determine whether or not each nerve send a electro/chemical discharge down its axon and that all of our behavior is produced by these "nerve discharges" (in brain and elsewhere) and also rejects the non-material "soul" etc having any control over the material body*

THEN:
ALL BEHAVIOR IS CONTROLLED BY THE LAWS OF NATURE (and "Free Will" would be logically impossible.)

Prior to the discovery of quantum uncertainity all the future of the universe appeared to be "predetermined" at the instant the big bang had expanded enough for a no longer changing set of "laws of nature" to exist. (surely less than one second after t = 0) Thus one second or less after about 14 billion years ago,(If quantum effects did not exist) it was already determined that I would hit the period key of my computer about a 1/4 of a second after I hit the w key in "now".

But quantum effects do exist, so that hitting of the period key was not "predetermined" 14 billion years ago. The laws of nature do include quantum effect so the future is not "predetermined." The universe we live in has random events, governed by the quantum uncertainities. This quantum destruction of "pre- determination" is NOT an escape from the laws of nature. - It does NOT permit you to have free will, IF you are a material object as they all are subject to the laws of nature - nothing you can really choose anything about.

Certainly, it can seem to you that you are chosing - it seems that way to us all, I think, but IT IS ILLUSION. What you do, your every and slightest act (for example a minor movement of your tounge while speaking) is a direct consequence of the neural dischrages and they are a direct consequence ot the flow of neuraltransmitters across the synaptic gaps and that flow exactly follows the laws of nature - not your "free will" illusion.

This bothered me for about 40 years until problem was placed in the "unsolvable problems" group and later, by accident, I discovered a POSSIBLE way that physics and free will can be mutually compatible (not a proof that free will actually exists)

The price you must pay to have free will, consistent with the laws of nature and logic, is high: You are not a material object, but only an "information process" occuring (at times, but not when your body is in deep, non-REM sleep) in the world's most advanced (by far) computer - the human brain.

Most of you, I know from experience will ignore these facts and logic and continue in ignorance of the deep problem "free will" present. So most will continue expressing their illogical opinions, make their mutually inconsistent statements, etc. I will not comment more to expose them, but if you want to know about a (only one I am aware of) logical resolution of the "free will" vs "laws of nature" problem is, read my essay at:

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1294496&postcount=52
Begin to read at the bold text" Genuine Free Will is Possible
-----------------------
*Note, if one wants to up hold the complete "authority" of the laws of nature (over the movement of all matter, some of these movements indirectly controlled by the "fields" other matter creates, for example electric fields made by distribution of charged matter.) then to postulate that a non-material soul can move even a single electron, even one micron from the path determined by the laws of nature," is already a violation of those laws of nature. - I.e. same as postulating miracles are real.

I reject this POV as I have no evidence for any miracle and a great deal of evidence for the complete "authority" of the laws of nature, but others are certainly allowed to postulate miracles, presumably "caused" by some agent not subject to the complete "authority" of the laws of nature.

Personnally the type of "free will" this postualte opens up is not applealing to me. - I would prefer to be controlled by the laws of nature, with no free will (only the illusion of it) than the whem of some postulated "god" or "gods" who could act in anyway they chose. I.e. I like the regularitiy of the complete "authority" of the laws of nature.

 

Did anyone claim that you should believe everything that is taught in schools?

However, in this specific case having been taught a specific topic in school would have prevented you from making a retarded reply.

 

To spuriousmonkey:

I was surprised (and sadened) to see that you too fall in the group of those lacking any comprehension of the real deep problem of free will. - See post 36 for more on it.

Drop your quick exchanges with the Baron and read to understand, at least post 36, if not the essay of the link therein.

 

Laws of nature are not real Bill. They are our interpretation of nature.

Studying laws of nature will never determine whether we have free will.

And I could already have told you that we don't have free will. You don't need to study physics for that.

 

The existence of the "laws of nature" (or not) in no way depends upon our knowledge (or "interpretation") of them. I assume by postulating that "laws of nature" do exist only that science is possible because the universe is controlled by a fixed, but clearly not completely known by man, "physics."

If you are a "scientist" you also make this postulate of regularity (including the quantum effects, deterministically governed by the Schrodering equation until a "classical interaction" occurs, if man's current understanding is correct.)

Are you a scientist or one who believes in "miracles"?

If you accept miracles, then you reject science's basic assumption. (That nature always behaves as if governed by fixed rules, at least some of which man can discover.)