Kent Stevens

I think there are some fairly big differences between believing in free will and determinism. Often the consequences of determinism are not so spelt out to people.

With determinism you are like the weather in that what you do must happen. The weather must be fine or wet tomorrow and you must do what you do tomorrow.

With determinism it is like a book of fate exists that says exactly what will happen to you. Your successes, failures, joys, and sorrows are in some sense prewritten.

There is only one future for us as there is only one past.

This idea of freedom means that we are free from direct coercion or restraint. So normally we are not under the actions of threats and our hands are not tied. We are not the slaves of others. But normally we are indirectly "coerced" or "restrained". We are "coerced" or "restrained" by parents, teachers, genetic factors, politicians, and other factors.

We are saved from fatalism because we can not access the book of fate. We do not think that certain things are bound to happen no matter what we do. If the weather is forever beyond the reach of perfect prediction then the same should apply to us.

But even if we had access to the book of fate we would end up reacting against our own predicted fate. In this sense fatalism would not work. Say that the book of fate says that when we go into an ice cream parlour we will have chocolate ice cream. We might for a moment feel fatalistic and think I am bound to eat chocolate ice cream then. But upon reading this we might say just to be different, I will have vanilla ice cream instead. But then you read later on in the book of fate and now it says you are going to have vanilla ice cream. So you react against this prediction by saying you will have strawbeery ice cream just to be different. This process of changing ice cream flavours could go on indefinitely.

That things are caused means that we can cause things to eventuate. We can have influence in the world. We can cause things to be successful. In addition it is possible to cause the reduction in something unpleasant, such as to reduce the rate of crime.

K

Mark_child:

I agree that the state of the universe can not be predicted. I don't think that is really relevant to the discussion.

I believe that human actions are THEORETICALLY predictable just as the output of a state machine is predictable given the structure of the state maching, the initial state, and all subsequent inputs. From what I understand you disagree with this postulate. That's fine. All I'm asking is that if chaos and quantum uncertainty make it so a person's behavior is theoretically unpredictable, how does this tie in to the idea of free will?

If Einstein was wrong about quantum mechanics (and there is every indication that he was), and the decisions we make reflect a true quantum uncertainty, then there is no causality to our decisions. Given the same exact brain state with the same exact input conditions, our actions will be different based solely on quantum uncertainty. I find it very hard to believe that free will could be equated with fundamentally non-causal decisions.

Mark_Chid

I think you still don't quite get my point.

A system can be both deterministic and theoretically unpredictable. To predict such a system you need prefect knowledge of its initial status, which is impossible under QM. Therefore determism does not make the future predictable at all, to any possible system of prediction.

Personally I think this observation means a supernatural being capable of knowing the future
cannot exist because the information needed is not just unknown, its unknowable.

"the same exact brain state with the same exact conditions" is fundamentally impossible to create, at the deepest level of reality as we understand it, since Quantum Uncertainty makes it impossible to ever record the information that you wish to copy.

Amos

But Kent, free will has nothing to do with the flavor of ice cream but is about the freedom we have in our own mind. If we are divided in our own mind we will also be divided in the loyalty to our will and only if we are of one mind can we have a free will.

We are determined to live out the vices and virtues that are incarnate to us from our ancestors and since we can only do this in a new and present environment we must take the freedom to do this to the best of our knowledge. This is when we read "the book of fate" one page at the time and make the corrections as needed.

So determinism does not mean that we have no freedom but it means that our freedom is limited to the same extent that we live in harmony with our own true self. The only coercion or restraint that limits our freedom is present within our own mind and if this was not true the concept "free will" could not be conceived to exist and Utopia (heaven or peace) not be a place to be sought.

We add to the book of faith that we inherited because our children and grandchildren will need to know what we contributed to their book of fate.

K

Mark_Chid:

I agree with you that it is probably theoretically impossible to predict the state of the universe. I never questioned that. However, I think that the brain behaves a lot like a state machine at the macroscopic level. You apparently believe it behaves more like a chaotic system with indeterminate initial conditions. Neither seems unreasonable to me. We'll probably have to wait until there is more evidence one way or the other to find out for sure.

Kent Stevens

If we use the analogy of the book of fate we can not correct it in the sense I conceived it. The book of fate should detail everything that ,which includes our changing choices.

In terms or quantum uncertainty, I await for the quantum events made me do it defence. Honest judge, it was not my genes or my mother this time, but quantum events that made me steal this time. Only quantum events could explain my change from a normal law abiding citizen to someone doing a bank job. We normally say that human behaviour was due to things like genes and family upbringing. We do not need quantum events to explain peoples behaviour.

Maybe, other organs in the human body also work by quantum principles. The heart does not function as a large pump but can propel blood due to quantum events. Perhaps the stomaches action of digestion can be explained through quantum events.

We do not need to directly use quantum events when we model dynamic physical systems such as the earth, weather, and the sun. When we use macroscopic descriptions of the sun quantum events becomes predictable because the sun has so many atoms.

Amos

If I understand you correct you are saying that there is no chaos in the universe but only in our perception of it. This same is true with our own life and is why we can make the best of it and actually become a resident in the land of the everlasting sun.

Adrian Selby

"Who would have predicted the emergence of the Sydney Opera House if only given the table of chemical elements and physics, for example ? " Gurdur

You miss a huge number of other determining factors in the emergence of sydney opera house, architects, builders planners etc. As such your point is insufficient.

Could you point me to some papers regarding emergent properties of deterministic systems, I'm keen to know if truely free will as opposed to extremely complex behaviour is occurring when a brain is making decisions. Perhaps I've missed the key post in threads you've participated in so far, but you seem to weigh in with heavily arrogant dismissals and a refusal to engage other posters who are attempting to grasp the issue.

Sorry Gurdur, but if someone isn't 'getting it' is the appropriate response to say bye bye and offer to go down the pub, or is it to help them to understand better by pointing them to links that they can research such that they can come back to you with further comments.

I hope the latter, as I've not read much regarding emergent behaviours in brains, and before I argue with you I should like to make sure I don't get a handful of facile insults merely in view of my lack of reading.

Adrian

Kent Stevens

In different senses both a deterministic and a freedom perspective are justified. In a deterministic sense certain things must happen but in a freedom sense usually we are not forced to do things. Events may be predetermined but we still are normally free to choose unless someone is forcing us to do something. What is bunk is the traditional conception of religious free will which has people doing things without cause. This religious free will is a way of getting an all powerful God off the hook, for creating all the evil that exists in this world.

I do not condone crime. Because someone is poor does not mean they have any other option but to steal.

Of course there is chaos. By me not accepting the default religion of a country does not turn me into a sun worshipper.

Amos

Ahaaa Kent, now I see why "free will" is bunk.

But Kent, nothing of God is created in the world but all is created in heaven and so God has nothing to do with evil in the world. In fact, God is two causes removed from the world that you and I know. "God" is the first cause and is also exhausted by the first cause (or he would be the first and second which is impossible). "Lord God" is the second cause and he, in turn, is also exhausted by the second cause. "Like god" is the third cause and that is the identity we think we are and because we claim to know who we are, we do the things we do according to our own free will.

We are free to do things we do because our own first and second cause (personal God and Lord God) are there but they are very much submissive to our rational thoughts (they usually wake up when we go to sleep and cause our dreams). So it is wrong to assume that God is responsible for evil or else we would not have a free will. We have a free will but are not totally free in our will and that is what the free will argument is about. This also means that total freedom is possible and for this to be realized all we need to do is know who we really are.