brennan
Argumentative Brit
You must now explain the deterministic nature of Beta Decay. (You'll get a nobel prize, I guarrantee it!)
Free Will
- Thread starter Souron
- Start date
So then free will is immossible, under any circumstances.
But your arguement is circular. How does predictability violate free will, exactly?
It is very likely that I will go to sleep tonight. But, principally, I could pull an all nighter. How does your guessing that I won't remove my ability to choose?
As brennan pointed out, some things (quantum effects) are conclusively probabilistic.
But I agree, humans are cheifly deterministic. I have read that there are some synapses that use quantum tunneling, but it seems that those do not dominate the brain.
So you are then going on to conclude that there is no such thing as free will?
brennan
Argumentative Brit
I think he means predictable with 100% success: a certainty: only possible if the situation were fully deterministic.
Determinism isn't about whether an event is caused or is "random" - it's about whether there is only one possible outcome. Free will would mean that the "cause" of an event is that person's will - but that the person had a choice in the matter, and it was not predetermined.
It's hard to see how you can have free will if the Universe is deterministic. A non-deterministic Universe on the other hand wouldn't rule out free will.
And the bit in bold is the key. With a deterministic machine (or universe), there is no possibility for anything else to happen.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Then that's not free will.
And the universe is not deterministic - that's what Newton thought and he was wrong.
punkbass2000
Des An artiste
Ah, I was confused reading this for a bit. You're referring to the idea of Dualism - the mind/body separation.
I doubt that. If we're able to predict this "randomness," I'd be inclined to believe that there is an unknown deterministic cause that we just haven't found yet.
Souron said:
Yes, I think there is such a thing as fate. I can't know this for sure of course, but it's my theory.
Elaborate please.
warpus said:
What proved him wrong? The laws of nature seem to lead us to believe he was right.
You've got be half convinced:
So an event can be caused by something, can be random, or can be induced by the soul.
Now can somebody explain how the soul can be nondeterministic without being random. Or is this something like the trinity, which can be stated but not explained?
Cause my conclution right now is that Free Will is just as unlikely as the idea that the world was sneezed out by a Great Green Arkleseizure. It's possible, but not at all likely.
So an event can be caused by something, can be random, or can be induced by the soul.
Now can somebody explain how the soul can be nondeterministic without being random. Or is this something like the trinity, which can be stated but not explained?
Cause my conclution right now is that Free Will is just as unlikely as the idea that the world was sneezed out by a Great Green Arkleseizure. It's possible, but not at all likely.
pboily
fingerlickinmathematickin
EDIT: wrong thread.
Who says it isn't deterministic as well?
Einstien spent the later years of his life trying to find a deterministic alternative to quantum theory. He produced a remarcable amount of theories, each of which he himself proved wrong. You can totally disprove an assertion like this, but Einstien's efforts go a long way to suggest that it's true.
Look up the double split experiment as an example of why a hidden variable aproach fails. For a particle to deterministically know how to behave in all variations of the experiment, it would need to have access to the positions, locations, and all other vectors of evey particle in the univerce and then some.
Warpus is refering to quantum theory.
Quantum Mechanics.
Can we be certain that quantum mechanics is in fact random, and not obeying a pattern we are just incapable of detecting?
I've been more or less convinced that it would eliminate free will if it were.
I've yet to sleep on it, so I might still be missing a crutial error in that logic.
punkbass2000
Des An artiste
@EoA:Good question.
@puglover: With the 1900's came the end of Newton's Mechanical Age and the idea that physics could be fully examined, explained and experienced at a tangible level. So did the idea of a deterministic universe, for the time being.
@puglover: With the 1900's came the end of Newton's Mechanical Age and the idea that physics could be fully examined, explained and experienced at a tangible level. So did the idea of a deterministic universe, for the time being.
See post 33. I'll explain the double slit example some other time, unless someone else feels like doing it.
But basically there would have to be more hidden variables that a single particle responds to then there is information in the univerce for quantum theory to be deterministic.
What if there is more information in the universe than we realize? Etc.
I am not a determinist anyways (not that I would be able to help it if I were . . .) and certainly no expert on physics, didn't even take it in high school, but I am curious about it.
I am not a determinist anyways (not that I would be able to help it if I were . . .) and certainly no expert on physics, didn't even take it in high school, but I am curious about it.
Ok I'll explain:
Double-slit experiment wikki
That explains the basic experiment. Assume that it is done with light.
It is important to remmember that light is made of particles not waves.
As a particle a photon will ditect the presence of a double slit experiment in it's future path and behave accordingly. It will detect if there is a sensor at one of the slits. If there is it will behave one way. if there isn't it will behave compleately differently (and it will in this case behave differently depending on the distance of the slits and it's distance from them). This is despite the fact that there is no signal comming from the experiment itself. So how does the particle know how to behave; how does it know where the double slit experiment is in it's future, and if there is a sensor?
