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Is free will possible in a deterministic universe?
- Thread starter Sarkus
- Start date
Not talking about doing the impossible but choosing the impossible.
I can choose to try and do the impossible any time I like....
I am free to do so - as you have quite rightly stated.
Contextual reference:
"In a room with a locked solid steel door you chose to try and do the impossible and open it with a feather you found on the floor."
"About 50 years ago mankind chose to do what many thought of as impossible and flew men to stand on the moon"
"The two year old chose to cry his head off to get his mom to change her mind , but failed to do so"
"I chose to try and quell my suspicion that Baldeee is a Sarkus sock-puppet but it was impossible"
Freewill does not automatically mean freedom of movement.
"I chose to try and lift my arm but realized yet again that it had been amputated years ago."
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Regardless of how many future "paths" are available to a decision maker, the capabilities they possess and from which they are capable of choosing (higher logical level example) exist at the time they are observed.
They are not "results from the process of choice", whatever that is supposed to mean when the choice hasn't been made yet, but physical entities in the real world. They exist on their level much as legs do on their level - the event of taking a step with one leg does not render the other leg an illusion, make it not a "genuine" leg, etc. It even exists if it is going to be blown off by a land mine in five milliseconds, and never chosen to step with again.
In a causally deterministic universe, as assumed throughout, all existing entities are part of the mechanism of determination, part of the path the universe follows.
In this case, also part of the process of determination - of the universe following its one path.
(iirc several weeks and many pages of one of these threads featured the materialists's denial of the central role of process in this matter. Now they frame it in.
Mentioned in case people think no progress has been made in these threads - small steps, but not necessarily futile ones, have been made)
Why would life ever not be considered be an element of all of the above? If the universe is deterministic, so is everything contained therein.
Because life can not exist without energy nor matter .
Life needs a platform , physical form , upon which it can , potentially evolve . Planets , moons etc.
The determinism is based on the physical properties of energy and matter .
Life
yep... but one is learned proactive self deterministic and the another is passively deterministic, both being part of a deterministic process. The learning to self determine is in fact part of that deterministic process.
That has been the assumption adopted by almost all contributing participants in every thread on this topic on this forum for years now.
It's like watching a baseball player check on the location of his junk every five minutes: it's still there. Time to play ball.
Self determination is a contradiction of terms, like pulling the self up by its own bootstraps. If the self is a product of its greater universe, then all of its actions are as well. So there is no self determination to speak of, only universal determination to order reality in any case.
So you accept that all behavior expressed by living entities is an expression of the determined state of the universe for a given moment, which would render the act of choice an entirely scripted process. Good to finally agree on the subject.
Of course! Free-will is an illusion. If something will then that is determined by definition. "This will, that will." The ways to know what "will" is to reverse time, or be able to see the future, both of which still lead to a deterministic "will."
believe as you will...
More correctly stated, believe as we must.
fatalism encapsulated lol
No free will is not possible in my opinion.
If what they teach in biology, genetics and physiology about genes and natural selection is true and if humans are nothing more than biological machines driven by forces such as natural selection then I don't see how free will is possible at all.
If what they teach in biology, genetics and physiology about genes and natural selection is true and if humans are nothing more than biological machines driven by forces such as natural selection then I don't see how free will is possible at all.
Agree with the deterministic view
however since we, in essence, cannot predict the fine details of the future from any choice we make (even though said choice has been predetermined), we might as well settle for quasi free will and make quasi choices based on quasi understanding of what is in our best interest
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Unfortunately, this raises the question: was the universe deterministic for the 10 billion years before life came along?
And, if this deterministic universe was able to create life - the thing that supposedly stopped it from being doomed to determinism - could it have been deterministic in the first place?
(Kind of analogous to saying a computer cannot alter its own programming ... unless it develops the ability to rewrite itself....
)
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
This is kinda where we started - about 300 posts ago.
That's a really interesting comment Dave!Unfortunately, this raises the question: was the universe deterministic for the 10 billion years before life came along?
And, if this deterministic universe was able to create life - the thing that supposedly stopped it from being doomed to determinism - could it have been deterministic in the first place?
(Kind of analogous to saying a computer cannot alter its own programming ... unless it develops the ability to rewrite itself....
A computer that is designed and evolved to rewrite it's own programming (learn), becomes self determined. The self learns to take ownership and responsibility for the self.