Free Will does not exist

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abruzzi
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by abruzzi »

wow, this free will thingie really boggles me for a week now... i dont know what to do :P i thought about it some time ago during some random thoughts, but now as i entered a tiny bit deeper, hmm :) quite scary and demotivating... i read all your posts, but most didn't give any proper answer on how they cope with that... like they dont care.... okay its easier i know, but i would rather think it over and then to come up with some kind of ?solution?
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by kuchitsu »

Think about your favorite fictional character. He\she doesn't have free will and just does whatever the creator wants. Yet you don't really pity that character, you think they are awesome\inspiring\lovely\whatever. So it's not like not having free will makes you miserable and pointless. You can still be cool and important for other people.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by gimp »

Long solution for abruzzi:

What is the opposite of choice for a single instant? I would say instant force. A harder question; what is the opposite of choice for an entire lifetime? The pessimist would say eternal slavery. But if you want a solution to your coping, think of the answer to my second question as destiny.

If the universe is theoretically predictable and your thoughts and actions are too, your path has been set and you have a destiny. Your destiny can be an exciting thing to reach, of course most likely our final destiny is to die (unless some immortal technology happens), but in between is still a lot of unknown destinies like your job, your love, drugs, whatever. Athough all life is theoretically predictable we humans cannot predict any of it. When you reach a destiny, take a moment to appreciate it, life moves to fast.

This lets my subconscious continue to believe my actions are my own. my conscious thoughts search truth during the times I think about free will, but my conscious thoughts have a short attention span, if i see some cookies and milk then free will becomes less important to me; I let my eyes feast and my taste buds salivate, I instinctually know the cookies and milk will be mine, I eat one and savor the taste for a creepy amount of time before I gargle it down with thirst quenching milk, everything is sense oriented and thought has no purpose in this blissful moment. It is important for my happiness to let my subconscious brain believe the cookies and milk was my choice. I let my brain be tricked in these moments I am not striving for the ivory tower of truth. it is too lonely to stay up there for too long.


Short solution:

cookies and milk
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by milagros »

no free will doesn't imply determinism
there are lots of events in nature, that are (based on our knowledge) fundamentally non-deterministic and unpredictable (for example particle decay)
we can calculate the probabilities of possible outcomes, but there is no certainty
this is not due to lack of information, but due to the nature of the processes
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by Madness »

milagros wrote:no free will doesn't imply determinism
there are lots of events in nature, that are (based on our knowledge) fundamentally non-deterministic and unpredictable (for example particle decay)
we can calculate the probabilities of possible outcomes, but there is no certainty
this is not due to lack of information, but due to the nature of the processes
The fact that we can't do it yet doesn't mean it's impossible, does it? I don't know anything about this, but perhaps there are many factors that affect the possible outcomes and are still completely unknown to us?
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by Ruben »

Madness wrote:
milagros wrote:no free will doesn't imply determinism
there are lots of events in nature, that are (based on our knowledge) fundamentally non-deterministic and unpredictable (for example particle decay)
we can calculate the probabilities of possible outcomes, but there is no certainty
this is not due to lack of information, but due to the nature of the processes
The fact that we can't do it yet doesn't mean it's impossible, does it? I don't know anything about this, but perhaps there are many factors that affect the possible outcomes and are still completely unknown to us?
Exactly what I was thinking. Events that due to their nature seem random to us might not be random at all, but it's impossible for us to accurately measure all the variables, so we use probability in stead.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by abruzzi »

Ruben wrote:Exactly what I was thinking. Events that due to their nature seem random to us might not be random at all, but it's impossible for us to accurately measure all the variables, so we use probability in stead.
We're using like 10% of our brains, we have lived in a developing society for like 1-2 thousand years, and even dinosuars lived for hundreds of millions years. So obviously, there is still much more to be revealed, maybe some things aren't even possible to be known due to being too small.

Gimp's attitude seems okay, everything is so complex, so let's just dive into it in a hedonistic way. But, on the other hand, it feels like having been raped by your father during your childhood, and then when you are grown-up, you forgave him, etc., but you want to explain why he did it and was so harsh. Then he pretends he doesn't have a clue what you are talking about, although both of you have the same picture in your minds - your ass fucked mercilessly by his fatherly dick.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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10% brain thing is a myth and society was developing pretty much since the dawn of homo sapiens (hunter-gatherer societies etc). we discussed the hidden variable theory little bit earlier in this topic and i think we need to go with current science, some of it might be wrong but no reason to believe it is until its proven wrong. really sorry to hear about your childhood berh, hope you can find a way to cope with it
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by milagros »

Ruben wrote:
Madness wrote:The fact that we can't do it yet doesn't mean it's impossible, does it? I don't know anything about this, but perhaps there are many factors that affect the possible outcomes and are still completely unknown to us?
Exactly what I was thinking. Events that due to their nature seem random to us might not be random at all, but it's impossible for us to accurately measure all the variables, so we use probability in stead.
Bell's inequalities, which are experimentally verifiable, rule out (almost) any hidden parameter model, that would explain randomness
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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It's interesting because some argue that consciousness might be almost like a mistake of evolution. I mean, you could say that the way humans work is: first they perform some action impulsively\instinctively, and only afterwards they come up with some kind of explanation and reason why they did it. But in reality it might be just wishful thinking, like us wanting to seem logical even though actually our behavior might be completely chaotic. And perhaps consciousness only makes things worse because it causes us to worry about all sorts of existential bullshit that just stresses us out and leads to all sorts of disorders. I wonder if animals are overall happier beings, if you can measure happiness at all.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by Ruben »

kuchitsu wrote:It's interesting because some argue that consciousness might be almost like a mistake of evolution. I mean, you could say that the way humans work is: first they perform some action impulsively\instinctively, and only afterwards they come up with some kind of explanation and reason why they did it. But in reality it might be just wishful thinking, like us wanting to seem logical even though actually our behavior might be completely chaotic. And perhaps consciousness only makes things worse because it causes us to worry about all sorts of existential bullshit that just stresses us out and leads to all sorts of disorders. I wonder if animals are overall happier beings, if you can measure happiness at all.
Animals can be depressed too, and respond to abuse more or less in the same way that humans do (depending on the animal). Although they're (probably) not self-conscious, they can be happy or unhappy just like us. Also remember that the life of most animals is pretty stressful, with the constant threat of being inexplicably killed by predators at any given moment. I'm way off in the deep end at this point, but maybe being worried is so ingrained in our brains that when we don't have any predators to be worried about we invent existential crises, social anxiety and various mental disorders to keep the stress level high.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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I find it impressive that gimp managed to turn this thought into something positive and comforting (i.e. since there is no free will there is no need to get angry or worry about anything). In contrast, I think this is probably the most frightening idea imaginable. To me it basically means that you're trapped in someone else's body, and all you can do is observe that body making awful self-destructive decisions every day. It's like the ultimate torture: force humans to do stupid things all the time and give them the illusion of control so that they feel bad about these stupid things they actually can't change. Very clever, nature.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by gimp »

You are not in control of your life. Everything is predetermined. Me telling you this was meant to happen, and whatever reaction you have from it (believe in free will or not) is also out of your control. If you do believe there is no free will, how you perceive it (optimistic or pessimistic) is also conditioned based on things like genetics, culture, etc. People who see things pessimisticly consider themselves realistic most times, but they are also often unfair because they do not see the positives and are not very hopeful for the future. It was my personal destiny to see things realistically, but with a positive attitude about the future. If i cannot control the future, why not at least be hopeful? The common trait of depression is hopelessness, no free will isnt hopeless, it's comforting. Maybe me telling you this will make your brain feel the same way as mine. It is undoubtedly a better way to feel, and it is also not ignorant.

EDIT: Something I wanted to add for the skeptics who dismiss my logic as religion or preachy, is that some of us here have come to the same conclusion without speaking to each other. If in ancient civilisation one man suddenly believed in Christ and another did half way across the world, without any type of communication between each others unknown continents, it would provide significant merit to the conclusion that Christ is real. However, he only became "real" to people once he was preached about to others.

Believing in or not believing in free will is not something i preached to Madness or Ruben, yet the posts they stated earlier resonant near exact thoughts and scenarios i have played in my mind, almost like we independently found out that plants grow from water and sunlight on our own separate continents. We did this through our logic, without clear evidence to support it, does this guarantee 100% proof of lack of free will? Of course not, but it gives it some merit. Our thoughts are grounded in logic and i dislike when things like this are compared to dogma. for this reason we should not compare these arguments to religion, i wouldnt even do that to my proponents of free will here. Admittedly people come up with the idea of a "creator" independent of one another, and that may give a creator idea merit, but Christ, Native American spirits, or Mayan folklore are all vastly different in their literature.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by kuchitsu »

If free will doesn't exist, no one made any choices.
If free will does exist, believers made the right choice and non-believers made the wrong choice.
Therefore believing in free will is preferable.

Is there anything wrong with this argument?
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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"Always in motion is the future." - Yoda
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by pawq »

kuchitsu wrote: 11 Feb 2020, 14:56If free will does exist, believers made the right choice and non-believers made the wrong choice.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by kuchitsu »

Lol, I'll try to explain a bit better.

Let's say we ask Alice and Bob whether free will exists. Alice chooses the answer "yes", Bob chooses the answer "no".

There are two possibilities:
a) No one actually made any choices (because free will doesn't exist and it's impossible to make choices).
b) Alice made the right choice, Bob made the wrong choice (because free will does in fact exist).

Being Alice seems preferable.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by pawq »

haha I get it, I thought you meant sth about religion first :D


One obvious flaw with this argument: being wrong about something is not necessarily automatically bad, since it could have other consequences too

but fuk "free will doesn't exist" imo
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by Lousku »

Regardless of free will, belief in anything is nat a matter of choice. I can't decide to change my perception, logic and other factors that automatically determine my understanding of what is real. Can you?
then again i don't know anything
maybe easier not to think abouut alöl things thought than not things thought ... or something..=?
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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My idea was that if one believes in free will, they're probably gonna try harder to improve their life since they feel like it's actually possible to do so (whereas someone who doesn't believe might just kinda give up). And even if there is no free will, it simply doesn't matter that they are wrong since it's not like they had a choice to begin with.

I'll respond to Lousku's post later, need some time to think about this.)
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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Hi kutchitsu, Bob is right in your first example and Alice is wrong, even though no free will choice is involved. In the second example, Alice is right and Bob is wrong with choice involved. Either way someone is right and someone is wrong, Alice is not immune to error in both circumstances.

A little out of context, but I have a story similar to your argument:

My grandma recently asked if i would become a Christian. I told her i am agnostic. Her answer was that if god is not real then a believer and non-believer will go nowhere after death, however if god is real the believer will go to heaven and and the non-beliver will go to hell, isnt it preferable then to be a believer?

The question is jarring, should i sell out who i am for the chance of going to heaven instead of hell? Same goes here with free will, do i abandon my logic of "no free will" to do what is preferable for my happiness?

The answer is no. I want to live in an ivory tower of truth, being right is more important than being ignorantly happy.

I will say that I might be changing my mind about free will because of the "observation problem" in quantum physics. However i am still keeping an open mind on this until i learn more rather than staunchly defending that there is no free will. Quantum physics opens up a whole new realm of shit i never had thought about before. i may make topic on it in the future since there are many smart mans here.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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gimp wrote: 14 Feb 2020, 17:45being right is more important than being ignorantly happy.
Not necessarily true in every case / matter of opinion
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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Yeah, you could say Alice is wrong in the first example, but in my opinion this statement is pointless, it doesn't really give us anything meaningful. If she was taking a test and the computer asked her "what is 2+2?" but the only option was "3", we wouldn't care about her answering incorrectly. The test is simply designed that way and I don't see any point in bringing up her "wrong" answer ever again. She did the only thing she could have done.

A person that believes in free will can't be wrong about it in any meaningful way. If free will does not exist, it's not wrong to be wrong about it. This isn't even about feeling good vs searching for truth, I reduced this to pure logic.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by FinMan »

The idea of "real" free will existing seems rather irrelevant in the end. Even if it doesn't exist, what matters is how we perceive our choices. If our behavior is 100% deterministic in the end, it does not matter as long as we are fully able to believe we have a choice and make those choices. Call it relative free will.

Choosing between truth and happiness is a tough one. The truth is always a good thing to reach for but there are cases when you'd rather hide it from someone you love or yourself if it is in the way of happiness and well-being. Telling someone that's dying within a month something that isn't necessary to be told but will break them down can be a bad choice in the end. Matter of opinion and case-dependent of course.

About the religion shit, I'd much rather have faith in something (i.e. a god) that doesn't exist than feel alone in this world. As Lousku said, though, belief is not a choice. You can choose to live by the rules of a religion or something similar but you can't choose to believe. You can drastically improve your chances though.

With religion (faith), it doesn't matter if a god exists (or more of them), physically or any other way. The way I see it is as long as people believe in a god it exists. Not necessarily scientifically or factually, it does not matter what proofs anyone has against it or for it. It also seems unlikely anyone could either prove or disprove any gods existing.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by Hosp »

imo you can choose to do things, outcome very unpredictable osv
free will: yes
outcome: yes/no
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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You know, it might make more sense to view free will as a skill that you can learn and improve with time rather than something binary that you either have or don't have. I think humans are probably born with little to no free will, as at an early age they are pretty much completely driven by emotions, natural instincts and other stuff they can't control. But as they grow they keep getting better and better at resisting those impulses with the power of their mind ("no, I will not eat this chocolate cookie because I care about my teeth"), and so you could say that they move further and further away from being predictable deterministic machines.

Now, some people achieve extraordinary amounts of free will (like monks meditating under cold waterfalls for hours or whatever), while others stay at a newbie level their whole lives (e.g. grown men throwing tantrums every time something doesn't go their way), however everyone has some. Of course nobody has 100% free will (i.e. complete independence from all possible factors, perhaps even including the very laws of physics) but claiming that we have none seems preposterous too, as you can clearly see the difference in the level of autonomy between infants and adults.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by Madness »

Lousku wrote: 12 Feb 2020, 00:57 Regardless of free will, belief in anything is nat a matter of choice. I can't decide to change my perception, logic and other factors that automatically determine my understanding of what is real. Can you?
I think you are right, you don't really "choose" your beliefs. Your beliefs are based on what kind of person you are (you don't choose who you are born as), upbringing (you don't choose your parents), education (you don't choose your teachers) and other outer factors you have no control over. Your beliefs are just a result.

But then how can you "choose" your actions when they are based on your beliefs and all these outer factors?

This would mean that "choice" is not a matter of choice either.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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I knew nothing about quantum physics when i created this topic, however, after diving deep into it for awhile now my view of free will has been shifting. Much of my belief in no free will was based off the world as i have observed it - Newtonian physics. If i know the position, velocity, and forces acting on an object i will know the future of that object. When people start discussing humans and their actions you need only think about the synapses in their brains, which are also Newtonian in their behavior (or so i thought).

What got me is that at the quantum level objects do not follow Newtonian physics. At the quantum level (say an electron), the electron will behave in a probability cloud, it will exist in multiple places and velocities all at once until it is observed. The act of observing the object is what then defines its location and velocity. Before that it is impossible to know, not impossible because we do not have the technology, but impossible in principle and in theory. I can never predict where the object will be or how fast it is moving, the act of finding out and looking at it is what determines the result of where it will be. This very fact undermines determinism, because the quantum particle cannot be predicted.

If i accept that the very fabric of reality is random, how can i claim there is no free will now that the particles which make up the synapses in my brain are also random, and thus my choices are unpredictable?

This has been proven over and over again in the double slit experiment that quantum material is probabilistic in nature, where an electron is in two places at once initially unless it is observed, then it "decides" to be in one place. It is very fascinating, i used to think nothing was probabilistic truly, not even the roll of dice because you could just theoretically trace it all the way back to some root that will make it predictable, but if the root is quantum, then it doesnt follow the same rules anymore. It seems supernatural the way quantum objects act to me, almost like they are conscious.

To see the double slit experiment in action:
https://youtu.be/A9tKncAdlHQ
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by Hosp »

Actually ye I agree Kuchi, I'm mostly stuck in the emotional stage even at 23 years old tho, but learning slowly I would say.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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gimp wrote: My grandma recently asked if i would become a Christian. I told her i am agnostic. Her answer was that if god is not real then a believer and non-believer will go nowhere after death, however if god is real the believer will go to heaven and and the non-beliver will go to hell, isnt it preferable then to be a believer?
That is called Pascal's wager and Christians are in no better position than atheists since there are many religions, how would you know that you are betting on the right horse?
gimp wrote:i used to think nothing was probabilistic truly, not even the roll of dice because you could just theoretically trace it all the way back to some root that will make it predictable
I commented on this before, but you pretty much can predict dice roll if you know the properties of the throw, environment etc. Dice is absolutely gargantuan object (when it comes to quantum stuff) and quantum effects don't really "apply" there. Thats why people still use classical physics in calculations with macroscopic objects (with few exceptions like superconductivity etc).
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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Sunshine wrote: 29 May 2020, 10:05
gimp wrote: My grandma recently asked if i would become a Christian. I told her i am agnostic. Her answer was that if god is not real then a believer and non-believer will go nowhere after death, however if god is real the believer will go to heaven and and the non-beliver will go to hell, isnt it preferable then to be a believer?
That is called Pascal's wager and Christians are in no better position than atheists since there are many religions, how would you know that you are betting on the right horse?
gimp wrote:i used to think nothing was probabilistic truly, not even the roll of dice because you could just theoretically trace it all the way back to some root that will make it predictable
I commented on this before, but you pretty much can predict dice roll if you know the properties of the throw, environment etc. Dice is absolutely gargantuan object (when it comes to quantum stuff) and quantum effects don't really "apply" there. Thats why people still use classical physics in calculations with macroscopic objects (with few exceptions like superconductivity etc).
I agree with all you have said regarding my grandma's statement on religion mostly. The agnostic would go to gell in all cases by most religions standards, the Christian will go to hell in all but one. But yeah good logic overall. I agree with you on quantum effects not applying to the dice roll as well, as the schrodinger equation collapses at a certain point and things become more Newtonian in nature.

Where things become theoretically unpredictable is at the quantum level, but since that is the fabric of everything, is not everything random when you get to the bare bones of it? Your thoughts lead to the movements that create a dice roll, and your thoughts are made of quantum particles themselves. I think there might be some free will going on there, tough question.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

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I think it's still not known how much quantum randomness affects the brain. Quantum mechanics determines shapes and properties of molecules so in that way it plays a role at least. Neurons are still too large to be affected by entanglement etc so quantum mechanics can't impact whether or not a neuron fires. Macroscopic objects act in predictable ways and classical physics is accurate for predicting them because all of the particles are moving randomly in disjointed manner and their waves interfere and average out to zero. But even if quantum physics have an effect on the brain how is that free will? You can't control that quantum phenomena so you are just along for the ride, even if its not a deterministic one.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by gimp »

Jappe you seem to know a quibit about quantum mechanics so perhaps you could educate me. I am working off the assumption that everything is made of atoms, and more important the brain and the synapses, neurotransmitters, etc. that ultimately form thoughts, so correct me if i am wrong about that.

Second assumption is that all atoms act according to quantum physics (being random and exisiting in probabilty cloud all at once) until they are observed. If both my assumptions are correct then that means the atoms in our brain and even our thoughts are unpredictable until they are observed.

Determinism must be predictable. So perhaps i am arguing against determism, and not necessarily for free will. Usually there are only two schools of thought though (determinism and free will) so I.e. if not determinism it must be free will. We would need a name to classify whatever you would call something that is random but also has no choice involved.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by jaytea »

Our decision-making process is governed by the activity of neurons, which are considerable orders of magnitude removed from the quantum world.

Bringing up quantum mechanics in a discussion about free will is inappropriate, pretentious, and actually really fucking stupid.

Just as we turn to biology on questions of the body, we must turn to neuroscience (and, more approximately, psychology) on questions of the mind.

"Oh, but if my next move is based on a truly random event like radioactive decay then it cannot be predetermined!". No, the actual decision you made is to base your next action on a coin flip. That decision was predeterminable.

Human behaviour is (obviously) deterministic. Universal behaviour is still open to discussion by philosophers (read: glorified time-wasters).
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by gimp »

You are the most pretentious guy on this forum haha - But that's what people like about you. Anyway maybe you are right about the other stuff, i dont know. I have changed my mind from believing what you believe to saying "i dont know" for now because i just learned about quantum physics. It's not an ego thing, admittedly i dont know much about it.
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by milagros »

our decision process is complicated, quantum physics is complicated - therefore they must be related
or nat
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Re: Free Will does not exist

Post by Sunshine »

gimp wrote: 1 Jun 2020, 22:16 Jappe you seem to know a quibit about quantum mechanics so perhaps you could educate me. I am working off the assumption that everything is made of atoms, and more important the brain and the synapses, neurotransmitters, etc. that ultimately form thoughts, so correct me if i am wrong about that.
I don't know that much tbh and pretty much 0 of the math behind it, which you need to know if you want to even begin to truly understand quantum mechanics. Matter is made of atoms ofc but atoms can be broken into even smaller particles (protons which are composed of quarks etc). Atoms are actually 99.999999% (not sure how many nines but it's a lot of nines) empty space. If you scaled nucleus of hydrogen atom to size of a basketball then the electron orbiting it would be 2 miles away, wack!
gimp wrote: 1 Jun 2020, 22:16 Second assumption is that all atoms act according to quantum physics (being random and exisiting in probabilty cloud all at once) until they are observed. If both my assumptions are correct then that means the atoms in our brain and even our thoughts are unpredictable until they are observed.
true, but like I stated when there are lots of atoms their waves interfere and their behavior can be predicted with classical physics and randomness "disappears". Single neuron is composed of 100 trillion atoms so absolutely massive when it comes to quantum mechanics. Similar as to how we can predict radioactive decay half lives, you can't predict when a single atom decays but since there are trillions and trillions of them we can calculate overall decay rate and express it as halflife. Or if you flip a coin 1 trillion times the result will be very close to 50/50 head/tails.
gimp wrote: 1 Jun 2020, 22:16 Determinism must be predictable. So perhaps i am arguing against determism, and not necessarily for free will. Usually there are only two schools of thought though (determinism and free will) so I.e. if not determinism it must be free will. We would need a name to classify whatever you would call something that is random but also has no choice involved.
Yes I agree there should be a better name and also that determinism doesn't exist but not sure about free will. Maybe it would be best to call it random will instead of free will, at least if you agree with physicalism. I have become more open to alternative worldviews as I get older and don't know if physicalism can give us all the answers. For example "hard problem of consciousness" (even if we can explain our behavior and how brain works 100% it still wouldn't explain how consciousness arises from that) makes me think there might be something more out there but who knows.
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