Debate Determinism VS Free Will

I think I'm on the side of Free Will. Determinism states that all actions are the result of others, but in many situations, 2 different events can occur regardless of anything that occurred before them. That is, if an event has a 50% change of occurring, how is the result pre-determined at all?

When first reading this, I started to write that I was deterministic, but I kind of argued with myself otherwise, I suppose.

EDIT: Really liking your signature, by the way, hahahaha.

 

I must say i'm very much a deterministic man. As with enough data, anything can be predicted. If i know time, date surrounding and genetic code up of my son, i could predict what path he would lead with fair decent accuracy, with the chance of life-changing moments possibly proving me wrong.

But if it was he was in a hostage negotiation, which then made him become a negotiator, with enough data, i could have predicted that the terrorist/hostage taker, would have done that.

/thread

that also works for meteors and weather and what nots... sadly in this universe so, it'd take a computer the size of billions of universes to compile that data effectively. thats a rough guess though.

 

Manifestations at all levels are deterministic in at least one way or another, whether it’s based off of states of contingency or not. “Free Will” is a notion that has been associated with many hot topics, and just for the sake of exemplification, “quantum physics” and “entropy” are just a few to list off the bat. Here’s my opinion, I think that the term “free will” is associated to these some particular concepts simply because of the fact that we have not yet been able to come up with a deterministic conclusion. I am a very strong believer in the concept of “unitarity” which states that every point in time has both a unique past, and a unique future. In other words everything has its own pre-established determinacy. In the realm of “Quantum Mechanics”, it is believed that just through our own observation it triggers a collapse between “sub-atomic wave functions”.

“Free Will” states that there are a multitude of possible outcomes meaning that this can happen, this can happen, and this can happen. But now many physicists agree that this whole phenomenon of there being a Universe composed of laws solely based on “free will”, is really just a misconception of what we can’t perceive – all of which being contained in “upper dimensions”. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe it is in the “7th dimension”, where all possible outcomes of all possible actions are contained within our universe. So really the possibility of different outcomes really is just an effect that is being exhorted through “upper dimensions”.

Basically in my opinion “free will” is a term that is associated with either one of two things: a concept that we don’t yet have the appropriate amount of information to understand, or simply something that we can’t possibly understand. Every thing works in some way and every thing happens in some way, so it doesn’t make since just too associate “free will” with everything that we don’t understand, or just don’t yet know.

 

if our universe is indeed infinite and expanding into infinity then every possibility does exist in this dimension, in many different universes both alike and completely different to ourselves. if look around enough, you will find a monkey writing Shakespeare, word perfect, (and many many more with mistakes) and you'll find forge hub except they liked the idea of the arbiter as a logo (as in everything that can happen, has happened and will happen including just a particle changed from this universe to every particle being different).

 

I second that, actually.

 

Determinism has a lot in common with religion- In that you believe that everything happens for a reason and theres nothing you can do about it. I'll have nothing to do with that. I believe everything is possible and when something happens that is unexpected, it is not special. It IS dumb luck that a Mother driving her children to school gets T-boned by a drunk driver. If you believe people die to fufill your gods "master plan" than you are just as sick as your idealogy.
If you believe everything is set in motion, then you more than likely believe there's a higher power that does things for a reason- You probably give your money to a church because they know whats best for your meager existence. They also KNOW every other religion is a LIE- So go ahead and fund the extermination and genocide we see every day because Religion causes nothing but war..

If you dont believe in chaos then you might as well pull the trigger yourself.

NWO

 

I think determinism has some great arguments, but I find it far too depressing to think that I don't make my own choices therefore I must believe in free will even if determinism already decided I would do so.
But some things still don't make sense, like Schrödinger's cat paradox, and how light behaves in Thomas Young's double slit experiment. Light takes all paths but if you try to identify which path the light took it will act differently.

In my opinion there are still too many questions to be able to correctly identify between determinism and free will.

 

Basically you change the outcome by observing.

Its like Lightning and the saying "It never strikes the same place twice". Sure it does, but we dont have a long enough period of time to prove it.
And even when it does happen- everyone would be undoubtedly impressed by the odds, it is usually considered an "act of god" or at the least a fluke.
The truth is the odds arent that staggering. There is actually 100% chance of lightning striking the same place twice- even three times and it is NOT special! However relativity limits our perception and instead of looking at the Chaos of nature we affiliate it with supernatural force and determinism.

In a nut-shell: Everything will happen eventually in no particular order

I know you wanna pull the trigger

 

yes, physics

the only reason for it doing things is a reaction to an action
and i'm an atheist

 

Personally I'm deterministic but I don't think this thread needs that side of things. However, realistically we have free will. You see you have no idea what I'm going to do next. I don't actually have any idea of what I'm going to do next after finishing typing. We also have no way of figuring this dilemma out. So to say determinism is true is to be operating on some vague idea of how the universe. Also, I find to be determinism to be much like religion which is surprising, since most deterministic people seem to be non-religious, also surprising, but let's be honest (not to be offensive in anyway) most religious people don't understand why they should be deterministic. So we have our view of the world is like a room we can't escape, and determinism(as well as religion) is saying what's outside of this room.

 

my entire point was that with enough data, you can predict. Just because our brains are too small (and not fully used) we may not be able to predict, but with the right sets of data, anything is predictable.

And i'm pretty sure the bible mentions god giving free will to humans (at least i think christians believe this)

 

but you don't even have any of that lovely, elusive "data" to make that case.

I can say the whole universe works because of many many invisible balloons that are constantly expanding and contracting and that the process is too complicated for us to understand right now but with enough data we will and have as much substance behind my claim as you do with yours.

 

no no no, you've got the whole theory wrong! thats not what i ment. I mean, if i know all about someones life, and genetic background, and everything they've ever done no matter how small it is: i could predict what they would do. BUT i can never have that much data, as the physical space it'd take up, would be unbelievably huge. i didn't mean theres no data to support my claim.

 

Theoretically possible = possible.

 

yeah, i didnt say anyone was, but because its not physically possible, but it is if there were a super computer/smarter beings, then it'd still prove it right.

Like the guy above said, theoretically, with more space you could, and theoretically, with enough data you could also. I also did say that it was impossible to make something like that. But still the theory is sound

BASICALLY with data on everything thats every happened, i could predict the future, but, its impossible in this universe (maybe dimension?) as the space it too small, and it couldnt fit into the universe

 

No not really cells do not think for themselves because thought processes come with the necessity of neurons or anything that has the ability to send many electrical impulses. There is more neurons required for thought to actually take place considering that the neuron is at least the size of a cell or bigger than one.

The fact that thoughts can be predicted is just bassed on the fact that there is only a limited amount of actions that can be taken and emotions. Yes there is very many emotions but someone will not make up their own emotion. People tend to react the same way to things such as if someone that you loved dies you cry and go through the grieving process. If someone makes you mad you get mad or angry even if you deal with it a different way that way is your way of getting mad. Such as some people will laugh when something is supposed to make them mad or they deal with death by laughing it off but that is their way of masking or showing the emotion that they are supposed to feel with death or anger. No it does not eliminate the possibility for free will, free will is we can do what we want, even if everything we do is predetermined we still choose to do it or not, because it is called the future.

Yes they are, they are as guilty as they would be if our futures were not set in stone. Mainly because you have to persicute people for doing wrong. We still have a free will that we can choose to do something wrong if any of you had a member of your family murdured you would want that person in jail regardless of any determinism because then those people would just go back out and do the same repeatedly and not only that but people will start doing more crimes coming up with the excuse "I was supposed to do it!" Then down that path leads a dangerous world, if we do not kill each other our state will deteriorate. In elementary school the reason for punishment for not doing homework is usually ment to give an incentive to do the work to build up study and work habbits. If every time a child does not do their homework they said "I was not supposed to do it" then as that generation grew up we would have a lazy generation that would quickly bring our world down.

 

I believe there a metaphysical organ, what some refer to as a "soul" that creates our free will, because determinism is absolutely set and undoubted in the physical universe, no idiot would counter that.

The metaphysical organ is in no way connected to your body, but "lined up" like an audio track and video track. Imagine you see a door shutting in a video, and a sound effect of door slamming is added in. The audio isn't actually connected to or caused by the video, but their position and timing simulates connection.

The soul is PURELY to make decisions, it's like playing a video game, the physical world (what you see on the screen) feeds info to your soul (the player) and your soul makes a decision (move a control) which is then converted into neurotic matter (thoughts) then to body movements, which is reflected in the physical world (the screen again).

Why did I come up with this ****? I want to believe in free will, and this is the only logic path that took me there.

EDIT


Uhm, after reading some other's posts, I'm not sure you guys understand what determinism is. From the beginning, one action determined every other physical action, the laws of physics prevent any decision making, there is no size limit or fps (frames per second) in the physical universe. Every single atom (or smaller unit) has a position that was determined since the beginning. i. e. Positive attracts negative, that atom moves to a positive charged atom, moves away, etc.. (simple example) if you knew the position of every atom in the universe, you could predict the future for eternity on.