Free Will (115)

4 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2007-02-21 01:24 ID:zm6ANFQc

> You have the feeling of having made a decision, but in reality this is the only outcome that could have possibly occured. Because the particles of your mind that are involved in all the decision making are still governed by the laws of physics your final "decision" is no more a product of choice than one ball striking another on a pool table. The interactions of the particles of your mind and the balls on the table are all governed by the same laws of physics, and nothing can change that.

As an aside, it is not known whether the laws of physics are deterministic. Most of them are, but the concept of "waveform collapse" in qunatum physics is still poorly understood, and appears as if it might not be deterministic, but entirely random.

Even if the laws of physics are deterministic, this does not mean the future is knowable. Dynamic, chaotic systems have the property that small changes grow exponentially, and thus any uncertainty in the knowledge of the initial state of a system will grow and destroy the possibility of predicting the future of said system. As perfect knowledge of the initial conditions is impossible to acquire due to quantum uncertainty, even deterministic systems are essentially unpredictable.

In summary, the universe is simply not clockwork and billiard balls. How any of this applies to the concept of free will is as yet undetermined, however.

This thread has been closed. You cannot post in this thread any longer.