Free Will

binnyboy

First, I can't accept a notion of space that "contains our galaxy" or anything else. That would mean an absolute space, something like a "recipient".
Second, in your example of the galaxy we have a closed system, because you define an entity that doesn't interact with other entities - in this case, light, gravitation.
Third, even if we consider your example as an exercise of imagination, the problem subsists. A system with no relation with other systems,a system where the initial conditions are not created or disturbed by external factors, is necessarily it's own cause. It's a system that has not become what it is, but is fixed from the begining. This, I repeat, because your system doesn't allow external interactions. This is why I said such a system would be it's own cause and effect.
In fact, your system is similar to the notion of matter given by Spinoza in the first part of his "Ethic".

You say that given initial conditions, subsequent conditions follow. Yes. But that doesn't mean that the sequence is predictable. All you can say is that subsequent conditions must respect the conditions of the system (a seed becomes a plant. Or not. But a seed cannot become a cow).
Imagine that the theory of big-bang is correct and you where in the beginning of the process. You could never predict the formation of the present universe, not only because of the variants but because many conditions may occur but also may not occur. And the present universe is the consequence of the fact that certain conditions did occur and other conditions did not (although they could).

val, my open system interacts with things outside itself. Stuff can fly in or out with no probs. And the gravity of things outside can affect the things inside, but even gravity has a speed, c. So we can still make our system big enough so that gravity doesn't affect it. The system didn't always have all the stuff that's in it now in it. We just woke up one day, and decided to draw a big fat imaginary cube around our galaxy. It DOES interact. We just have one centered at our point of interest. And nothing outside the system could affect the point of interest until a certain amount of time had passed ("radius" of system divided by [2 x the speed of light]).
And as for predicting, I'll concede right now and say maybe we can't ever predict everything just right. BUT that doesn't mean there's not just one linear chain of events, the ends of which are inevitable. Because regardless of our box, we couldve drawn a bigger.

The concept of determinism contradicts the basic concept of philosophy. Even if all things are determined, I do not see them as such. I still must live through them without knowledge of what will happen, as if what is happening has not yet been determined to happen, for I do not know that it will happen. I do not Understand. Even if all choices have already been made, they have no occured to me, and they will only occur to me as if I made them. Fate means nothing more than everything that happens happens for the reason that it brings about the end, which is self evident and proves nothing. The procession to the end must still take place, and we must live it.

binnyboy

I never denied the existence of one only linear chain of events. I cannot say that Caesar was killed by the republicans in the Senate and, at same time, that he died of pneumonia in his bed.
The problem is that the linear chain of events is not necessary - except from the point of view of someone who looks to the past: in this case "things happened the way they did". But free will has to do with necessity. If the events that led to the murder of Caesar were necessary, then free will does not exist. If not, free will is acceptable. I believe in this last position. After all, Caeser could have died of pneumonia one month before the conspiration, and then, he wouldn't be killed in the Senate. Pneumonia is an acceptable event that could occur in Caesar's life. It is an event that respects the initial conditions of the system - in this case, an historic system. But, according to those initial conditions, Caesar could not have died in a plane accident.
Binni, I hope I have clarified my position.

Yes, you have

But Caesar COULD NOT have died of pneumonia.
Because that wouldn't have set well with the initial conditions. (in my opinion)

Free will.
free will is one of the only things that God promises will not be manipulated by the devil in trying to win souls for eternity. in my thought on free will i do share, on some points the same veiws as stuh505, being that free will has something to do with physics. ultimatly i think free will gaurentees that we will aways have choices, whether they are positive or negitive choices, we always have the right to make decisions. Though all of our choices are effected by experience, logic, and emotions; the final choice is up to ourself. In situations where you think that you dont have a choice, you have to remember you always have the choice of non-compliannce....

Right. A person must choose, even a person not choosing is still choosing, as Sartre pointed out.

Did the screen name Rei+ki, use free will to post this thread ? If not posted by free will, then how ? Rei+ki if free will did post, where was free will written ?

The universe is a closed system. What was written was bound to be written, because no other outcome was possible, due to the laws of physics acting upon our closed system.

Isn't one of the foundation of human reason include the notion of "free will".

If the universe is eternally expanding, collapsing, reincarnating, then can the future already be determined? I think that the concept of determinism relies something to be observing the system passively, but since everything is a part of the system, then determinism is complicated.

Sure if you will. Free will can non the less be predetermined. Depends on what you put in the word free I guess.

[/QUOTE]If the universe is eternally expanding, collapsing, reincarnating, then can the future already be determined? I think that the concept of determinism relies something to be observing the system passively, but since everything is a part of the system, then determinism is complicated.[/quote]

I fail to see why a deterministic universe would have to be observed from without, or why a universe would need to be observed at all, in order to exist.

I think on the level of quantum physics things are random rather than deterministic, at least humans have yet to make sense of the madness, but on a largr scale I'm with determinism.

This will always be a difficult question, and the many possibly related questions evolving from quantum physics frankly go beyond my ability to grasp in any other than a mathematical way, and even there I have trouble.

However we do have at hand in the macroscopic world numerous readily observable phenomena that are known to be both deterministic and unpredictable. They have other interesting, potentially relevant qualities, as well. They are self-regulating and generally behave in more or less statistically reliable ways, but prediction of the details of their behavior is both practically and theoretically impossible, even though the laws governing their behavior are known accurately. I am of course referring to any of an innumerable set of non-linear dynamic systems, which exhibit what we have come to call chaos in their behavior. Examples include systems as complex and universal as the earth's atmosphere and even ones as simple as non-linear compound pendulums.

The weather provides a particularly good example. Almanacs have long provided reasonably accurate gross predictions abut some seasonal trends based on empirical rules. However the accurate prediction of the weather in a week's time at a particular place is beyond the reach of even contemporary science and computing power. Moreover, even in the mathematics of numerical modeling there arise perverse limits on our powers of resolution and computation that bear a remarkable similarity to the uncertainty principle in quantum physics. The more accurately one attempts to model the spatial resolution the smaller must be the time steps in the integration to prevent roundoff errors from growing, Again, a fully deterministic system that is absolutely unpredictable with absolute precision.

Now considering the complexity of the neural networks of the human brain, mutual interactions of it with sensory systems and the endocrine system, plus the mind's ability to retain predisposition both from its genes and stored data about prior experience - it does not seem at all difficult for me to accept that the behavior of an observed person will be unpredictable with any great precision, even though one might stipulate complete knowledge or control of his external situation.

I think you're focusing too much on measurement, and not enough on the laws themselves. Sure we could never MEASURE the positions of all the particles and the properties of each and every one of them (this is what it would take to predict the weather, this... and a more complete understanding of the physical laws of the universe). But if somebody that knew just told us what the positions were, the perfected laws (not the ones we have our hands on right now) could tell us EXACTLY what the weather would be assuming no outside interference, which there would certainly be. So that's why we would have to find the positions and momenta (heisenberg and quantum mechanics be derned... I think the whole basis of that science is spurious) and on and on of all particles in a certain radius of earth to be able to accurately predict weather (and all other phenomena on earth) for a given time period. That's what I think, anyway.

binney,

Though your assumption that, if we were to know presisely the location, momentum, and energy of every molecule of the atmosphere at a given moment, we could, with enough computing power, calculate exactly the state of the atmosphere at a later time, has a certain intuitive appeal, it is incorrect. Unfortunately the real world interposed real barriers to such predictins that cannot be overcome with mere computing power. There are several phrases used to describe the problem. One is 'sensitive dependence on initial conditions'. It referes to the cascading and eventually dominant effect the slightest variation or error in the sprcification of the nitial conditions can have on the unfolding dynamic of what follows. A colorful metaphr called the "butterfly principle" was used to illustrate thepoint - could the flapping of a butterfly's wings over a field in Kansas cause a typhoon in the China Sea - the answer is yes.

There is also reason th believe ths eternal stability of the orbits of the planets and comets around our sun, occasionally slightly disturbed as they are by the occasional asteroid, are themselves subject to chaotic excursions that might emerge. Even a simple three body gravitational problem permits no closed form mathematical solution, and the numerical integration of their equations of motion reveals teh same difficulties we encounter in forecasting the weather.

All this applies with equal force to any attemot to forecast a particular outcome from a himan brain, sensory and endoctine system whose behavior has been shapred by experience and memory and genetic inheritance,

george, first you said,


then you said,


So you have clearly either ignored the assumption, or we have different ideas of what the word "precisely" means.

I'm not interested really in whether "we" could predict it or not. But whether the initial conditions completely determine all subsequent conditions. Which they do.

Possibly, and possibly not. The halflife of radioactive compounds seem to be unaltered regardless of external influences. Some sort of internal causality can be imagined I suppose, but the whole thing might also be put down to pure chance.

maybe... and I'll admit that it does boil down to a matter of opinion which I doubt can ever be flawlessly proved due to exactly what george said... difficulties in measurement and verification of this property

We "put these things down to pure chance" precisely because we cannot predict their particular behavior by any means. We instead use probability theory to forecast their gross properties which are at least crudely predictable. The phenomenon of radioactive decay of unstable nuclides is subject to a number of quandum effects which further complicate the problem.

My point was that, even in the macroscopic world, non-linear dynamic systems which are both fully deterministic and yet exhibit chaotic behaviors are ubiquitous. There are numerous examples in the wild involving chaotic variations in the population of predator and prey species. The stock market provides yet another, example. There is nothing at all remarkable in the notion that human behavior might be at once deterministic and yet, in the case of individuals, unpredictable - even without any assumptions regarding the soul or the will.

But it hasn't been so far?



If determinism requires things to be able to be predicted well before an event occurs, then there must be "something" predicting it, and the "something", hypothetically, can only exist within the system. When a "something" is predicting the actions of a system, it has to interact with it in one way or another, thus affecting the system in some way. The "something" is a part of the system then. We are all a part of this universe and can we determine what we are going to do in the future even when we know that the fact that we would know the future can change our actions in the future in one way or another? If I know what my future is going to be, I can change it, and it's probable that knowing of the future can already change the future that's predicted. Thus, which future is real? The one that is predicted, or the one that is happening? Of course the one that is happening is the future that is real, and it can not be determined by anyone.

I think you're right in some regard, ray.

But I think in trying to show that there is not a single, linear string of events that must happen in the future, you have instead shown that we cannot predict what that string is. You think you have control over what you "choose" to do. But all of the things you base your "choices" on are fed to you by the outside... the universe. Your condition--your form--is also determined by the outside... the forces of the universe. As your form and also all of the bases of your choices are determined by that which is not you, your "choices" are but a regurgitation of what inevitably would come from what "you" were exposed to. How could it be any other way? The benefit of retrospect tells us that it absolutely could not have been any other way.