Do We Have Free Will?

But I'm stark naked on top!
So no curl; but anyway, when I'm wrong (extremely rare ), I'm horrid!

Bo!

Go.

Whoa!

What Nietzsche observed was that life was in cycles, & probably in an intuition he thought that one day cycles would repeat in the exactly same way, theory that will not be able to be proved or rejected.

It would lend great disservice to the philosophies involved to take their cyclical vision too literally. Repetitiveness exists in all physical processes. Atoms are recycled over and over again -- including our own when we decay. Reincarnation is just that. This doesn't mean WE will return, but that our matter and energy (and possible a signature of what they experienced throughout our lives) is reused in the universe; on this planet.

Furthermore, patterns of repetition are recognizable throughout nature. Dissipative structures, starting away from thermodynamic equilibrium, such as cloud patterns, boiling water, rolling waves on a coast line, have reoccurring functions. Their apparition is not cyclical like in one-dimensional circularity, but cyclical like in physically attracted to certain constraints.

This is what unites ancient Asian spiritualism and modern Western chaos theory: one law stirs the universe, but its internal patterns of causality are repetitive, non-linear... and thus creative.

truth
Very good, Wolf. My reservation regarding recurrence theories is that they make no sense when taken literally. I do not, as I said before, believe Nietzsche meant a linear repetition of reality. The "eternal" (in his phrase) is more important than "recurrence": an event takes place in a timeless (eternal) context that can never be undone. Reincarnation should not be taken literally either (unless we are following the more recently emerged Tibetian fundamentalist line of thought). It is not "we" who reincarnate; that would suggest a self or ego that lives again. In Buddhism it does not exist in the first place and cannot, therefore, return. If one, however, identifies with the entire world, every birth after "my" death is a "repetition" of "my" (universal, not ego-centric) life.

I believe that in Buddhism, reincarnation for them is to return in another form to this world. c.i.

Wow, thanks Wolf!
I never considered that reincarnation may be the reccurrance of a general pattern. Hmmmm.... possibilities...

BoGoWo and Frank, I think that we are certain enough to use "know" in regard to this universe having existed for a finite amount of time, about 13 billion years since the big bang.

We do not know what preceded it, what its fate will be, whether it is infinite in size, or whether there are other universes in a multiverse that may indeed be infinite in time and/or space. But as I said, all infinities are not created equal, and my guess is that the infinity of possible lives is exponentially greater than the infinity of possible universes that could produce life.


BoGoWo, no, I was not negating all free will, although I am at a loss to explain why some people chose to exercise it in self-destructive ways. I cannot entirely rule out demonic possession.


Dux, yes, there are many observable cycles in nature, and life in a static society may have appeared repeatable to someone like Nietzsche who knew nothing of the complexity of DNA and the environment. Now we do have sufficient grounds for rejecting his eternal return theory.

I agree with Wolf that general patterns recur, but not exact duplications of events, lives, or souls.

Those who declare that history repeats itself are guilty of the false assumption that a similarity equates with that repetition. The above expresses well a rebuttal of that nonsense, with the caveat that the use of the word "soul" introduces an aspect of fantasy.

Terry; our divergence of opinion hinges upon our definitions (different) of the "universe"

You are referring to the known "experienceable" universe that we observe, and by observing and quantifying carfully, can assign a timeframe to.

I, when I use the word "universe", refer to the entire, temporal, infinite (in spite of the fact that you and Frank would point out that that is unknowable), "everything" including but beyond our observed phenomenon.

Now this is new, and scary:

My universe is a "felt" universe, built in an artistic manner on sensation, and interpretation of signs available to us from a myriad of sources; [similar you might say to a religious concept, except that religious images appear more as photocopier projections assembled from numerous similar clones.]
I feel the infiniteness of the universe;
I feel the everythingness from nothingness, of the universe;
I feel the bipolarity of opposing pairs, melding into the "something" of universality.

Boy, dangerous ground eh?

BoGoWo, yes, "universe" used to include "everything" that is, was, or ever will be, but is now generally used to refer to just that segment of space-time which resulted from our recent local big bang event. The multiverse (or sometimes megaverse) includes cyclic universes that may have preceded this one, co-existing universes that grew from bubbles in the quantum foam or black holes, parallel universes on branes in other dimensions, alternate realities spawned by quantum splitting, and anything else you can dream up.

How do you "feel" the extent of the universe? Is it anything like living on a boat on a vast ocean, unable to discern any hint of a shoreline and skeptical of radio signals and legends about the port from which the ship departed long before your birth?

Although I have no idea how big the universe really is, I have reasonable confidence in the efforts of astronomers and cosmologists to determine such things. I look up at the stars with wonder but no sense of infiniteness, and Hubble deep field images fill me with awe at the beauty and diversity of their myriad galaxies that are so distant in time and space that we can never know them and cannot tell from them whether space is infinite.

Setanta, agreed that the concept of soul may be a fantasy, so what word would you use to refer to that which wills our actions, freely or otherwise?

Terry;
"..... Is it anything like living on a boat on a vast ocean, unable to discern any hint of a shoreline and skeptical of radio signals and legends about the port from which the ship departed long before your birth? "

Hey, nicely "felt", don't short change yourself, you have an astronomical heart!

And don't put all your "faith" in understanding!

truth
Good, response, BoGoWo. But what we must avoid is the astroLOGICAL heart.
I can't grasps the meaning of A universe, as some kind of thing, when I cannot for the life of me imagine "it" having some kind of boundaries. What could be on the other side of the boundaries, such that it would be of the non-universe but still exist? The term has to refer, if it has any sense at all, to the "all" sans boundaries. I DO think or feel, however, that we can sense the QUALITATIVE (if not the quantitative extent of the) nature of Reality (or "universe" if you will)--its extent is a meaningless topic. We are part of the universe; to observe our experience is to observe a qualitative aspect of the universe--like the mustard seed metaphor, I suspect. We are synecdoches.

Synecdoche -- what a beautiful word. Didn't know that one. Thanks JLNobody.

A word indeed suitable to describe us, or anything else.

JLN's quote: "I can't grasps the meaning of A universe, as some kind of thing, when I cannot for the life of me imagine "it" having some kind of boundaries." It's interesting that you would make your statement today, because the San Jose Mercury News has an article titled, "SPACE SCIENCE CONTAINS BIG VOID." The essense of the article talks to the subject of our inability to see nor understand most of the dark matter and dark energy out in the cosmos. The word "infinity" came to mind as I read the article. I doubt man will ever find the answer. What we do know amounts to only about five percent of our universe. c.i.

There are more things in heavan and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy...
-W. Shakespeare (more or less... Hamlet)

There are more things in heavan and earth than dreamt of in any philosophy...

VLVBEA


very low voltage bio-electric activity

LOL

What about love? also a construct of physics?

no, i'd say whore-moans is responsible . . . more chemistry than physics . . .