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| Regarding fate/free will, I believe.... |
| Everything that happens does so for a reason that is part of a bigger, convergent plan. Somehow, all our life events are predetermined. |
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7% |
[ 2 ] |
| Everything that happens is because of some cause, but there is no plan and all causes are subject to our own free will and choice such that we can choose our path |
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62% |
[ 17 ] |
| There is some other explanation about how thing happen to us and the degree to which we can affect those things |
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29% |
[ 8 ] |
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| Total Votes : 27 |
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Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
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 Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 3:54 am Post subject: |
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venus
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The modern world of physics is notably founded on two tested and demonstrably sound theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics �theories which appear to contradict one another. The defining postulates of both Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum theory are indisputably supported by rigorous and repeated empirical evidence. However, while they do not directly contradict each other theoretically (at least with regard to primary claims), they are resistant to being incorporated within one cohesive model.
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I've altered the emboldened parts because you seem to have missed the most important points of this quote! |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 6:05 am Post subject: |
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| I prefer my non theoretical experiment of standing on the edge of a cliff and deciding to Jump or not. There it is in a nutshell - end of discussion. You had a choice (one of many) and you took one |
You don't know anything about quantum mechanics, or theoretical physics. No offense, I don't either... but lets examine your thought experiment for a minute.
Lets say you are standing on a cliff, and you percieve the ability to choose to jump, or to step back. And you choose one.
Now, lets rewind time, and imagine that you are again standing on that very same cliff, and that, as before, every single particle, the entire universe over, is in the exact same position, moving at the exact same velocity as before when you percieved a choice to jump, or to step back.
(notice, anyone citing heisenberg's uncertainty principle in relationship to my "not knowing physics" vis-a-viv location/speed shall be smoteth)
In classical theory, and in relativity, or more broader the wave theory of physics, whatever choice you ended up making, to jump, or not to jump, would be repeated, with no chance whatsoever for deviation. Hence, no freewill.
On the other hand, QM isn't so concerete. It's all about probabilities. In QM (which has never been wrong, and which has been experimentally confirmed so many times it isn't even worth arguing over at this point) there is a nonzero probability that you again jump, another that you don't jump, and yet other probabilities that you disappear and reappear on the other side of the moon (albeit much, much, lower than the first two).
Even in the QM perception of the world you lack freedom. Here you are merely experiencing the probabilistic outcome of billions upon billions of particles that comprise *you* when moving from one frame of time into the next.
No freewill.
I told you. Can't argue this... it isn't possible. That isn't how I want the world to be, it simply is the way it is. End of discussion. |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 6:15 am Post subject: |
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You see, I don't mean to be blunt, but I've spent the better part of 10 years contemplating this issue on a daily basis. I'm serious. I've read all of the philosophy on this subject I've been able to lay my hands on. I started studying theroetical physics, and tensor calculus to further my understanding.
I consider this question to be the most central question for our species. If you remove freewill from political, or social equations... i.e. religion, and nationality, the whole of the world's problems can be simplified and reduced to sheer simplicity.
I'm not saying you don't percieve a choice. Of course you do. But that perception is severely limited in contrast to the vast complexity of the systems that you find yourself in.
The perception of choice does not indicate the precense of one. |
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nobbyken
Joined: 07 Jun 2006
Location: Yongin ^^
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| Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 6:40 am Post subject: |
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| SuperFly wrote: |
Who wrote this?
"Be sure your sin will find you out." |
This is in the Bible. Numbers 32:23, the latter half of the verse.
" .....you may be sure that your sin will find you out."
Ain't that the truth!
I believe that since the garden of Eden, we all have been given free will.
Even married men!
However, since the garden, sin has kept many in bondage; as if there was no free will.
God has a good plan for each and every life, but we gotta work with Him.
Peace and Love to all,
Ken |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 6:58 am Post subject: |
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| I believe that since the garden of Eden, we all have been given free will. |
Simply amazing. It's 2007, meaning human life has been propagating this planet for about 130,000 years... and we still have people who believe in magic.
Let's see... in the corner of religion, in terms of accurate predictions, and something to show for it's ideology we have... ah... we have... besides racism, war, poverty, etc... ah... shit..
In the corner of Science (capitalized with intent) we have the internet, the internal combustion engine, airplanes, space travel, lunar landings, chemotherapy, lasers, atomic energy, the radio, the telephone, and more things that I would even want to list.
And yet... more people put their faith in magic.
Simply amazing. |
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venus
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Near Seoul
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| Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="n3ptne"]You see, I don't mean to be blunt, but I've spent the better part of 10 years contemplating this issue on a daily basis. I'm serious. I've read all of the philosophy on this subject I've been able to lay my hands on. I started studying theroetical physics, and tensor calculus to further my understanding.
I consider this question to be the most central question for our species. If you remove freewill from political, or social equations... i.e. religion, and nationality, the whole of the world's problems can be simplified and reduced to sheer simplicity.
I'm not saying you don't percieve a choice. Of course you do. But that perception is severely limited in contrast to the vast complexity of the systems that you find yourself in. |
I don't really want to debate QM either.
Because I really don't take it that seriously. Basically the interpretation of it you suscribe to - it's like watching a video of a soccer game after it's been played. While it's happening you can see the players making decisions. But QM is like watching life after it has happened on a video and saying that it was pre-determined. What a stupid, almost retarded idea! It's not actuality. It's clever, funny even but pure hypothesis.
What I'm trying to point out is that your argument against free will only stands up (depending on which interpretation of QM theory you stand by) if you apply QM theory to it.
It's only one theortetical perspective and my opinion there are several equally valid theoretical arguements for free will. Take away the theoretical idea that since the big bang (which cannot be proven lets be honest about it and I'm neither for or against it) we are all just particles expanding outwards on an unalterable course and there are plenty of instances of free will and choice. I just don't think it's valid to view the universe and our lives through that perspective. If that idea has such a strong grip on your mind, I'm shocked to be honest as it's not the only one. I see it merely as one possibility amongst others.
As for the idea that we are blindly driven by survivial instincts, thus we have no free will (notice neptune -and no offense - but here is another equally interesting theory that can be applied to the free will debate) that is an equally oversimplified theory. It doesn't account for the fact that last week I had the chance to shag an overwieght chubby Canadian who I didn't really fancy but usually would have any way but despite not having been laid for over two months, I couldn't be bothered and decided to see what it felt like to not blindly follow the dictates of my little best friend. Surely the raw darwininian survivial instinct theory in its purest form would have driven me to spread my seed non? But I do have free will of course as I chose not too. We all (well I do) carry out actions in our dailly lives that go against the survival instinct. In fact biological determinsim is so easilly shot down and the only way you can argue for it in many cases is to use the - the person is mentally ill or irrational argument.
A very simple act that I mentioned before. I stare at a candy on my desk before me. I burn the image into my retina and superimpose it in my mind onto the clock to my left instead of any other point of space in the room. I do this deliberately, choosing the clock instead of any other point in space before me.
Now the type of Qm theory that Neptune buys into would shatter the illusion of free will (I don't debate that, I just don't buy into such a hypothetical and unverified idea just like I agree with a lot of Freuds ideas but not the psychosexual one) if we choose to buy into it fully.
But the survival instinct theory (biological determinsm if you will - and here I will give ground for sure. I do not deny that a large part of our choices and experiences are driven by biological urges and instincts, I really don't - I'm just not an extremist who would say that this explains away every facet of experience. This is what troubles me about you guys, you use one finding to define everything. And then you polarise, you simplify.) But survival instincts cannot explain my little thought experiment. I chose to superimpose the image in my mind over one part of space instead of the myriad of other points before me. That is choice and there is nothing that can explain it away. I am choosing. The same goes for if I choose to inflict a minor injury onto myself deliberately to prove to myself I'm not driven soley by blind survival instincts. The same goes for my choice not to have sex with the Canaidan girl. Now you might counter that I am doing so because I am troubled by the thought of no free will and thus am providing for myself the illusieon to let me go on living comfortably. If so - then how would YOU be able to go on living comfortabelyeven though YOU DO believe you have free will! It's totally contradictory!
A high percentage of our lives are governed by urges, instincts and things we can't control, that's for sure. None of us chose where we were born, the genetics we inherited, the limitations we have. But within this framework we are able to use what we have to make choices within this framework.
What job to take, how many beers to have.... the list goes on and on and on and that is of course why you guys can sit there with your reductionist theories that make life allready over and accounted for but you still go on carrying out your lives. If youreally had discovered that you were a being, governed without any choices to make in your lives, I very much doubt you'd get out of bed. Why bother?
Of course as I mentioned before the whole polarisation of the two extremes (fw vs det) puts man apart from the universe. It says that for his spirit to be free it must not be governed by any part of the psysical universe (genes, matter, instinct, atoms.) And that is impossible. It is an arbitary abstraction because we simply are part of the universe. To be utterly free in the sense that the debate requires is an impossibility because it is an unreality, an abstraction, something not part of the real universe. Of course we are not utterly free from the universe or it's laws! What that is, is simply non-existance! It's a non seqitur, a white elephant.
It is flawed from the outstart!
That is both what makes it kind of fun but at the same time impossible to prove!
We are actually having a flawed debate! because it is grounded on false assumptions!
Pure freedom in the scope of this arguement and defined by its two polarised bundaries is an impossibility. It is non existence. It is not a reality, it is pure hypothosis. Thankfully and luckilly for us and what maks our lives colorful and interesting is that far from being purely outside of the universe or simply a machine governed by it - both positions making us APART, SEPERATE, OTHER than it, please take time to consider this lads - we are a part of it. AND THAT MY FRIENDS IS WHY WE HAVE CHOICE AND FREE WILL.
Please try to consider this and unlock the polarised boundaries of the theoretical box you have created. The two theories of QM and biodeterminism are interesting schools of thought and can provide SOME explaination of existential phenomena, but don't get trapped into thinking they expalin away everything. They do if you apply them in that sense, but to do so is merely a well intentioned (perhaps) oversight. Just as was pure communism.
Thank you. Have a great day and enjoy the choices you are able to make during your day and the realisation that you are not serpate from the universe and neither a mere pawn but a living, breathing, concsious part of it that has choices to make today. Ah, I love the grey areas.
Of course we must eat to survive, we have no choice in that, but we have choice what to eat. Well the luckier ones of us on this planet do. We don't know why we're in tis universe or how / why it exists, but we have small choices we can make within it. That is my point.
What are you going to have for lunch today...? |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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| What a stupid, almost retarded idea! It's not actuality. It's clever, funny even but pure hypothesis. |
Again.. I'm not even going to bother reading your post.
QM is way past the stage of hypothesis... it has been experimentally confirmed over the past century dozens of times, and it has made prediction upon prediction which has then been confirmed.
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| I don't really want to debate QM either. |
No offense... you don't want to debate it because you don't know anything about it, and you don't understand it in any capacity. But then again, neither do I.
At the other end of the spectrum are the opponents of reductionism who are appalled by what they feel to be the bleakness of modern science. To whatever extent they and their world can be reduced to a matter of particles or fields and their interactions, they feel diminished by that knowledge....I would not try to answer these critics with a pep talk about the beauties of modern science. The reductionist worldview is chilling and impersonal. It has to be accepted as it is, not because we like it, but because that is the way the world works. |
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venus
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Near Seoul
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| Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 9:30 pm Post subject: |
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| n3ptne wrote: |
| Quote: |
| What a stupid, almost retarded idea! It's not actuality. It's clever, funny even but pure hypothesis. |
Again.. I'm not even going to bother reading your post. 1.
QM is way past the stage of hypothesis... it has been experimentally confirmed over the past century dozens of times, and it has made prediction upon prediction which has then been confirmed. 2.
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| I don't really want to debate QM either. |
No offense... you don't want to debate it because you don't know anything about it, and you don't understand it in any capacity. But then again, neither do I.
3.
At the other end of the spectrum are the opponents of reductionism who are appalled by what they feel to be the bleakness of modern science. To whatever extent they and their world can be reduced to a matter of particles or fields and their interactions, they feel diminished by that knowledge....I would not try to answer these critics with a pep talk about the beauties of modern science. The reductionist worldview is chilling and impersonal. It has to be accepted as it is, not because we like it, but because that is the way the world works. |
1. Then how the f*ck can you reply to it you fool?
2. No it is not. Don't state your opinion as fact.
3. Yes I do. The absurd thing is you admit that YOU don't yet are proffessing opinion about it and claiming it proves a fully deterministic universe in both a physical and an philosophical sense.
For crying out loud! 
Another Dave's troller it would seem. I just don't see the point why guys like you bother psoting on serious topics. You have no interest in truth you just want to win arguments. Thus I'll no longer coninue our dialogue. |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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1. Then how the f*ck can you reply to it you fool?
2. No it is not. Don't state your opinion as fact.
3. Yes I do. The absurd thing is you admit that YOU don't yet are proffessing opinion about it and claiming it proves a fully deterministic universe in both a physical and an philosophical sense.
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1. You said it was a "silly hypothesis", easy to reply to.
2. Yes it is. Experimental confirmation isn't opinion, it is a glimpse at a facet of the objective universe.
3. No you don't. See numbers 1 & 2.
The funny thing, is that I'm not an advocate of QM. I think it's not a complete theory, circa Einstein, but on the other end of the scientific spectrum you have relativity.
And relativity is even more hard lined to the fact that there is no such thing as free will, in either a philosophic or physical sense.
Essentially, for what you believe to be actualized, a fundamental reunderstanding of physics would need to take place that would usurp Relativity, QM, and everything Newton did.
This isn't opinion. This is how the universe works. Period. |
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venus
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Near Seoul
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| Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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Yawn....
Quantum mechanics are probabalistic. As are their real world simulations and computer (turing) models.
Moreover QM point more towards a non determinalistic universe than a deterministic one, but with your limited reading on it (probably from wikipedia) you don't realize this. Please check out - Chaitin's proof on K integers; Von Neuman's proof and I also strongly suggest you re-read Einstein because you've actually misinterpreted him a full 180 degrees when it comes to casuality.
But anyhow.
Using the laws of physics to make precise long-term predictions is impossible, even in theory. Making long-term predictions to any degree of precision at all would require giving the initial conditions to infinite precision.
This is why meteorologists are never 100% correct - which they would be if the laws of the unvierse were completely deterministic and predictable.
Time's arrow is a nifty little simplification (one is reminded of Zeno) but is only the equivelent of watching a video backwards and assuming mistakenly that there is no free will as in RETROSPECT the motions in the video cannot be undone thus we jump to the conclusion of determinism. Judged through this idea, yes the universe it determinsitic. You're right in that aspect. But and it is a HUGE BUT - can you not see how it's a flawed conclusion as we are unable to observe the universe from outside of time and space...? Making the Time's arrow perspective arbitrary.
It's an easy mistake and I can see why you make it but in the moment, not viewing reality backwards from outside of time (an impossibility) there are myriads of possibilities and we have the choices to make them.
The time's arrow idea is basically your understanding of QM. One of the many theoretical facets of QM, itself being not yet quantifiable. |
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Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 1:04 am Post subject: |
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venus
You are making two very erroneous assumptions:
1) You think that because a universe where every outcome is pre-determined excludes the possibility of free will then a universe where not all outcomes are pre-determined must include free will. This is wrong. In both types of universe free will might not exist.
2) You think that because choice exists there must be free will. Every time you use a search engine it 'chooses' what links from all the possible ones available which ones to bring you. This choice is based on set criteria. I believe human choices are equally determined by set criteria. We simply believe that we have freely chosen because our conscious mind, unaware of the criteria that caused our choice,supplies us for a reason for our choice the same way it supplies people operating under post-hypnotic suggestion with reasons for their actions given them the illusion that they have acted freely (same with the patients with severed corpus calloseums). |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 2:36 am Post subject: |
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You seem to have really confused Einstein, QM, and String Theory:
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| Moreover QM point more towards a non determinalistic universe than a deterministic one, but with your limited reading on it (probably from wikipedia) you don't realize this. |
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| Moreover QM point more towards a non determinalistic universe than a deterministic |
Actually, QM points to a completely deterministic universe. I'd suggest reading the following materials:
The Strange Story of the Quantum, Banesh Hoffman
The EPR Paper
Quantum Theory, by David Bohm
Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory, by Heisenberg
I can list more if you'd like. They are for the mathematically inclined reader though.
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| 1) You think that because a universe where every outcome is pre-determined excludes the possibility of free will then a universe where not all outcomes are pre-determined must include free will. This is wrong. In both types of universe free will might not exist. |
Freewill is absolutely impossible in either universe... if things are predetermined (relativity), freewill is not possible. If things are randomly determined based on probability waves (qm) than freewill is still impossible.
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| Please check out - Chaitin's proof on K integers; Von Neuman's proof and I also strongly suggest you re-read Einstein because you've actually misinterpreted him a full 180 degrees when it comes to casuality. |
I think you mean Chaitin's work on The Gestalt of Determinism, and what the value of K represents... you've severely retarded it because, well, it works in my favor, not in yours:
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Even worse, there need be no simple rule of any kind relating the events of a deterministic universe. This highlights the important distinction between determinism and the concepts of predictability and complexity. There is no requirement for a deterministic universe to be predictable, or for its complexity to be limited in any way. Thus, we can never prove that any finite set of observations could only have occurred in a non-deterministic algorithm. In a sense, this is trivially true, because a finite Turing machine can always be written to generate any given finite string, although the algorithm necessary to generate a very irregular string may be nearly as long as the string itself. Since determinism is inherently undecidable, we may try to define a more tractable notion, such as predictability, in terms of the exhibited complexity manifest in our observations. This could be quantified as the length of the shortest Turing machine required to reproduce our observations, and we might imagine that in a completely random universe, the size of the required algorithm would grow in proportion to the number of observations (as we are forced to include ad hoc modifications to the algorithm to account for each new observation). On this basis it might seem that we could eventually assert with certainty that the universe is inherently unpredictable (on some level of experience), i.e., that the length of the shortest Turing machine required to duplicate the results grows in proportion with the number of observations. In a sense, this is what the "no hidden variables" theorems try to do.
However, we can never reach such a conclusion, as shown by Chaitin's proof that there exists an integer k such that it's impossible to prove that the complexity of any specific string of binary bits exceeds k (where "complexity" is defined as the length of the smallest Turing program that generates the string). This is true in spite of the fact that "almost all" strings have complexity greater than k. Therefore, even if we (sensibly) restrict our meaningful class of Turing machines to those of complexity less than a fixed number k (rather than allowing the complexity of our model to increase in proportion to the number of observations), it's still impossible for any finite set of observations (even if we continue gathering data forever) to be provably inconsistent with a Turing machine of complexity less than k. (Naturally we must be careful not to confuse the question of whether "there exist" sequences of complexity greater than k with the question of whether we can prove that any particular sequence has complexity greater than k.) |
Oh, and von Neuman "proof" (actually not a proof, but rather his work with Hilbert space in QM) has nothing at all to do with this, and was actually wrong... this was later proven by Alain Aspect.
Unless you're referring to his backward induction proof... which has nothing at all to do with QM... but which is entirely supportive of determinism.
Oh, and I'm not referring to time's arrow at all... has nothing to do with this either.
I think you should update your reading a bit. Try The Elegant Universe, by Brian Greene. It should be around your level.
Einstein, by the way, was entirely deterministic, and disliked QM, calling it incomplete, because of its probabilistic nature... famously saying, "God doesn't play dice." (to which Bohr famously replied, "Stop telling God what to do!")
Freewill is impossible in the Einsteinian perspective of the Universe, and thats why he (Einstein) was so enamoured by the philosophy of Spinoza. |
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Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 4:01 am Post subject: |
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n3ptune
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| 1) You think that because a universe where every outcome is pre-determined excludes the possibility of free will then a universe where not all outcomes are pre-determined must include free will. This is wrong. In both types of universe free will might not exist. |
Freewill is absolutely impossible in either universe... if things are predetermined (relativity), freewill is not possible. If things are randomly determined based on probability waves (qm) than freewill is still impossible. |
You've misunderstood the point I was making. When I used might (above) I wasn't implying that there is a possibility that free will exists (I don't believe it does). I was pointing out to venus that that having a universe where not all outcomes were determined does not necessarily imply free will. |
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Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 4:15 am Post subject: |
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n3ptune
You seem to have made a mistake in your post above.
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| Actually, QM points to a completely deterministic universe. |
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| if things are predetermined (relativity), |
In fact it is Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle that implies that the universe is inherently unpredictable and rules out the possibility of an omniscient God. Einstein could not accept this because he did not believe that God would create the universe without knowing what the outcome would be hence "God would not play dice". QM points to a completely indeterministic universe and that's why Einstein rejected it. Was the above a typo on your part? |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 9:01 am Post subject: |
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I didn't make a mistake at all... both relativity and QM point to deterministic universes.
The difference is that while QM leaves the door open a crack, Relativity doesn't.
QM says that we can't predict the outcome of the universe, because according to Heisenberg we can't know both the location, and velocity of any given particle at the same time.
What it doesnt implicitly state is that particles lack a definate velocity, or location, although the EPR paper and its refutation goes directly in this spirit.
Essentially, QM doesn't say the universe isn't following a set specific track, it just says that things are probabilistic in nature... not that given the same set of circumstances, that the same outcome of probability wouldn't be achieved.
You have to remember that there is nothing mutually exclusive about Qm and relativity... the only problem arises when the mathematics are combined and they yield nonsensical infinities. But, nevertheless both theories are completely deterministic.
Either way, it's all moot... in neither model can free exist...
Sorry. |
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