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Free will is an illusion and the biggest con ever.

13

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,426 ✭✭✭ressem


    You're missing the point, no one is saying that we can ever know what will happen as it's far too complex, but what will happen is predetermined nevertheless.

    No I'm not missing the point. The OP is about free will.
    Predetermination involves having a model (mental, physical, mathematical, historical etc) that will match reality up to the desired point;
    other than the item or decision itself. (the pre- bit of predetermination)

    I'm saying that it is not possible to model the universe and the interactions and collisions between everything else.
    That even creating a model of the galaxy with all information as it exists today and playing it forwards would start to quickly diverge from the universe's version.
    It's probably not possible to model a bit of 'empty vacuum', when you see what happens in Casimir effect experiments.

    There are things that can be predicted with 99.99999..%. certainty. I think that there will always be turbulence that causes the predictions to stray from 100%.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    NipNip wrote: »
    Actually, I learned enough about physics to know that a reference to chaos theory really is an arrogant human way of referring to the myriad of inter-related perfectly law abiding interactions. Nothing chaotic about it. Apart from to our tiny brains in assuming to somehow begin to understand it lol.

    It's not really called chaos theory in the field. And chaotic systems are clearly "understandable" and can be modelled and the outcomes predicted. .


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 30 Snowpavlova


    What about decisions I don't have to make? Why do I have freedom not to make decisions if everything is predetermined.



    I don't deny that evolution is the reason for the complexity of the human brain. But why does that make free will an illusion?

    You feel like you can make water decisions you want, and you can make the decisions you want, but they are still predetermined by the laws of physics.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    ressem wrote: »
    No I'm not missing the point. The OP is about free will.
    Predetermination involves having a model (mental, physical, mathematical, historical etc) that will match reality up to the desired point;
    other than the item or decision itself. (the pre- bit of predetermination)

    I'm saying that it is not possible to model the universe and the interactions and collisions between everything else.
    That even creating a model of the galaxy with all information as it exists today and playing it forwards would start to quickly diverge from the universe's version.
    It's probably not possible to model a bit of 'empty vacuum', when you see what happens in Casimir effect experiments.

    There are things that can be predicted with 99.99999..%. certainty. I think that there will always be turbulence that causes the predictions to stray from 100%.

    You've just missed the point in a more verbose fashion. A planets orbit is subject to the laws of physics regardless of whether it "knows" those laws. Either those laws lead to a determined conclusion or they don't. In classical physics they do.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,959 ✭✭✭gugleguy


    jack, lay off using that wooden circular disc ouwijie board thingie you're always at to make serious decisions in the movies. It's useless. Burn it. Now.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    Everybody should move away from the "humans can't model the universe" argument. Of course not. But the universe would follow those laws even if we weren't there.

    The question is whether those laws apply to humans. I guess most people would think lower animals have no choice - an ant or a bee react to stimulus. Why not us?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 656 ✭✭✭NipNip


    It's not really called chaos theory in the field. And chaotic systems are clearly "understandable" and can be modelled and the outcomes predicted. .

    Of one atom in a vacuum or have ye progressed to 20 atoms exposed to a summer breeze?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 30 Snowpavlova


    ressem wrote: »
    No I'm not missing the point. The OP is about free will.
    Predetermination involves having a model (mental, physical, mathematical, historical etc) that will match reality up to the desired point;
    other than the item or decision itself. (the pre- bit of predetermination)

    I'm saying that it is not possible to model the universe and the interactions and collisions between everything else.
    That even creating a model of the galaxy with all information as it exists today and playing it forwards would start to quickly diverge from the universe's version.
    It's probably not possible to model a bit of 'empty vacuum', when you see what happens in Casimir effect experiments.

    There are things that can be predicted with 99.99999..%. certainty. I think that there will always be turbulence that causes the predictions to stray from 100%.

    Now I know you're missing the point.

    It's predetermined regardless of it being too complex to model. It's too complex to model the results of the lotto, there's still on one way the balls are going to roll out for each draw.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    Plenty of scientists think free will is an illusion.

    They might well be right. It's got buggerall to do with DNA though. One look at identical twins is enough to make that OP claim fall apart. Oh, and gene therapy. We can and do control our DNA. It moulds us slightly but it's mostly insignificant in determining who we are.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,426 ✭✭✭ressem


    You've just missed the point in a more verbose fashion. A planets orbit is subject to the laws of physics regardless of whether it "knows" those laws. Either those laws lead to a determined conclusion or they don't. In classical physics they do.

    Other way around. Physics is the study of the universe.

    The laws of physics are our model of how the universe works based on history, experiment, mathematics.
    If the planet is in a complex orbit we might end up repeatedly changing and modifying the laws as we observe deviations in an aspiration to achieve a notional perfect description.

    We're arguing as to whether the notional perfection description can exist.
    I'm suggesting that it's a fiction.


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 656 ✭✭✭NipNip


    Sarky wrote: »
    They might well be right. It's got buggerall to do with DNA though. One look at identical twins is enough to make that OP claim fall apart.

    No it's not! Twin one is fed at 10pm by mammy. Twin two is fed at 10pm by daddy. Twin one is being held, burped and fed at a different angle to twin two. Because mammy has had no sleep and daddy has. Mammy spots a spider on the wall and leaps to her feet. Almost dropping twin 1 in the process. Daddy calmly puts twin 2 into the cot while he deals with spider, mum and twin one.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 656 ✭✭✭NipNip


    NipNip wrote: »
    No it's not! Twin one is fed at 10pm by mammy. Twin two is fed at 10pm by daddy. Twin one is being held, burped and fed at a different angle to twin two. Because mammy has had no sleep and daddy has. Mammy spots a spider on the wall and leaps to her feet. Almost dropping twin 1 in the process. Daddy calmly puts twin 2 into the cot while he deals with spider, mum and twin one.

    Identical twins with vastly different experiences of the same event


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,426 ✭✭✭ressem


    Now I know you're missing the point.

    It's predetermined regardless of it being too complex to model. It's too complex to model the results of the lotto, there's still on one way the balls are going to roll out for each draw.

    It's not too complex. It would cost more than the prize.

    If you built an intricately detailed computer model of the chamber, the release mechanism and each of the balls in their exact starting orientation, their elasticity, room humidity, temperature lighting, surface contamination such as fingerprint oils you could probably improve your chances of 3-5 numbers, but perfectly predicting the collisions and turbulence is an unsolved maths problem.
    You can get close with a lot of work and energy.

    I suggest that it is not 'solved' / determined until it has occurred.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 192 ✭✭debit2credit


    You feel like you can make water decisions you want, and you can make the decisions you want, but they are still predetermined by the laws of physics.

    I think you are taking a leap of faith here.

    Particles interact according to the laws of physics. 'Molecules' in the brain interact when a decision is made. It doesn't follow that physics shows that decisions are predetermined.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 393 ✭✭Young Blood


    Morality is an important factor in the concept of 'Free Will'; there are some people who adhere to it on certain levels and others who don't.

    I remember Donal McIntyre once saying after been interviewed about his life as an investigative journalist whether he came to any conclusions. He said that the personality of the criminals who make it to the top are very like CEO's of companies.

    I thought that was an interesting observation since it says a lot about leadership and 'dna'. imo I think leaders are born and to an equal extent 'servants' are born.

    There is a simple explanation of why people make the decissions they do and why they don't.

    I think History is a good study of the topic.


    .


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 656 ✭✭✭NipNip


    I just know that an inevitable outcome of this thread is that someone is going to pm me the lotto numbers


  • Registered Users Posts: 27 irishleeds


    Death is a man made concept...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,094 ✭✭✭wretcheddomain


    From birth we are subject to the controlling factor of our DNA. We ARE our DNA and we cannot change that programming, it's literally who we are.

    So we are nothing more than robotic machines subject to laws and programming at every level of existence.

    Our personalities are simply creations of a simulated and "known" programmed reality.

    How can the soul (holy spirit) that animates the human body be responsible for the bodies programmed actions?

    So your DNA has programmed you to say at a future date that you would question its programming.

    Determinism is synonymous with philosophical bullsh1t. How can I disprove determinism? Well, look at radioactive decay; there's a process right there that has no determined path of decay. Look at quantum mechanics, uncertainty built into the fabric of matter itself. If there's uncertainty at the fundamental level, then there's no reason to assume determinism at the macro level.

    Problem solved; don't know what took the philosophers and theologians so long.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 393 ✭✭Young Blood


    irishleeds wrote: »
    Death is a man made concept...

    The survival of the species is whats important and not the individuals. SO you can draw your own conclusions from that.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 192 ✭✭debit2credit


    The survival of the species is whats important and not the individuals. SO you can draw your own conclusions from that.

    Important to whom? Are you implying natural selection is a conscious process now....

    I think each individual is important. Oh wait I forgot I was preprogrammed to think that thankfully :pac:


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 656 ✭✭✭NipNip


    So your DNA has programmed you to say at a future date that you would question its programming.

    Determinism is synonymous with philosophical bullsh1t. How can I disprove determinism? Well, look at radioactive decay; there's a process right there that has no determined path of decay. Look at quantum mechanics, uncertainty built into the fabric of matter itself. If there's uncertainty at the fundamental level, then there's no reason to assume determinism at the macro level.

    Problem solved; don't know what took the philosophers and theologians so long.

    Because you can't find a link, does not mean that one does not exist


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 192 ✭✭debit2credit


    NipNip wrote: »
    Because you can't find a link, does not mean that one does not exist

    And nobody minds that so long as determinists recognise that it is an article of faith until the science catches up with their "advanced DNA"....


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 30 Snowpavlova


    And nobody minds that so long as determinists recognise that it is an article of faith until the science catches up with their "advanced DNA"....

    Cause and effect is accepted, the burden is on you to prove that processes exist such that cause and effect don't apply.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,745 ✭✭✭Macavity.


    Ted_YNWA wrote: »
    If I murdered someone, I can claim that my DNA made me do it.

    Would be laughed out of every courthouse in the land with that defence.

    Judge would send me on numerous mental health studies.

    Wasn't that the plot to an SVU episode before?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 393 ✭✭Young Blood


    Important to whom?

    To our genetic make up.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,874 ✭✭✭rolliepoley


    Its all one big test.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,428 ✭✭✭.jacksparrow.


    But only one thing can ever happen? But I could have chosen to do something else if I wanted to.

    Is the argument here really that because you can only choose to do one thing at a specific time that it's impossible you could ever have chosen to do otherwise?


    No you were only ever going to do that outcome, it was never gonna be another choice because it only happend one way.

    Everything that happens was always going to happen, there was never another outcome.

    Like when someone says if only I chose to do something differ I could have been a millionaire or whatever.

    That could never have happend.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,428 ✭✭✭.jacksparrow.


    Why? Do you believe that you have no moral responsibility because you have no free will?

    Nope we do have moral responsabilitiy in the sense if we do something bad and see the consequences and try not to do it again.

    But why do people continue to do bad things if they know they cause bad consequences?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 592 ✭✭✭JC01


    No you were only ever going to do that outcome, it was never gonna be another choice because it only happend one way.

    Everything that happens was always going to happen, there was never another outcome.

    Like when someone says if only I chose to do something differ I could have been a millionaire or whatever.

    That could never have happend.

    The mind boggles at how much free time you have to come up with that crac.

    Simple one for ya; if my DNA predetermines what I'm gonna say/do for my life how can it allow for the variable of other people? E.g if I marry one person rather than another wont that totally change these outcomes you say we have no control over?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,428 ✭✭✭.jacksparrow.


    JC01 wrote: »
    The mind boggles at how much free time you have to come up with that crac.

    Simple one for ya; if my DNA predetermines what I'm gonna say/do for my life how can it allow for the variable of other people? E.g if I marry one person rather than another wont that totally change these outcomes you say we have no control over?

    Course not, you were always going to marry that person, because it happens how could it ever have not happend?

    I'm not just talking about DNA, that op was from another site, I'm talking about upbringing, experiences etc all contributes to how our life pans out.

    Its quite simple really.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 592 ✭✭✭JC01


    Course not, you were always going to marry that person, because it happens how could it ever have not happend?

    Its quite simple really.


    Ok but say I'm going to marry X in Dublin where I grow up. We are due to forst meet at 19 in college and marry by 25. Now say at 16 my father gets a job transfer to the States and so I havta move with the rest of the family and end up going to college in LA and thus never meet X but rather meet Y at 22 and marry her at 27.

    Would all my subsequent decisions or "outcomes" not be totally altered and as such not predetermined?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,428 ✭✭✭.jacksparrow.


    JC01 wrote: »
    Ok but say I'm going to marry X in Dublin where I grow up. We are due to forst meet at 19 in college and marry by 25. Now say at 16 my father gets a job transfer to the States and so I havta move with the rest of the family and end up going to college in LA and thus never meet X but rather meet Y at 22 and marry her at 27.

    Would all my subsequent decisions or "outcomes" not be totally altered and as such not predetermined?

    No because you didn't marry X it was never meant to happen. You marrying Y is just following the path it was meant to and always was going too.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 592 ✭✭✭JC01


    No because you didn't marry X it was never meant to happen. You marrying Y is just following the path it was meant to and always was going too.


    Meant to happen? That's a whole different thing to preprogrammed DNA. Nothing is "meant to happen" if you beleive we are all slaves to a pre-written programme due to our make up. The outcome of that sorta thinking is just that how we react to any given situation is predetermined. That's a whole diffrent thing.

    Based on that comment and your OP about the "soul" I must ask are you religious? Power to you if you are I just learned a long time ago not to have these types of debates with religious people, our viewpoints are just too different to get anywhere constructive.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    JC01 wrote: »
    Meant to happen? That's a whole different thing to preprogrammed DNA. Nothing is "meant to happen" if you beleive we are all slaves to a pre-written programme due to our make up. The outcome of that sorta thinking is just that how we react to any given situation is predetermined. That's a whole diffrent thing.

    Based on that comment and your OP about the "soul" I must ask are you religious? Power to you if you are I just learned a long time ago not to have these types of debates with religious people, our viewpoints are just too different to get anywhere constructive.

    Most scientists believe that free will is a myth. Many religions don't. This entire thread is scientific. Largely. The only people who are bringing religion into it are people who don't really understand the arguments.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    Although terms like "meant to" are a bit spurious. Ignoring living things for now it's clear that the Big Bang sets off a series of events which, if you knew the initial conditions, and could run the simulation lead to deterministic outcomes. Certain galaxies coalesce. Stars form. Planets are created. Then it either contracts or expands forever ( juries out). Nothing has free will.

    The question is does it apply to life. Is life determined by laws. Clearly lower life is. If it rains x amount and there is y amount of sun, a tree with this genetic ability to grow to size Z will grow to size Z. Unless some other tree blocks access to the sun or soil, but that is also pre determined. If you model the forest mathematically with given inputs of sun and rain you could work it out. Or maybe it gets a disease. But that is also pre determined if you could model the contagion you could model that too.

    So I've included environment, genetics and competition and interaction with other life forms.

    Now you have to argue why humans are different.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    I'm not saying that humans are exactly like trees, reacting as we have to - given our genetic ingredients - to each external environmental input; but that's the "no free will" theory.

    Personally I don't know.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 30 Snowpavlova


    JC01 wrote: »
    Ok but say I'm going to marry X in Dublin where I grow up. We are due to forst meet at 19 in college and marry by 25. Now say at 16 my father gets a job transfer to the States and so I havta move with the rest of the family and end up going to college in LA and thus never meet X but rather meet Y at 22 and marry her at 27.

    Would all my subsequent decisions or "outcomes" not be totally altered and as such not predetermined?

    Every one of the events that took place we're always going to take place


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,051 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    I think I'll exercise my free will in posting a link to a relevant webcomic: SMBC.

    Ye Hypocrites, are these your pranks
    To murder men and gie God thanks?
    Desist for shame, proceed no further
    God won't accept your thanks for murder.

    ―Robert Burns



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,056 ✭✭✭_Redzer_


    From birth we are subject to the controlling factor of our DNA. We ARE our DNA and we cannot change that programming, it's literally who we are.

    So we are nothing more than robotic machines subject to laws and programming at every level of existence.

    Our personalities are simply creations of a simulated and "known" programmed reality.

    How can the soul (holy spirit) that animates the human body be responsible for the bodies programmed actions?
    No such bloody thing as a soul. It doesn't exist at all. There's no way for you to die and go to an afterlife, because that would mean you'd have to breakdown and assemble into another form -and for that to still be 'you', your brain would have to be exactly as it is, but in another form -so that could be light or radiation, thing is, these things do not assemble in such a way as to be able to reconstruct a brain and for that to be you. It is not a property of light or radiation to make structures.

    Long story short, you live, you die, and that's it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,802 ✭✭✭✭Ted_YNWA


    Course not, you were always going to marry that person, because it happens how could it ever have not happend?

    I'm not just talking about DNA, that op was from another site, I'm talking about upbringing, experiences etc all contributes to how our life pans out.

    Its quite simple really.

    Upbringing & experiences are not hardcoded into our DNA. Now you are agreeing that they affect life decisions.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 68 ✭✭SaoirseRose


    How did you equate the soul with the holy spirit? What the hell is the holy spirit meant to be anyway? Don't Catholic kids 'receive' it or some **** when they're baptised? Does that mean that babies have no soul?

    No wonder newborns are such scary looking fcukers.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 30 Snowpavlova


    Ted_YNWA wrote: »
    Upbringing & experiences are not hardcoded into our DNA. Now you are agreeing that they affect life decisions.

    Of course they effect decisions, and those experiences were always going to happen and those decisions were always going to be made.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,954 ✭✭✭Tail Docker


    I can't hear a pipe band playing without the hair on the back of my neck standing up and getting the desire to march behind them. All our family going back generations were soldiers. I'm with you OP, even if you are mad.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,802 ✭✭✭✭Ted_YNWA


    Of course they effect decisions, and those experiences were always going to happen and those decisions were always going to be made.

    So what I Will eat tomorrow has already been determined?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 30 Snowpavlova


    Ted_YNWA wrote: »
    So what I Will eat tomorrow has already been determined?

    Yep, It can only happen one way.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,802 ✭✭✭✭Ted_YNWA


    Yep, It can only happen one way.

    & my DNA Will tell me whether to wear my blue tshirt or black one.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,051 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    Ted_YNWA wrote: »
    & my DNA Will tell me whether to wear my blue tshirt or black one.
    No, DNA only sets some of the initial conditions of your life. No-one's saying that your DNA determines your whole life. Drop the reductio ad absurdum straw man stuff.

    For example, did you know that the amount of sunshine your mother got, while carrying you, has an effect on your health? People born in spring months (April-May) have a higher incidence of multiple sclerosis than average, but there is also a genetic tendency to MS. We're playing the odds here.

    Ye Hypocrites, are these your pranks
    To murder men and gie God thanks?
    Desist for shame, proceed no further
    God won't accept your thanks for murder.

    ―Robert Burns



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,802 ✭✭✭✭Ted_YNWA


    bnt wrote: »
    No, DNA only sets some of the initial conditions of your life. No-one's saying that your DNA determines your whole life. Drop the reductio ad absurdum straw man stuff.

    For example, did you know that the amount of sunshine your mother got, while carrying you, has an effect on your health? People born in spring months (April-May) have a higher incidence of multiple sclerosis than average, but there is also a

    I am trying to see how snowpavlova is basing his theory that everything is predetermined.

    I am firmly with you in that DNA does not control everything.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,428 ✭✭✭.jacksparrow.


    Ted_YNWA wrote: »
    I am trying to see how snowpavlova is basing his theory that everything is predetermined.

    I am firmly with you in that DNA does not control everything.

    I know it's hard to accept what we do isn't our choice, but you will and you will be happy once you realise this...!


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,802 ✭✭✭✭Ted_YNWA


    Think I prefer to live in the delusion that I have some control over my life.

    Thanks for giving me a different perspective though Jack & Snow.


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