Free will and scientific determinism
Assuming there are gods (this post is really for people who have religion or people who have a set of beliefs concerning the supernatural or extranatural).
1. If the gods created all blue prints or the dna of billions of people 10 billion years ago
2. they played out and calculated (ran scenarios) what we would all do down to the last detail, i would argue that this was when we had free will. We are completely predictable at this point but we also had free will.
3. The gods let the events play out in real time and at this point what happens is all predestined or scientifically determined.
4. Any slight modification at any given point are also calculated.
To put it simply: Our dna's natural inclinations is strongly augmented by the reactions of our many neighbor's dna.
We are Baby's compared to the God or gods and our actions are completely predictable.
A Baby has free will but its actions are completely predictable.
Questions or Comments?
1. If the gods created all blue prints or the dna of billions of people 10 billion years ago
2. they played out and calculated (ran scenarios) what we would all do down to the last detail, i would argue that this was when we had free will. We are completely predictable at this point but we also had free will.
3. The gods let the events play out in real time and at this point what happens is all predestined or scientifically determined.
4. Any slight modification at any given point are also calculated.
To put it simply: Our dna's natural inclinations is strongly augmented by the reactions of our many neighbor's dna.
We are Baby's compared to the God or gods and our actions are completely predictable.
A Baby has free will but its actions are completely predictable.
Questions or Comments?
Comments (37)
The (ToE) Theory of Everything cannot calculate what we will be doing, because we have free will. The idea is rather that God can skip ahead and see what we have done:
According to this belief, a person's action is not caused by what is written in the preserved tablet (al-lawh al-mahfooz), but rather the action is written in the tablet because God already knows all occurrences without the restrictions of time.
The idea that the ToE would be able to pre-calculate what we will be doing, is a serious problem, because in that case, there would be no true but unprovable facts (=unprovable from the ToE) in this universe, which would then be the only model of the ToE. The ToE needs to be incomplete for it to have multiple models (=universes), such as heaven and hell. Fortunately, our free will automatically implies incompleteness of the ToE. In that sense, we may even look at ourselves as the special ingredient that was needed to complete this universe.
Quoting christian2017
Well, its actions still need to be fundamentally unpredictable, but it would be possible to know what it will do, by peeking ahead. If you can move forward/backward in time without restriction, you will also perfectly know what happened, or what will happen, while all of that is still fundamentally unpredictable.
Modern science is clearly just a Platonic-cave shadow of the real ToE. Still, the real ToE may actually not be that much better either. The most accurate ToE will still be surprisingly lousy at predicting the future. The Preserved Tablet is deemed to be fully accurate by means of looking ahead (=by using a cheat sheet).
Stephen Hawking said something similar in his lecture, Gödel and the end of physics:
Some people will be very disappointed if there is not an ultimate theory that can be formulated as a finite number of principles. I used to belong to that camp, but I have changed my mind. I'm now glad that our search for understanding will never come to an end, and that we will always have the challenge of new discovery.
its possible.
This is one of the oddest things about humans.
The entire structure of human civilization is based on predictability. For instance basic needs and the desire for them is universal save a few odd outliers who prefer the wilderness.
Yet, morality, therefore the law, is premised on free will. It's even stranger when we consider how "effective" the law is given that it depends on the predictability of our proclivities.
Perhaps morality grounds itself on the possibility or fact of our capacity to resist our inclinations or may be not since the law, the moral guardian, functions "only" to rearrange our priorities from, say, a quick buck to avoiding 30 years in the slammer.
It simply doesn't matter to you or anyone else, because humans are part of the universe.
You see, when the human race has a finite time in the universe (likely when the sun burns the Earth and kills everything living here, or even earlier), it could be argued that there surely would be that finite blueprint/calculation that states correctly what everyone does ever (in this part of the multiverse, anyway).
Yet it doesn't matter as the blueprint/calculation cannot interact with you. From that blueprint/calculation one cannot make a forecast that says that "this is what christian2017 will write here in PF next". That to be true, then you would have to write exactly what the forecast from the blueprint/calculation says. Yet a forecast, a written text, simply cannot control you.
Or to look at this limitation another way: you can write whatever you want, but you never can write something that you don't write.
Just think about it. Do you feel that you are now confined or not by the above statement?
Wait, are you saying that they have figured, for example,our probability of choosing X in situtation A or that they have figured out that, given certain conditions, we will choose X? The latter does not require letting the events play out (and the main problem becomes incompabilitism's critisms) as you can know what will happen if you know all the variables (and determinism is true). Or do we somehow always choose to do what the events point out to? But the former does not mean that we are "scientifically determined" to do a thing, so it does not seem to be what you're saying.
Can you clarify yourself?
You're saying that somehow you had free will prior to your existence?
yeah, i'm hoping our predictability is taken into account by my christian god. Just as Paul had his doubts about his faith, so do many of us.
i see the universe as a really big pool table or billiards table. I believe our dna plays a part in our actions and also our environment plays a part in our actions (nurture versus nature)
Scientific determinism is a concept that arose in the early 1800s partly due to Newton's work.
As i stated to someone else i see the universe as giant billiards table and our dna as well as our environment completely decide what we will do. I might have inferior dna and a good environment and someone else might have superior dna and a bad environment.
its hard to call something that is completely predictable to have free will. I do understand that.
I don't however at this point in my life believe that anything whatsoever is strictly random. I do believe that things are pseudo random just as a computer can produce statistically based pseudo random numbers. Ofcourse their results are unknown but that doesn't make it random in the purest sense.
I thought it was doubting Thomas who refused to believe in the resurrection. I really find the painting depicting him/Paul??? poking his finger into Christ's wounds to confirm the resurrection awesomely inspiring. The quintessential skeptic.
Okay. So, how does that allow for free will? In that case, we are reducible to events or states in a casual history of events and we have no bearing on what decision we will make. Our decisions were decided by something other than us. (our DNA and our environment). This, i think, does not allow for free will in the "basic desert" sense (i.e. us being blame or praiseworthy for our actions). A baby lacks free will in that sense too.
Paul said that if the christian is wrong about his/her beliefs that they are the lowest of all people. I don't believe a christian has to 100% sure of everything they believe. I believe absolutely everything in existence is calculated risk.
Basically our free will has no more depth than a new born infant. I'm not sure i could say otherwise.
Now, how does an infant have free will?
it can move its arms, make noises but its decisions to change the world are extremely limited. It does have free will its just its ability make an impact on what happens in the world is extremely limited. In my opinion it does have free will in some sense.
Yes, but it moving it arms or it making noises is essentially a byproduct of primitive responses. It is like saying we choose to react to cute things in a particular way-we do not.
Also, whetever an agent change the world or not does not necessarily entail that the agent has free will or not. You can not be able to do otherwise and still have free will (from a compabitilist perspective, that is, in the basic desert sense)-whetever we have free will in regards to one action or not depends on how the decision was brought about. If, for example, you were told that you had to vote for one way in an election or you would be killed and you did it because you were going to vote for it anyways, you still "freely" choose the action-you deserve blame or praise for it (if, for example, you choose a tyrant, you deserve blame for it, if you choose someone against a tyrant, you deserve praise).
How is a new born baby's movement primitive or should i say what do you mean by that? I'm sure you would agree the new born baby feels pain as well as positive feelings?
Yeah as to the rest of what you said, that is for the most part true. I guess the point i'm making is that the human brain is like a billiards table of particles and those particles are effected by events that occurred billions of years ago.
Yes, it does. Howewer, it is primitive in the sense that it behaves exactly like animal counterparts.
Quoting christian2017
Then, surely, the production of our decisions is not in our control since whetever we will decide one thing or not has been decided not by us, but rather by factors outside our control. The agent has no control over the production of a decision. To quote Derk Pereboom:
"If an agent is morally responsible for her deciding to perform an action, then the production of this decision must be something over which the agent has control, and an agent is not morally responsible for the decision if it is produced by a source over which she has no control." (the incompabitilist initution)
If such a thing is true, then all of our decisions are produced by a source which we have no control over.
i understand completely why you would say that.
On the first part of your post, i would argue both new born babys and even bacteria as well as animals can make decisions. Those decisions however have little to no impact on the world.
Well, but they are not morally responsible for their decisions, are they?
i guess you could say the creator creates a blue print (dna) and puts it under stress conditions to test the result. The actions we take our a product of nurture/nature or dna and lifetime events. I open to that we are not responsible for our actions. If we are not held accountable i would be fine with that.
Especially then you sould understand how determinism has limits once everything is a billiard ball on the table and they (the billiard balls) interact with each other. An outside observer can use the determinism and the laws of the universe and knowledge about the balls to extrapolate what is going to happen, but an actor inside (or on this case, a billiard ball on the table) cannot extrapolate the correct outcome in every situation.
It is simply logic.
If you disagree with the above, then just try to do the following: write an answer that you will never write.
It is exactly this problem that creates a lot of confusion.
Is there any need? You would do that only if you did not know the result. Howewer, God would know the result beforehand given that he knows all true propositions and "Agent A, under these conditions, will choose B." is definitely true or definitely false in a deterministic universe.
Quoting christian2017
Well, then the problem is that you do not really argue against people who think that scientific determinism or god or them taken together existing/being true means that we do not have free will but simply say that your spesific concept of free will is different. That does not really even have anything to do with God as your spesific concept of free will does exist irregardless of whetever the world is deterministic or indeterministic or agent-casual libertarianism is true.
Quoting christian2017
Well, i would argue that it can't if that is the case, but there are compabitilists that would argue against it. Howewer, the problem is not merely that determinism is incompabitable with free will, but rather that, in your view, god determines the outcome by creating the set of affairs P that causes agent A to decide B over C and therefore "manipulates" the agent into choosing decisions. The agent has no choice over the matter, only God does.
why would you think i disagree with that? Did i ever claim i can predict the future? I can promise you i'm nothing like my supposed creator. At this point in time i see no problem with what you said.
Not every response has to oppose what you said (even if it is starting to be more like that on the forum). :wink:
I do agree when you state "We are completely predictable at this point but we also had free will." Free will and determinism actually don't counter each other: they can actually coexist. Just tried to point out why it would be so.
boredom is my first guess. The common theological notion put forth is for the creator's glory.Quoting HereToDisscuss
i think the Bible allows for the christian to have doubts about her faith. I believe it is expedient to be ever so slightly open to the possibility of any given concept to be true. My notion of scientific determinism could definitely be completely wrong. Some theologians would agree with me but that doesn't neccessarily have much merit.Quoting HereToDisscuss
I believe the creator creates the dna or blue prints to be sub optimal, calculates the end starting from the beginning, but hopes before doing the calculation that the results will be somewhat decent. I believe the creator likes to test his/her creation just as a engineer tests her system or machine. Millions of sub optimal part interacting with millions of other sub optimal parts typically produces terrible results. But thats not exactly my problem.
thats fair
If the universe is infinite in expanse then I do not see how anything could be predicted exactly.
It would take an intelligence beyond our ability to understand to calculate with infinity.
And remember predictions require numbers to quantify something.
The more quantifiers you have the more accurate.
Basically it's a math problem. Even today we cannot %100 accurately calculate the circumference of a circle given it's diameter.
But more importantly how does one belief affect how you get what you want in life vs the other.
Calculating the circumference of a circle to that extent is impossible because of the geometric limitations of a circle. A circle is essentially an idea that never actually took place.
I do see what you mean from the rest of what you said. If we don't know what the smallest particle that exists then we can't predict how the billiard balls are going to collide and thus we can't predict exactly what will happen on the billiards table.
Scientific determinism: since every event in nature has a cause or causes that account for its occurrence, and since human beings exist in nature, human acts and choices are as determined as anything else in the world.
In this definition it is implied there not an Alpha event that started it all.
Otherwise what would be the Pre-Alpha event that caused the Alpha event.
So you can't get an event that isn't the product of a previous event.
Therefore the universe must be infinite for any event to happen.
Hard for me to describe the ramifications of this train of thought.
Looking for insight on what if anything this means for Scientific Determinism.
I am hoping to respond to your argument regarding free will and determinism. This is a common argument within the philosophy of religion and it seems to pose a problem for God’s omniscience. I have summarized and outlined your argument below:
1. If God is omniscient, then He can plan out the details of the lives of every individual before their existence.
2. If God can plan out the details of the lives of every individual before their existence, then no individual has free will.
3. If God is omniscient, then no individual has free will. (1, 2 HS)
I agree that this argument challenges the simultaneous existence of free will and God’s omniscience but I would have to disagree with your argument, namely challenging Premise 2. Aristotle made a similar argument that would challenge Premise 2, arguing that God can only know truths so if a statement is neither true nor false, then it is not a challenge to God’s omniscience or our free will. For example, let’s say that I’m hoping to go to the beach tomorrow but may need to stay at home and finish some work around the house. The statement ‘I will go to the beach tomorrow’ is neither true nor false, it is undecided, thus allowing God’s omniscience to only comprehend that I ‘intend’ to go to the beach, rather than ‘I will’ go to the beach. Although this argument is convincing for the compatibility of free will and God’s omniscience, it still seems that God’s omniscience would allow for Him to see future events, regardless of whether they are true, false, or neither. With that being said, I am unsure as to whether it truly solves the problem of determinism.
Another point I would like to bring up that challenges Premise 2 of your argument is that if determinism is true, then why would God predestine us to lives of sin, betrayal, and suffering? It seems incompatible that God, also being omnibenevolent, would allow for these tragedies to occur. It is only with free will that we can cause harm to ourselves and others, as God would not predestine us to inflict harm on other's lives and wellbeing or our own. You may argue that factors such as sin, betrayal, and suffering can all be human growth experiences and contribute to the betterment of character over time but it seems as if some suffering occurs without reason. This suffering that occurs without reason requires free will for us to go against God and God’s path for us for the compatibility of suffering and God’s omniscience and omnibenevolence to make sense. For example, consider genocides such as that of the Armenian and Rwandan Tutsi populations. These acts defy the wills of God completely and free will is required to commit acts of suffering and wrongdoing against our population. God would not allow for the mass genocide of certain groups of people for the betterment of others, requiring our own free will to make those decisions. Therefore, this argument counteracts determinism as if God knew these events would occur then He would have altered the course of history to prevent senseless acts of wrongdoing from the beginning of time.
Finally, you make the comparison of adults to babies as God to us. Although I understand that babies are incredibly predictable, just as we are likely predictable to God, it still seems like babies can do things with their own free will that we may not expect. For example, children react differently around pets; some children get scared, some hurt the pet, and some are comfortable. There does not seem to be a set blueprint for the acts of babies in every situation and I would argue that it is the same case with us and God. This meaning that we have our own free will and can choose to follow our path as we like, posing no harm to God's omniscience.
As a result, I think the argument you presented famously poses an issue for God’s omniscience but I think the definition of what qualifies as a truth statement and the prevalence of sin and wrongdoing in the world are both arguments against Premise 2 to assert that free will and God’s omniscience are, in fact, wholly compatible.
First i would like to address that i see the universe a very large billiards table.
Second I believe we made our decisions 10 billion years ago (or some would say 10000 or whatever years ago)
When the events play out (yesterday, today and tommorow) those decisions were actually made 10 billion years ago.
Our actions and all the particles that make us up are 100% predictable by this supposed god.
God or the gods create million of sub optimal people that interact with millions of other sub optimal people. The primary goal is for great decisions to be made. The secondary goal is stated in a particular holy book which i will not name due to site restrictions.
The primary goal is obviously not met given the parts in the system were intended to be sub optimal
The secondary goal is supposedly reached or will be reached.
Even though we are like Babies and our actions are extremely predictable we still do have the freedom to act according to our willingness to follow suit with our personalities and/or our desired convictions
Once again we are 100% predictable.
Its like playing chess against a 5 year old.
Without quoting a particular holy book it is unlikely you will be able to use a holy book to convince this is not in accordance with a holy book.
You could possibly use science to convince me that scientific determinism but that is unlikely due to the fact that my logic circuit dictate to me that scientific determinism is completely rational.
Assuming there was a creature or "living" entity from the beginning. A certain holy book has an original creature/entity call him self "I am". I think the ramifications of this name is after a long series of iteration of events this entity just made a compromise with himself and just name himself "I am" basically because there was no point in beating a dead horse. His origins according to himself were to hard to define. In "a brief history of time" this issue is addressed by the author when an old lady says the earth rests on an infinite number of turtles. Stephen Hawkings said the old lady isn't entirely crazy in suggesting a notion that follow with that sort of thinking.
Scientific determinism is at a best a theory which can not be demonstrated, and for any complex system is useless. The formulas (abstractions and idealizations) may be deterministic but the world is not.
Divine omniscience is a pernicious idea but if the future does not yet exist, then even God cannot know it and it is a small loss to postulate that.
Free will exists although we are not nearly as "free" as we suppose. The will is not "free" and many of our decisions occur at a sub or non conscious level. Still I don't think all of our behavior is predetermined and I am certain it cannot be empirically demonstrated that it is.