Interesting one this - Pre-determinism vs free will

[Atomic12C]

Do we have free will or is everything pre-determined by historical events?

Have a watch of this short 10min video and let me know your thoughts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCGtkDzELAI


(by the way... it would seem I already know your replies! )

[Atomic12C]

Free-will = the notion that an individual is able to freely, without prior events influencing, make a choice.

vs

Pre-determinism = the notion that every choice is forged by prior events.



Free-will = the future is truly undecided until choices are made.

vs

Pre-determinism = the future is already written due to historical and present events.



Is it possible for both of these to be correct, because they seem to both contradict each other?

[Atomic12C]

I guess we are all familiar with the contradiction in the two cases:

In law an individual is said to have 'free-will'. Therefore an individual must choose to act within law and when they choose to break the law then society gives power to police and courts to punish them for their choice.

But in science the root basis that underpins everything is "cause and effect". Observe the effect and determine the cause, ie. theory based upon evidence etc.

So if science is stating pre-determinism to be correct but society is stating free-will to be correct, then how can this be?
Its either one or the other is it not?

Or is it true that both fully overlap and are in effect one of the same thing? But approaching from opposite angles in generalising the definition?

[Atomic12C]

Bill said:

You're confusing the laws of physics with pre-determinism.

Don't let me stop you from explaining why

[Atomic12C]

But the challenge to your statement is; is it the case that so called 'free-will' operates within the frame work of our defined laws of physics?


The 2nd law of thermodynamics which derives the direction arrow for the passage of time (entropy) and also then defines the order of "cause and effect" would suggest otherwise, would it not?

If cause is always before effect, then this means any decision (the effect) is made based up on the events prior to it (the cause).
Therefore science, the laws of physics, points towards pre-determinism rather than 'free-will'.

So it would seem a contradiction to state both 'free-will' AND pre-determinism co-exist, yes/no ?

[Atomic12C]

Moonhawk said:

More to the point - is there any way to tell them apart?

Exactly.

My interpretation of it is that you can't really pin-point the exact moment free-will is enacted (you can't 'quantacize' it), and also you can't really pin-point the root cause of every effect (impossible to trace every line of cause from the 'birth of time' to its inevitable effect).

So what we are left with are two statements attempting to describe 'reality' from opposing angles, both may be correct from that particular angle of view, equally both may be wrong from that particular angle of view.

I think its one of these things that is beyond human brain comprehension in order to have an all encompassing single definition.... more likely such a definition can not exist in a chaotic world where everything is a probability wave function.

[Atomic12C]

battered said:

It's not one or the other. It's both. The past has a bearing on what happens to any of us, but we all have free will. If I spend my life smoking 40 a day and drinking like a fish then all the free will in the world won't stop me dying early. At the same time if I exercise my free will then I can lead a healthy life and live longer. There's no contradiction.

The initial premise does seem to contradict:
(1) Free-will = being of free mind to make a decision without limitation/restriction of historic events.
(2) Pre-determinism = having all historic events control/limit future events.

On the initial stand-point of these positions, they do not seem compatible at all.

But playing a little devil's advocate on the wording in my previous posts I do side with the fact that both probably co-exist and 'cross-over' in the realms of quantum physics, whereby 'things' can not be given a definite position and momentum, instead are given a wave function that allows probability of possibilities.

As soon as such 'events' are taken in to account then 'anything goes' (so to speak).


There is also the fact that it is possible/probably that history, present and future all exist at the same time. There are videos on the internet that will describe what I am on about here.
I'll leave readers to delve in to this mind-feck and what it means by themselves

[Atomic12C]

battered said:

So even something as prosaic as me trotting down the road depends upon the events of the past and free wiil.

Only if it is accepted that both approaches to the 'issue' of decision making from opposite angles [from a free-will and from a pre-determinism] start to 'mix' (or become the same concept) when we bring the exact point of a 'measured' decision in to account.
At the exact point of a decision we are bringing time to an exact point.
When we bring time to an exact point then quantum effects come in to play.

So in effect yes, your statement is correct.


This subject matter can involve a LOT of philosophical arguments, similar to the well known physics theory of "string theory", they are more or less impossible to measure and demonstrate via empirical results. (ie. one is never going to be able to view a 'string' for example).

[Atomic12C]

battered said:

Sorry, I still don't accept that this is anything other than an everyday occurrence.

Of course its an 'everyday occurrence'

[Atomic12C]

battered said:

Stop trying to be clever. The rest of my post makes it very clear what I mean.

Ah , ok.
You're one of those.

Nevermind.

[Atomic12C]

It is an interesting subject as there can be many ways to describe the happenings.
Its one of those areas in science that can't really be tackled with mathematics.... at best we could approach it via statistics/probabilities etc. but nothing that would provide a definitive answer to what is happening.