35 replies to this topic

[jay123]

Say i was to take 10 identical universes(theoretically). Create them all in the exact same way, and trigger the same event in each, that caused a chain reaction, that resulted in life in the exact same way in each of the universes.

Then, in 10 billion years, i check on them. Wouldnt each one be the exact copy of the next? The same people, the same gene pool, the same exact movements in each of these universes.

Surely this means, that free will is an illusion, because it couldnt have gone any other way! Its like a form of accidental fate. there isn't free will, your just a consequence of an unstoppable chain reaction that invetibly led you to were you are today.

we could create this universe s1000 times and each one would be exactly like the previous one.

Even the thought im thinking now, couldnt be thought differently.

its a mind blowing thought, and its hurting my little mind. please someone say im wrong

[sumthingnice60]

This theory only works if you already believe in fate. If you believe in free will, then the theory will go something like this:

Take 10 hypothetical universes that are all the same and trigger the first "action" for each universes. For free will, people may now choose differently, so at the end of the period, the universes will all be different.

This theory only works if you already assume free will is an illusion. Otherwise, it's not a good example.

Edited by sumthingnice60, 01 July 2008 - 03:41 AM.

[TheLivingDead]

sumthingnice60 on Jun 30 2008, 11:41 PM, said:

This theory only works if you already believe in fate. If you believe in free will, then the theory will go something like this:

Take 10 hypothetical universes that are all the same and trigger the first "action" for each universes. For free will, people may now choose differently, so at the end of the period, the universes will all be different.

This theory only works if you already assume free will is an illusion. Otherwise, it's not a good example.

I have to agree.  If there is free will, then each universe would supposedly be different, seeing as how in each universe, at least one person would have chose to do something differently.  Then again, who knows!      Personally, I would also like to see the result of the 10 universes.

Edited by TheLivingDead, 01 July 2008 - 03:47 AM.

[jay123]

sumthingnice60 on Jul 1 2008, 04:41 AM, said:

This theory only works if you already believe in fate. If you believe in free will, then the theory will go something like this:

Take 10 hypothetical universes that are all the same and trigger the first "action" for each universes. For free will, people may now choose differently, so at the end of the period, the universes will all be different.

This theory only works if you already assume free will is an illusion. Otherwise, it's not a good example.

TheLivingDead on Jul 1 2008, 04:47 AM, said:

I have to agree.  If there is free will, then each universe would supposedly be different, seeing as how in each universe, at least one person would have chose to do something differently.  Then again, who knows!      Personally, I would also like to see the result of the 10 universes.

But if i were to make a choice, and my counter part were to make a choice in an alternate of my created universes, wed both choose the same sugestion, we have the exact same personalitys and the exact same choice choices


Put it this way, if i were to take an extremly powerfull computer back to the dawn of time, that knew everything there was to know about science, i bet i coud make an accurate estimate of exactly how the world is know, through knowing the consequeunce of an action.

Because we were all born with genes that make us act in a certain way, or were born into circumstances that moulds in certain ways, we really never had free will, were just a result of random events.

[PulsE]

free will is an illusion only if destiny is true

[Stormy777]

jay123 on Jul 1 2008, 11:44 AM, said:

But if i were to make a choice, and my counter part were to make a choice in an alternate of my created universes, wed both choose the same sugestion, we have the exact same personalitys and the exact same choice choices


i bet i coud make an accurate estimate of exactly how the world is know, through knowing the consequeunce of an action.

Would that be predestination?

Maybe we only have free will to a certain extent.

Like what we eat for dinner,

you think?

[jay123]

PulsE on Jul 1 2008, 02:19 PM, said:

free will is an illusion only if destiny is true

Its like destiny, but only not in a mystical way. Its not that you were meant to do a certain thing, it just that your consequences have brought you to do a certain thing.

Stormy777 on Jul 1 2008, 02:46 PM, said:

Would that be predestination?

Maybe we only have free will to a certain extent.

Like what we eat for dinner,

you think?

Theres a degree of physical influences that brings a human being to a certain thought like what we want for dinner. Were much more predictable than you might think, i couldve presented that choice to you 100 times with same result every time

[Stormy777]

Quote

Theres a degree of physical influences that brings a human being to a certain thought like what we want for dinner. Were much more predictable than you might think, i couldve presented that choice to you 100 times with same result every time

Yes!?
Hmmmm, predictability, destiny, predestination, and free will, and the illusion.

So what is the illusion?


So I was predictably predestined by destiny, regardless of free will, to speak with you in my personal fantasy?

Don't ya love it when that happens?

Or is it a collective fantasy?

Edited by Stormy777, 01 July 2008 - 02:42 PM.

[Stormy777]

Quote

Say i was to take 10 identical universes(theoretically). Create them all in the exact same way, and trigger the same event in each, that caused a chain reaction, that resulted in life in the exact same way in each of the universes.

parallel universes coinciding with one another?

[jay123]

Stormy777 on Jul 1 2008, 03:40 PM, said:

Yes!?
Hmmmm, predictability, destiny, predestination, and free will, and the illusion.

So what is the illusion?


So I was predictably predestined by destiny, regardless of free will, to speak with you in my personal fantasy?

Don't ya love it when that happens?

Or is it a collective fantasy?

The illusion itself is language, Because we developed a language were able to think things through, thus we think we arrived at a choice through the words.

Try to think somthing throught without actually using words, or any other form of language, itsimpossible.

So now that i think about it, its not just free will that an illusion, concousenes is too, an illusion brought about by language!

ahh,   weird

[Stormy777]

Quote

Try to think somthing throught without actually using words, or any other form of language, itsimpossible.

This is tough jay,

But try and think a thought that has never been thought by another.

Or try not to think.

Every once in a while you get that glimpse of infinity, that dead Zone, or that time your brain seems to shut off while awake, when there is no sense of being, or time, or existence, it last but a second then poof you reawaken into thought, or the illusion,

Maybe the zone is reality and waking thought the program.

Edited by Stormy777, 01 July 2008 - 03:51 PM.

[Stormy777]

Quote

So now that i think about it, its not just free will that an illusion, concousenes is too, an illusion brought about by language!

Well of course.
In the beginning, the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Word became flesh

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.

See, since forever,man has pondered over the reason why?

[Purplos]

Quote

But if i were to make a choice, and my counter part were to make a choice in an alternate of my created universes, wed both choose the same sugestion

Yeah, but you're both still making choices.  Just because there are two of the same being doesn't negate free will.  It just means there is two beings using a collective free will, I guess.

I'm not sure why alternate-reality 'selfs' would have to make the same choices though.  That would rather defeat the concept, wouldn't it?

[Nucular]

jay123 on Jul 1 2008, 12:42 AM, said:

Say i was to take 10 identical universes(theoretically). Create them all in the exact same way, and trigger the same event in each, that caused a chain reaction, that resulted in life in the exact same way in each of the universes.

Then, in 10 billion years, i check on them. Wouldnt each one be the exact copy of the next? The same people, the same gene pool, the same exact movements in each of these universes.

Surely this means, that free will is an illusion, because it couldnt have gone any other way! Its like a form of accidental fate. there isn't free will, your just a consequence of an unstoppable chain reaction that invetibly led you to were you are today.

we could create this universe s1000 times and each one would be exactly like the previous one.

Even the thought im thinking now, couldnt be thought differently.

its a mind blowing thought, and its hurting my little mind. please someone say im wrong

Free will!  Bizarre concept isn't it.  I have problems with the idea personally, and do tend to think free will is illusory, but I'll come to that.

Your 10 identical universes for 10 billion years example, I think, forgets about random and acausal events which QM tells us happens on the level of the very, very small.  Because of various aspects of the quantum world, after 10 billion years I'm fairly certain that those universes (or at least the configuration of all the particles inside them) would be fairly different from one another.  Not necessarily because of free will, though.

To modify your example, maybe we could take 10 identical universes (here's some I made earlier), and press 'play' on them at exactly the same moment - a moment at which in each of them you're about to make a decision.  Whether you would make identical decisions in each of the universes I think depends mostly on the nature of 'mind'.  Assuming mind is a product of brain, then it also depends on the nature of 'brain'.  Does the brain function on a quantum level?  The short answer is that no-one knows, though some such as Roger Penrose (I seem to keep mentioning him just lately for some reason) argue that it does.  If it doesn't, then there is no randomness involved in your mind, and you will take the same decision in each universe.  If nondeterministic processes are involved in cognition, however, then mind and its decisions are probabilistic, which means you might find that one of those ten universes has you making a different decision.

My own problem with free will is simply that I can't make the concept make any sense.

The reason for this is that, as I see it, I can either make a decision according to my personality, or attempt to make a random decision in which my personality is not involved.  The latter can be disregardded, as, even I was able to do this, it would be a decision in itself, and the resulting random decision wouldn't be a 'free will' one anyway.

So, the type of decision that I make according to my personality is the sort normally regarded as a 'free will' decision.

But I didn't choose my personality!  'I' can't have done, since my personality is me - if I chose it, then at the point I chose it I wouldn't have had that personality.  So presumably I'd have had a different one, also not chosen by me.  Problem of infinite regression?

There's simply no way 'I' could have chosen the criteria against which I make any decisions.  Free will just seems to me to be a meaningless term.

Edited by Nucular, 02 July 2008 - 01:47 PM.

[eight bits]

Quote

But I didn't choose my personality! 'I' can't have done, since my personality is me - if I chose it, then at the point I chose it I wouldn't have had that personality. So presumably I'd have had a different one, also not chosen by me. Problem of infinite regression?

There's simply no way 'I' could have chosen the criteria against which I make any decisions. Free will just seems to me to be a meaningless term.

Ah, Nuke. We shall make a Zen master of you yet. Let us take our places on the floor, half-lotus will be fine.

There is no abiding self. I am the current state of a dynamic process. What I am puts on and casts off selves like clothing. There is some regularity to me, a Markov process rather than a succession of independent trials. But who wrote the words you are now reading is already somebody else.

He does get to spend my money, though. Only fair, then, that he's got to pay my bills, too.

"Free will" is an ill-defined thing at best. To the extent that it depends on an abiding self, it is a concept based on a false premise. When does that ever work out?

However, I believe that the essential point of a free will claim is not to assert that I choose so much as to deny that somebody else chooses for me. Not that that doesn't ever happen, but  the possibility that nobody else chooses for me exists.

Or so most of the unnumbered states of what I am have believed.