Is there really such a thing as Free Will?

[Zuul 666]

Of course I know who Kant is. I'm not saying science degree is necessary for credibility, I'm saying that philosophy about free will, and where we came from don't necessarily have basis in reality, while the science on these questions does.

If quantum physics explains free will, then how does it influence decision making?

[Hatter 20]

I'm saying there is no free will

[Trollanator 248]

I'm saying there is no free will

I believe what Zuul is saying is essentially that quantum physics doesn't have an explanation for why people make specific choices.  For example, which law of physics made me write this post?

Edited April 28, 2014 by Trollanator

[Squirrelloid 935]

I believe what Zuul is saying is essentially that quantum physics doesn't have an explanation for why people make specific choices.  For example, which law of physics made me write this post?

 

The 3rd one =)

 

Edit: Gah, i got my laws of physics misordered in my head.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Squirrelloid

[Trollanator 248]

The 2nd one =)

Oh silly me.  That second law duh.  As Newton once said, "When people are acting stupid on cross-x and pretending they know things, Trollanator will always respond."  Never yet failed.

[Hatter 20]

Air and water are still made up of particles. There is nothing that we know of that is not atleast a particle. Also u making decisions, can be explained like this: if u have two particles, u can easily predict how your system will look, but if you've 100 particles it's not as easy. And then if you have particles on the order of the million million billion particles it's virtually impossible to predict the outcome that is why we can't predict the outcome of your decisions

[Zuul 666]

Air and water are still made up of particles. There is nothing that we know of that is not atleast a particle. Also u making decisions, can be explained like this: if u have two particles, u can easily predict how your system will look, but if you've 100 particles it's not as easy. And then if you have particles on the order of the million million billion particles it's virtually impossible to predict the outcome that is why we can't predict the outcome of your decisions

Which is why science can't explain metaphysical questions

[Hatter 20]

That makes no sense. Science is the description of how the world works. Unless u propose some radical alteration from how our theories describe the world this is it. The idea of a meta physical question is flawed

[Trollanator 248]

That makes no sense. Science is the description of how the world works. Unless u propose some radical alteration from how our theories describe the world this is it. Science is flawed

fixed

[Snarf 3595]

fixed

^ this. Positivist epistemologies are extremely limited in the way they know the world. The collection of methods and perspectives you refer to when you say "science" lack explanatory ability for much of the human experience. 

 

PS Hatter - if you need a Ph.D in Physics to make scientific claims, you also need a Ph.D in physics to interpret and debate scientific claims. Your own rules preclude you from making arguments.

 

P.P.S. Why does physics prevent free will?

 

 

 

[Hatter 20]

I'm gonna take fancy worlds to mean you say science fails: that basic idea is fundamentally flawed. Science has been able to explain almost all of human experience. Science is the framework if laws and theory's that explain how are universe and ultimately multiverse work. It is incredibly accurate and there is no better frame work, especial not one made by Kant. By PhDs in physics it was an author indict. I can cite sources of people who back me up, if u want. You don't need to have a PhDs to take about it, just someone with one to back u up. Physics prevents free will, because if you could measure the motions of all the particles on the un

[Hatter 20]

Inverse and there position, then if you had a powerful enough computer you could compute how the universe will look, leaving no room for free willl

[Zuul 666]

I'm gonna take fancy worlds to mean you say science fails: that basic idea is fundamentally flawed. Science has been able to explain almost all of human experience. Science is the framework if laws and theory's that explain how are universe and ultimately multiverse work. It is incredibly accurate and there is no better frame work, especial not one made by Kant. By PhDs in physics it was an author indict. I can cite sources of people who back me up, if u want. You don't need to have a PhDs to take about it, just someone with one to back u up. Physics prevents free will, because if you could measure the motions of all the particles on the un

No, Snarf is saying orthodox scientism is bad because it refuses to allow for any other way of knowing about the world.

 

Speaking for myself I think science is great . But when you say stuff like "u need PhDs in fisics to be qualled", then there is a problem.

[Trollanator 248]

No, Snarf is saying orthodox scientism is bad because it refuses to allow for any other way of knowing about the world.

 

Speaking for myself I think science is great . But when you say stuff like "u need PhDs in fisics to be qualled", then there is a problem.

qfa

 

 

I'm gonna take fancy worlds to mean you say science fails: that basic idea is fundamentally flawed. Science has been able to explain almost all of human experience. Science is the framework if laws and theory's that explain how are universe and ultimately multiverse work. It is incredibly accurate and there is no better frame work, especial not one made by Kant. By PhDs in physics it was an author indict. I can cite sources of people who back me up, if u want. You don't need to have a PhDs to take about it, just someone with one to back u up. Physics prevents free will, because if you could measure the motions of all the particles on the un

What do you have against him?  Should I remind you again that he knows way more about science and has made more important discoveries than you probably ever will?  He discovered nebulae and essentially figured out what the milky way was.  So...maybe you don't need a PhD to know something?

 

 I'm starting to think you don't know who Kant is.

Ah now that would explain things...

[Snarf 3595]

Physics prevents free will, because if you could measure the motions of all the particles on the un

 

 

Inverse and there position, then if you had a powerful enough computer you could compute how the universe will look, leaving no room for free willl

 

That assertion has no backing. Why is that true?

[Phantom707 1012]

I'm gonna take fancy worlds to mean you say science fails: that basic idea is fundamentally flawed. Science has been able to explain almost all of human experience. Science is the framework if laws and theory's that explain how are universe and ultimately multiverse work. It is incredibly accurate and there is no better frame work, especial not one made by Kant. By PhDs in physics it was an author indict. I can cite sources of people who back me up, if u want. You don't need to have a PhDs to take about it, just someone with one to back u up. Physics prevents free will, because if you could measure the motions of all the particles on the un

Inverse and there position, then if you had a powerful enough computer you could compute how the universe will look, leaving no room for free willl

 

I'll go back to what Chaos/Potatoes (he'll always be Chaos to me) said regarding what we even mean by free will. As Hume said, free will can be reconceived as needing determinism because without such, your thoughts would have no efficacy upon the world. It would be worthless to have just random actions (it's been a while since I've done any Hume readings, so I'm parroting Chaos here, but it seems in line with what I know).

 

That's where philosophy comes in. Philosophy is able to determine (through argumentative means) what should and should not be valued. You can describe the world as much as you want, but that doesn't mean that it should be in any way. If you take that framework, we wouldn't have slavery. We wouldn't have civilization to begin with since modern humans may not have even gotten past the whole "they're my enemies and must die". Modern humans may not have even developed language.

 

Philosophy is the framework upon which science is built. You say that science is the best way to describe the world. Yes, that's true if and only if you take the empirical descriptions as describing reality. You could say that the sun exists. I ask how, and you reply that you can sense it (instrumentation and all, and maybe just looking at it). I then ask how you know that your senses tell the truth or that your measurements are correct, and in one way or another, it all leads back down to having to believe in empiricism. That's a concept of philosophy, you know. You need to accept empiricism before you can accept any scientific observations. As Aristotle once said, you have to accept certain premises to even argue (such as the law of non-contradiction). Otherwise, you're basically talking to a vegetable.

 

Back to free will. I'll try to debate you on your own terms instead of critiquing your unspoken premises (wink, wink, debate, debate). You say that if enough information about every particle were known, we could, in theory, map out the entire universe in a causal fashion. This would be determinism and would prove that free will is wrong because even a person's desires and brain states were determined from the moment of the big bang. However, that assumes that we can even get all of that information (okay, yeah, this is still more critique, but it clashes more). Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty says that we simply cannot garner all of that information. That's usually the crux of the quantum mechanics argument, as I understand it.

 

Then there are examples that seem to violate causality/determinism. Black holes seem to violate causality (maybe Hawking radiation, over time, can be used to reconstruct information).

 

This is a minor last point, but I find it problematic that you conceive of everything in terms of particles. Light has wave-like (process for people who know me here) behavior. If you think of everything as a particle, you lose some important information. This doesn't really affect the above arguments, but there are some articles about process philosophy and free will out there (I'm currently reading them, so I can't comment yet).

Edited April 29, 2014 by Phantom707

[Chaos 2587]

I agree with everything Phantom said but don't think that Hatter is totally wrong. Science is about empirical questions, but I think once free will is sufficiently defined it becomes a quality that can be observed empirically (though mapping the concept of free will exactly is almost an impossibly difficult task). Someone who didn't take the compatibilist position might disagree and argue that free will is metaphysical, but within compatibilism, at least, there isn't any tension between free will and science.