I am eager for somebody to disprove me without using God in the argument.
Here is why I personally don't believe we have free will. I came up with this when I was 17. Yes, I was an early David Hume, or whichever 18th century philosopher it is that stole these ideas from me.
In the absence of quantum mechanics: Physical objects abide by physical laws. We are physical objects. Our minds are physical objects, though complex ones. Even on an atomic level, every movement or transformation of matter or energy is a result of a scientifically-explainable reaction.
Rephrased: Assuming the world is 5 billion or infinity years old (have your pick), if time froze at this exact second, given the sequence of events that have occurred in those 5 billion years up to this instant, if I unfroze time for one frame, the next frame could be perfectly predicted given the laws that govern matter and energy. The same could be said of any one instance, and put together, this equals determinism.
Sometimes you think about things and feel you are making decisions, but in a very complex way these decision are already made. Your mind was on a path all along to struggle with a concept and hum and haw and waffle and finally make a decision going one way. It feels like free will, but it isn't under the definition here because it was guaranteed to happen that way before you even gave it any thought.
With quantum mechanics: Someone will have to pipe in here as I never took a science class past high school. But either:
a) Randomness occurs on such a submicroscopic level that it does not affect the visible/tangible physical world to which the determinism described above applies to.
b) Randomness does in some ways affect our world, but in a random way. In other words, my or your "willpower" and "thought" has no effect on particles that may behave unpredictably. In fact, it is the other way around. So while before, everything was deterministic, it is now deterministic with a pinch of randomness. Not much better.
In conclusion, regardless of the world being deterministic or random, there is no free will.
Eager to hear thoughts.
Here is why I personally don't believe we have free will. I came up with this when I was 17. Yes, I was an early David Hume, or whichever 18th century philosopher it is that stole these ideas from me.
In the absence of quantum mechanics: Physical objects abide by physical laws. We are physical objects. Our minds are physical objects, though complex ones. Even on an atomic level, every movement or transformation of matter or energy is a result of a scientifically-explainable reaction.
Rephrased: Assuming the world is 5 billion or infinity years old (have your pick), if time froze at this exact second, given the sequence of events that have occurred in those 5 billion years up to this instant, if I unfroze time for one frame, the next frame could be perfectly predicted given the laws that govern matter and energy. The same could be said of any one instance, and put together, this equals determinism.
Sometimes you think about things and feel you are making decisions, but in a very complex way these decision are already made. Your mind was on a path all along to struggle with a concept and hum and haw and waffle and finally make a decision going one way. It feels like free will, but it isn't under the definition here because it was guaranteed to happen that way before you even gave it any thought.
With quantum mechanics: Someone will have to pipe in here as I never took a science class past high school. But either:
a) Randomness occurs on such a submicroscopic level that it does not affect the visible/tangible physical world to which the determinism described above applies to.
b) Randomness does in some ways affect our world, but in a random way. In other words, my or your "willpower" and "thought" has no effect on particles that may behave unpredictably. In fact, it is the other way around. So while before, everything was deterministic, it is now deterministic with a pinch of randomness. Not much better.
In conclusion, regardless of the world being deterministic or random, there is no free will.
Eager to hear thoughts.
