I think it’s more complicated than free will existing or not.
If you knew every single possible value about the universe at its start and had a perfectly accurate model of physics, you could theoretically predict/simulate everything that would ever happen. For practical reasons, though, that’s impossible, even ignoring weird quantum effects, for the simple reason that that is a lot of data points, more than any of us could reasonably keep track of- it’s like how, in sufficiently controlled conditions, a fair dice can roll the exact same number 100% of the time, but there are enough variables that are hard enough to control for in a normal situation that it’s basically random.
Similarly, if you knew everything about every human on Earth, you could theoretically predict exactly what any of them would do at any given moment. Of course, that’s just not practical- the body and brain are a machine that is constantly taking in input and adapting to it, so in order to perfectly predict someone’s thoughts and actions, you’d need to know every single detail of every single thing that has ever happened to them, no matter how small. Then, you’d need to account for the fact that they’re interacting with hundreds of other people, who are also constantly changing and adapting. It’s just not possible to predict or control a person for any reasonable length of time like that, because one tiny interaction could throw off the entire model.
Just look at current work with AI- our modern machine learning algorithms are much more well-understood and are trained in much more contained environments than any human mind, and yet we still need to manually reign them in and sift through the data to prevent them from going off the rails.
So, technically, I suppose free will doesn’t exist. For practical purposes, though, what we have is indistinguishable from free will, so there’s not much point getting riled up about it.
Quantum mechanics are probabilistic, which serves as a good argument for the universe as a whole being probabilistic. The position of a single particle could change a great many things!
Which leaves the question: Has our mind the ability to use this randomness and shape it by our will? Because if not the universe might be probabilistic and still we’d probably not have any free will of our own; being determined to act according to the setup of our nerves and synapses and their activation status at any given moment, plus a bit of incalculable randomness.
I have the feeling most people cling to free will as a concept because not having free will raises questions if a “self” truly exists. However the existence of free will can be as scary if not more, since how could we define a “self” if it could freely do something not based on what defines it.
You react to choices the specific way you do because of experiences you’ve had previously.
Reverse time without changing anything, you’ll always make the same choices because you’re having the same thoughts each time every time, because you’ve been conditioned the way you are.
The universe doesn’t “know” where it’s going, but the plan is already in action. You can choose whatever you want to do, but if you were the same person in the same circumstance, you would and will always make the same decision.
Well, first things first, it is not a “simple” philosophical question. The best minds of humanity have been tackling this problem since forever, and there is still no definitive answer yet.
Ironically, for all the religions since the dawn of time, some kind of evidence for free will has emerged from the frontiers of science. Quantum mechanics, for instance, is based on the fact that at the subatomic level, nothing is known for sure. Therefore, the “initial conditions” issue is no longer true.
Someone with a greater intellect than mine once stated that the quantum nondeterminism underlying the functioning of the human brain could be the key to freeing it from the conundrum of cause and effect. In other words, yes, we have free will. Suggested readings: “The Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene, “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid” by Douglas Hofstadter, “The Book of Job” in the Bible.
Just my 2¢…
@davidauz Even if it’s random, it’s not you ‘choosing’ it.
My brother and I have been having an ongoing debate about this and Simulation Theory for a good few years.
In my mind, it’s a pointless question to try and answer. It makes for a nice thought experiment, but actually having a belief in it is useless.
Indeterministic + free-will doesn’t exist and can’t exist. You literally end in impossible contradictions if you entail its existence in a consistent universe (as in, one where everything that exists is subjected to the same natural laws).
As a side note for OP, Hisenberg has proven there’s no such thing as “knowing the initial condition”.
I just wanted to say that if you guys truly want to see what serious answers can be given to these type of questions you can always take a look into philosophy and just so happens I’m trying to build a philosophy community on Kbin so feel free to check m/AskPhilosophers, and m/LearnPhilosophy.
Free will is way too vague of a concept, that it’s probably not worth pursuing the answer.
I’m fairly certain free will does not exist. There’s really no solid evidence for it, and no credible scientific mechanic by which it could operate.
Quantum physics provides strong evidence that the future is not deterministic, though it can produce deterministic-like results in larger systems.
The question is underspecified. Why do you want to know if free will exists? What will you do differently if it does exist vs if it does not exist?
This is similar to questions like, “is water wet?” You can generate endless debate on the topic, but it’s all intellectual masturbation until you are genuinely looking for the answer to a specific question.
No.
Hard determinist here. It doesn’t make the future predictable by me, but I don’t see how randomness could really occur. And then likewise there’s no such thing as free will.
Also, specifically addressing your spoiler,
spoiler
Any quantum mechanical interpretation of the world (read: any valid interpretation of the world) finds that it is provably impossible to know the full initial conditions of any system, even a single particle, sufficiently enough to make any predictive model of it, soooo
It can still be deterministic I guess, just not knowably.
The concept of belief is rooted in free will, is it not?
Not necessarily, no. You may believe something and yet not be free to believe otherwise.
I live my life as if I have unlimited free will, and I view the world as if everyone else is fully determined by their circumstances. And then I just ignore the contradiction. Ez pz
