Free Will and Physics
published by wazant 11 months 2 weeks ago • 1257 views
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Self Destruction - from Waking Life
David Sosa examines the implications of physics in relation to free will. He explains the view, often called hard determinism, which holds that there is no place for free action in a world governed by physical laws since human beings, like everything else in the physical world, are physical things and are thus subject to these same laws. From the film "Waking Life".
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i don't see why people think its a problem. it seems fairly obvious that there is no such thing as free will. just because humans dislike the fact that thats the case do sent change the fact.

if more humans actually rolized that there is no free will then thay would stop congratulating them selfs on stupid things. and maby injoy life for what it is. and strive to make it more enjoyable

something more interesting to debate and philosophize over is the concept of ideas. what are ideas where do thay exist what are ideas constructed from.


written by westy  | 11 months 2 weeks ago | CH
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yeah but if they don't have free will then they had no free will about worrying about free will


written by bluecliff  | 11 months 2 weeks ago | CH
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I would recommend reading Daniel C. Dennetts book "Freedom Evolves". Free will is both possible and real, thanks to the evolution of our mental ability to simulate future events based on previous experience. Our will is constrained, of course, but it is free enough to allow for praise and blame in moral terms. I used to be a hard determinist when I studied philosophy, but this book changed my mind (and my life).

Dan Gilbert presents this concept very neatly in this video on happiness and choice from TED Talks:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7822696446273926158&q=ted+talks&total=1146&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=5


written by Contrarian  | 11 months 2 weeks ago | CH
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simulations do not mean free will, the simulations themselves must have a a degree of freedom, or we must be free from them for there to be free will.
I haven't read the book I but i really don't like biology entering this field



written by bluecliff  | 11 months 2 weeks ago | CH
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Hey Westy, i admire your change to regular typing. Finally i can really read your comments. I'm not making fun, i'm serious: Good decision!


written by conan  | 11 months 2 weeks ago | CH
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i watched a lecture by Daniel C. Dennett and although i agree there is the posablity for free will it seems less intuitive to me ( not that i know everything and im obviously basing this on my limited knowledge and sciences limited knowledge on the subject matter) another thing that relates to free will ore rather points to how nonsensical the universe could be is the old argument about infinatly devisable items sutch as time ( i reolise the concept of non limited things are probably simply due to us evolving on our perceivable plane of exsistance) interestingly there is a budist philosophy based around the idea of us not having anny point in time to exist ( if exsistance is defined as conchoise awareness) it seems to me that there is a mounting amount of evidence to sajest that time is erelivent and there for all actions and posablitys have alredy happend/not happened at the same "time".

my spelling is only ok because i work now and hence have word open most the time to spell check. also it depends on the post and how much i feal like putting the effort into spelling.


written by westy  | 11 months 2 weeks ago | CH
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Though I think that many of our thoughts and actions are heavily influenced by things like our gender, our home life, and our cultural environment, etc., I'm pretty much in the "free will" camp. Yes, we do make our own choices. Yes, we do have significant control of our destinies.

I chose to write the words above. I chose to contemplate the notion of free will versus determinism. If I were nothing more than a vessel of some grand, predetermined mechanism that had itself decided, billions of years ago, to write those words - what would be the point of it all?

Why would we try to do anything if it was already written?

Isn’t the joy of a first kiss never having kissed before?

Whence doubt, if it is all out of our control?


written by rougy  | 10 months 2 weeks ago | CH
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