Sure, not. However it's a reach to discuss the quantum and the macro with regard to free will in the same breath.
CHOICE may be a mere illusion. FREE WILL a trick of the mind's ego
by Terry 159 Replies latest jw friends
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drwtsn32
See the slit experiment.
Yes, and if performed the experiment and noted the results, restored the universe to a point before you did the experiment, would you get different results? If QM is truly random, then yes. If it is NOT truly random, then no.
Quite the reverse, quantum events are the building blocks of the macroscopic world.
True, but the unpredictability of quantum events does not affect us at a macroscopic level.
Like I said this is just a thought exercise for me. When someone first approached me about the idea of the universe being a deterministic machine, I too thought of QM as something that disproved that. I am just thinking of the possibility that QM is not truly random and what that would mean.
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drwtsn32
Otherwise, the newtonion math defining gravity would perfectly describe the orbit or mercury around the sun
That's not due to quantum gravity... general relativity is what refined our understanding of gravity at those scales.
Also, remember we are ultimately talking about free will here. Does QM play a role in your decision making?
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Terry
Me - "Could he have created a world wherein humans had pseudo-free-will?"
Them - "What do you mean?"
Me - "By 'pseudo-free-will', I mean the kind of 'free-will' where we imagine that we have free will, but we don't. Could he have done that? Could Jehovah have created a world where we had psuedo-free-will?"
Them - "I suppose so."
Me - "If he could have, and we wouldn't have been aware of it. Why didn't he create a world where Adam and Eve were given the same provisions for life and death as before, only that these didn't ACTUALLY have the ability to disobey, but instead imagined that they did?"
Them - "The angels would have known."
Me - "Could he not have done the same likewise with them?"
Yes, a better world can be imagined by any of us than the world we have and that is a rather damning indictment of any created world by a Jehovah who could bypass the necessity of evil.
In effect, Jehovah made an invention that could turn against Him. What lunatic would do that? Defenders of that sort of invention have to buy in whole-heartedly to the patchwork Rube Goldberg "Divine Plan" which requires thousands of years of death, destruction and rampant evil before everything is restored. Only the desperately unimaginitive thinker goes along with that for very long.
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Terry
Do you think about what you are posting before you press "submit"?
What would be the point? Isn't everything we post already predestined?
We really haven't gone "there" have we?
PREDESTINATION is not the same thing as being internally influenced by genetic predisposition! Interal urgings, cravings and such are chaotic. Predestination requires an outside agency (such as God).
You see? Different topic altogether!!
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drwtsn32
I have tried to have this discussion with friends before. Some people get very emotional and upset at the thought they don't have true free will.
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notverylikely
We are all entitled to our own opinions but not to our own "reality". What is OBJECTIVE is the same for everybody regardless of opinion.
Except that you added "must have practical application" to the definition. That is not an objective definition, but rather a subjective one that exists only in your mind.
Look mate, until you can make your point using standard agreed upon definitions of things like objective, subjective and free will, you're just spinning your wheels against a brick wall.
Just as what is "true" conforms to reality. Opinion isn't reality. Opinion is subjective. Objectivity is practical. A=A.
In some cases A can also equal B, C, D, etc.
You are now slicing pretty thin! You differentiate between "exercising" and "using". Amazing accomplishment!
"And" is not a differentiating word. I was tying them together if anything. As in"Terry and I are having a discussion." The word "and" ties us together in that context. Using "or" would have differentiated us.
I REPEAT: Free Speech (like FREE WILL) is a useless mental construct if it is not employed.
OK. I don't think I am arguing that at all. You keep refuting points that I am not arguing. I am saying that to accomplish (or employ) free will does not imply any particular result.
You've sought to deflect from that by creating a middle zone whereby one "tries" but "fails". (Marathon example.)
I supposed I could count that as a partial admission on your part, but, I won't.
I've been consistently using the same example (or the same type of example) so I am not sure how, except subjectively, in your own mind, you could even draw that conclusion. Your choice however. But since it's subjective, I guess it doesn't exist, eh?
Bring to mind, if you will, my argument about the "FREE" part of Free Will is that we may well be INTERNALLY pushed by genetic predisposition toward behavior which we (unaware of that inherent proclivity) call our "choice." Somehow we have avoided discussing that by running your marathon and not reaching the end of it!
We did talk about. Remember the posts about subjective preferences? I simply think vanilla bean ice cream taste better. I did not decide that. However, I can exercise free will and choose chocolate on occasion. I don't think anyone is arguing that we don't have preferences. We can override them, however.
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gubberningbody
Desperate, is right, Terry. The best of us have been there.
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Terry
However, you are an educated man and in learning you must have discovered the Heisenberg uncertainty principle,
What in the world has the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle got to do with human beings and their Free Will??
The act of observation affects the outcome of an experiment for tangible reasons. The observer must employ interference (electron microscopes, for example) which impact on the object of observation and disturb that object. Nothing spooky or mysterious involved. It has nothing to do with our discussion of Free Will. If it did, I'm sure you'd enlighten us!
Selecting a destiny (or making any choice, for that matter) is outside the purview of Heisenberg or his principle.
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JWoods
PREDESTINATION is not the same thing as being internally influenced by genetic predisposition! Interal urgings, cravings and such are chaotic. Predestination requires an outside agency (such as God).
You see?
No