Or better yet, take a physics class instead of a philosophy one. The whole shabang about quantum physics and mysticism is the concept that you can have a superposition of states untill you make a measurement. What I am saying is, nothing in the brain is even making that measurement. So no, it doesn't count as an observer. Furthermore, as far I remember, you're right about not all interpretations hinging on an observer, but, I can bet you all the ones philosophers like to talk about certainly do.
Again, this depends on your interpretation of quantum mechanics. I've read several essays about the issue of what constitutes a measurement, and there seems to be no agreement even among physicists.
Please explain to me how the brain can measure something that occurs on a much faster timescale than it can process, using any interpretation of quantum mechanics you deem suitable for your argument.
The brain doesn't need to measure the thought process in order for the thought process to actually occur. Essentially, just because I'm not observing something doesn't mean it's not happening, even at the quantum level (there was some paradox about this, but I don't remember it at the moment; damn!). If that wasn't the case, I feel like it's only a matter of time before that line of thinking leads to solipsism, which can be easily refuted.
Your question seems flawed. For a start, if there's no such thing as "free will", then there's no such thing as "doing what you want". You have no such will to decide that you wanted anything at all - you just do it, like a robot programmed to do something. Of course you can decide what your next thought is - I'm not sure why you don't think we can? You can't control your FEELINGS, that's different from your actual THOUGHTS. I may hate my mother-in-law while at the same time on an intellectual level know that she can't help it and sometimes she didn't even mean to hurt. I still can't help how I feel towards her, but I sure can control what I choose to think about her. I can tell myself "She's a bitch" or "She's a wounded person whom I need to show more grace towards, if for no one else, then for the sake of my husband". It's true sometimes something affects you so greatly even your thoughts are full of it and won't shut up - then what you need is Peace, and it's not to do with free will at all. It's more to do with our weakness as humans because we're emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually fragile. In terms of free will - perhaps give the book of Romans in the Bible a gander. Read it alongside a commentary as it's a pretty complicated book, but it speaks of being a "slave" to sin (which is almost akin to a lack of free will) and also taking responsibility for your actions (which assumes free will) and breaking free from the slavery of sin to become a slave of Christ (which actually means freedom). Paul explains it much better than I and I won't preach at you here lol. If you're interested, you can find it easily enough. But here's a famous verse from Paul, which I will paraphrase: "That which I want to do, I do not do, and yet that which I do not want to do, that I cannot stop doing!" I know it doesn't answer your question - rather it raises more - but nonetheless it might be interesting for you to look into. Regardless of your position on God/faith/Jesus, I think it's a relevant perspective on free will.
No, I'm saying there wouldn't be a thought process to begin with. The brain is not fast enough to do anything with any quantum events, period. It's apple to oranges.
According to the Wiki entry I read on "Quantum mind," you may be right. But I can't say that I'm 100% convinced. Quantum mechanics seems to play a role in photosynthesis, and there's even evidence of quantum evolution. So I wouldn't be surprised at all if quantum mechanics can explain consciousness and our thought process.
Yeah, like I said, anything is possible. Maybe the brain can operate that fast, and we just don't know about it yet. All I was saying, as things stand....
Actually the causes of homosexuality are not clear. For my argument, it's not relevant whether they're genetic or environmental or a combination of the two. The fact is, these people possess a quality of character that is caused by conditions beyond their control.
I assume you're a Christian, so I'd like to know whether you see any contradiction between free will and God's omniscience? If even our future actions are certain can we have any freedom at all?
Does one person's or being's knowledge about the outcome of a scenario affect the will of the ignorant? If I told you I knew how every college football game was going to end this season, would that affect the players' performances?
It wouldn't actually influence their will, but it would mean there is only one way for things to turn out. So there are no alternative possibilities. Their will would remain intact, but they wouldn't have free will in the metaphysical sense.
Their reaction and resulting performance would have been factored in to your knowledge of the result. If the result is predetermined so are all the factors leading up to it.
Free will is an individual perception. Lack of knowledge of the outcome has no bearing on the decision making process. The fallacy of understanding will (free is a moot word. What will is not free?) in this conversation is working from an unknown solution backwards. Even if I told you that I knew for certain that West Bumfuck University was going to break through the BCS and take it all home, you could not fit the proper integers into that equation (or you could give an infinite amount of possible answers). Also, applying history as a scientific or mathematic probability is also a fallacy. Observe Brownian motion and/or chaos theories. The only way to make a prediction is through stop time observation; even then, the outcome is uncertain. Selbbin Your statement is false. I can know the outcome without knowing the factors. I can know that WBU wins without knowing Nick Saban was assassinated by an asshole from LSU. Your retort, reasonably following the logic of the post of which I am replying, might be that if I knew the outcome, I would in fact know what happened immediately preceding said outcome. If this is true, and every outcome is a sum of the parts (which are random), I would be able to predict every outcome before the next which would put us in an infinite regress. Randomness can only operate in one direction. This cancels out the philosophy of Determinism because you have to have the solution in order to evaluate the equation
And/or? Brownian motion applies to small particles only. In conjunction with chaos theory, it might be relevant to this conversation. Can people please stop flinging around terms they only half understand?
This doesn't cancel out determinism. Regarding metaphysical free will, I can't imagine how we could possibly prove or disprove it. Determinism could be disproven if we found truly non-causal/random events(like in some interpretation of quantum mechanics). Even that wouldn't prove metaphysical free will because 1)We'd have to prove whether or not similar effects occur in our brain. 2)We'd have to know how frequently they occur. If it is something that happens rarely, it would mean occasionally people have free will, but mostly not. That would be a really strange idea and wouldn't really help us, especially since we don't feel any different if we're free or not. 3)We'd have to consider whether this provides us with free will. It gives us freedom from determinism, but not freedom in the sense of being in control.
Brownian motion is pertinent to the conversation as the theory states how random interactions of outside stimuli affect the movement of another particle. If water molecules can move pollen grains in an unpredictable manner, then a person can be "moved" by random interactions as well. It's called application of theory.
You do have to know all of the factors from the beginning of time. If not all of the factors that occur have relevance than what is determinism. Are you saying determinism can exist with actions that have no bearings on the future?
If you'd have to know all the factors every time, science simply wouldn't work. We don't know most of the stuff that's happened in the universe, but it doesn't prevent us from knowing causality. A rocket engine burns hydrogen and we know water vapour will result. According to determinism all factors have relevance, but not everything has relevance to the game. You nicely ignored most of my post where I asked you how exactly could you predict the outcome of the game without knowing all the factors(we're talking about actual knowing, not just probabilities). Some expert on football can predict outcomes of games with a better accuracy than the rest of us because he has knowledge of many factors that directly influence the game. If not, what could he base his prediction on?
What random interactions, exactly? Hmm, maybe there is randomness in the human body? I wouldn't know.
The bolded part of your response is why the Positivist views you are representing failed the first time. Science deals with replicable results. That is why I stated that using historical data as a means of extrapolating scientific theory is a fallacy. It cannot be tested and retested to achieve results. You nicely failed to recognize two arguments in my post. You asked if the Christian views of an omniscient being contradicted free will. You then went and substituted the word for 'know' with 'predict.' If I had an ant farm called Earth filled with humans and I knew I was going to destroy it in three weeks, does that have an effect on the decision making process of the encapsulated humans? No. The remainder of my post was dealing with Determinism and how there is no way to predict the outcome based on randomness. If Determinism were true, we would be able to trace all of the steps up to us having this conversation through "because of this; this" logic. This is not a scientifically sound method; as stated before, the results are not replicable. If you could trace these steps, you would eventually be forced to answer the biggest question of what happened 1 t[SUB]p[/SUB] before nothing went boom.
True. The ultimate reason will always be a mystery. Even if God exists, we would have to ask why He exists? This conversation in general is more about philosophy than science. Could you give some hypothetical example of a world in which humans have metaphysically free will and someone knows what they will choose. It doesn't matter if the knowledge causes the decision or not. If they can be known, they are determined by something.
