Quote:
Originally Posted by Vexx
Some folks used to argue that if you could step up from our 3-d view to a total spacetime view, free will would vanish -- problem is that view doesn't take into account quantum mechanics (i.e. its 'classical'). Every point from the "present" forward exists in a multiply possible set of conditions, so such a viewpoint would be clear and concrete to the past and murkier and cloudier to the future.
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Strongly agree. For every physical phenomenon we can observe, we can diligently trace it back to the original "fluff" that made it possible. However, given the same set of "fluff", it is well-nigh impossible to re-create the phenomenon exactly down to the most minute scale. There are far too many variables to account for, far beyond any entity's ability to control. The future simply cannot be "determined" in the classical, Newtonian sense.
We don't even have to think on a universal scale to see this in action. Simply consider our inability to predict weather reliably beyond a week. Neither can we predict the shape of any given snowflake, despite our detailed knowledge of water molecules. Chaos occurs, so much so that while we can see patterns emerging in the initial iterations of a phenomenon, after a while, we can no longer meaningfully predict how it will unfold. This is the proverbial flap of a butterfly's wings that eventually creates a hurricane halfway across the world — we cannot possibly hope to know this will happen in advance.
In this sense, determinism cannot be possible. Free will, the ability to make a conscious choice, is thus most definitely not an illusion in this case. The outcome of the choice is not "determined" in advance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vexx
...humans operate far more frequently on "mental automatic pilot" than they themselves often realize. They let their past experience and mental baggage, flaky world-view models, etc. drive their choices without re-examining them. This makes them very predictable.
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That is if you regard a human as being no more than the sum of his parts. In which case, the menu of choices before any individual is forever confined within a range predetermined by his physical organs.
But a human being is
more than the sum of his parts. He has an autonomous mind that emerged out of the biological processes that created him. The mind is an intangible product that requires a whole new set of statistics to measure, separate from the ones that measure our bodily functions.
Thought processes can be reduced to the electrical signals between neurons, but the infinite interactions created something larger than the sum of all those signals: conscious thought, the function of an active mind.
Through conscious decisions, habitual behaviour
can be overcome. Physical limits previously thought inviolate can also be surpassed through the conscious application of willpower.
When I think of "free will", I am referring to such conscious thought, something we all have some measure of direct control over, regardless of pre-existing biological constraints.