Why Physics Ends the Free Will Debate

Einstein believed that free will was just an illusion, and that awareness of this lack kept him from taking himself and others too seriously. But Einstein was plain wrong, says Dr. Kaku.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• bigthink
• 5min

[TheDashboardSaint]

Random Will is not Free Will. Free Will means you are responsible for your actions and that those actions are free from cause and effect. Any argument against a deterministic universe negates the responsibility aspect Free Will. If you had Free will and the "randomness" at the quantum level changed your decisions then your Free Will would be effected and randomized. It would then be Random Will. Thereby releasing you of responsibility for those actions.

[koreanprideno1]

@JBroMCMXCI

we are pretty sure of things at the macroscopic level.. look how many predictions we make about it that come true.. it's because at the macro level.. something is always being interacted with.. so it's always in a 'steady' state..

[purplericee]

I love this guy, he thinks big

[wexxxxx]

@TheDashboardSaint I think I've misunderstand. I thought the cause is your will, and the effect is symptom of it? 'cause and effect' are terms used by determinists.?

[Jumbaguy]

well i believe that things ARE set in stone. What i eat 10 years from now will be set in stone because there is no true "random." I dont know, i suppose that to truly understand a realm you have to be above that realm, and we as humans are trapped in that realm and as such there are higher workings in existence that we dont understand and will never understand.

[candymanMVHS]

Kind of funny that in a weird way it almost sounds like Einstein believed in intelligent design.....kinda

[gaaraman082]

Einstein was pretty much a fail.

[insidetrip101]

@bball44j

"Either something exists or it doesn't." And I didn't dispute this. I was talking about potency, and things which are potential do exist; however, things that are actual have a higher "reality" than things which are potential.

I'm not a quantum physicist, so I have to appeal to Heisenberg when he said that Aristotle is the only man who ever understood indeterminacy. In other words, that what is potency is a reality itself, not the reality that we experience, but still real.

[bball44j]

@insidetrip101

I see your line of reasoning, but saying something is at a halfway point is, I believe, inconsistent with reality. Either something exists or it doesn't. If something is potential, then it doesn't exist.

[insidetrip101]

@bball44j

I don't think I can do it "in every sense of the word", nor in a clear concise way, but instead a vague and uncertain way (because of the nature of the subject matter: indeterminacy).

I think that we have to understand indeterminacy as, not random, or irrational, but instead as a certain mode of "being". What I mean by a "certain mode of being", is that what is indeterminate is potential, and as such is neither nothing nor actually something. It is a "halfway" point.

[letsplay14me]

you gotta love this guy

[luciddeception]

THIS ISN'T MY HAND!