Free Will Part 1

Are we free?

A brief history of free will versus determinism.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• freedom
• objectivist
• objectivism
• rand
• libertarian
• politics
• free
• will
• determinism

[VTAcraft]

If a plant could talk, it could tell a rock that it has free will because whereas the rock just sits there or gets bumped around, plants grow, blossom, branch out, etc., with seemingly no external forces acting on it.

Of course, it would have no conception of how the sun effects the process of photosynthesis. It would "think" that it was "self-propelled"—that it had free will.

This is the argument that Stefan is making. I'm agnostic on determinism, but Stefan's argument here is no good.

[HedgehogRebellion]

Luck -->DNA

DNA--> Brain Wiring

Brain Wiring --> Personality

Personality --> Decisions

Decsions --> YOUR LIFE

If someone can argue with this...well congradulations...you will be the first person in more than 3 years to prove me wrong. But...you probably wont...because you probably cant.

[dartplayer170]

@hazeee123 That's not his point. You have to watch the next video I guess. Here he is only showing that the whole is more than the sum of the parts and so one cannot invalidate free will in a human simply because the parts are subject to causality.

[dartplayer170]

@Aldelirium The study of behaviour is not a science, it is social science. There is a reason for that.

[dartplayer170]

@mikef179 Which cause and effect laws are you talking about? Newtonian Laws? All fundamental physical laws are stochastic in nature, not causal. We only derive causal laws at the macroscopic level to simplify the calculations.

[IgnosticAnarchist]

@mikef179, I guess you already know. Stefan got only a cruising on the surface knowledge of how to construct true and valid reasoning. This was back in 2007. He follows the same path today right before 2012. It's possible to get some great ideas from watching him though, but that is also possible from watching paint dry.

[mikef179]

Hope this is going to improve. The atomic thing was setting up a strawman and knocking it down. The universe as a whole follows physical laws. We are a part of that universe so we follow the same cause-and-effect physical laws. Everything must have a cause. Therefore, no free will. That doesn't mean that life doesn't have meaning. All my life I have acted as if I have free will and I will continue to do so. What else can you do?

[WelcometotheUnknown]

@Aldelirium I agree that the causal chain does not break, but given that Stefan describes some sort of determinism at the atomic level while denying that humans are deterministic, he must believe that there is some sort of magical break in causality somehow that allows human to choose from multiple possible futures despite the fact that deterministic atoms only have one possible future. I don't think the view makes sense, but it seems to be what he believes judging by the video.

[Aldelirium]

@sugarcanegray behaviour is determined by a mixture of genes and memes.

[Aldelirium]

@Naytardo no. if God knows the future, the future is fixed and there is no free will.