Neil
New
tSomething has occurred to me that I would like to share, that hopefully isn't quite along the lines of the typical endless free will type of thread.
What I do not understand is how there can be such confusion over what a deterministic universe entails. Perhaps the rift between the philosophical and neurological side and that of physics is part of this problem. It seems quite simple that if one supposes that the universe is deterministic, the best model we have for such a universe comes from Relativity Theory. This is an entirely deterministic universe, and the most important thing to consider here that should clarify a lot of confusion on what determinism entails is simply this: The Block Universe is a model of a Relativistic universe, and when one sees the universe as a deterministic Block Universe, it is incredibly clear that there is no way possible for someone to have done otherwise. It would be like saying the actors could have acted differently in a movie on DVD because it felt like if they had chosen otherwise then a different outcome could have occurred. Of course, this is impossible.
But it could be possible that one defines "free will" in the sense of political free will, where I am not coerced or forced to do against my will. One could do this, but based on data of how people actually view free will, and how the legal system also views free will, this is not what people really mean.
But if one maintains the view that free will is that one could have done otherwise, then incompatibilism is the only logical choice.
But, some may object to the premise of the deterministic universe. The universe is fundamentally quantum, but now we get into questions of interpreting QM again. The Many Worlds Interpretation and the Pilot Wave models are deterministic, but I don't see any good grounds for thinking these may be true. This is a different question, and to me, it is quite obvious that we do not live in a deterministic universe, so the premise of much of the free will question on supposing a deterministic universe is a waste of time anyway. A more interesting question is that of viewing the brain as mechanistic within an indeterministic universe.
What I do not understand is how there can be such confusion over what a deterministic universe entails. Perhaps the rift between the philosophical and neurological side and that of physics is part of this problem. It seems quite simple that if one supposes that the universe is deterministic, the best model we have for such a universe comes from Relativity Theory. This is an entirely deterministic universe, and the most important thing to consider here that should clarify a lot of confusion on what determinism entails is simply this: The Block Universe is a model of a Relativistic universe, and when one sees the universe as a deterministic Block Universe, it is incredibly clear that there is no way possible for someone to have done otherwise. It would be like saying the actors could have acted differently in a movie on DVD because it felt like if they had chosen otherwise then a different outcome could have occurred. Of course, this is impossible.
But it could be possible that one defines "free will" in the sense of political free will, where I am not coerced or forced to do against my will. One could do this, but based on data of how people actually view free will, and how the legal system also views free will, this is not what people really mean.
But if one maintains the view that free will is that one could have done otherwise, then incompatibilism is the only logical choice.
But, some may object to the premise of the deterministic universe. The universe is fundamentally quantum, but now we get into questions of interpreting QM again. The Many Worlds Interpretation and the Pilot Wave models are deterministic, but I don't see any good grounds for thinking these may be true. This is a different question, and to me, it is quite obvious that we do not live in a deterministic universe, so the premise of much of the free will question on supposing a deterministic universe is a waste of time anyway. A more interesting question is that of viewing the brain as mechanistic within an indeterministic universe.