Free Will & Determinism
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Re: Free Will & Determinism
For such a universe, the argument often seems to go something like this:
The past state of affairs causes the future state of affairs.
For any given precisely defined past state of the universe there is a single precisely defined future state of the universe.
Therefore if we rewound the universe back to precisely the same past state we would always get the same future state.
In my view the flaw in this argument is in the idea that states can be defined to infinitely high precision and that it's meaningful to talk of rewinding the entire universe back to a past state. Neither of these things is possible either in principle or practice. Therefore it's not physically meaningful to speculate about them. For any given level of precision with which we define the state of a physical system it is always possible to envisage a higher level of precision, and in the absence of perfect precision, uncertainties magnify over time.
- Papus79
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Re: Free Will & Determinism
What would you mean by 'free will' in this sense though? It doesn't seem like anything you mentioned above should do anything about a person's capacity to do something differently and in a way it seems to just frame quantum randomness in a different way.Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 9th, 2019, 11:30 am In my view the flaw in this argument is in the idea that states can be defined to infinitely high precision and that it's meaningful to talk of rewinding the entire universe back to a past state. Neither of these things is possible either in principle or practice. Therefore it's not physically meaningful to speculate about them. For any given level of precision with which we define the state of a physical system it is always possible to envisage a higher level of precision, and in the absence of perfect precision, uncertainties magnify over time.
We have a deep sense of our own agency, the intentions feel like they're ours just because they come from deeply familiar places, just that we'd feel precisely the same way if we were someone completely different.
- doberso
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Re: Free Will & Determinism
2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
2023 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023