the myth of free will

[lao che]

The myth of free will


The more one learns about the origins and evolution of the Earth and the Universe, the more one questions the notion of free will.

Everything that happens has always been meant to happen. Everything was inevitable from the moment of the Big Bang.
We’re riding around on this giant, whirling ball and it will eventually stop whirling, somewhere and somewhen. But where and are pre-ordained.
Like smashing a cue-ball into the pack, every ball’s destiny is determined at the very moment the tip strikes the ball.

It’s a sobering thought. It seems undeniable. But then it would mean that we are all just passengers -witnesses to our own lives, powerless to interfere with the predestined path.

 

[Chase]

Aye, Lao Che.

You know, the interesting thing to me has always been that whether we believe in free will or predestination, it's irrelevant. You still do what you do, and that is so regardless whether it was inevitable you would do it, or you only chose to do it, totally uninfluenced by anything other than (whim? will? random choice?), right then and there in the moment.

I like to think that we have the freedom to choose whatever we like. But also that we were always going to make whatever choice we freely made.

One of the more interesting areas of physics theory to me right now is retrocausality. i.e., something happens now because it has to happen for something in the future that will happen. What studies I've seen on it have been open to interpretation at best (e.g., here is an interesting experiment that purports to show retrocausality; though I don't see why this same effect could not simply be a product of the observer effect). Anyway, if retrocausality turns out to be legitimate, than some percentage of what happens would in effect always have to happen the way it happens, because it lies along the path to a future that has 'already' occurred.

Chase

 

[Hue]

lao che,

There is definitely truth in what you're saying. Action --> Reaction --> Reaction --> Reaction, etc. with the initial action being the big bang, the cue ball that smashed into the pack.

But then it would mean that we are all just passengers -witnesses to our own lives, powerless to interfere with the predestined path.

In my perspective, nothing is predestined. It's too much of a modernist view for me. Rather, everything is constantly chaos, reacting, and perpetuating into existence.

That said, free will has always made my mind bend, since I wouldn't be thinking about this or writing it at this very moment were it not for you posting it.



Perhaps this isn't exactly what you were getting at, but the word predestined implies an initial "plan". Everything does happen for a reason, but the reasons for developments of reality are paradoxically fleeting and being created at the same time.

Basically, while destiny is inevitable, destiny isn't inherently determined / predictable. That type of perspective is beyond human capacity.

If there was an all seeing eye, that could acknowledge all the predetermined actions-->reactions, what is there to suggest there's no perspective beyond that? Attempting to visualize / comprehend that shoots off into infinity. Thus, there's never truly defined boundaries of which way reality will go. At least not this reality (;


EDIT: I was still writing my reply when you posted, Chase.

If the experimenters chose not to carry out that final measurement, then the deflected angles measured in the intermediate phase were boringly tiny. But if they performed the final, postselection step, the results were dramatically different. When the physicists chose to record the laser light emerging from one of the gates, then the light traversing that route, alone, ended up with deflection angles amplified by a factor of more than 100 in the intermediate measurement step. Somehow the later decision appeared to affect the outcome of the weak, intermediate measurements, even though they were made at an earlier time.

Very fascinating. Definitely gonna shoot this over to my friend who's a physics major.

Does this mean that when the intermediate step is carried out, the future is set and the experimenter has no choice but to perform the later, postselection measurement? It seems not. Even in instances where the final step is abandoned, Tollaksen has found, the intermediate weak measurement remains amplified, though now with no future cause to explain its magnitude at all.

You simply have to put it down to a random error in your apparatus. You win back your free will in the sense that if you actually attempt to defy the future, you will find that it can never force you to carry out postselection experiments against your wishes. The math, Tollaksen says, backs him on this interpretation: The error range in single intermediate weak measurements that are not followed up by the required post­selection will always be just enough to dismiss the bizarre result as a mistake.

Important to note, like anything with science.


Nonetheless that was a very interesting read, thanks.
Maybe the more successful trials of those in favor of the theory will eventually make it true (via postselection that is)


~Cheers~

Hueman

 

[lao che]

thanks for your replies. i don't know why, i was expecting to be ridiculed for my original post. instead i got a couple of well thought out responses and plenty of food for thought

i'd already arrived at the above conclusions myself. i agree with chase - free will or destiny, it really makes no difference. all we can do is do our best, and whether that's our decision or whether you were always meant to do that, it's irrelevant. you take a path, it was always meant to be, you take the other path, it was always meant to be.
in fact, i find it quite liberating in a way, to think that whatever happens is inevitable, it frees you to concentrate on being and doing, rather than thinking about the other options, missed chances and so on.

for me, i've always had a need to understand the past. why am i who i am? why did i choose to become the me i became. it's easy to blame socio-economic factors, peers, schooling, and parents, of course. but make no mistake, i made the decisions. i made observations of the world around me and chose a way of being that would hopefully keep me out of harms way and get me laid. it didn't work, and i had to make some fundamental changes to myself, many times over the years, to grow and change and become stronger.
i kick myself for being such a fool when i was younger, for not seeing the wood for the trees, for listening to words instead of observing actions etc etc. but, well, it was always meant to be lol


well i'm rambling now. i should probably wait awhile and edit this later but i'll go ahead and post it

by the way, check out these 2 stunning and very different music vids for the same track, "gosh" by jamie xx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTGJfRPLe08


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjNssEVlB6M


they are partly responsible for my original post here