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Permalink Reply by Radu Andreiu on June 11, 2011 at 3:55am

I heard that the free will particle is the decidetron and it's the only particle which can choose how to act and thus influence other particles by interacting with them anyway it wants.

I bet our brains are filled with this kind of particles and that's where free will emerges. All we have to do now is wait for the guys from LHC to discover this particle.

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Permalink Reply by oneinfinity on June 10, 2011 at 6:31pm

explain to me, in terms of physics, exactly what consciousness is and how it works.

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Permalink Reply by Araina on June 10, 2011 at 6:56pm

Free will doesn't exists.  Atheist that don't understand or know about evolution might still believe in free will, but it does not exists.  Really, it doesn't exists in anyway and can't possibly because that isn't how the brain works.  Our behavior is dictated by biology, physics, etc.  Much of our behavior is driven by our subconscious.  Our sense of being human and feeling like a singular unit is an illusion.

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Permalink Reply by Araina on June 10, 2011 at 10:48pm

Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker on Free Will

 

http://youtu.be/8LE4uu49SU8

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Permalink Reply by 3equ3cp1fsw0n on June 10, 2011 at 11:34pm

I have gone around and around with this free will thing.

 

I have not decided exactly where I stand on the matter. I like to say there is no such thing as "true" free will, because if there was, my wishes would come true because that would be what I would want to happen. 

 

Since the option to have my wishes come true is not avaiable to me, there is no such things as true free will. Free will generally means to be able to do what you want to do within a range of options. "True" free will would mean you can do what you want to do (period).

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Permalink Reply by Radu Andreiu on June 11, 2011 at 4:06am

Oh, we can do some things that we want to do, but why do we want to do them? Can we decide what we'll want before actually wanting it? What would this decision be based on, if not yet another desire?

Anyway, thinking about this issue in terms of the macro universe leads people to silly conclusions. Every single of our fundamental constituents is a total slave to the laws of physics, so whenever you move your body, the particles that make you are moving as they should according to the laws of physics and their previous states. It's just that, being an awful lot of particles in the world, there is an enormous number of arrangements in which they can exist in any macroscopic volume of space and that's why things are so diverse and hard to predict in the macro world, even if they're much simpler on the smallest of scales.

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Permalink Reply by 3equ3cp1fsw0n on June 11, 2011 at 2:19pm

Radu wrote: 
Oh, we can do some things that we want to do, but why do we want to do them? Can we decide what we'll want before actually wanting it? What would this decision be based on, if not yet another desire? (end of snippet of Radu's post)

 

I know there are times we have the opportunity to make a decision that brings us complete contentment for a time.

 

What I meant, by saying true free will, would mean you can do what you want to do. This would be impossible for me, because I would wish for all suffering to stop existing immediately, for all.

 

I think most people, if they had one wish that could come true, would wish the same thing. I guess if Christians think their God has true free will, I don't understand why they don't understand, he did not make a good decision when he chose to create everything as he did, because of all the suffering that exists. And I don't want to hear all this "without suffering we would not be able to be happy bull crap" beause I am talking about really severe, pointless suffering.

 

For example, why does a baby die in agony and I live to be 50 years old with a lot of goodness in my life?  In the scheme of things for the Christian concept of God, this example points out the pointlessness of his "grand design". What was SO worth the suffering of that baby? What?

 

Instead, he (the Christian concept of God) chose to allow suffering in unspeakable degrees, for billions of beings, for a very long period of time. So either, in the Christian concept of God, he does not have true free will; or he has it, and he is sadistic and a liar; or there is no such God as the Christian concept of God. Take your pick.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Reardon on June 11, 2011 at 2:27am

It has been my observation that when a question leads to contradictory conclusions, you are either asking the wrong question, or there is some aspect or "piece of the puzzle" of which you are unaware.

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