Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Atheist Exile on June 28, 2011 at 2:15am

Actually, I believe that if you accept Michio's line of reasoning, it's ABSOLUTE causality -- NOT free will -- that has had its debate ended by quantum physics.  Quantum uncertainty might make the future unpredictable but free will (self-determinism), is borne out of causality regardless of whether or not it's absolute.  In other words, free will (self-determinism) and causality were never incompatible in the first place.

If you think of free will as self-determinism (see "Expressions of Causality"), you can strip away, as irrelevant, all these extraneous notions like quantum uncertainty and degree of causality.  Self-determinism admits that causality rules.  Causality determines our heredity and experience which in turn, shapes our identity.  It doesn't matter how the human brain produces memory, feedback and intelligence.  It doesn't matter how the brain does what it does: all that matters is that it does.  When it comes to self-determinism, all we really need to know is that the brain produces a consciousness that is both self-aware and future-aware.

Everybody makes plans.  Whether it's the next day's dinner or your last will and testament, we all know that we can conceive a plan and execute it successfully.  We might need to modify the plan but that's simply adapting to causality.  If the plan goes wrong, then we made an error in anticipating causality.  We can't anticipate everything.  But the ability to repeatedly execute our plans is empirical proof of self-determinism.  Self-determinism is an observable fact.

Many of you will think, "But that's not free will!".  And you'd be right if you're using the common idea of free will.  The brain has no special exemption from causality.  It is not a cause in and of itself.  The brain, through our sensory apparatus, interacts with causality to produce consciousness . . . which produces experience . . . which produces identity.  The brain is dependent on causality: not independent from it.

So causality forms our identity and is responsible for the electro-chemical processes in our brains.  So what?  That doesn't mean we're automatons.  It only means we're constrained by our own experience.  With the exception of reflex and instinct, we can't act beyond the scope of our experience.  Causality limits the scope of our actions -- NOT the actions themselves.

How do I know this?  Feedback.  Mental feedback is the mechanism by which we use our intelligence to anticipate the future.  Mental feedback is the mechanism that gives us our temporal advantage over causality.  We're so inured to it, we take it for granted or don't even realize we have it.  But we certainly do have it.  We have it so much, we're practically fixated on the future.  And by, "the future", I mean the future of causality.

Don't forget . . . causality doesn't stop at the skull.  It's responsible for all the mental processes we're aware of and the one's we're not aware of: including mental feedback.  Mental feedback, which stems from our brain's interaction with causality, enables us to intelligently anticipate causality.  It's causality all the way, baby!

But look at the result.  Identity, purpose, desire and the forward-looking means to realize them -- all thanks to human intelligence interacting, via our sense, with causality.  When determinism meets human intelligence, it becomes self-determinism.  The universe and its laws of nature had no way to acknowledge itself until (human?) intelligence finally made an appearance.  Causality eventually brought life and intelligence to a once cold and inanimate universe.  The ineffable mystery of existence is a puzzle destined to solve itself.