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Originally Posted by Michael Chui  I'm going to suppose that, in a thousand years, we'll know everything about people. We probably won't, but that's irrelevant for the hypothetical. Now, knowing everything, we place a person before a maze. This person has been studied and observed for his entire life, by us, so not only do we know everything in general about people, but we know everything in particular about this person.
First junction, does he turn left or right? Next, same choice. Next, same choice. Does he turn back? How long does it take? We're not intervening in this study: we put him in front of a maze, gave him a reason to get to the end (100 dollars!), and watched. I would say that you could predict his choices accurately, but we're not predetermining it. He makes the choice, at that time, of his own free will. |
So you are saying people's choices could be predicted by shear knowledge of everything that makes them want to choose a certain way.
I'm glad you also say, we probably won't know everything about people. But why is that irrelevent? OK, it's hypothetical, yeah, but then even hypothesies need to consider the assumptions as part of the equations. Or, maybe that's not clear. I'm just saying if we can't ever know all the stuff that effects someone's choice, how can we say we can know what they will decide?
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Thus, a choice can be predicted based on past knowledge. I can predict that my girlfriend will absolutely love the stuffed animal I give her. I can predict that my parents will be proud of me at my graduation. Do they have a choice in the matter? Furthermore, I can predict that my teacher will give a lecture (well, actually, he likes to make us talk) in a couple hours. Does he have a choice?
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It does seem like you are saying everything is like a bunch of billard balls bouncing off each other and there's some underlaying mechanics that are exact. And if we could know all the positions of all the parts and how they bounce, then everything will have a certain outcome that doesn't happen other than the way that is mechanically going to happen. The only reason your gf will like the gift is because parts of her are ready to bounce off each other in response to getting the gift - her mind and hardware has been programed and the program is going to fire a certain way. Is this close to your take on free will/determinism?
Thinkers, scientists have for a long time been thinking we can just decompose and analise all the parts and eventually an equation will be able to represent the whole universe. That's reductionism. I supppose I'm under that spell somewhat too.
I have been trying to absorb other ideas though. Specifically epigenetics, Bruce Lipton stuff. There are ideas that we aren't just a mechanical device but that our thoughts and perceptions effect our cells and how our genes work. That there is a self conscious mind that is able to exert freewill that is different than all the programmed stuff. And what we do with that freewill part would determine how much we use our already prgrammed parts. We would just let our choices be what they always have been or jump out of that and do something else. Most of the time we don't do something else - we do what we have told our subconscious mind to do for us. All the programmed stuff is there and operating in the now, has no time frame. Only the thinking mind can have thoughts about time.
But, as interesting as this is, maybe it's off topic of if there's a soul that continues. Or maybe having freewill is also to say there's part of us that continues, and that part is the part that is outside of the programmed behaviours and is our spirit/soul.