Does Free Will Exist? The Clockwork Universe

Binary_Bark

Binary_Bark

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This is Part 1 in a series on the physics of free will.

Check this out. There are some experiments that just make you…stop. That make you reconsider everything you’ve ever known. The kind of experiment where you just need to step outside into the cold air with your favorite beer or kind of cheese or perhaps both and just state at nothing for a while.

And for me, one of those experiments was conducted by Benjamin Libet in the 1980’s. He wired people up and asked them to just randomly flick their wrist whenever they felt like it. Totally random, totally their choice. He was measuring something called the “readiness potential,” which is a buildup of electrical signals in the brain just before you start moving. It’s like the brain gearing up for action before it sends the signal down the nerves to make the movement happen.
Click to expand...

www.universetoday.com

Does Free Will Exist? Part 1: The Clockwork Universe

Check this out. There are some experiments that just make you…stop. That make you reconsider everything you’ve ever known.
www.universetoday.com www.universetoday.com
 
Either free will is an illusion or the mind is already aware of the body's upcoming actions or deterministic universe (Laplace's Demon). Take your pick or keep it mysterious.
 
We exist in a universe where free will, as it's generally considered to be, can not exist.
 
airborne said:
Why is that?
If you believe in cause and effect then presumably everything has to be predetermined.
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I do yes. I believe we exist in a causal universe where every event has a prior cause and each cause a prior event, etc.

My position on Free Will is Incompatibilism / Hard Determinism.
 
Does Free Will Exist? Part 2: The Chaotic Universe

All of physics rests on causal determinism. It’s like…how we do physics. It IS physics. It’s how we make predictions for experiments and determine what the universe was like in its past. If we didn’t have causal determinism, we….well life would be a lot more difficult. Yes, Laplace’s demon doesn’t ACTUALLY exist, and no we don’t have ALL the laws of physics…yet. And even if we never did, even if we stopped all of physics research and said pack it in everybody, we’re giving up, what matter is that Laplace’s idea works in PRINCINPLE. As long as you can imagine such a super-intelligence, then causal determinism is true and free will doesn’t exist.

But wait, didn’t Laplace live over two hundred years ago? Hasn’t physics advanced since then? Why do we care what some long-dead French guy has to say about the subject?
Click to expand...

www.universetoday.com

Does Free Will Exist? Part 2: The Chaotic Universe

All of physics rests on causal determinism. It’s like…how we do physics. It IS physics.
www.universetoday.com www.universetoday.com
 
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