Posted by Jo-Nathan d'Urberville on September 11, 19100 at 02:03:02:

In Reply to: Re: free will and determinism posted by Jo-Nathan d'Urberville on June 17, 19100 at 02:55:29:

: : what do the readers of this page think of free will and determinism ?????
: : Do we have any free will or can we only be whom we are ???
: Hi all you fellow philosophers out there. I thought I may weigh in on the argument here. This six paragragh (part) thesis, is not entirely my own work, but rather a combination of other essays by authors unknown (to me) I have used to explain my view on the subject. I post them individualy as follows: Determinism professes that those parts of the universe already laid down, absolutely appoint and decree what the other parts shall be. The future has no ambiguous possibilities hidden within its womb. The part we call the present, is compatible with only one totality. The now is all! "Time is the eternal present". Any existence other than the one fixed from eternity, is impossible. The whole is in each and every part, and welds it to the rest into an absolute unity, an iron block, in which there can be no equivocation, or shadow of turning. Part two: The philosophy of determinism is easily understood if one visualizes the universe as the perpetual motion machine that comprises everything, nothing enters, nothing escapes. Although obviously intricate, it is not mysterious from a scientific standpoint. Every occurrence is to be accounted for on the basis of strict cause and effect. There is ultimately no such thing as chance. What had happened at one moment was the natural and inevitable result of what had happened at the previous moment, and in turn determined what was to happen at the next moment. The future is entirely determined by the past, allowing no freedom of choice. Human beings and all other organisms are nothing more than complex machines, since the universe is irreversibly determined from, and therefore for eternity. The existence of an organizing, directing, life giving vital force, independant of physical laws, would imply a degree of freedom. It would imply that living organisms somehow display some independence from absolute cause and effect, some ability to flaunt the universal mechanism, to overule the first law of thermodynamics - the law of conservation of energy and m. Such an idea is contrary to scientific knowledge. Part three: Here we come to the heart of the matter, science does not recognize the word "freedom". Science instead deals with mechanical procedures. If you say that you have acted of your own volition, the scientist in theory is able to produce an indefinite number of reasons in reverse mechanical order, proving you had to do it; just as a river has to flow down hill. If you reply that you can decide whether or not to contradict the scientist, or whether to go and do something more rewarding instead, that person will tell you that your freedom of thought is an illusion also. If you accept this, then you hold the view that the worlds of biology, chemistry and physics, are one world. the living are therefore distinguished from the non-living, only by virtue of their greater complexity. If you decline to accept this, then you hold the veiw that life or freedom, somehow stands above, outside, and apart from matter and machanism. Part four: When the last sub-atomic particle has been brought into line as it were, some spark of exitement leaves the world. A clockwork mechanism can appear very beautiful and efficient, but an image of the universe cavorting its way to eternity, like some extremely complicated musical box, is not particularily reuring, especially as we ourselves are part of it. The concept of free will has become an obvious csuality. Since the entire past and future condition of all matter and energy is uniquely determined by its condition at any one instant, then our future is obviously predetermined in every final detail. Every decision we make, every so-called random whim, in reality has been arranged an eternity in advance, to be the inevitable outcome of a staggeringly intricate, yet fully determined network of forces and influences. Part five: It is not suprising therefore, that when doubts concerning determinism and the laws of conservation appear, the kinetic model is in danger also. Any attempt to express any kind of contingentism is bound to fail; the corpuscular - kinetic scheme by its own nature, resists any such attempt. If people persist, the result will be nothing but absurdities and incongruities, such as; "energy quantities with dim edges"; "unsharply localised particles"; "particles without definite momentum"; and "electrons freely choosing their own orbits, due to causeless fluctuations of energy".
Part six. Not only does indeterminism fail to fit the traditional conceptual framework, but when forced into it, it necessarily acquires the improbable form of absolute indeterminism. This is natural. Indeterminism within a quantative view of reality, will always appear in the form of the creation, or destruction of a certain quantity of matter, energy, or momentum. Such absolute creations and annihilations are however, characteristic of absolute, that is; miraculous indeterminism, which is incompatible with any kind of coherent universe.

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