Has everything been predestined since the dawn of time?

[Me Myself]

You dont understand conscious processes enough so far as to even be certain a tornado has no consciousness . Neither can I be certain that it has though.

 

[crossfire]

Well, we are free to make mistakes if nothing else. I once watched a video of a girl who went to grab a container of syrup and instead she mistakenly grabbed the container of coffee, which she poured on her pancakes. Mistakes are one of our greatest freedoms, not to mention a great source of amusement.

Hmm, sounds familiar!

 

[Shuddhasattva]

If quantum outcomes are being chosen, what is doing the choosing?

Incomplete self-description.

You dont understand conscious processes enough so far as to even be certain a tornado has no consciousness . Neither can I be certain that it has though.

Exactly. I'm not; rather I suspect that tornadoes do have a certain elemental sort of consciousness born of continuity in physical patterns and information processing/transference, and it's this trend towards continuity in information processing that, in greater or lesser degree, gives rise to self-awareness from more ambient awareness.

 

[PolyHedral]

Incomplete self-description.

What does that mean? How does it fit into existing models?

 

[Shuddhasattva]

What does that mean? How does it fit into existing models?

Does realizing how quantum mechanics works cause one to be able to advantage oneself of its workings?

Take the answer of this statement and fit it into 'incomplete self-description.' What exactly are we doing in attempting to map out reality?

We're engaged in describing ourselves and reality vis-a-vis neuroscience and quantum mechanics.

Forward or backwards, if understanding how something is affecting us - as deep on a causal level as quantum mechanics, causes us to be able to develop methods or technologies to select for subjectively better outcomes, we're capable of semantically meaningful choice.

Mentally, I would propose that we're scripted in layers; our deepest levels are most scripted and unaware; the more self-aware we are, the less we're moved by scripted impetus. Hence, for example, the practice of mindfulness.

 

[PolyHedral]

Does realizing how quantum mechanics works cause one to be able to advantage oneself of its workings?

Take the answer of this statement and fit it into 'incomplete self-description.' What exactly are we doing in attempting to map out reality?

We're engaged in describing ourselves and reality vis-a-vis neuroscience and quantum mechanics.

Forward or backwards, if understanding how something is affecting us - as deep on a causal level as quantum mechanics, causes us to be able to develop methods or technologies to select for subjectively better outcomes, we're capable of semantically meaningful choice.

Mentally, I would propose that we're scripted in layers; our deepest levels are most scripted and unaware; the more self-aware we are, the less we're moved by scripted impetus. Hence, for example, the practice of mindfulness.

At the level of quantum mechanics, we cannot make choices, because there is no us - there is only an evolving wavefunction, of which a brain is an arbitrary subset. (That may not even be disentangleable from the whole WF.)

 

[Sir Doom]

As much as my environment and my upbringing (which is really environment as well, imo) are a determining factor on who I am and the choices I make, who I am and the choices I make are a factor on my environment as well. Thus, our choices have a lasting effect on reality as much as reality has a lasting effect on us. Even better is the intentional nature of this process by us (and all other life as far as I can tell) and not by the universe itself that we can tell. We plan for reality to be a certain way in the future and we take steps to make sure that it happens. Sometimes succeed, sometimes fail, and sometimes anything in between the two. Its really always between the two if you think about it, but that's probably another topic.

Anyway, I think that sort of qualifies as free will. We intentionally determine the future of reality and it totally works (a little bit, sometimes)!!!

 

[George-ananda]

Here's what I think.....(and I'm a westerner who took on an eastern (Indian) prospective)

God (Brahman) is the only thing real. Like our dreams at night which we believe are real while they're happenning become unreal when we wake up. In the same vein our waking state is unreal when we awaken to higher spiritual states of consciousness (but we believe the waking state is real while we're in that state). Ultimately we find we are the only ONE consciousness (God) and that is the only reality. This is all a dream/thought-form of God.
　
In the final end free-will (like everything in the great drama/play)is illusory. But relative to us, the temporary characters in the play, we have free-will.

Relative to us in addition to heredity and environment influencing us there are also spiritual levels in us that effect our paths in life.

 

[gseeker]

By environment I meant location on the face of the earth. I believe that if you could program all variables into a computer powerful enough to process it you could see the future completely. That would mean that the future is already set in stone, life itself is nothing except a massive mathematical equation, the future is just the process of figuring the equation. That means no free will.

 

[Shuddhasattva]

I believe that if you could program all variables into a computer powerful enough to process it you could see the future completely.

That computer might look something awfully like... oh, hey - the universe. And it has one hell of an RNG.

 

[Me Myself]

computers can play chess. We have a vastly more complex programing for our decision making and a vastly superior amount of choices, true, but who is to say our will for this conditions is any "freer" than that of those chess computers?

 

[George-ananda]

By environment I meant location on the face of the earth. I believe that if you could program all variables into a computer powerful enough to process it you could see the future completely. That would mean that the future is already set in stone, life itself is nothing except a massive mathematical equation, the future is just the process of figuring the equation. That means no free will.

I used to have that opinion but I've changed.

Spiritual factors (super-physical/spiritual phenomena) exist and they cannot be programmed into or be predicted by your computer. The universe is more complex than we think.

 

[Willamena]

The future exists exactly as much as the past exists - our maps of both are inferred from evidence. The territories, however, are more complicated.

By definition, what is in the future is what doesn't exist yet, and what has past does not now exist. So yes, the past exists exactly as much as the future.
However, our picture of the past, of the actual, is a bit more reliable, and a bit more relied upon.

 

[Skwim]

So I was thinking today, isn't everything predestined? You start with a persons environment and childhood, how you are raised determines your future thought process and reactions to outside stimuli, and your genetic makeup determines the intellectual reasoning you use to react. The same applies to your parents and their parents so on and so forth to the first generation. So what would be a good argument that not everything, every action and reaction aren't predestined? If everything is predestined then we have no free will, its just an illusion, a self delusion.

Exactly. As mentioned, freewill is an illusion. Things happen because they are either determined, occur at random, or are a combination of the two.

 

[outhouse]

So I was thinking today, isn't everything predestined? .

NO

not at all

 

[Straw Dog]

Even if everything was predestined, it's still a surprise to me.

It seems a more useful distinction would be between conscious, voluntary actions and random automation. How does paying attention affect our actions? That's the question I'm really interested in.

 

[Sleeppy]

Yep!...

 

[Sir Doom]

computers can play chess. We have a vastly more complex programing for our decision making and a vastly superior amount of choices, true, but who is to say our will for this conditions is any "freer" than that of those chess computers?

Computers can't actually play chess. That would be like saying the chess pieces can play chess.

 

[PolyHedral]

Computers can't actually play chess. That would be like saying the chess pieces can play chess.

Computers can play chess better than we can - at least, to say otherwise would be a form of dualism.

 

[Sir Doom]

Computers can play chess better than we can - at least, to say otherwise would be a form of dualism.

Not really. Every time a computer 'plays' chess, it's really a human doing it. Either a human is playing another human and the computer is little more than the chess board, or a computer is playing a computer, in which case its a complex animation created by a human to look like chess, or it's a human playing a computer which is really a human playing chess by themselves.