
The physics that suggests we have no free will - albertstill
https://www.bbc.com/reel/playlist/free-will
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nelaboras
Free will has a lot of different interpretations.

For personal life I find this one the most practical: if you have the
impression that you have free will then you have free will. Even if your
choices are in fact determined rather than choices, the fact that you think
you're choosing makes the determination irrelevant.

Judicially the argument goes exactly the other way: unless we have proof for
free will any punishment (for possibly predetermined decisions) is unjust. The
justice system then only serves three possible functions: 1) keep dangerous
people away from society 2) act as a deterrent, a factor that goes into any
predetermined decisions and 3) to help rehabilitation, help the individual
make better choices.

The justice system eg in Norway very much fits these schemes, while common
people still see prison etc as punishment the actual judicial decisions much
more aim at rehabilitation.

~~~
schwartzworld
that's right. there is no difference between free will and the illusion of
free will.

there's a joke about a man who dies and goes to heaven where he meets God. God
tells him he can ask one question and get a true answer.

The man asks, did we have free will?

No, says God. Did you miss it?

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polyacr
Predeterminism is the correct term for what's going on. Research Einstein,
Hawking, Husserl and Heidegger on that. Research "consciousness lag". Listen
to Roger Castillo, he breaks that down into quite simple descriptions.

You are a biological automaton, predetermined by your biological and social
preconditions, i.e. programmed. Everybody is, all the time, right now, e.g. me
typing and reading this and having the taste of coffee in my mouth.

Your thoughts are a phenomenon inside of your consciousness, i.e. you are not
thinking (no one is), you are that what is aware of all phenomena as it occurs
to you. Your thoughts and feelings are just another phenomena. As soon as you
are aware of anything, it already happened/manifested. If all you can be aware
of is in the past, try to argue about free will. The present is an infinitely
small border between future and past.

Everybody can figure all of this out by simple observation. It's not so
difficult.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> Everybody can figure all of this out by simple observation.

There is no figuring out in a predeterminism world. Whether or not you were
programmed to accept a belief is really all that matters. "Figuring out"
implies some sense of free will in that you are weighing the evidence and
making a choice. If there is no free will, there is no making a choice.
Basically, if there is no free will, it is pointless arguing about it since
all arguments are pre-determined and all responses to arguments are pre-
determined.

~~~
polyacr
Yes, you're completely right. Thank you for pointing that out. That was poorly
phrased on my side. Whether one will figure these things out or not is indeed
a consequence of the underlying biological and social conditioning, i.e.
inherent to the predetermined circumstances of our lives.

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alphanumeric0
I think about this all of the time. When I pay attention to little decisions I
make throughout the day it usually makes sense why I've chosen one path over
the other.

For instance, food choice. I can't count how many times seeing or hearing
about someone else eating a particular kind of food has primed me to want to
eat that food. That's a pretty obvious example of how we're programmed at a
social level.

You can go further and think about longer term choices and they are pretty
obvious too, given your upbringing, environment, and early personal
experiences. Every action stems from biological motivation.

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dahauns
I frankly don't understand the definition of "free will" in regard to choice
used in those arguments.

Just because we might not be immediately consciously aware of the brain
processes leading to our choice, doesn't mean it's not _us_ making the choice.

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karmakaze
This is a fun to think about video that is inaccurate and incomplete and
shouldn't put much into it either way. It's really well done in an
entertaining and (mis)informative way to laypersons.

The bit about special relativity and the trains meaning that every time is now
is useless. It's more correct to say that there is no 'now' irrespective of
context. A good illustration of this is showing how events A and B can at
different places can occur in either order to different observers.

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smcphile
The submission appears to be available only as a video. It would be helpful to
prefix the title with "[video]", if that's possible.

