Chaotic radioactivity is the next explanatory challenge for physicists supporting determinism.
Free will is a property that we feel distinguishes us from less developed species. Most human beings are convinced that they have ‘it’. But how do we define free will? Let us say, we define it as a capacity for persons to control their actions not imposed on them by previous events.
So at this moment, I will do this, or perhaps I might do that. I have a choice whether to do this or that. My choices are free floating, they are random. On first appearance that is.
Yet just as the result of the toss of the coin, on first appearance, appears to be random, it might end up tails or heads - all is not as random as it appears.
For instance, if I know the complete physics surrounding the toss of the coin, (the exact strength of the thumb motion; the air resistance etc) this would enable me to determine the outcome of the toss of the coin. So at first appearance the result of the coin toss, appears random, but give me the overall physics and we will prove it is determined.
And so to our day to day choices. At the instant of making what we believe to be our free will choices, we believe there is a random element to what our choice may be. I mean, I might do this, or that. My free will choices are as random as that. But if life is as random as that then we have an overall randomness to our choices, and if that is the case, then there is no free will because it is all random. There is no option to be determined.
Most of us have enshrined this notion of our (rightly precious) notion of free will as a law. Free will is our reality. Yet any law that underlies reality ultimately must come from somewhere...and so on...and on ...and we are now into infinite regression, till we reach our Maker. And I am not going to discuss that because I am not going into an area of contestation that only leads to incoherence.
Now will I post this blog or won’t I? Will my choice be determined or free will? Whatever my choice will be, a brain scanner would detect what I was going to do 6 (six)! seconds in advance of my ‘free will’ choice.
Free will or determined? In this age of neuroscience, it’s think on!
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