It’s a question of scale. Going down to the quantum indeterminism, unpredictabilty, is part of the law, fundamental, going up to the cosmic via billiard tables, determinism, predictabilty operates. The closer we look at anything the fuzzier it gets. The fuzziness is real, not due to a lack of information.
God cannot possibly know any more than we can at the quantum level. There is nothing to know. Nothing missing.
Someone told me that basically the Universe is probabilistic prospectively but deterministic retrospectively which makes this entire deal confusing too.
And then I’m like, well, does this mean anything when it comes to free will? Or in reality, we have no way of knowing how “determined” anything is because we cannot realistically know the future in any way, because it hasn’t happened yet?
Essentially, from the physical world, we cannot tell, but events are at the least highly contingent and not strictly cyclical. Philosophical determinism is a philosophy/theology question. I am inclined toward predestination and election being accurate theological views, but do not consider them primary issues, nor physically determinable.
Does this mean anything for “free-will”? I assume we have limited options and we are “determined” in a sense by our genes and our environment, but we can move freely within those constraints. Is that a fair assumption?
I like the foresight, hindsight divide. I certainly regard free will as utterly meaningless; we have privileged degrees of agency and there are no moral consequences in Christ as His faithfulness has revealed universal salvation. And aye, just like God, we have no way of knowing what hasn’t happened.
I look at “free-will” in that way, that we have degrees of freedom and there are times where we really exhaust that ability and times where we do not. But mentally and physically we don’t really know when those times are, sometimes or heck, all the time it feels like. Who knows. But I strongly disagree with the hyper-deterministic worldview that we are essentially puppets of things outside of our control.
I both agree and disagree. We are are aware of our helpless privilege. The underprivileged most of all.
I recently ran across this Veritasium video, “Epic Math Duel” which I’ve been showing to some of my classes. It isn’t about determinism or freewill, but it is about the history of how mathematics was able to progress when it emerged away from its tether to geometry and our ability to picture its realities. While the video is mostly about mathematics, it is rewarding along some of these other tangents too. Many here should enjoy this. I thought of it when you mentioned our inability to picture what is actually going on.
Even though I have no advanced degrees or research to fuel these speculations, from listening around to those who do, I’m increasingly convinced that “free will” will forever remain a black box to our analytical prowess. It’s one of those things that will never be proven to even exist, much less how it could then work (the very process of which - to the extent that it would yeild to analysis would to that same extent cease to be free will). We’re convinced we have it - living in the strong faith that we do (and rightly so I will insist), but it disappears the moment you try to look straight at it. Not unlike exact positions or momenta of particles.
I was listening to a podcast from Dan Koch and he had Bill Newsome on, he mentioned that learning about the brain and some of the barriers we have really take that last part of your comment and emphasize it a bit. It takes helping the poor and God‘s kingdom coming for those who are “weak” or “poor” to an even new level for me.
By helpless privilege, what do you mean?
I’m an old Brit sitting in my nice home, tonight I will go and get a dose of vitamins for my soul from homeless guys as I have from enlightened self interest for 12 years. They love me for letting me serve them food. Who serves who?
We have a hard enough time even defining what we mean by it. I think it is possible philosophically but with quite a stretch outside the premises of the scientific worldview. The scientific worldview is founded on time-ordered causality. It is not that science hasn’t speculated about other kinds of causality. It has. But those speculations don’t seem to go anywhere in the way of helping further scientific inquiry.
That’s the way I think of it. I’m not dogmatic about that, though … certainly not any hills I’m in a position to plant any scientific flags on (either way). But I do (and always will) live as if free will exists - just like pretty much everybody else on the planet does too - including your deterministically inclined agnostic friends.
There are many different versions of determinism. Quantum uncertainty means that we cannot predict the outcome of particle behaviors with infinite precision. Interpreting that philosophically can go all over the place, often not so well-founded (e.g., the popular quantum multiverse “different quantum outcomes produce different universes, therefore universes exist where anything imaginable happens” not only hinges on a probably untestable interpretation of quantum mechanics but also makes a huge jump from multiple quantum outcomes to anything imaginable).
I see more current claims of supposedly scientific determinism that make the argument “we are merely the product of chemical reactions, including our thoughts; therefore, we just do what our chemicals tell us and there is no free will.” Such arguments are generally accompanied by efforts to persuade me to use my free will to choose to accept the arguments. They do not seem to accept the idea that other people’s chemicals might determine some people to have other views.
Even if we were merely the product of chemical reactions, that would not prove that the complexity of our neurological processes (or even those of many animals) might not have reached a point that enabled making reasonably free choices. The evidence invoked as “proof” of such chemical determinism is also poorly argued. It tends to be “we can determine the physical processes involved in mental decisions, therefore the decisions are purely physical.” But this ignores the fact that any spiritual or otherwise non-material components to the decision would have to interact with the physical structure of the brain in some way.
Practically, we need to uphold individual responsibility, while recognizing the influences of environmental factors. Theologically, the Bible teaches both our responsibility and God’s sovereignty. Various people seem predestined to hold different views on exactly how that works out.
Which is the ironic part and what I frankly do not understand. I’ll ask this question to you as well, I love hearing people’s perspectives here:
Someone told me that the Universe is probabilistic from a prospective view but deterministic from a retrospective view. That blew my mind but kinda makes sense of the deal for me. For me, that doesn’t effect “free-will” because while I recognize we are “determined” in a sense due to our environment and our genes, we can pick and choose within those constraints and there are practices and things we can do to even gain more “freedom” if you will.
What are your thoughts? Does this effect free will?
Bill Newsome said that bottom-up determinism doesn’t “fit the bill” because there are too many random and unpredictable circumstances to hold to a position of strict determinism. I agree 100%.
This isn’t ‘truth’; it’s assumption. ‘Unsolved’ isn’t the same as ‘unsolvable’. It’s just as likely that we have limited or incomplete knowledge on all of the forces and/or interactions involved.
This isn’t a necessary conclusion either. The fact that we have to make corrections over the long term is just as likely to be due to incomplete or incorrect mechanics, theory, and/or knowledge, In fact, again, it’s probably more likely as the amount of knowledge we currently have about the universe is almost certainly miniscule compared to the knowledge we don’t have. As such, appealing to the 1% (say) knowledge we do have to conclude that the other 99% we don’t isn’t deterministic is a non sequitur, IMO.
What logic and mechanics is this based on? It’s a possible conclusion but not a necessary one.
This contradicts known mechanics. Momentum is from mass and velocity, velocity is a change in position. If you have no position, you have no velocity, and therefore no momentum. As a bonus, modern theory postulates the electron is a ‘zero-d point particles’. Mass doesn’t exist apart from objects with 3D extension, so how can an electron be said to have mass, position, or momentum with no 3D extension. The theory is self-contradicting and ridiculous.
No, our knowledge of the momentum is uncertain because the act of determining the position changes the momentum. It doesn’t mean that the particle has a range of momenta at the same time; it just means there’s a range of possible momenta from the interaction as defined by statistics.
The measurements aren’t incompatible, they just aren’t knowable based on the current limitations of our ability to measure. If we could use particles of small enough mass to use as the measurement media, such that the mass of the measuring particle is insignificant compared to the mass of the measured particle, the act of measuring wouldn’t significantly affect the position or momentum of the measured particle. The same way a speed detector doesn’t change the position or momentum of a car.
To claim that “because we can’t measure it now, that means that no one will ever be able to measure it” is non sequitur and just silly. It borders on scientific hubris.
Where do you land on the determinism/free-will debate? Do you believe the Physical Universe is deterministic? Do you believe we will ever know how “deterministic” or how “free” we or our universe really is/are? Does this stuff even matter? Lol.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.