The problem with predetermination for people is simple, why bother?
If every thing that happens can be traced back to a cause, the train of causes can be ridden back to the big bang. If the train of cause/effect can go back – it can go forward. Truly, everything is written in the book – just like Bob Marley said a couple of scores ago.
If everything and everyone is living in a meat DVD, and nothing is choice, the true choice involves whether we want to do it or not. Keep in mind; part of the DVD is a requirement to do it as the default setting. No one wants to leave before the end of the show, with apologies to Sartre and Cake.
Einstein believed that all is predetermined. His solution, and mine, a little, is to accept the illusion of free will. Without free will, there is no morality other than Nietzsche’s – and his will to have morality, or not. Murderers, child rapists are all just victims – they were born to be bad. The solution is:
Knowing we have no choice, we choose to believe in a concept bigger than ourselves (illusion of free will) that we know is not true, or, simply, God.
I think that maybe the definitions are too narrow and we have made our tent too small.
The science model we use to measure small things these days is a statistical one. Gone are the days when we pictured an electron rotating around a proton/neutron like a planet around the sun. We now see the electron as a cloud of possibilities that could be anywhere. We can predict with pretty good accuracy, but until we look, we don’t know.
The easy way to see this in your head is to imagine this is just math – that the electron is actually in a place, but we are just using the math to see it. This is wrong, the electron can be anywhere – it can tunnel straight through the proton/electron – it could be in your underwear drawer. It’s probably where the numbers show you it should be – but it could be anywhere – and with trillions of chances, the chances are, it will be.
This isn’t theory – the sun would not ignite in a way that allows us to exist if not for a few, very special, stray electrons that tunnel in a statisticly unlikely way. (I attached a link for this)
And that’s how I see free will – I have free will, we probably don’t. In me, all is possible, but as a species, it can plotted out through entangling cause and effect.
Be the strange, the outlier – make the weirdness real.
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