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are you a determinist or is EVERYTHING RANDOM
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Raw Evil
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Don't I know it! Not only has it all already happened, but it happens over and over and over...
And yet, I still somehow manage to make decisions that affect the world around me...
7ca5p
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How can determanisim exist?
We are all just protons, neutrons and electrons, as is the rest of the world.
Those protons, neutrons and electrons of ourselves have organised themselves in a way that 'life' has developed. Then we die, and those atoms go elsewhere.
I dont think there are any mystic forces at play, and I dont think that there is a higher being that set a path for us all.
In regards to the original post, Ive had many dreams that relate to real events that happen the next day, but Ive also had thousands of other dreams that bear no relevance to anything other than the previous days events. I dont think its anything other than chance to be honest. There is no other realistic possibility.
qwe
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the polytheistic religion on the show Battlestar Galactica touches on this concept. a more NSFW show, Lexx, also gets really deep into these concepts
i don't think everything has already necessarily happened, yet in a sense i sort of do... i think time is a dimension. i think that outside of the spacetime dimensions we know of, a multidimensional being would be able to look at our spacetime and, depending on how they perceive it, it's entirely possible that they could witness our spacetime without the "time"... seeing our entire universe at once
like... if our universe is an equation, and each particular moment is given by F(t) = the spatial layout of universe at time t... we are perceiving it from the inside, stuck going forward on that time axis. if we were multidimensional beings looking in from the outside, i think we could see that entire function at once, and the concept of "time progressing" would lose its meaning
what sort of physics exists "out there" is quite beyond our species at this point
L2R
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determinism only means causality, and holds no place for a higher being at all. big bang, then action and reaction. that's it.
greenberryhaze
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I just want to point out that colliding branes are at this point, pure speculation. Even the the string cosmologists who are trying to work out the consequences of the idea would agree to that.
Actually, modern physics does have a position on determinism. The laws of physics, in all serious quantum models, are completely deterministic and reversible, but there's a catch.
The laws tell us (theoretically) exactly how the wave function for a particular quantum state will evolve over time. The catch is that this wave function is constantly decohering (read splitting apart.) This is what leads to the idea of the quantum multiverse, or if you're into mystical voodoo, wave function collapse.
What this translates to is that you can set up an experiment such that the outcome is completely probabilistic. For example, we can measure whether a particular radioactive atom decays before next tuesday. When we do this, the wave function describing the atom decoheres into two parts that are no longer causally connected. In one of these parts the atom decayed, in another, it did not. If you don't believe in multiverses, you also assert that one of these parts instantly ceases to exist. 8)
Of course the quantum state that describing the atom is really just part of the wave function describing the atom plus the person looking at it (plus everything else in the universe.) That person has no way of knowing which branch she will find herself in. She exists (if you believe in quantum multiverses) in both branches, but since these branches cannot communicate, each copy sees only one outcome in the experiment. The laws of physics can't tell her which copy of herself she will find herself to be next tuesday, so both copies must perceive the outcome as being completely random!
What this really means is a matter of interpretation.Last edited:
.Lucid.
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see i totally disagree.. just because things are happening lawfully does not mean there is not an experiencing consciousness behind it. the more conscious you are the more free will you have.. yes you can have limited free will in a predetermined system. if you are 100% conscious you will have a form of predetermined free will because your mind would be free from the laws of cause and effect. however, since you still exist in this shell, your physical body, you are still subject to karma.
so the point is that if you are a realized being you can have free will.. its just predetermined lol.Last edited:
greenberryhaze
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I think it's funny when people say that determinism undermines free will. In order to be truly free you must decide what to do based on a series of coin flips? What a shallow way to conceptualize free will!
qwe
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i think most realize that a probabilistic universe is just as bad as a deterministic universe as far as free will goes
some just go a bit farther and say that, in that probabilistic "wiggle room" (or by some other mechanism) there is a way for free will to enter (apparently, from outside this spacetime). of course, in such a case, it's still not probabilistic... it only appears probabilistic, because of that external influence that relates somehow to free will
they seem to be really reaching...
greenberryhaze
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On a related note, it's still an open question whether a probabilistic computer has more power than a deterministic one. That is, whether BPP=P. It is suspected that they are equal, but this seems very hard to prove.
There is a weird connection between this question and the mathematics of encryption. Namely, BPP=P if and only if one way functions exist, which are the basis for public key encryption. If randomness gives you more power, modern computer security is shot!
L2R
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by definition you contradict yourself. now, let me be clear, i agree with your assertion that one has genuine choice in a predominantly predetermined universe. however, actual determinism/causality can only create the perception of choice, but it is illusion. causality is mutually exclusive with freedom of choice by definition.
.Lucid.
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yes well thats what i was saying.. choice is ultimately an illusion.
are you familiar with the concept of self realization? its when you totally disidentify from the thoughts and feelings that take place within you, which happen through acts of causality. youre then able to not play out those things in the physical reality, thus reducing karmic action, restoring "free will." therefor free will comes about as an act of negation.. the letting go of internal cause and effect. but ultimately, yes, this too is predetermined lol.
lol i know it sounds crazy but i swear i know what im talking about. determinism all the way.
L2R
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i follow until the "but ultimately..." bit.
everything up to then seems to say that free will can emerge in a causal universe, but then the free will is itself pre-determined. how can something which is pre-determined be free?
IF choice is ultimately illusion, then it is fixed and not free at all. Experientially it may seem that way, but it isn't actually.
.Lucid.
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what do you consider free will?
im suggesting free will is the lessening of, but not the absence of, causality in ones life.
think about it though, everything is set. the past is set right? the past didnt happen multiple ways, it happened as it happened and no other way. the future is set in the same manner, it just hasnt manifested itself yet. the present moment creates the illusion of separation of past and future, but really they are one..
its like a movie, when you see it for the first time you dont know how its going to end so it seems like anything could happen, but really the film is already made, it exists and is going to end only one way. reality is like a piece of film, and the projector only shows the current moment. think about it.
greenberryhaze
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for us laymen, please explain BPP=P
Sure, it's possible to understand the exact definition as a layperson (I'm one too!) If I go too fast or am unintelligible, please let me know. If you want to further your understanding of complexity, I can try to explain more or better yet I can provide numerous links where professionals explain various aspects in layman's terms.
The symbols BPP and P refer to what are called complexity classes. A complexity class is simply a collection of problems. Usually we define a complexity class in terms of how much resources (time, memory, randomness) it takes to solve an instance of a problem, based on the size of the input.
So, for example, we can ask how much time it takes a computer to factor a number, where the input size is just the number of digits it takes to represent that number. This problem is interesting because it is suspected to be very hard on a classical computer (the one on your desktop, for example), yet there is an algorithm that makes it easy on a quantum computer (Shor's algorithm.) We could also the slightly different question of whether a given number is prime. Strangely, it turns out that this problem is easy on a classical computer; an algorithm was recently discovered that solves it in polynomial time. In other words, this problem is in P.
P, or polynomial time, is the complexity class that computer scientists dreamed up when they wanted to define what it means for a problem to be easy or hard. If you have a problem that can always be solved in less than A*(input length)^N + C number of steps, where A, N and C can be any constants, then the problem is in P. So, for example, suppose that you have to multiply two numbers using the normal grade school method and let X be the number of decimal digits in the largest number. The maximum number of additions and multiplications you have to do is 4X^2 (A=4, N=2, C=0), which proves that the problem of multiplying two numbers is in P.
Now for BPP, which is a little more confusing. BPP is the class of problems for which a probabilistic computer (one that can generate random numbers) can give the correct answer more than 2/3rds of the time, in polynomial time. The value 2/3 is arbitrary; A computer that gives the right answer 4/7ths of the time is almost as good, since we can raise the probability to greater than two thirds just by running the program twice. Similarly, if we want the right answer more than 2/3rds of the time, we just run the program several times in succession, which gets us exponentially close to a 100% right answer. Importantly, we have to explicitly state a value for the probability of a right answer, if we only dictate that the right answer be generated > 50% of the time, we actually get a gigantic complexity class much more powerful than P, or even NP. This is where we get the "bounded" means in bounded probabilistic polynomial time.
The field of complexity is rich and mysterious. The goal is nothing less than to understand the whole universe in computational framework. There is a long way to go. And you thought computer science was boring! Oh, wait...
