this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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What are some physics-based arguments against hard determinism? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by CodingAndCoffee@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I don't believe free will is real. I'm not a deep physics person (and relatively bad at math), but with my undergrad understanding of chemistry, classical mechanics, and electromagnetism, it seems most rational that we are creatures entirely controlled by our environments and what we ingest and inhale.

I'm not deeply familiar with chaos theory, but at a high level understand it to be that there's just too many variables for us to model, with current technology, today. To me that screams "god of the gaps" fallacy and implies that eventually we WILL have sufficiently powerful systems to accurately model at that scale...and there goes chaos theory.

So I'm asking you guys, fellow Lemmings, what are some arguments to causality / hard determinism, that are rooted entirely in physics and mechanics, that would give any credit to the idea that free will is real?

Please leave philosophical and religious arguments at the door.

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[–] needthosepylons@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

carefully leaves his philosophical hard determinism at the door.

Well, I'd better learn a thing or two

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

One of the highest-level, most abstracted arguments against the idea of humans as deterministic goes like this:

When you treat people as if they’re automatons, they really don’t like it. And societies that don’t model people as having free will tend not to do so well.

[–] needthosepylons@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I'm trying to patch together my conception of free will and determinism to sum it up here in answer, but it's full of holes. Basically it goes like this. Determinism is the rule of nature and, of course, mankind. Free will doesn't exist. Some measure of freedom and emancipation, on the other hand, do exist. It's hard to sum it up. Basically, very close to a spinozist stance, just with more holes and gaps. But I'll stop here since the OP specifically asked to leave philosophical perspectives at the door.

[–] needthosepylons@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's a good argument. It reminds me of the idea of free will as a necessary illusion. Something that us fundamentally not true, but without which societies can't operate.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

A functional truth, demonstrated by the success of its adopters, rather than by its intact logical proof.