|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: Free will vs Omniscience | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
The issue of AI is an interesting one. Since a computer is a deterministic thing, a computer should give exactly the same output on the same input. But that would mean an AI, a program run on a computer, if it were to exhibit intelligence (passing the Turing test, for example), would also be deterministic. That is, it wouldn't have free choice.
But if an intelligent entity doesn't have free choice, what would that say about us? After all, our brains are just chemical (rather than electronic) computers.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
I didn't mean that the AI couldn't give ambiguous answers. But the answers will always be the same given the same input. It will always tell you that particular idea is 59% true, it won't change its mind.
As for the other issue, a person is more than the chemicals in them, of course, but only in the sense that a painting is more than a collection of pigments. Assuming accurate enough knowledge, wouldn't it be possible to predict, just from the chemical reactions, the "choices" a person might make? And then would those really be choices?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
But suppose another, sufficiently knowledgeable being takes a look at this universe a minute after it has been created. This being, having a sufficiently powerful intellect, could say, "Looking at everything in this universe, I can see the trajectories of all the matter and energy in it and all the changes that will happen. To me, this young universe is as deterministic as a cuckoo clock. Eventually intelligent beings will develop in this universe. Those beings will say they have free will, but I can see, from the initial conditions, what will happen every time one is faced with a choice."
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
Changing the time or the environment is changing the inputs, of course! However you feel about your children, you're more likely to go out shopping for Christmas presents on 4 December than on 4 July.
But doesn't your god know the future? Doesn't your god know whether or not a each person will choose to believe, and which god they will believe in?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
The perhaps your god lacks the knowledge about each individual to determine whether or not they deserve to go to heaven upon their deaths?
Perhaps your god lacks the power to send people to heaven or hell?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined:
|
But still the idea that the deity is merely very powerful rather than all-powerful is an interesting distinction. It fits in with the polytheistic view of a god as merely a very powerful being.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
But still the idea that the deity is merely very powerful rather than all-powerful is an interesting distinction. It fits in with the polytheistic view of a god as merely a very powerful being.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
But suppose the super-smart being makes the prediction before the events happen? Suppose, a billion years ago, before any recording was made of any actions of any humans, the super-smart being could look at the trajectory of every atom in the universe and predict what was going to happen?
If the super-smart being could do this before the evolution of humans, then how could it be said the humans had free will and were not just following a mechanical trajectory like the planets in their orbits?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
To such a deity the universe is nothing but a clockwork, atoms moving in precisely defined trajectories. There is no more "free will" for humans, who are collections of atoms, than there is for the planets following their orbits.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
Perhaps.
But it seems illogical that the choice of a human (whatever it means to "accept" one's destiny) would affect the knowledge of a deity.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
Speculation as to the existence of a deity is not really the point here. If we take the deterministic view, that the trajectories of particles are (in principle) predictable because they follow physical laws, then we reach the conclusion that there is no "free will" because our actions are as determined as the motions of the Moon in its orbit.
But still, it feels as if we have choices; both believers and non-believers can agree on that. So how do we decide? Is it even possible to decide?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
Not according to our (alleged) super-smart being. There is only one route. The motions of the atoms in our bodies should be just as predictable to the super-smart being as the motion of the Moon in its orbit is predictable to us.
But we feel as if we have free will. How do we resolve this?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
Why do you believe we can decide? I know it says in your scripture that we can, but can you give a reason that will convince those of other religions (or of none at all)?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
This is a thought experiment. Obviously no computational system devised by present-day humans could predict the actions of a human from the trajectories of the atoms that make up the human body.
But given the initial conditions of a physical system, all the atoms should follow trajectories consistent with physical laws. If we were, somehow, to have two identical systems (two identical universes), their future histories would be exactly the same. It would be impossible for them to be different. But that means the human beings in the systems don't have free will. Free will implies that in one universe a different choice might be made than in the other.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sarah Bellum Member (Idle past 596 days) Posts: 826 Joined: |
That's a very interesting point. But, as you say, there is a distinction between "making a choice" and "random chance"!
Freedom of choice is somewhere in between the determinism of a mechanistic model of the universe (even if there are only probabilities instead of certainties) and the randomness of some physical processes (such as whether or not a particular unstable atomic nucleus will decay). What is free will anyway? How would one devise an experiment to determine whether or not in this universe we have free will?
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024