File
147260794070.gif
- (705.36KB
, 738x780
, 1472548628168.gif
)
About free will.
Are you reading this text voluntarily? My personal guess is, that many will instinctively answer with yes. In German the adjective „voluntarily“ is translated to „freiwillig“, which means „with free will“ or more literal „free willy“.
Bad jokes aside, the definition of doing something voluntarily, is taking action according to your own free will.
Now why I am focusing on this is, because I want to explore what it actually means to do something voluntarily, along the axis of determinism and free will.
Let’s assume you answered yes to the question of reading this text voluntarily.
And let’s assume our brains do function deterministically.
That would mean, you just had an illusion about having a free will.
The illusion, that you did have a choice, not to read this text this far. Some unknown law, which we try to approximate in the natural sciences, is entirely responsible for what you just did, including the feeling of doing it voluntarily.
It also means, that if you were able to go back in time, every time you did do so, the world and the universe would develop exactly the way they have always been destined to. Including you, reading this text, over and over again. Like a clockwork turning back and forth.
Consciously experiencing a movie that doesn’t feel like a movie but real.
Being aware of this fact also means, that one of the characteristics of this deterministic system is, that it can understand itself.
Let’s have a look at it understanding itself.
If the voluntary guy exists in this deterministic system, his thoughts are part of this system and his conscious experience of having acted voluntarily describes the system in the same way, as an experience of not having done so, would.
Message too long. Click here to view the full text.
20
posts
and 3
images
omitted. Click Reply to view.