[Guest]

One day when I was younger I was in my sister's room staring at a red chair. Many would think it was unusual but if they knew what I was thinking they too might begin to stare at the chair. I kept on thinking to myself should I touch it, because I was wondering whether or not I would touch it in the future. I wanted to desperatley do the opposite as what I would do when I made up mt mind. However I could not find out whether or not I would touch it. I would sometimes edge my hand slightly forward, and then yank it back. I was stuck and I wanted to know what would happen if I did not do my future act. I was so confused and mystified. I eventuall came to the conclusion that I could not change my future action without knowing what I would do. And that would only be possible with time travel. Many would think that I would be satisfied with that but I was not. I then asked myself wouldn't my act of time travel also be predetermined? I then heard my father calling my name thrusting me out of my thoughts I gave one last glare at the chair, made my decision and ran to my father.

So my question is do you think that our future is predetermined and why?

[gvg]

What I think is this:

In a way, yes, everything is predetermined. But not entirely.

What I think is that each 'decision' a person makes opens up a new, predetermined future. Based on what that person did, a predetermined event would occur. There is a chance, though not necessarily an equal one, of each option being picked.

For instance, say that if you had chosen to ignore your father and touch the chair, the world would have ended in an epic explosion. (=)) That was predetermined. But you didn't pick that choice, instead, you went a different path, and get a different predetermined choice.

Now, this is not complete free will. Their is an interconnectedness sort of thing going on. For example, say you are in a race for a job promotion. If all was free will, you would be able to simply work very hard and it's yours. But the way I think it works is this: The choices split, sorta into subchoices, based on what others do. For instance, if you give 70% of the total effort you could give, but the other person only gave 10%, it's yours. But if the other person 'chooses' to work harder than you, say 75% to 70%, then even though you 'chose to try for the promotion, you wouldn't get it.

Do you understand? I know it's complicated. Hard ofr me to understand sometimes =) But what I'm trying to get across is this: It's a mix of 'free' will and determinism, because although your choices would give predetermined events, these could be altered, beyond your control, by the choices of others.

Now, if, as the hologram thing I put up claims, reality is a holographic thingy, that completely chucks my idea out the window, and it's straight to determinism... though now that I think about it, having past, present, and future be all one in the same would be.... i dunno, would that be determinism?

So, yeah. i think my idea or a really weird outcome =) But definitely no free will, and everything isn't just complete randomness.

[Guest]

Hmm Well I always thought that everything is predetermined. Although we may think the choice is ours we actually are just following our set path (this is not from a religous point of view). For example consider a line of domminos that can each think. They think that they are choosing to fall and knock over the one in front of them. Also, there are those that would tell themselves that they don't want to be like the others so they kinock over two insted of one. At some point one might think that they don't want to knock over one at all so they just fall down. However because we can se this from outside of their world we can see that the choice was not theirs but in fact that was how they were set up. I hope that made sense

[Quag]

YS you had a strange and interesting youth

ok about the dominos it is irrelevant if they can think or not they cannot move in any way on their own and thus are 100% at the mercy of external events. We can think and we can effect our future through our choices.

Heres an example place someone in a sensory depravation tank. Let them stay as long as they like. At some point they will choose to leave the tank. You cannot blame that choice on external influences as we have removed them. So why do they choose to leave? Could be 1000 reasons but it cannot be becaue someone somewhere knocked over a domino.

Here is the real question. if you can make decisions that affect your future or is life is all predetermined. What will change in your life? You can live like you controll what you do or you can live like there is no point as it is all predetermined. If you choose path A you can try and make a better life. if you choose B, aside from being depressed all the time you at best can hope that you will win the lottery but even then you will not be happy as it doesnt matter. Choose A and your life will be much more rewarding.

[Guest]

What I meant by the dominoes is that every thing that we do sets off a series of actions, and therefore everything that we have done is due to a set of actions. For exapmle something happened to me which caused me to think about the red chair. Then a series of events led me to post this on BD and because i posted it it caused you to put that thing abuout a man in a tank. Therefore it is kind of like dominoes in my opinion

[OmegaScales]

I belive that there are an infinite amount of possible futures and an infinite amount of (you)s take a different path. I know it can be confusing, so let me put it this way:

In Hotel Infinity, there are an infinite amount of people staying there. There is a menu with an infinite amount of choices on it. Each guest chooses a few selections, but none get the exact same thing.

So basically, it doesn't matter if you had decided to touch the chair or not, because you are not one of the(you)s that touch it... Please tell me I made at least a little sense.

[Guest]

Take this analogy: In Newtonian physics, there is no randomness, so, given a complete record of the state of the universe, one could theoretically determine the state of it any amount of time in the future. So we don't have free will.

However, in quantum physics, particles can move randomly, so this wouldn't work. But even then, we wouldn't be making choices, the random motion of particles would be determining everything.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe we have free will, but I can't find any fallacies in this argument.

This raises another question: How are we different from just very advanced computers? If we are placed in a situation multiple times with the same memories and state of mind every time (input), we would do the the same thing (output) every time.

[Guest]

- @ Omega tes I did understand that and it sounds like you are talking about the multiverse theory

- @ saya I belive in the newtonian view and I think that yes we are similar in that way with a computer but the real difference between us and computers are that we think outside of logic (ex:dragons, men with wings, etc), and we have emotions

[unreality]

@ saya I belive in the newtonian view and I think that yes we are similar in that way with a computer but the real difference between us and computers are that we think outside of logic (ex:dragons, men with wings, etc), and we have emotions

But if you see what saya is saying, the idea is that these things like emotions, abstract thoughts, etc, are all complexities (based on the fundamental phenomenon of the mind) that arises from when such a system as complex/deep as the physical universe is left alone long enough. It's a hypercomplex computer on a quantum scale that we haven't even come close to approaching with our own computers yet... hence why our computers seem like they are constricted too much by "logic" and "emotionlessness" when we don't realize that we ourselves are as well... but it's more like, our particles are, not necessarily the abstract constructs they create. So in theory, we could be part of a computer program just like these words we type are, unaware of the bigger picture.

[Quag]

I used to call this thinking about Life The Universe And Everything.

Basically after much time i realized it was moot. Either we are in control of our actions, or our actions are predetermined by what has happened before. If you assume you can affect your life through independant thought/action, you can go through life tying to improve your life. If you assume it is all predetermined there isnt much point in doing anything. Either way you can never know 100% which is the truth. But you can act in such a way that will give you freedom of thought and action.

So Yus i say to you:

Either touch the dang chair and get it over with or close the door and never go back into that room or even think of it again.

Kinda makes me think of Harry Potter and the mirror of erised. As Dumbledore said people have wasted their lives in front of it. Dont waste your life stand up and assert I AM IN CONTROL I WILL LIVE MY LIFE AS I DEEM BEST.

As for the dominoes, I remember there was a guy in belgium who they thought was in a coma for 20 years, turns out he wasn't. He was aware of everything but he was 100% paralyzed. Seems to me he would have some interesting perspective on this.

[MissKitten]

Gah! I just got my thinking abilities back! But I'll have a shot. And to forestall any complaints, criticisms, etc., this is from a purely non-religious point of view.

I think that nothing is ever predetermined. It's like the whole parallel universes thing. Say you start at Point A on Line A. You have Choices A, B, and C, all going to a different line. Now, say you choose Choice C. You are now on Line C, which again has Choices A, B and C. You have now entered a completely different universe than the one you left. Each choice you make leads you into a differnt universe, and there are so many choices that from almost the very beginning, there are infinite universes available to you. What you thought was just one of these choices. If you had not seen the red chair, you would have gone through a completely different set of choices and never posted this thread. If you had touched the red chair, you would have gone through a completely different set of choices. If you had shared a banana with your pet monkey instead of looking at the red chair, you would have gone through a completely different set of choices. So I guess what I'm saying is, your future is what you make it, not something predetermined by a higher power.

[Guest]

This is my perspective as a slightly religious person who tries to balance religion and logic...

I think God (or whatever name you want to use) isn't limited to our 4-dimensional experience (3 space and 1 time), but rather exists in more dimensions, with at least 4 of them spatial, including our time dimension as a spacial dimension for him. Thus, what is in the future for us has no temporal setting for him, and thus although we have freedom to choose what we do at any given temporal coordinate in OUR dimensional system, God "knows" about it at all times according to our system, since he can move through our time at will. Thus we have both predestination and free will, in that we do genuinely make our own choices, but God knows about it beforehand (the way we see time).

[Guest]

Gah! I just got my thinking abilities back! But I'll have a shot. And to forestall any complaints, criticisms, etc., this is from a purely non-religious point of view.

I think that nothing is ever predetermined. It's like the whole parallel universes thing. Say you start at Point A on Line A. You have Choices A, B, and C, all going to a different line. Now, say you choose Choice C. You are now on Line C, which again has Choices A, B and C. You have now entered a completely different universe than the one you left. Each choice you make leads you into a differnt universe, and there are so many choices that from almost the very beginning, there are infinite universes available to you. What you thought was just one of these choices. If you had not seen the red chair, you would have gone through a completely different set of choices and never posted this thread. If you had touched the red chair, you would have gone through a completely different set of choices. If you had shared a banana with your pet monkey instead of looking at the red chair, you would have gone through a completely different set of choices. So I guess what I'm saying is, your future is what you make it, not something predetermined by a higher power.

I remember this from Fringe.

Anyway, I think it's possible that everything that will ever happen was determined from the beginning of the universe, assuming there's no randomness. But no one has control over or even knows what will happen before it happens, so we still get to do what we want. It's just that what we want has already been determined. It's like we're writing an exact copy of a book that has already been written, but has never been read. Now, if we could calculate the future to the slightest detail, I think that would lead to a paradox. Because if, for example, I find out I'm going to lift my left hand 5 seconds from now, I could just not do it, and then I would be changing the predetermined future. But the only way I can change it is if I know it, and the only way I can know it is if it's predetermined and not changeable.

[Guest]

Gah! I just got my thinking abilities back! But I'll have a shot. And to forestall any complaints, criticisms, etc., this is from a purely non-religious point of view.

I think that nothing is ever predetermined. It's like the whole parallel universes thing. Say you start at Point A on Line A. You have Choices A, B, and C, all going to a different line. Now, say you choose Choice C. You are now on Line C, which again has Choices A, B and C. You have now entered a completely different universe than the one you left. Each choice you make leads you into a differnt universe, and there are so many choices that from almost the very beginning, there are infinite universes available to you. What you thought was just one of these choices. If you had not seen the red chair, you would have gone through a completely different set of choices and never posted this thread. If you had touched the red chair, you would have gone through a completely different set of choices. If you had shared a banana with your pet monkey instead of looking at the red chair, you would have gone through a completely different set of choices. So I guess what I'm saying is, your future is what you make it, not something predetermined by a higher power.

The way I see it is that something caused you to choose those specific choices and that something that Caused you to choose those things was always going to therefore pre-determined (Did that make any sense?)

Also, how did you know I had a pet monkey?

Edited March 9, 2011 by young scientist

[Quag]

YS I think they meant you ARE the pet monkey

[MissKitten]

Haha, I'm just psychic like that! And no, YS isn't the pet monkey.

[Guest]

Thank you YS for not making me look crazy.

I would sometimes be scared of altering things by touching a chair and such, because it made such a huge impact on me thinking about it. But I did not alter things, since it sooner or later, happened. Whatever did happen, happened. The idea of infinite universes to me represents all the possibilities that could happen from this one event, whether a universe where a chair has .2 milliseconds of being 1 cm away from its original location or a completely messed up place. The idea of parallel universes in my opinion came from what we did not do, not accounting the theory of everything being destined to happen.