- #106
imiyakawa
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nismaratwork said:I don't believe that, but plenty do, and their concept of free-will combined with fate obviates the element of freedom.
How does randomness make it any better? A physicist I've spoken to says the future probability distributions of any system of wave functions is determined under a random interpretation, as the values in complex state space are determined (I'm not sure about HUP). It seems the best you can have is random & determined will. The outlook for a brain consciousness is just as bleak under both models. Neither has consciousness as a self-causal property, which is required for the free will that people on the street think they have (the ability to do otherwise - "emergence" and "downwards causation", i.e. the ability to either bias the brain's future probability distributions or bias what has to be under determinism). I don't see such a definition of free will to be possible under materialism.
I'm not talking about apeiron's, Georg's, brainstorm's definitions of free will.
In closing, randomness in the quantum realm is JUST as bad for free will as pure determinism. Neither gives a causally efficacious will.
However, as I've said, FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES, apeiron's, Georg's, and brainstorm's definitions of free will are valid.
This is not an invalid definition of free will. It has received substantive coverage in the literature. See wikipedia, consc.net, Kim's 2005 book has a nice section on this.
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