Fate and Free Will?

The brain is a material thing, it is governed by physics. The mind has something (or everything) to do with the brain. For a physical thing to behave above the laws of physics is ludicrous, or at least, science hasn't progressed that far yet.

Determinism doesn't mean that there is fate though; fate is a construct of intention, implying that there is a reason why things happen. And the proof that whether there is any exterior intention of why events happen is still absent.

"To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." ~ Newton's third law

Similarly, every action we do, both through physical means or mental ones, will have an impact on our future.
The type of energy (positive or negative, relatively speaking) that impact brings will be the same, but it will be directed back to us.

The things we experience now is the result of our past actions. The things we do now, is based on our 'free will'. Whatever that is.

Pascal's Wager.

Swadius said:

The brain is a material thing, it is governed by physics. The mind has something (or everything) to do with the brain. For a physical thing to behave above the laws of physics is ludicrous, or at least, science hasn't progressed that far yet.

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The laws of physics don't govern emotions, though. Love, hate, sympathy, empathy... you can't measure them on a curve or plot a graph of them, because they can't be quantified. Sure, you can say that emotions are controlled by chemicals or hormones or whatever you like, but that can't explain away the full range of human emotions, which are often used by people to justify their actions.

Using the example of always doing the same thing in a given situation; I don't believe we would. But on the other hand, 'Random' applies to events that are outside of our control -- where an electron is located in a cloud at any given moment. Then there are events which, although predictable over the short term, can be unpredictable over the long term -- weather patterns, for example. If it's a sunny cloudless day and the pressure is rising, it's reasonable to assume that it will be a sunny cloudless day tomorrow.

You can't always judge humans to this extent, because they have their own minds, and are capable of logical reasoning, or lack of it. If you bump into a guy on the street, he might swear at you or apologise to you, depending on what kind of day he's had. It is his own free will to make the choice, but that choice is often swayed by our emotions, and we don't even realise it.

Those emotions are still just a product of patterns of atoms swirling about our brains. We may not know much about how they work at the moment, but if we did, and if we had a computer capable of knowing the position and tradjectory of every particle in the universe, then we would be able to predict the future exactly, be that human interaction or the weather.

Pharaoh Llandy said:

The laws of physics don't govern emotions, though. Love, hate, sympathy, empathy... you can't measure them on a curve or plot a graph of them, because they can't be quantified.

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What are they then? Magical fairy dust?

As said in another thread, being able to quantify something doesn't make it any less 'special'.

Sorry guys, consciousness isn't explained yet. Might be inexplicable. You can't just say "emotions are still just a product of patterns of atoms". Experience - supposedly accessed via self report - has some neurological correlates, that's all we know.

Although on the other end, Llandy, of course you can't say that (known) physical laws don't govern emotion. Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

Also, you can "measure" emotion, if you accept the use of the afore mentioned correlates - just check out brain activation in the relevant regions, and temper that with self-report and so on.

Papa Lazarou said:

Sorry guys, consciousness isn't explained yet. Might be inexplicable. You can't just say "emotions are still just a product of patterns of atoms". Experience - supposedly accessed via self report - has some neurological correlates, that's all we know.

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Yes you can. Neural activity is simply electrical activity in the brain, If we knew the pattern we could literally read someone's mind.

I know. Doesn't tell us who the observer is though does it.

Long answer:
Physics tends towards a deterministic viewpoint, but I think it allows for some randomness (at least, my physics do), on the quantum level.
The expectation of a Newtonian, completely predictable clockwork universe in all aspects may not be one that can happen.
I can't remember the name of the mathematical law that states that not everything can be described by mathematics, but if it's right it may suggest that there are some things either beyond the scope of intellect/maths/language to comprehend or describe.
People can claim all they want that if we knew X then we can predict Y, but until we do know X we dont know if their claims are correct.
And one thing we don't know is exactly what consciousness is and exactly how it functions. The probability is that it is, of course, simply electro-chemical activity, but if as some have postulated it arises from a quantum field or activity on a quantum level it may be beyond our ability to predict, perhaps always.
So if determinism isn't definite, (for the time being, until someone proves it is), where does that leave Fate? The two are not mutually exclusive. Nothing says that Fate or God or The Big Scientist can't set a deterministic universe rolling, knowing enough to know how everything will turn out. That would be purposeful determinism, though I personally find it a bit unlikely, its still possible.
I remember reading about some study that seemed to show subconscious brain activity as a precursor to "decisions", that the decisions were the end result of a chain of pre-existing neurological events, suggesting that free will is an illusion. But it's an awfully convincing one, if it is. Which is why people believe the illusion, I guess. I like the idea of free will. To me it gives some purpose to ideas like morality, which cannot exist without choice. And I prefer to kid myself that there is free will, and morality, and kindness and love, and cruelty and hate, rather than that we are fleshy pre-programmed robots living out pointless predictable lifespans. If we have free will our lives can have purpose and meaning, in that what we do to and for each other matters, our choices matter.
If my being what I am was always going to happen, why would consciousness evolve to sit strapped in observing it and developing lies about free will? Seems like a waste of energy, and evolution rarely wastes energy in an organism as successful as humankind is. An organism that can choose to ignore it's programming and make new decisions like "let's harness fire" or "lets wear clothes" or "lets develop a powerful language that can be written down allowing ideas and information to be passed on beyond what observation alone allows for" may well be more successful than one that can vary it's behaviour a little, but is basically programmed by external stimuli.
If you look at what humans were, and now are, and can really argue that if you set a bunch of hominids down in africa several million years ago on a dozen identical planets we would always arrive here today with me typing these words, then you believe in some remarkably unlikely things. You may be right, I cannot prove that language and art and science and philosophy and music are "proof" of free will. But I can show that at the level of complexity found in humans those things are rare in other organisms or systems, so it suggests that we have a brain more capable of something closer to free will than other things or organisms. Of course, we could simply be programmed to be adaptable, which explains humans to some extent.


Short answer:
I dunno.

Quote from myself from the philosophy forums:

If we were to look objectively at the time line, at some human's life, we'd see important decisions made and their outcomes. Now fatalism is just saying that these outcomes will happen because of your actions (determinism) but your actions can be predicted and hence the outcomes calculated.

Sorry, to clarify that, I'll just say this, that fatalism is not a question of something happening no matter what, since your actions will never be something else. It is not a matter of what would have happened, because it could never have been otherwise. Your actions are a result of your rational thinking and your predisposition to the question, so therefore, if it were possible to calculate that, there is no possibility that you could have chosen some other choice. Fatalism is not the idea that some external creature is controlling your future, no matter your free will and your choices. But it is rather your own actions controlling your future.

I know this sounds awfully like determinism, but I just want to clarify that point that you cannot just chose your future. It has already been chosen for you by yourself and your decisions. But unconsciously. I'm perhaps not the best explainer but I hope I got my point across.

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Free will. 
No question about it, really.

I still think there's a big problem with your definitions of free will. If the choice we make is determined by all the variables that affect and affected us throughout our lives, we're still making the choice ourselves.

If I can choose to eat a bun, or to leave it, my descision, although determined by the relevant variables, is still my own. It is still an ability to make a choice, and that is free will.

Yes, I'm not denying that the brain is a merely physical thing, and that there is no such thing as a soul, but if our definition of "free will" is the ability of the mind to make any descision available to it, the fact that it reaches one descision every time if given the same variables doesn't make it any less your own decision!

Cleaning Agent said:

I still think there's a big problem with your definitions of free will. If the choice we make is determined by all the variables that affect and affected us throughout our lives, we're still making the choice ourselves.

If I can choose to eat a bun, or to leave it, my descision, although determined by the relevant variables, is still my own. It is still ana bility to make a choice, and that is free will.

Yes, I'm not denying that the brain is a merely physical thing, and that there is no such thing as a soul, but if our definition of "free will" is the ability of the mind to make any descision available to it, the fact that it reaches one descision every time if given the same variables doesn't make it any less your own decision!

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I agree with Cleaning Agent, mostly.

The problem is; determinism means that a 'decision' is really an equation. Variables go in -> Decision comes out.
Does that count as free will? It's all in the definition, really.

Probably free will but I don't care.

I thought about it and there is no free will.
We can't go back and change the past. The question "what if ?" is pansy bull****. It happened and we can't change that, or fate. You may have free will to change the future, but choices you make decide your fate.

scootar said:

I thought about it and there is no free will.
We can't go back and change the past. The question "what if ?" is pansy bull****. It happened and we can't change that, or fate. You may have free will to change the future, but choices you make decide your fate.

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I don't think free will is about being able to change the past or future.  It does what it says on the tin. You have freedom of will, i.e. you make your own decisions.

scootar said:

I thought about it and there is no free will.
We can't go back and change the past. The question "what if ?" is pansy bull****. It happened and we can't change that, or fate. You may have free will to change the future, but choices you make decide your fate.

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See, what you're doing here is confusing the concept of free will with the concept of time travel. Of course you can't go back to the past. But what does that have to do with free will? "What if" questions are speculation and second-guessing.

You may have free will to change the future, but choices you make decide your fate.

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You are using the term "future" and the term "fate" interchangeably. The concept of fate means that something is MEANT to be, and that you don't HAVE any choices. The two things, future and fate, are not the same. The future is any point from the present onwards. It is time that has not yet happened. Fate is believing that the future is pre-determined and that you cannot shape it through choices. So you're sorta actually contradicting yourself with this sentence.

I over-explained it and tripped over my own logic. You can't change the past so the question of is there fate or not, is pointless. Either way what happens, happens. I define fate as all things that have or will happen to you and when they happen.

scootar said:

I define fate as all things that have or will happen to you and when they happen.

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That may be how you define it, but it's not how my Oxford English Dictionary defines it. And if we can't even agree on a universal definition of a term before we have a discussion that evolves around it, then that discussion is already doomed.

Anyhoo.

My main problems with fate are thus:

-If fate exists, I already have a fixed 'destiny' that I cannot overcome. This I do not believe.

-If fate exists, and our destiny has been fixed from the moment we were born, then people who claim to 'read' fate, such as oracles, psychics, tarot readers, astrologers, andsoforth, could be given more credibility than they deserve (I do not believe in fortune telling).

-If fate exists, then it takes away the onus of blame or responsibility. For example, a lawyer could argue that his client, who has just murdered eight people, cannot be held truly responsible for his actions because he was 'fated' to do it.

-The concept of fate can be dangerously twisted as an excuse to not do anything, or to continue destructive behaviour. Somebody who is addicted to heroin may believe that it's fate, and believe that seeking help is pointless because they don't have the power to change if 'fate' dictates otherwise. Somebody who has no job may believe that it's fate, and that if fate wants them to have a job, it will mysteriously give them one without them having to do anything.

Fate is a nice concept, very mystical, for stories and books. But for me, in the real world, it just doesn't work. My future is what I make it. May fate doesn't exist because my life has not been pre-destined, as time is linear.