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is the clockwork universe provable?


Quantum theory disproves it


Would it really matter if parts of your "will" are running on deterministically moving particles or random ones?


Believing in free will or not are different configurations in your mind, leading to different future outcomes.

Who are you to disbelieve in anything?


Only pointing out that there's no meaningful convo to be had at hardware/micro level. IMO there is no free will there.

Free will only becomes important on a personal (I do x because it's meaningful to me) or social contexts (I'm responsible for consequences of x action).

I doubt the philosophers are trying to say anything about our day to day lives and that's where most of the opposition is coming from (ie no free will, therefore no meaning in life or responsibilities for anyone).


This is why the body-mind is said to be the vehicle of the soul. These are all very ancient ideas, determinism especially.

As you suspect, people discussing this misses out on how it's all relative, not so absolute.


Well, I still don't think there's any souls/free will etc in the academic or "objective world" that is provably out there.

However I don't think we're living there. We live in our own minds with a limited view and understanding, mostly dealing with social problems day to day, and emotions coloring that view however they see fit.

So IMO the "soul" and "free will" (or whatever other beliefs one may have) are ultimately metaphors for navigating the complex inner world. They can be very important/useful for the individual and society yet non-existent in the "objective world".


Fair enough. It is just a word preventing people from turning us into soylent green willy-nilly.

To me there's no contradiction.

There are knows: We have shared lucid experiences and we can share contemplations of such.

There are unknowns: What is consciousness, what happens exactly in brain in relation to outside (body, family, room, house, area, town).

It all seems interconnected to the point of break-down when not, for minds especially.


I’m glad your will has an opinion. This all seems miraculous.


> It’s true that since Laplace’s day, findings in quantum physics have indicated that some events, at the level of atoms and electrons, are genuinely random, which means they would be impossible to predict in advance, even by some hypothetical megabrain.

> But few people involved in the free will debate think that makes a critical difference. Those tiny fluctuations probably have little relevant impact on life at the scale we live it, as human beings.

Free will or no free will, is not the assumption in point 2 fundamentally flawed?

Quantum mechanics is surely at the heart of all interactions and so at some level is responsible for the ‘illusion’ making any difference between free will and predetermination unknowable.


Randomness is not the same as free-from-physics. The former is required for quantum physics, the latter is required for free will.




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