The Future

[Dheginsea]

Hey guys I got a question for you, do you think our future is predetermined? Now I don't mean in the sense of God has decided everything we do but this: Are the decisions we make (such as answering "A" to a multiple choice question) already finalized when you were born? I guess another way I could put that is: is the future changeable? Do my choice actually change what will happen or were those choices what I was always going to do and I just had the illusion of changing the future? And please don't talk about time travel because that seems irrelevant at this point.

 

So is the future set in stone unchangeable?

 

Also if those choices were just an illusion of changing the future would you say that the illusion of free will and free will itself have no discernible difference to a being?

[michel555555]

"The future is predetermined by the charecter of those who shape it"

Can't remember where I heard that quote.

 

But basically yes the future is, in a way, set in stone. If you're someone who will stop a mugging then you'll stop it. Or you might just keep walking.

[tigershelby2]

Ever read the book Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut? (sp?) It goes over this alot, but it put a different spin on things for me. Ill let your read it to find out though ;)

[Dheginsea]

Ever read the book Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut? (sp?) It goes over this alot, but it put a different spin on things for me. Ill let your read it to find out though ;)

 

I have yet to read Slaughterhouse five although I think it's one of my summer reading books so I'll be reading it soon. Although I have read a small summary of the book (didn't look towards the ending though) and it seems that the books does greatly address my question.

[tigershelby2]

I read it for an english class. Didnt really care much for it while reading it the first time since i was required to read it ( I hate being forced to do anything) but then i re-read it again recently, and my mind was just blown by how much the one tiny book can change your view of the world.

[RpgGamer]

fate is what we make

[Giordano]

Well if the future is already decided, there is no motivation to adhere to moral codes, no?

[Alg]

Well if the future is already decided, there is no motivation to adhere to moral codes, no?

But you will or won't anyway, that's already decided. :razz:

 

It's one of those things you can't know. If you have free will, do you use it? Could you get up now and run naked through the street singing the Pokemon theme? You could. Would you? Probably not, because it's ridiculous and goes against pretty much every societal norm, and if you do it, there's no way to tell whether or not you were meant to do that.

[das1330]

In a strictly physical sense, chemical reactions should be entirely predictable (and simulatible given enough resources) since everything is based upon a series of known laws.

[Zierro]

When you take into account the fact that every one of our actions trickle down to our genetics or environment, and that "ego" is just a biological trick in order to preserve our species, one can only help but feel like a helpless puppet with no ability to do anything but feel whatever life decides to give them.

[Star_Fox]

Depends on how you perceive it. For instance, it sound more logical for someone who's 65 to consider today as the "future" than someone who's

young and new to the world. The 65 year old may have grown up with limited opportunities in his childhood, where as a kid today may grow up with

the latest gadgets, internet and the like.

 

The term is so relative, there is just no absolute definition.

[obfuscator]

No, we do make choices. I can choose to do something against my nature just as much as I do something in my nature.

[Riku3220]

No, we do make choices. I can choose to do something against my nature just as much as I do something in my nature.

But how do you know that the choice wasn't predetermined before you made it?

[tigershelby2]

No, we do make choices. I can choose to do something against my nature just as much as I do something in my nature.

But how do you know that the choice wasn't predetermined before you made it?

This is the big question in this argument. Problem is, no one can prove it either way.

[obfuscator]

No, we do make choices. I can choose to do something against my nature just as much as I do something in my nature.

But how do you know that the choice wasn't predetermined before you made it?

Because I can do whatever I want....

[Zierro]

No, we do make choices. I can choose to do something against my nature just as much as I do something in my nature.

But how do you know that the choice wasn't predetermined before you made it?

Because I can do whatever I want....

 

Within nature's constraints. In this case, you were born with the argumentative gene, and thus are compelled towards debating. Or do you care to prove me wrong? ;)

 

Really what it comes down to is that our language has flaws. Think of the word 'selfish'. Everybody acts based on what they perceive to be the best option at the time. So by this logic, there is no such thing as an unselfish act. Then what is the point of the word? Well, when you don't get technical about it, the word is commonly used to refer to those members of society with much bigger egos and self-entitlements than your average members. It's just used for convenience - not for depicting absolutes.

 

Same could be said for the word "choice". When you think about the term too hard, the meaning just kinda gets displaced. Loosely speaking, "choosing" refers to the act of a person picking out one option over one or more other option that they deemed less pleasing. So yeah, you can say we dictate what our choices are. But at the same time, the chemicals in our brains and life situations we were born into dictate what we are.

[obfuscator]

 

Within nature's constraints. In this case, you were born with the argumentative gene, and thus are compelled towards debating. Or do you care to prove me wrong? ;)

 

Really what it comes down to is that our language has flaws. Think of the word 'selfish'. Everybody acts based on what they perceive to be the best option at the time. So by this logic, there is no such thing as an unselfish act. Then what is the point of the word? Well, when you don't get technical about it, the word is commonly used to refer to those members of society with much bigger egos and self-entitlements than your average members. It's just used for convenience - not for depicting absolutes.

 

Same could be said for the word "choice". When you think about the term too hard, the meaning just kinda gets displaced. Loosely speaking, "choosing" refers to the act of picking out one option over one or more other options you deemed less pleasing. So yeah, you can say we dictate what our choices are. But at the same time, the chemicals in our brains and life situations we were born into dictate what we are.

 

I've often not posted on debate topics, but you wouldn't know it unless I was broadcasting it..

 

But I agree, there is no absolute freedom of choice; we're merely looking at the practical application (same as the selfishness thing).

[Nifflin]

I choose to apply Russell's Teapot to this sort of thing. A predetermined future would imply so much, I consider it to be the less likely possibility due to the implications and lack of proof.

[Will H]

"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road." ~ Stephen Hawking

 

In a strictly physical sense, chemical reactions should be entirely predictable (and simulatible given enough resources) since everything is based upon a series of known laws.

 

That's only generally true if you're thinking on the macro-scale and apply the uncertainties that our instruments introduce, and even then that's relying on a less than 100% probability. On the atomic scale, where the real meat and physics of the reactions happen, certain quantum effects like quantum tunnelling can alter the product compositions of certain reactions fairly significantly in a way that Newtonian physics can't account for. It's not uncommon for an electron in a bond in a molecule to tunnel to the next bond over, even if it doesn't have enough energy to escape from either bond.

 

If I wanted to take it to the relative extreme, say I put a lump of sodium in a glass of water. I know every conceivable thing about the sodium, and every conceivable thing about the water that is possible to know. I still won't know if the sodium will just fizz in the water like lumps of sodium in water have always done in the past, or if the entire lump will suddenly quantum tunnel outside of the glass, until I try it. It's human nature to say that if something has always happened before, it will always happen again forever. But the universe doesn't work like that, and that's why I don't believe in predestination.

[Iamdan]

Exactly. Physics on a quantum level works by probabilities, if it worked the same as newtons laws there would be chaos because anything could happen.

 

It is not predetermined, but it is the reason why you probably won't be an astronaut porn star when you grow up.

[Zierro]

"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road." ~ Stephen Hawking

 

In a strictly physical sense, chemical reactions should be entirely predictable (and simulatible given enough resources) since everything is based upon a series of known laws.

 

That's only generally true if you're thinking on the macro-scale and apply the uncertainties that our instruments introduce, and even then that's relying on a less than 100% probability. On the atomic scale, where the real meat and physics of the reactions happen, certain quantum effects like quantum tunnelling can alter the product compositions of certain reactions fairly significantly in a way that Newtonian physics can't account for. It's not uncommon for an electron in a bond in a molecule to tunnel to the next bond over, even if it doesn't have enough energy to escape from either bond.

 

If I wanted to take it to the relative extreme, say I put a lump of sodium in a glass of water. I know every conceivable thing about the sodium, and every conceivable thing about the water that is possible to know. I still won't know if the sodium will just fizz in the water like lumps of sodium in water have always done in the past, or if the entire lump will suddenly quantum tunnel outside of the glass, until I try it. It's human nature to say that if something has always happened before, it will always happen again forever. But the universe doesn't work like that, and that's why I don't believe in predestination.

 

But isn't the fact that some parts of nature function "randomly" a law of nature within itself (a "non-random" occurrence)? The way I interpret the word "predestination" is merely defined as every effect in the universe having some sort of reason/cause behind it.

[Iamdan]

You're saying things changing state because something acts on them is predeterminism?

 

Calling "if I do x, something may or may not happen" a 'law' doesn't really contradict what he said anyway.

[Zierro]

I'll put it this way: Just because we have not found a pattern behind a sequence of events does not necessarily make it random - it only makes it practically unpredictable from a human being's perspective. I think that if truth can exist, then reason must exist along with it as that is the prerequisite for something to be true. It's just sometimes hard for beings with such limited perception over things like the universe, molecules, biology, psychology, etc. to find the reason behind certain truths, but that doesn't mean the reasons are not objectively there, written in stone by mother nature.

[Iamdan]

What about the uncertainty principal? I don't know enough about it to be certain, but I was under the impression that it's a law and not human limitation.

[Zierro]

What about the uncertainty principal? I don't know enough about it to be certain, but I was under the impression that it's a law and not human limitation.

 

"Published by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the principle correctly implies that it is impossible to simultaneously both measure the present position while "determining" the future momentum of an electron or any other particle with an arbitrary degree of accuracy and certainty. This is not a statement about researchers' ability to measure one quantity while determining the other quantity. Rather, it is a statement about the laws of physics. That is, a system cannot be defined to simultaneously measure one value while determining the future value of these pairs of quantities. The principle states that a minimum exists for the product of the uncertainties in these properties that is equal to or greater than one half of ħ the reduced Planck constant (ħ = h/2π)."

 

If it's defined as a "principle" or "law", then it isn't very random. There are still a set of objective laws governing how the particles travel. They just happen to be unpredictable.