Free Will: If everything works in cause and effect, then that means we truly have no free will and we are merely an effect of stimulation our brain received in the past.
Universal Assymetry: If the big bang came from a geometrical point of singularity, then any expansion from that point of singularity should be in every single direction (since direction is relative, and didn’t exist yet). This would mean that the point of singularity would become a perfect sphere.
However, all the matter in the universe clearly isn’t in the formation of a perfect sphere. The matter in the universe is arranged asymmetrically.
The Primordial Will to Live: The odds of life randomly assembling itself out of fundamental particles is so low, that mathematically life shouldn’t exist on any planet in any of the 100 billion solar systems that are within one galaxy, in any of the estimated 100 billion galaxies. Instead, the concept emerges of a “primordial will to live” that is inherent in all matter both organic and non-organic. This will exists, because life is necessary for the universe to even exist.
The Anthropic Principle: Although evidential sciences acknowledge it as an accurate principle, they have no explanation as to why it exists or how it came to be. It ties in with the “Primordial Will to Live”. Life on Earth exists, because life has to exist.
“Free Will: If everything works in cause and effect, then that means we truly have no free will and we are merely an effect of stimulation our brain received in the past.”
No. Freedom consists in a persistent ability to always negate what you call, stimulation. To negate whatever is or was given at any moment in time. This thereby overcomes the given “stimulation” with a new given, N followed by ~N, which creates a new world and subject in relation to the new given (~N).
Freedom also consists in the ability to choose, when the situation arises, between two or more different givens. This choice will be determined by the conditioning of the subject, for which the subject is, for the large part, responsible, as the subject has always had the ability to negate the given when presented with a given. Unconscious conditioning of the subject’s psyche in its construction comprise the smaller part of strong willed subjects, and larger parts for passive subjects (the larger population).
“The Primordial Will to Live: The odds of life randomly assembling itself out of fundamental particles is so low, that mathematically life shouldn’t exist on any planet in any of the 100 billion solar systems that are within one galaxy, in any of the estimated 100 billion galaxies. Instead, the concept emerges of a “primordial will to live” that is inherent in all matter both organic and non-organic. This will exists, because life is necessary for the universe to even exist.”
Metaphysical stew, stinks.
Mathematically, you forgot to factor in infinite time, which would make even the smallest mathematical improbability an inevitability. Now I curse you to recur, eternally.
But didn’t the ability to “negate” stimulation come as a psychological mechanism inherent in the human mind? And in turn, it is an effect of something else?
But if we were to take into account every possible variable in a situation where a choice arises, aren’t we more prone to choose something that benefits us? In fact, aren’t all decisions in life predetermined really, by pre-existing states of mind that we had formed in the past?
I agree with you, completely. I never disagreed with that.
Since there was no life around to observe the time from which there was no life to the time in which there is life, doesn’t this indicate that those eras or universes without life would have passed by instantaneously?
our perception of “time” doesn’t really exist outside of the human mind. Animals experience time similarly, but it is still different from the human perception of time. The perception of time even differs between different people. Time is not definite as a result of Einstein’s theory of relativity; there is no set constant pace which the time of the universe is flowing at. Time is an illusion, and really is nothing more than the expenditure of energy.
By the way, this premise, “life is necessary for the universe to even exist.”, is unfounded, not sound, and does not stand up to scientific discoveries: half-lives of elements demonstrate the earth is older than any empirical data of organic life. Now, the caveat is, since humans structure (physics, and philosophically, the transcendentalists) the physical universe, to a degree, the universe as we know it would not exist; but again, this does not mean there was no universe.
Alright, you are just talking out of your ass.
What is to understand about Quantum Mechanics? The concepts which quantum mechanics present are not hard to grasp. Maybe the math is. However, the popular perception of “quantum mechanics” consists mostly of unverifiable claims made by individuals spewing out superstitious drivel.
I’ve looked into it. I wouldn’t say I have anything more than a layman’s understanding of physics, but I would say that I know more than most people.
The things I said in the original post (although I’m sure they are inaccurate in some way) still do not seem to be accurate in my eyes until someone can give me an example showing me they are not; someone who isn’t just saying “no no, you are wrong! Quantum mechanics are far too complex for me to understand, therefore, they are far too complex for you to understand”
You said earlier that you believe “time” is its own dimension. Most areas of study going deeper into this suggest that “choice” or “chance” (variances in the flow of time) is considered the “5th dimension”. It could then be hypothesized that life exists in all “universes”, as it is a necessary side-effect of the “5th dimension”.
“(variances in the flow of time)” so you accept “time” as dimension . . . as “out there” so to speak? It’s the fourth, other three are space. Choice and chance sound reasonable enough to me (though it sounds a lot like consciousness).
“It could then be hypothesized that life exists in all “universes”, as it is a necessary side-effect of the “5th dimension”.”
Well, that depends on whether it is choice or chance. If the cause is choice, as far as we are aware, choice only exists in our universe. So it would not produce this 5th dimension in a hypothetical other universe (or possible other universe . . . I told you quantum mechanics is weird, don’t tell me you actually believe you truly understand this when we are talking about parallel universes with a layman’s knowledge of physics).Obv., I can go along with the ideas, but I sure wouldn’t say I have real grasp or understanding shooting these ideas around. If it’s chance, however, you’d have to first establish that “chance” is somehow an active, causal player in the universe, and then stretch so far as to say it extends to another universe that we know what about? Personally, I’m much more comfortable with sticking to this one place that we haven’t figured out before postulating how things are in a parallel world. Tinker-Bell has really been playing around with you last night. :p)
And I was just playing off the common Physicists cliche, “If you think you’ve understood relativity, then you haven’t understood relativity.”
So as far as times goes, you accept it as a dimension in the universe? At least, in the physicist’s conceptualization? Btw, I’m not just saying you’re wrong, I’m providing a negative thesis for every position I’ve taken against your givens, or stimulations as you phrased it.
It might interest you to know that this is Schopenhauer’s main thesis as well. He was likely the last great meta-physician, with Nietzsche not counting because his meta-physics are remarkably similar, largely in part by the influence of Schopenhauer, to Schopenhauer. (Perhaps someone who has studied Nietzsche’s metaphysics might comment on the nuanced differences between the two thinkers).
Schopenhauer held that in metaphysics, like you, there is an innate, a priori, “will-to-life.” But he also later added a “will-to-death.” The combination of the two created his dual ontology, but still under a monolithic conception of Will, under whose umbrella Schopenhauer found room for both concepts. It’s really fun to study, but ultimately, and not surprisingly if one studies Kant closely, fails to prove anything noumenal. That is, Schopenhauer’s transcendentalism fails to yield metaphysical knowledge–his holy grail. At the end of the day we are still left with knowledge only of phenomena, objects of possible experience, and nothing that unifies them metaphysically.
This does not make Schopenhauer un-interesting, or not valuable to study. In fact, the more one examines his metaphysical concepts the more examples of them seem to pop up all over nature. The Bulldog ant of Australia. Flowers. Human beings. But never do we have anything more than inductive stipulations–an absolute no no for an ideal metaphysics–and poetic conceptions: metaphors-- all for a region of being that Kant definitively demonstrated, a priori, that the Understanding does not have, and cannot possibly have, any access to.
I just thought it might please you to know that one of the greatest philosopher built a metaphysical system around the insight that came to you through your own efforts. Schopenhauer would be really proud; especially when considering that one of his key thoughts is that philosophy should be done precisely like this: first to think through a problem yourself, and then to reference the great philosophers and compare their thoughts to your own.
Universal symmetry. Your argument is guilty of the composition fallacy.
The Primordial will to live. Your argument is guilty of a non-sequitur. It simply does not follow that the odds of life are so low it should not have happened to there life is necessary for the universe to even exist.
The anthropic principle. Argument from incredulity. Since science does not know then your conclusion is true.
Lots of different subjects here, and most are extremely complex we can fill pages with any one of those topics.
I’ve challenged this claim. If you wish to extend something valuable to the discussion on this thread–on this subject, good points elsewhere–you’ll have to articulate a counter-argument. But if you choose to, we must clearly define the terms. My argument is a position of soft-determinism . . . meaning, absolutely, “free,” in everyday language, is not the conception of free-will I hold.
That is part of the problem with “free will” seems like everyone has there own definition so as to suit themselves.
I define free will in the libertarians position when I speak of it I should have stated LFW or libertarian free will.
I would be happy to discuss compatibilism. Let me make sure I understand your position and definition. Free will is simply choices that are not forced. An example would be you are looking in your frig and deciding on what to eat there is Peanut butter in there and chicken salad and a loaf of bread. If someone comes to you and puts a gun to your head while you are deciding what to eat and forces you to select chicken salad then your choice was not free but instead forced.
Does that clearly define your position of “free will”?
That does rather depend on how you define free will. For example it might rule out libertarian free will, if we reversed time and one was unable to act differently given the same circumstances. There’s also a question of whether everything necessarily follows a cause and effect, but its probably easier to assume that it does, even if that might not be strictly true.
I’m with Chrysippus on this one though. I think The choice to merely act if restricted to an illusion of choosing and realising results is limited and not free. But that’s why the debate is endless, we can’t even decide on what free means.
Or a perfectly flat surface. Depends on how one arranges the maths I think. You either end up with an infinitely flat model or a sphere which would mean the universe is geometrically infinite like travelling around a sphere. Measurements of the curvature of space say it is flat but on the surface of a sphere such measurements would also appear geometrically uniform. This comes down to perspective, if all angular concerns are uniform in all directions then they appear from that perspective to be flat in all directions. If on the other hand the Universe was saddle shaped then the relative dimensions of pi to the circumference of a circle should change with the non uniform curvature of space. Needless to say we don’t have any firm conclusions as we exist in a tiny part of space where all such concerns appear flat.
You have forgotten to include the formation of matter itself which requires a huge amount of complex interactions which are difficult to model. You’ve also forgotten to include time space and gravitational concerns which tends to attract matter into clumps. The Universe should be remarkably isotrophic (spread evenly), and it is according to the data we have so far. The Big bang so far at least with the models and visible evidence we have makes the most sense.
It used to be thought that life in the galaxy was unlikely but with the discovery of the ways matter interacts and the discovery of the sheer number of planets stars form, this is becoming less of a tricky proposition. It seems matter acts far more commonly to produce order than we first thought. It’s interesting to note that quantum mechanics has opened up intriguing possibilities of interactions which used to be thought to just interact in easily predictable ways. Even so assuming that anything is unlikely given one tiny part of space we inhabit it still a pretty big argument from ignorance. Science doesn’t do that at least in science papers, what you read about is speculation and sound bites from people who don’t have enough answers to make much of a conclusion. This however is not found in science journals, only in and around the field.
Science acknowledges the anthropic principle as a philosophical concern. Life has to exist for us to make assumptions about how life existed only. It’s not science so much that is falling short it is the idea that making assumptions from ignorance is warranted. As someone else said if there were infinite or practically infinite Universes either one after the other or all existing simultaneously the concern is only when it will happen not if. We don’t have the tools to make overarching claims: that is both a failure of science, and one it seeks to address. From my perspective there’s never been a better time to be a scientist or to philosophise on it: we know more about the Universe than we could of ever imagined, and yet because of that and being grounded on the Earth, far far far less than we could also. If there’s a failure its in jumping to conclusions. Sometimes our reach exceeds our grasp.
You are completely correct in my opinion - much of what you said was what I also believed in the past (about 6 months ago), but I tried to transition my views on theoretical physics to be much more abstract - mostly out of the mindset “What if?” and trying to think “Outside of the box” so to speak.
Really, my argument in the original post doesn’t extend to much more than “Look around! The world around us is amazingly complex! What are the odds of such an anomaly manifesting itself in the cosmos?”