We’re all like puppets who have no control of where we’re going
Everything has been predetermined
The particles in our brains determine the decisions we make
We cannot change what happens to us
We have no choice about the decisions we make or how we think
There is no free will

Speedy Jnr tells me he has been thinking these things since he was around 7 years old (he is now 15). Unfortunately, I was unaware of it until today, as he is inconsolably upset. We have watched this Youtube video together which he tells me is one of many that prove it is true.

What is NOT Random?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMb00lz-IfE

I know he needs help with this fixation, and am looking into how to go about that now.

In the meantime, sciency people, can you please help to educate me about this and how this knowledge can “sit well”. I know his mind will not be changed, but maybe if there is some doubt about free will it could help.

The illusion of free will is quite convincing unless you think about it too much

>We have no choice about the decisions we make or how we think

Well we obviously do. What you have to bear in mind is that order on the macroscopic scale, for example, the biochemical scale of the human brain and its interaction with the environment, opens up deterministic pathways that are simply nonexistent on smaller scales.

So “particles” seldom determine what happens on the scale of human experience. They are themselves shuffled hither and yon by deterministic developments on a larger scale.

“Will” is not “free”, in the sense of being random. It’s a deterministic agency. Human will is constrained by all the decision-making criteria one brings to bear when making decisions, by the many influences of the external world, and by one’s genetically determined nature.

So it makes more sense to just talk of “will”, not “free will”.

Speedy said:

We’re all like puppets who have no control of where we’re going
Everything has been predetermined
The particles in our brains determine the decisions we make
We cannot change what happens to us
We have no choice about the decisions we make or how we think
There is no free will

Speedy Jnr tells me he has been thinking these things since he was around 7 years old (he is now 15). Unfortunately, I was unaware of it until today, as he is inconsolably upset. We have watched this Youtube video together which he tells me is one of many that prove it is true.

What is NOT Random?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMb00lz-IfE

I know he needs help with this fixation, and am looking into how to go about that now.

In the meantime, sciency people, can you please help to educate me about this and how this knowledge can “sit well”. I know his mind will not be changed, but maybe if there is some doubt about free will it could help.

Isn’t consciously deciding he has no free will…an act of free will?

Good video and an interesting theory but I think predicting the future should be left to the professional astrologers.

poikilotherm said:

Isn’t consciously deciding he has no free will…an act of free will?

He would claim his deciding that he has no free will was already predetermined.

Thanks Mr Car. I will need some time to re-read (a few times) your comments and will do that later tonight.

Speedy said:

poikilotherm said:

Isn’t consciously deciding he has no free will…an act of free will?

He would claim his deciding that he has no free will was already predetermined.

Remind him that new things are determined all the time as timelines unfold. And he’s travelling with the timeline and causing things to happen, that couldn’t necessarily be predicted and don’t exist on any actual printed schedule anywhere :)

He should look into deterministic chaos theory, self-organisation etc. Outcomes are dependent on initial conditions but human decisions introduce new sets of “initial conditions” all the time.

If everything is predetermined then there must be a way to test it. Can we test the future?

Speedy said:

poikilotherm said:

Isn’t consciously deciding he has no free will…an act of free will?

He would claim his deciding that he has no free will was already predetermined.

It’s almost religious. God has a plan etc.

Bubblecar’s words on the nature of human will state the situation as clearly and logically as I have seen anywhere.

I would add that even at the particle level nothing is predetermined. The outcome of any interaction at the particle level is not predetermined, it has a random component, and this randomness interacts with influences at the macro level to make future events entirely unpredictable, even in principle.

We get satisfaction from interactions with others and the environment, and from our own physical and mental activities. Some people look for some deeper “meaning” to life, but in my opinion such a search is both unnecessary and counter-productive.

>>Bubblecar’s words on the nature of human will state the situation as clearly and logically as I have seen anywhere.

+1

In a universe with no life everything can be predetermined I think.

Murphy’s law of biology:

“Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables the organism will do as it damn well pleases.”

That’s free will demonstrated.

Does he know about the butterfly effect? A chaotic system governed by deterministic equations can still have a random outcome.

joy in that you can will anything at all, don’t ruin it with an indeterminate free, torture your mind that way

poikilotherm said:

Speedy said:

poikilotherm said:

Isn’t consciously deciding he has no free will…an act of free will?

He would claim his deciding that he has no free will was already predetermined.

It’s almost religious. God has a plan etc.

It sure is. We had a laugh today at the similarities, and at my relief that at least his thinking had some scientific basis, not simply blind religious faith.

Speedy said:

We’re all like puppets who have no control of where we’re going
Everything has been predetermined
The particles in our brains determine the decisions we make
We cannot change what happens to us
We have no choice about the decisions we make or how we think
There is no free will

Speedy Jnr tells me he has been thinking these things since he was around 7 years old (he is now 15). Unfortunately, I was unaware of it until today, as he is inconsolably upset. We have watched this Youtube video together which he tells me is one of many that prove it is true.

What is NOT Random?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMb00lz-IfE

I know he needs help with this fixation, and am looking into how to go about that now.

In the meantime, sciency people, can you please help to educate me about this and how this knowledge can “sit well”. I know his mind will not be changed, but maybe if there is some doubt about free will it could help.

I don’t think the video is saying that at all; it is more being able the recognise patterns from random information to gain knowledge. The more intelligent you are, the more patterns you will find and the greater will be your knowledge, to use as you see fit.

transition said:

joy in that you can will anything at all, don’t ruin it with an indeterminate free, torture your mind that way

to clarify

that freedoms are (somewhat) an indeterminate space is probably the norm, but when you put free and will together and ask tired questions about freedom’s existence, Karl Popper might suggest ask a different question

mostly i’m simply glad of the mundane, predictable aspects of life, like the work of my mind (and anyone elses) has no influence on gravity, for example

transition said:

transition said:

joy in that you can will anything at all, don’t ruin it with an indeterminate free, torture your mind that way

to clarify

that freedoms are (somewhat) an indeterminate space is probably the norm, but when you put free and will together and ask tired questions about freedom’s existence, Karl Popper might suggest ask a different question

mostly i’m simply glad of the mundane, predictable aspects of life, like the work of my mind (and anyone elses) has no influence on gravity, for example

We could go full Sarah Conner, carve No Fate into a wooden table and go off to kill Miles Bennett Dyson

I would encourage Jnr to read something lighter..

Potential global catastrophic risks include anthropogenic risks, caused by humans (technology, governance, climate change), and non-anthropogenic or external risks. Examples of technology risks are hostile artificial intelligence and destructive biotechnology or nanotechnology. Insufficient or malign global governance creates risks in the social and political domain, such as a global war, including nuclear holocaust, bioterrorismusing genetically modified organisms, cyberterrorism destroying critical infrastructure like the electrical grid; or the failure to manage a natural pandemic. Problems and risks in the domain of earth system governance include global warming, environmental degradation, including extinction of species, famine as a result of non-equitableresource distribution, human overpopulation, crop failures and non-sustainable agriculture.

Examples of non-anthropogenic risks are an asteroid impact event, a supervolcanic eruption, a lethal gamma-ray burst, a geomagnetic storm destroying electronic equipment, natural long-term climate change, hostile extraterrestrial life, or the predictable Sun transforming into a red giant star engulfing the Earth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk

Speedy said:

We’re all like puppets who have no control of where we’re going
Everything has been predetermined
The particles in our brains determine the decisions we make
We cannot change what happens to us
We have no choice about the decisions we make or how we think
There is no free will

Speedy Jnr tells me he has been thinking these things since he was around 7 years old (he is now 15). Unfortunately, I was unaware of it until today, as he is inconsolably upset. We have watched this Youtube video together which he tells me is one of many that prove it is true.

What is NOT Random?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMb00lz-IfE

I know he needs help with this fixation, and am looking into how to go about that now.

In the meantime, sciency people, can you please help to educate me about this and how this knowledge can “sit well”. I know his mind will not be changed, but maybe if there is some doubt about free will it could help.

OK, I have now watched the video, and I’m wondering if you both watched it all the way through, or at least if you were paying attention at the end.

His main point was that quantum mechanics means that the future is not predetermined.

In the context of human behaviour it means that what you will do is affected by what you think, and what you think is not predetermined.

It seems I agree with Permeate, so we must be right.

Thanks for all your replies. I explained to Speedy Jnr that I asked about this theory on-line and have now copied (removing any references to “him” and “he”) and printed many of the replies for his reference. It’s a great start, so thanks again.

In the past hour though, he has been on a King of Random Youtube-watching spree, so I suspect there is more to his angst. This channel is one of his favourites, and as you may know, KOR died in an accident last month :(

Ian said:

I would encourage Jnr to read something lighter..

Potential global catastrophic risks include anthropogenic risks, caused by humans (technology, governance, climate change), and non-anthropogenic or external risks. Examples of technology risks are hostile artificial intelligence and destructive biotechnology or nanotechnology. Insufficient or malign global governance creates risks in the social and political domain, such as a global war, including nuclear holocaust, bioterrorismusing genetically modified organisms, cyberterrorism destroying critical infrastructure like the electrical grid; or the failure to manage a natural pandemic. Problems and risks in the domain of earth system governance include global warming, environmental degradation, including extinction of species, famine as a result of non-equitableresource distribution, human overpopulation, crop failures and non-sustainable agriculture.

Examples of non-anthropogenic risks are an asteroid impact event, a supervolcanic eruption, a lethal gamma-ray burst, a geomagnetic storm destroying electronic equipment, natural long-term climate change, hostile extraterrestrial life, or the predictable Sun transforming into a red giant star engulfing the Earth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk

bring some cheer to the child’s life

something that’s even more frightening, and you need imagine it to see what it feels like (a difficult thing), is an environment with no risk at all.

ah, mind-brain and self-body duality again, that old gem

Suppose that free will doesn’t exist.

Then that allows you to do anything you want, no limits no matter how ridiculous or debauched. All you have to say is “it’s not my fault, it was inevitable”. Accepting that there’s no free will is enormously freeing.

mollwollfumble said:

Suppose that free will doesn’t exist.

Then that allows you to do anything you want, no limits no matter how ridiculous or debauched. All you have to say is “it’s not my fault, it was inevitable”. Accepting that there’s no free will is enormously freeing.

destiny and inevitability feature in movies often enough, Matrix for example, a tool of ideology, delivery device in the theme of the movie, or series of movies, even has the siege thing

transition said:

mollwollfumble said:

Suppose that free will doesn’t exist.

Then that allows you to do anything you want, no limits no matter how ridiculous or debauched. All you have to say is “it’s not my fault, it was inevitable”. Accepting that there’s no free will is enormously freeing.

destiny and inevitability feature in movies often enough, Matrix for example, a tool of ideology, delivery device in the theme of the movie, or series of movies, even has the siege thing

along with the idea some people are special, or exceptional, and everyone apparently can be special if they want and work at it enough

in fact the amount of media selling exceptionalism, well, I guess it’s the old hero thing, worship

for the most part most people are not exceptional most of the time, a fortunate thing, so you can imagine aspirational, ambitious types live with the threat of the world around them descending into mediocrity, (as) if reality were undermanaged

they sell you shit anyway, one way or another, compensation for them