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[Jreengus]

Ok so I've been thinking over this and my thought process went something along the lines of:

Watched and read The Golden Compass for the first time, this set me off thinking about the whole parallel worlds theory, at this point I began picking at something that was annoying me. The base theory is that each world varies on the sub-atomic scale this where the really difference is and the resulting difference in the universe is merely a consequence of that, this however struck me as somewhat impossible I'm not actually a physicist but from what I know or think I know you cant have any event come out in any way other than one, say for example two atoms collide and react, this can only happen one way if you were to recreate the exact same event the exact same thing would happen. I'd even be willing to bet that radiation which is supposedly completely random works to some kind of unseen order and that if you were to recreate an atom of radioactive material in the exact same conditions it would decay at the exact same time as the atom from which it was copied.

So this led me to conclusions the first being that any alternate world would not differ by different things happening or rather these different things happening would be the effect rather than the cause, the cause would be a different creation. If we go with the big bang theory then differing big bangs although even these could just be another effect of an even more ancient cause.

Anyhow the second thing that occurred to me is that free will is a sham. Given sufficient information anyone could predict from the moment of the big bang that I would type this up. Concious though is after all merely the result of chemical reactions within the brain and thus given the same input it will always result in the same output. This is of course a hypothesis and so I began to think of an experiment to prove it, this would be impossible to do with current technology but one day it may be possible, the idea is simple take a person in a room and record everything about this room, replicate it exactly down to a sub-atomic level a number of times then record each room. Assuming you manage to do this and prevent any outside influences the way I see it there are two possible outcomes, the one which would support my hypothesis is that something identical would happen in every single room, the second outcome however is that things would differ if this comes from outside the person such as the air particles moving differently then I've missed something or your experiment is contaminated, if however this difference comes from the person then it pretty much proves free will does exist and if it does then something outside what we see as matter must be acting on it and this I hypothesise is the soul. Now of course this wouldn't prove anything conclusively but the results would be interesting.

EDIT:Okay I've finished.

[Ampersand]

Free will is not a sham because entropy exists. It is impossible to have sufficient information to make such predictions due to Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle.

However, there are certain bounds within which things can be predicted. You can, within significant error bars, predict the next Planck time moment from the one before it, but not 200 years down the road, due to the principle of light cones

[Mr Tk]

The main problem with your argument is that there are things which don't have a definite outcome.

This setence has three erors.

Look at the sentence. What errors can you see? Setence and erors. Two errors. So the sentence is wrong because it only has two errors. But then if you count the fact that it only has two errors as the third error, then you have three.

So the sentence "This setence has three erors." is both TRUE and FALSE at the same time.

The theory behind this is called a Diagonal Argument. I won't go into the deals because it is quite a heavy concept, but needless to say it says that there are two types of infinite. Countably infinite and uncountably infinite. An example like f(n) = n +1 is countable because if you give a number (n) you always get the result n+1. It's countable because for each number you get one result.

Uncountably infinite means that if you give a function a number f(n) you CAN NOT quarantine what result you will get. Its uncountable because for a number you can get more than one result.

[Leafsnail]

Well, such experiments wouldn't prove the existence of the soul, only the existence of quantum randomness (quantum randomness rarely has an effect on anything, but give it time...).  Quantum particles sometimes have a 50-50 chance of doing one thing or the other, and there's no way to predict which it will do.  Not even theoretically.

[Tormy]

There is no way to proove the existence of the soul...just like there is no way to proove, that there is "life after death".

[Jreengus]

Once again physics foils my plans. Actually this is the first time but "Once again" sounds better don't you think?

Also @ Tormy I realise this wouldn't prove the existence of the soul, more I imagined it would hint one way or another.

[Ampersand]

The problem with the experiment does lie within the quantum. The thing about Light cones, one must understand it like this. Suppose a photon is emitted at the moment of the big bang, and from that point, it does not interact with any object in the universe; that is it's position is never measured.

The probability of where that photon will be found spreads out conically in four dimensions, spherically in three. It can very well be said that the photon's size expands to fill the whole of the visible universe, the probability of it existing in any one position in the universe the same. If at some point, it interacts with an object anywhere in the universe, it's probability wave collapses, and it's location is fixed into a single point, and then spreading out once more until it interacts with something.

Now imagine that there are billions of such particles, photons and other sub-atomic particles, that could pop into existence at any point of the universe at any given time, their probability of being in any position stretched thin across the fabric of the cosmos.

Now, however, there is another conundrum.

Consider the whole of four dimensional space to be every point in three dimensional space throughout all of time from the beginning to the end. Like a roll of 3D film; each frame the state of the universe from moment to moment, the roll consisting of every one of those moments strung together.

Does the future exist any less than the past in this model?

[Psyco Jelly]

If there are an infinite number of parallel universes, an infinite number of them is bound to have 'souls'. We just have to hope we live in one of them. So 'souls' do exist, but do not in all universes. Of course, this means that in the infinite universes, there exists a universe where Christians are right about the afterlife, Chuck Norris was never born, and cheese is the international currency.

[Sowelu]

If there are an infinite number of parallel universes, an infinite number of them is bound to have 'souls'. We just have to hope we live in one of them. So 'souls' do exist, but do not in all universes. Of course, this means that in the infinite universes, there exists a universe where Christians are right about the afterlife, Chuck Norris was never born, and cheese is the international currency.

Lactose-intolerant folks would be the richest, but least happy, people in the world.

[eerr]

It assumes each "chance" creates two diffrent worlds, or some bullshit.

The idea is completely absurd, because nothing the world really is random. If you know every part of what goes into determining something, then you too can know the outcome.
Of course, mapping out the velocity and position of every molocule in a given coin, as well as the significant number of air molocules and dirt molcules is a task nigh impossible.
and even if you did, all that happened is you determined a single flip of a coin.
better make that a very profitable flip!


in current science, talking about dimensions means you have a diffrent axis
X,Y,Z,T(time),?,?,?....
or however many "dimensions" happen to exist, which don't overlap(they probably have 90 degree angles as well, I don't know).

also, a dimension could be a way something can vary in that direction, or opposing that direction, and we calculate that only relative to what we know is nearby.

also, math becomes very "fuzzy" about halfway into calculus.

[PTTG??]

I feel that just because the universe is hypothetically deterministic- that is, if you have all the information (which may in fact be impossible, but assuming that it was), you could predict the next moment- doesn't mean that free will doesn't exist. That is, for all practical concerns it does exist.

This is because if took the whole set of information about the entire universe, you'd have to run it on a computing device of some kind. Even if this is a hypothetically perfect computer, this would have to be a very, very large computer. How large? Universe-sized.

So, there is no way to accurately simulate the universe as a whole, and simulating even a small section wouldn't work because you can't get the detailed data fine enough.

Thus, the only way to determine the action you or anyone might take in response to a stimulus is... to wait.

[Sowelu]

If you could simulate the universe perfectly, then would your simulated sentient beings also have free will?  They're perfect simulations, after all.  Or are we defining free will as something that's impossible to simulate for some reason?  Where does it come from?  The neurons have to start firing SOMEwhere.

[Micro102]

If you could simulate the universe perfectly, then would your simulated sentient beings also have free will?  They're perfect simulations, after all.  Or are we defining free will as something that's impossible to simulate for some reason?  Where does it come from?  The neurons have to start firing SOMEwhere.

you cant simulate the universe, because that simulation would have to include the thing that is simulating the universe, thus simulating itself endlessly.

also, if anyones interested, i have some decent proof that everything is predestened...but randomly

[LegoLord]

Seeing as how we can't actually predict any events with our technology, how do we know that it would be possibly to predict the outcome of flipping a coin? 

We can't make perfect models down to the last atom; we don't know enough, and there's no way we can determine the exact number of atoms in a large coin.  The coin could contain several moles of atoms, and most of them would be blocked from counting by those on the outermost layer - so far as we know.

We'd have to account for all the flaws within the coin's structure if we did manage to find out how many atoms were in it.  We would also need to know how many of each type of atom was in it.  And then we'd need to know the exact atmospheric conditions (possibly only with certain events).  Then on top of all that, we'd need to know all sorts of other things I can't think of at the moment, and maybe some things that are or might be beyond the capabilities of physics to measure.

And that's just to set up a test to prove that an event can be predicted.  Until then, the statement "we could predict every action" is merely a hypothesis that cannot be tested.

[Micro102]

ahhhh, but if its true...then we COULD test it. IF we had the information

if we had all the information in the universe, we could predict everything that will happen, right?

since we can predict everything that will happen, that means everything is predetermined

but everything is still random because in the begining it was just a random event that started it all because nothing is capable of determining eternity.

lol