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[LegoLord]

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

Only if the hypothesis holds true throughout the test (flipping a coin several hundred times and successfully predicting all of them would do this).  If it turns out it is false, then, well . . . the test debunks predetermination.

Without sufficient information, we can't test it, and we probably can't find all of what would be necessary to do so even after several hundred years, so the whole thing is moot anyway.

[Mr Tk]

Ok expanding on my first post.

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.

I tried to explain in my first post that no, if you know what goes into something, it doesn't meant that you will know what comes out.

In computing the Halting Problem specifically addresses this. You have a description of a program which solves a specific problem. On the correct answer it halts, on a incorrect answer it carries on forever.

Now take this program and feed it into a general machine which halts on an incorrect answer and carries on forever on a correct answer.

When do you know that the program has finished, or when it has failed? In other words even though you know the input, you can't say what the output is.

Also in my previous argument I've also stated that for one input you could can get more than one answer.


Another problem is N=NP. It boils down simply needing to have a non-deterministic computer to be able to solve a set of problems called NP. (Ok this hasn't strictly true, but having a problem which takes longer than the life span of the universe to run through is a little unpractical.) Calculating the universe would fall into this set of problems NP. To calculate it a quantum computer is required.

But you start getting into problem with quantum that when you observe or measure the results that it can change the outcome. Whose to say that predicting the future on your quantum computer isn't going to change the prediction?


Parallel World. What I hate, HATE is that people thing parallel words can only made by a choice or a decision. If the point of a parallel universe is that it is DIFFERENT from ours, then image a universe that is exactly the same as ours in all respects. Everything, but one tiny atom, which for a fraction of second vibrates slightly differently, but then goes back to being the same as ours.

Superficially it's the same, except for this one action and this one point of time. Then image this happens for each atom, in each possible point of time, then you start taking combinations of atoms and they start vibrating and as you can see there is all ready going to be an infinite amount of universes which LOOK EXACTLY LIKE OURS!

So we have an infinite amount of infinite universes.


Is free will a sham? Is everything pre-determined? No, I don't believe so, and there are plenty of different problems in plenty of different fields to prove this. I've given some, and some other people have given some.

As for a free will being your 'soul '? Free will doesn't prove or disprove that you have a soul, just that you have free will.


I think I have to much free time on my hands.

[Micro102]

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

Only if the hypothesis holds true throughout the test (flipping a coin several hundred times and successfully predicting all of them would do this).  If it turns out it is false, then, well . . . the test debunks predetermination.

Without sufficient information, we can't test it, and we probably can't find all of what would be necessary to do so even after several hundred years, so the whole thing is moot anyway.

ah but if we had the information, right down the the momentum and direction of every atom, in both the wind and the coin.....all over the universe, it would be mathamatically possible to calculate all of that eventually, wouldnt it? even if we cant do it now its still possible right?

[Ampersand]

Yes. Yes it would be. Unfortunately, you can't know that.

Because sub atomic particles exhibit wave/particle duality, the very act of measuring the position of one does in fact change it's state in an entirely unpredictable way, as dictated by what I mentioned in my previous postings, Hisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Key word being Uncertainty.

[Another]

I bet that with our present day technology (high definition digital camera + decent physical model + a modern PC + some fiddling with programs) one can predict a coin flip with an accuracy over 1/10^9. Add some temperature and wind detectors to the testing room to improve it by a few magnitudes.

Place it on a heavy, air-cushion lifted base to lessen unpredictable earthquakes (assuming that we can predict earthquakes and weather a priori would made this whole experiment pointless) interference and 2-3 kilometers under a mountain to block most cosmic rays. You have now a mostly predictable pseudo-random experiment. Any distinction between true deterministic and just-really-close-to-classical-mechanic would be unobservable in a person's lifetime (can something really matter if you haven't even a wildest theoretical chance of observing it or any of its consequences?).

Quantum effects for objects that can be seen with a naked eye are numerically really tiny (though one could argue that electrical and thermal conductivity, even the chemical bond itself are of quantum nature). For practical purposes it could matter in things like finite error probability of small cooled down low power transistors (which AFAIK is accounted for {to a certain acceptable degree} with some parity checks), small fluctuations on synapses (numerically it may not matter but think twice to be more sure ) and ... well, I can't come up now with anything else that would require quantum uncertainty and not just some thermal (pre-existing entropy) oscillations.

P.S. "Everything is predictable but we just don't know enough details/don't have the computing power" is NOT compatible with modern physics. It is proved that things like radioactive decay are not predictable deterministic (you can predict that any given unstable nucleus will eventually decay with a probability of exactly 1 ).

I think that technically free will and deterministic brain are not the same problem although physical determinism would severely constrained existence of free will to existence of some metaphysical concept like soul. Of course no proof of existence of any metaphysical entity can be deduced within the context of physics by definition and some concepts are specifically constructed to be not disprovable by logic or repeatable experience regardless of their state.

P.P.S. To calculate anything with infinite precision and certainty would require all kinds of other infinites first.

[qwertyuiopas]

X,Y,Z,T(time),?,?,?....

Exactily when did time become a dimension of the universe?
In my opinion, it should always be te LAST simension, as it it not truely one, but a measure of the change in the rest, unless someone can prove that time travel(backwards as well as forwards at nonstandard rates) is completely possibe.

Until then, time should probably be considered a universal scalar rather than part of the x/y/z/? axis set, as each of those shoud be appliable to any object/particle with varying results WITHOUT changing the rest(unless the x/y/z set is a special case, and that would be incredibly ironic as they are the only ones we know for sure to exist)

[LegoLord]

ah but if we had the information, right down the the momentum and direction of every atom, in both the wind and the coin.....all over the universe, it would be mathamatically possible to calculate all of that eventually, wouldnt it? even if we cant do it now its still possible right?

Actually, no, not necessarily.  Predictability of the universe is a claim.  You must prove it by performing the previously mentioned test.  Until we can gather the data necessary to do so (everything), we lack even the capability to even guess at the feasibility of it.  If your statement - that we could mathematically predict the flip of a coin eventually - was known to be true, then why test it?  That argument goes against the scientific method.  We don't know yet.  You are just guessing and saying you are right.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Hey, in fictions, humans are *always* a special case.

Still... time is caused by entropy, so... If we revert it (using negative energy/heat, perhaps?) we could revert time also, right?

Well, I know that it's not possible by the clausul of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, but law COULD be not the truth, but just subjective observation by those who make it.

Sorry for the bad english, my head is aching...

[PTTG??]

ah but if we had the information, right down the the momentum and direction of every atom, in both the wind and the coin.....all over the universe, it would be mathamatically possible to calculate all of that eventually, wouldnt it? even if we cant do it now its still possible right?

While it is hypothetically true that if you had all the information at the universe, then it would be possible to predict the next state, it is impossible to collect all the information in the universe in at least two ways:
1: uncertainty (subatomic impossibility of certainty)
2: storage (even if information could be gathered, it can't be efficiently stored: it takes more than one particle to store the amount of information in one particle, thus you need more than one universe's worth of particles to store a universes' worth of particles.)
Since is is impossible even in theory to get the required data to predict the future, the future is unpredictable.
Thus, we might as well have fee will, since noone, even ourselves, can predict with absolute certainty what we will do. The only way to know what someone will decide is to wait for them to make the decision. This is a property of any sufficiently complex system- an amoeba is simple enough that we may find it possible to predict exactly what it will do with as much certainty as we are of the continued rotation of the earth and such (i.e., barring subatomic miracles). A robot is even more certain, while a human being has such a complex neurological system of such fine detail that it may remain as impossible to predict as anything else. Even more "free" is culture, which, as the emergent property of billions of incredibly complex minds and the systems that are built by humans, is far more unpredictable than all physical phenomenon.

[SolarShado]

Exactily when did time become a dimension of the universe?
In my opinion, it should always be te LAST simension, as it it not truely one, but a measure of the change in the rest, unless someone can prove that time travel(backwards as well as forwards at nonstandard rates) is completely possibe.

Until then, time should probably be considered a universal scalar rather than part of the x/y/z/? axis set, as each of those shoud be appliable to any object/particle with varying results WITHOUT changing the rest(unless the x/y/z set is a special case, and that would be incredibly ironic as they are the only ones we know for sure to exist)

Einstein, ftw.

It has been proven experimentally that time passes slower for objects traveling faster. I'm too lazt to look something up, try googling "Einstein time dialation experiment" or some-such.

In response PTTG: Has anyone read Issac Asimov's Foundation series? Anyone know if "psycho-history" is remotely possible/practical? If you haven't read the books, the basic idea is that all actions made by individual people average out to a predictable course for humanity as a whole. Admittedly, in the book they were predicting for an entire galaxy populated by humans, and IIRC it was stated many times that it works better for a larger population.

[PTTG??]

Psychohistory does actually have a real-world analogue, "Quantitative Psychology", but rather than being predictive it is more analytical. In the real-world or fictional sciences, it is impossible to make predictions of anything other than a general shape of future events, but not to predict where a specific person may be or what they might decide to do.
And let's not forget the Mule Effect and chaos theory.

[Micro102]

Yes. Yes it would be. Unfortunately, you can't know that.

Because sub atomic particles exhibit wave/particle duality, the very act of measuring the position of one does in fact change it's state in an entirely unpredictable way, as dictated by what I mentioned in my previous postings, Hisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Key word being Uncertainty.

No, we dont measure it....We just know it.

If it's possible to predict something then its predestined to happen. Im talking about EVERYTHING!!!! Even the way elecricity flows into our brians and the way we think. We dont measure it, but if we had all the information and could, then everything would be meant to already happen, even someone trying to mess with it.

[NUKE9.13]

Hey, sweet. I think about this all the time.
There is something you need to decide first: Will I believe that ultimately- at the deepest level, there is an end to physics, whereby everything comes down to pure, solvable math, or not?

If you do, awesome. Simply get your Theory of everything, build a computer taking up 90% of the universe, program the theory of everything into it, and turn it on. Voila, a new, smaller universe has been created. This is interesting, as there is nothing- seriously, nothing- that can prove or disprove we are in this 'Matrix'- unless the creators added the 'fiddle' option, allowing them to do neat stuff to the artificial universe. Such as manifesting as an angel to some life form on some planet somewhere and sending them down the path of religion. Check back every three thousand years, maybe.
Neither does it matter if we are computer code. We remain who we are. Free will does not go up in smoke because of it... as pointed out, it is almost impossible to practically apply the everything theory, so actions remain seemingly random, and judgable.

If you don't, then yeah. Life sucks, there is no point, get over it and die some time soon.

I subscribe to the first train of thought, to preserve my sanity.

[LegoLord]

No, we dont measure it....We just know it.

Impossible.  Any method of obtaining mathematical information is measuring.

If it's possible to predict something then its predestined to happen. Im talking about EVERYTHING!!!! Even the way elecricity flows into our brians and the way we think. We dont measure it, but if we had all the information and could, then everything would be meant to already happen, even someone trying to mess with it.

The key word there being "if."  If you can perform the necessary tests I previously mentioned, then there is predestination.  But you can't do the test.  It is not possible, because we can't know the necessary information without measuring the source of the information, and we can't measure the information without disrupting it in some unpredictable way (uncertainty principle).  Therefore, it is impossible to say whether predetermination is fact or fiction.  You can't say that it is fact; you can't say it doesn't exist.  So what good is arguing predetermination and trying to convince people it exists when you have no way of proving it or even using it?

[Sowelu]

In response PTTG: Has anyone read Issac Asimov's Foundation series? Anyone know if "psycho-history" is remotely possible/practical? If you haven't read the books, the basic idea is that all actions made by individual people average out to a predictable course for humanity as a whole. Admittedly, in the book they were predicting for an entire galaxy populated by humans, and IIRC it was stated many times that it works better for a larger population.

I remember seeing a very attractive little anthropological theory which claimed that, for populations in line with the Earth's throughout recorded history all the way to the present, prediction was impossible.  I think the name was something -similar- to 'dark horse theory', but not actually that name.  Basically, they looked at a whole ton of trends and traced the causes back to one-in-a-million events and individual personalities, and essentially said "History is full of people who become very important, and many of their more minor decisions have huge effects that are not predictable".  IE, sure, you might expect that after WW1, some Hitler-esque character would emerge and do roughly the things he did.  But minor diplomatic decisions he made really messed with the political and economic climate, in such a way that the world is changed in an unpredictable fashion.  Heck, even the specific shore that Colombus landed on had a big difference--imagine if he was a couple hundred miles north instead.  You can predict that someone will sail to the New World, but you might not know if they run into and exterminate central America, or if they'll land somewhere else and give central America warning and time to build up antibodies and armies...

Population size is actually not a limiting factor here.  Only the reach of a leader's arm compared to the size of the world is.  When tribes are small and one leader can not impact much, things are predictable because big events can get lost in the noise.  When you get to a globalized world, you wind up with situations where one Russian sitting in a lonely base decides whether to inform the Kremlin that nuclear missiles are on their way, or not.  (Really happened--it was a system glitch, but if he'd actually told military leaders that it picked something up, we could easily have had World War 3!)

So, if you have a massive universe full of people, but there are very cheap faster-than-light drives all over the place that can cross the galaxy in minutes, prediction is very hard.  If things move slow and don't interact much, you can predict things better.