this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
381 points (96.8% liked)

Asklemmy

44151 readers
1424 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

For me it is the fact that our blood contains iron. I earlier used to believe the word stood for some 'organic element' since I couldn't accept we had metal flowing through our supposed carbon-based bodies, till I realized that is where the taste and smell of blood comes from.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] blackbrook@mander.xyz 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Allowing for quantum randomness does not help the free will argument. Randomness might be "free", but it is certainly not but "will".

[โ€“] exi@feddit.de -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But it does. If the universe was deterministic, choice would be impossible because all outcomes would be predetermined.

Quantum randomness may not directly provide free will but it does exclude determinism, which would make free will impossible.

[โ€“] blackbrook@mander.xyz 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This "choice" is just the manifestation what you are at that moment, the sum of everything that has influenced you up until this point. Whether that complex tangle of cause and effect was "determined" a million years ago or affected by random fluctuations the whole way, including a moment ago, doesn't change anything. "Free will" just doesn't make any sense, regardless of whether one considers predeterminism to be the alternative.