Do We Have Free Will?

I can confirm from experience that it does seem that way, yes, but I think this is an illusion caused by our own sphere of perception. For example, to a ten year-old, a year is ten percent of all the experience they've ever had; but to a one hundred year-old, a year is only one percent of their total experience. Hence, time doesn't actually move faster or slower dependent on age, but rather your perception of it changes.

Time does however move faster or slower dependent on several other things, such as gravity, acceleration and electromagnetism.

 

To be honest, I'm not even entirely sure what you're saying here, but I can see that it's quite clearly wrong. The point of relativity is that there are no past, present and future. There is only time.

 

It really doesn't matter if you have free will or not. Most things in philosophy/metaphysics don't really matter in our day to day lives. It doesn't mean it isn't fun to talk about, though.

 

The point of relativity is that spacetime is relative. You're painting chimaeras.

 

I see your ability to confuse yourself hasn't lost any of it's potency.

Lets recap.

I said "we are" in regards to every individual.

Not having free will doesn't mean we are not behind the wheel it just means we are a lot more than consciousness, in fact consciousness makes up a single digit percentage of every thought we have. It is merely the awareness of our thoughts and actions. Just because it is other parts of our brains and biology that are the driving force behind our decisions doesn't mean its not us driving the car and so suggesting there is a who or what beyond ourselves forcing us to do anything is just a complete ignorance of what determinism is. Your last reply below is meaningless.

 

It matters a great deal in regards to morality and how we view what others do.

 

Well, that would hardly take a furthest away observer. Any observer further away than 100 LY should be enough. But that really doesn't matter. The point is that you are taking something very simple and making it very convoluted so that you can slip in an implication. All you are really saying is that someone in the future could, with hindsight, see what happened a long time ago. The light merely recorded the events for future viewing. Your theory is like watching a DVD movie, then claiming that the actors had no choice but to make that movie exactly as they did, because when you watched it, that's how it came out.

 

True. Which is why I'm wondering why you mentioned it.

I am saying that to someone watching in the future, what you consider to be now is a very long time ago.

You haven't understood the argument. If what you think is now happens to exist in the past for someone else, then it cannot be changed. General relativity stipulates that there is no absolute past, present or future -- which is which is all a question of where in the timeline you happen to be observing from. Since time is not linear (another concept of relativity), this means that there must be an existing set of chronological actions which leads from you (the observed), to the observer. That set of actions cannot be deviated from, otherwise there logically could be no observer watching you from a distance.

 

That's exactly the same as saying there are no absolute past, present and future.

I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean, so I can't even say that you're wrong. Lol.

What I can say though, is that you synonymised my statement and then bizarrely tried to use it as a point of contention. It was frankly a little weird.

 

Actually I 'antonymised' your statement, because the opposite is actually the case.

From your relative standpoint, there is an absolute past, present, and future. Let's call that "1A".

From my relative standpoint, there is an absolute past, present, and future. Let's call that "2A".

Clearly the list can go on.

1A, 2A, 3A.......

There are an infinite number of absolute pasts, presents and futures.

 

You don't understand relativity. Even if the speed of light weren't constant across all reference frames, it would still be the case that everything we're doing now will exist in the past for someone else - specifically, for people in the future, including your future self. Invoking relativity doesn't add anything to that particular argument. Furthermore, while relativity does indeed tell us that there is no global truth as to the elapsed time between events, this doesn't mean that you can arbitrarily move things around and put anything in the past. Unless someone figures out how to travel faster than light, which seems unlikely, causality can't be violated. Cause will always precede effect, and that will be true in all reference frames. Time may not be a simple straight line, but it still has an ordering to it, and truly random events such as radioactive decay ensure that the future is far from fixed.

 

That is what I've just said. You have paraphrased what I've just said and now you are dishonestly trying to use that paraphrase as some kind of qualification that I am wrong. This is not debating. It is being argumentative just for the sake of it.

As I have explained on at least half a dozen occasions, there is no such thing as the past, the present, or the future. Every moment is a combination of all three, dependent on where you happen to be viewing it from. Clearly, it is you who does not understand relativity.

Edit/Focus on the topic. Leave individual personalities out of the discussion, please.

 

No it isn't. There is no absolute time (i.e. no absolute past, present and future). That was a Newtonian concept used because Newton didn't want to accept that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. He believed time is absolute, and the speed of light (C) was variable, but Einstein turned that on its head with general relativity and showed that it is the other way around.

His time dilation equations are used to program satellite navigation systems, for goodness sake. Obviously he's right, otherwise you'd never reach your correct coordinates.

Deary me.

 

Special relativity. General relativity came later. Do some research.

 

The difference between general and special relativity is that the latter only deals with the physics of objects in motion, while the former also incorporates gravity. They do not give opposite interpretations of the nature of time.

Edit/Focus on the topic. Leave individual personalities out of the discussion, please.

 

Now I see why religion and philosophy get lumped together.
Everyone has their opinion about life and afterlife and get all huffy when someone challenges them.
Remember, in either category nothing is concrete and much lies in the eyes of the beholder.

 

Wow ! How very astute.

Bottom line on this thread. Do you make your own decisions or does some outside force make your decisions for you?

 

If there is "no absolute past, present, and future", then how can there be a "time dilation"? Remember that science must include the existence of scientists. They might be the ones that program satellites.

 

Because there is no past, present or future. If you separated society into two and sent half to live somewhere where time was moving faster, then they would disagree about what was past, present and future.

Jesus Christ.

 

To my understanding, time is a constant and is the tool by which the duration of an event is measured. You must be speaking in terms of a hypothetical location: OR do you know a place where time as we know it does in fact move.

 

Here is your argument:


If there is disagreement about ppp, then there is no ppp.
There is disagreement about ppp.
Therefore, there is no ppp.

Inductive fallacy.

 

Don't tell me what my argument is, pal. If you don't understand it, then ask me. Don't presume you know it better than me because you clearly do not.

By the false definition of "inductive fallacy" you are using, no fact known to man is not an inductive fallacy (i.e. if nobody has eaten an orange banana, then there are no orange bananas. Nobody has eaten an orange banana. Therefore there are no orange bananas).

You are being stupid and you are wrong. Learn to concede when you are wrong or continue losing arguments forever.

 

Descartes suggested, rightly, we have the ability to think, thus we exist.
That means we have free will.

Sadly, we don't use this ability; preferring to rely on what government and the press tell us what to think.

Je pense, donc je suis (cogito ergo sum) .... but only when fox news explains it to us.

 

I do not accept that this is true. I believe it is falsified by the fact that you cannot simultaneously think two different thoughts at once. Free will itself is predicated on the notion that you have more than one option. But how can you prove that you have more than one option, if you can only take one option? You can't turn reality back to double check, so therefore your premise is false.

 

And nature says that you cannot inhale and exhale at the same time. The signals for the breathing comes from the same place as your thoughts. Therefore, your belief is falsified. Breathing (either inhaling or exhaling) requires the automated functions of the brain which are activities of the mind and the mind allows you to breath, regulates blood flow and other vital functions all at the same time as you are "thinking". Typing on your computer requires the same thing... more than one thought being processed at the same time.