LaPlace's Demon, Determinism and our Free Will - a few thoughts

in #philosophy5 years ago (edited)


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You just decided to click and read this post. But you could have chosen another post. Please don't get me wrong, I don't want to say that I am good and that's why you read my post now. I am not good. I am just a person like everyone else. Insignificant in the ocean of being. But sometimes with strange thoughts caused by the life.

We live a life, in a world that lets us ask more questions than it gives us answers. These things, if you are open enough, always get you thinking again.

The more unusual events or coincidences you experience and the more you think, you understand how the world works, and the more you wonder if your whole life isn't already predetermined. Would that mean that we have no free will and all is determinded?

There will be some course of events and this course of events exist.

Brain Research show us that brains makes decisions that have an end effect on others decisions and that again and again and again...

So the decision to click on this post, had to come because of the choices you've made and you've met before. But it was still your decision every time. I don't think you can decide what things to do. For example, you may have clicked on this post because you've seen my posts more often in trending. Or because this topic looked interesting for you and you are generally interested in it. Maybe this interest comes from you, because you like to philosophise yourself. Maybe you had a friend with whom you philosophised. Maybe this friend of yours was someone from your neighbourhood. Maybe you got to know him by chance, because you did something with another friend. This friend was perhaps a friend from school. This concatenation is only a very simplified example and it can go on like this.

This cause and effect principle can be traced back to the big bang (if there was one?). This is not an easy topic. These thoughts become interesting when you think about what we're all made of. Everything is made up of tiny particles like the atom, which are constantly moving. If one only knew at a certain time how the location and the speed of these particles is, what the according to quantum mechanics not so easily possible is, then one could theoretically calculate all further states.

This would also apply to thoughts and decisions, if even these were also physical events. Our thoughts and decisions are based on material experiences and are just as important regardless of the physical world. One could call this a spiritual world and is not really subject to the laws of nature. Where is this spiritual world created? Where is it happening? Only in our heads? If yes, then why do spiritual decisions have an effect in the material physical world?

These are extremely exciting questions!

The mathematician Pierre-Simon (Marquis de) Laplace put forward the idea of the omniscient demon. According to Laplace, the future is namely clearly determined by the initial conditions chosen once. So every future condition depends on the previous one, and it all builds up on the first correctly chosen beginning. This means: If you would freeze and copy the whole world with all the atoms and so on, then in both worlds, it wouldn't matter after how many years, you would observe exactly the same processes and happenings.

How incredible is it that the initial conditions were such that atoms and elements could create complex beings like us? And that's not all, we begin starting to question everything.


In the theory of Pierre-Simon Laplace, his demon is a highly intelligent being who lives outside our universe, who knows exactly the laws and physical state of everything in this universe at a certain point in time and can therefore calculate the state of things at a later point in time. So he already knows the whole future. In my opinion, this being should also be outside of our universe, because one should think about the problems that would arise as a result if he would living in ours


For example:
What if he would live in our universe and if he would calculate his own state and then do something that speaks against the predicting?

Provided our thoughts and decisions are physical phenomena, does that really mean that we have no free will? If everything is predetermined and predictable, do we still have another freedom of choice? Are all decisions really real experiences? Or is it only an illusion?

Everybody can do what he wants, even if it is somehow been definite. Why the future doesnt have to be predetermined so that we can speak of a free will? As long as we don't know our oven futures, that we know this thoughts, we wouldnt know that there isnt a free will and we would belive in us. At the moment when we would know it, this action, that we hear about it and know it, would have to be determined beforehand and then one gets into an endless system or into a loop. Is that not paradox?

One thing is sure and that is that each one of us is going to die. Everything else is for us humans only suppositions and speculations. If we had more knowledge and intelligence, then perhaps more predicts would be possible. Maybe with the help of supercomputers? But since they would then be built by human hands, they would not be perfect, because man is not faultless. Would the predictions then still be correct? Would that then redirect the prediction? Or would that then also be predestined again?

The laplacian demon from the example above can, according to the theory, predict everything. One can say that he is an omniscient being or a kind of supercomputer, which can calculate everything and every state and already knows everything that happens in our universe.

Isn't that about the same as when we observe animals and can predict their behavior based on our knowledge of them? Because we are intelligent beings and know about these things? Then you could say that animals have no consciousness and that this is something else, right? But even among humans it is possible to predict their future decision by knowing enough about a human being. But that doesn't mean that this person couldn't decide freely just because you already knew how he will decide.
Or does it?

So perhaps there could also be higher beings than us who pay attention to us.
Those who could explore or even know our behaviours, but which we may not be able to perceive. Just like when we look at tiny animals without being caught by them.

The whole thing would mean that there really are no coincidences and that every movement of every leaf on a branch is predetermined. We humans have limited imagination and are perhaps even arrogant because in the world we know we see ourselves as the most intelligent beings. We just haven't seen a higher existence yet. we are finding out more and more things and are amazed at their existence. How far will this voyage of discovery go? What do we actually want to discover? Our fate? That we are free? That we are something special? Do find a God? The meaning in of all?

If everything is already determined, then we will experience everything sometime in the future anyway, won't we? Do we want that at all? Or is a goal programmed for us?


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Even if in reality we don't have Free Will, nonetheless I like and prefer to live under the illusion that I have genuine Free Will.

Life is nothing but a mixture of bad and good thoughts. if you have positive thoughts then your life will move towards the positive direction and vice versa.
According to me you should always look eagle in the sky but not crow because if you want to be successful then you have to go as high as eagle flies.

Physical world has its own limitation compared to a spiritual world which is eternal.
Could the two (physical and spiritual) meet and fuse?
I would say yes based on my faith , knowledge and experience.
A human being for example has a physical and spiritual being, a body and a spirit (soul).

Based on my faith, knowledge and experience, God created man from the dust then breathed the man for existence.
So the man is composed of physical (dust) and spiritual (breath).

Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person.
Genesis 2:7

To be continued...

I am inclined towards a system of divine determinism and that man lacks the power of contrary choice. We will always choose that which we desire based on a combination of materialistic factors such as the configuration of information in our minds, physiological state and numerous other factors.

However, I do not preclude a supernatural component. Particularly, the God of Scriptures. It says specifically that He declares the end from the beginning. This and many other verses suggests a predetermination of events which rules out the free-will notion of many evangelicals.

The God of the Bible is not irrational but rather logical. In Roman's, there is described a chain of events regarding salvation.

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be
the firstborn among many brethren;30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

Romans 8:29-30 NASB

It flushes perfectly how we thing in terms of cause and effect. There is a process in God redeeming a person He has chosen before the foundation of time.

There may be a little theological debate about the precise order of operations but the important thing is free-will doesn't fit anywhere in the puzzle.

If I am predestined, I will make the choice necessarily because the events in the universe, things seen and unseen, would be arranged and ordered that such a choice would inevitably be made. I could not have done otherwise.

I would not call myself a Calvinists but there is a component of their acrostic TULIP that explains this. It's the 'I' and stands for "Irresistable Grace". I chose Him because He first chose me. I could not resist.

That's a sovereign God. Not wimpy Jesus sitting around just hoping you will accept his invitation. Anyways, kind of went on a tangent but I blame you. 😛

I am guilty in the sense of the impeachment 🙃

Hi @oendertuerk ........U write such a amazing real post based on mind power ...base on past , future ... At the time when I am reading this post ..I fully involved with your word.... Your lines are really powerfull.

not to delve into topics that are more "tracendental", such as those that concern the soul or the spirituality of "being", putting this aside and remaining alone with the so-called "sensible plane" could still reach a conclusion about "free will" (as far as freedom is concerned). The man who calls himself "free" can be so long as he knows his limits; in other words, man will always be limited by factors, whether behavioral or material, that would incline him more to certain behaviors, just as social agreements such as laws balance the freedom of a population by means of "individual freedom"; hence we could call a free man as long as he knows that he does not possess such freedom and this knowledge does it somehow free.

@oendertuerk if all has been programmed to happen, then we are miserably helpless. If helpless, then slaves without freewill to determine our lot and course.

We are therefore , another piece of rag to be tossed to and fro to no destination of our own!!

Are We Robbots??

As plausible as this theory; it can't be perfect!!

Yes! There is Predestination, which is always Glorious; but walking into IT has a lot to do with OUR actions based on Volition , not compulsion!!
Otherwise, we are Zombies, which You are not!!

How does Hume’s rejection of a proposition of causation fit with your ideas of determinism?

@mandibil
With my post i was not against Hume and actually i give him right in his compatibilism. There are external influences and there is the inner urge. It is an intermezzo from the inner and outer world - if you like you can say to this a war between materialism (outer world = chains = causal conditions) and spiritualism (inner world = urge = soul = free will). The question is, what has the upper hand? do causal events of the outer world influence the inner urge or does the inner urge influence the material and thus direct the outer world with his free will?

LaPlace Demon, who influences the outer world, can be seen as the devil who directs people and the divine directs the free will.

Here we come again to the fight good against evil, free against enslavement, yingyang etc.... = yes against no

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