Fate exists?

[TheLivingShadow]

kanageddaamen said:

TheLivingShadow said:

kanageddaamen said:
given the same placement and velocities of particles, whether 10 of them or a googleplex of them, the exact same thing will happen every time.

This statement is perfect as an example of how common sense is invalid for science. In this case, scientific knowledge also provides insight into philosophical arguments.

You can never know the exact position and velocity of a very small object at the same time. This is called Heisenberg's Principle, and it's one of the fundamental principles of quantum theory. Thus, there is no way that you can have the same placement and velocity of the particles, that is fundamentally impossible. You can come up with good approximations, sure, and the bigger a particle is, the much more likely that the approximation is correct.

Another thing is that a chaotic system is deterministic by definition, but it's almost impossible to predict what will happen because of the nature of the system. Therefore, in the theoretical rewinding of time, a chaotic system (note this is not necessarily the real world) will give the same result every single time. However, chaos doesn't explain very small objects accurately.

 

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I've finished the small science sermon. Now I'd like to put it into application. The cells that make decisions in our body (brain, spine, etc.) do so by sending information to other cells. This information is carried by electrons. Electrons behave probabilistically. Therefore, free will is not an illusion in the sense of which you speak of it, however it doesn't exactly mean one can do as one pleases, as one will probably do as the neurons tell one to do. If a human can't overcome the immediate desires of the body (being happy, eating, cheating to get ahead, etc. all for their own well-being), then a human isn't really free in my opinion; though I think I'm deviating too much now.

I am aware of  Heisenberg's , but its irrelevant to the topic.  I am speaking abstractly.  

1.) Suspend laws of physics
2.) poof in 1000 particles with known positions and velocities
3.) start laws of physics
4.) Observe behavior
5.) Repeat

Step 4 will be the same if you use the same values in step 2 every time.  It doesn't matter if it is impossible for humans to measure or know those values acurately, all that matters is that the values are set even if they are not measured.

 

And only PARTS of electron's actions behave probabilistically, their motion along a conductor does not.  If it did, electronics would not work, and the entire electrical engineering science would collapse. 

That is the thing though! That's what I'm trying to argue! It's not that it's impossible for us to know, it is that it's impossible for your proposition to happen under the laws of physics. If you suspend the laws of physics, it is impossible to talk about anything in my opinion, because we're all in the universe. If the universe were such that there may be somehow observers outside the universe (e.g. God or something like that), then these observers are not bound by the laws of physics (since they only apply to the universe) and then I guess determinism could make sense. Note that your argument is true only if there can be observers outside the universe. Since we can never know this, determinism can't be proven.