Friday 10 April 2009

Free Will - Does it Really Exist?

 "To Newton and Einstein, the notion of free will, the notion that we are masters of our own destiny was an illusion. The commonsense notion of reality, that concrete objects that we touch are real and exist in definite states, Einstein called "objective reality." He most clearly presented his position as follows:

I am a determinist, compelled to act as though free will existed, because if I wish to live in a civilized society, I must act responsibly. I know philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crimes, but I prefer not to take tea with him. My career has been determined by various forces over which I have no control, primarily those mysterious glands in which nature prepares the very essence of life. Henry Ford may call it his Inner Voice, Socrates referred to it as his daemon: each man explains in his own way the fact that the human will is not free . . . Everything is determined . . . by forces over which we have no control . . . for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious time, intoned in the distance by an invisible player." - From: "Parallel Worlds", by Michio Kaku

The above statement may seem more related to the concept of God than Science, but scientifically speaking, this statement holds good. Because, theoretically, if we calculate the fate of every particle in a human body taking into account all the forces acting on it we are effectively predicting the fate of that person! The problem is, that the number of forces acting on one particle alone are so numerous that we would need a computer with computing ability millennium ahead of the current level to calculate the fate of a system as large as a human body.

This theory however leads to a most startling conclusion. It implies that the fate of every single particle in the world is predetermined and can be predicted right up to it's destruction. Effectively this means that all events that happen in this world, from the motion of stars and galaxies right down to the beat of a butterfly's wing and your neighbour picking his nose was predetermined by the Laws of Physics at the time of the Big Bang! 

     

2 comments:

rgdinmalaysia said...

I would argue there are different levels of pre-determinism.

For example, I think what you raise in regards to particles etc. relate to human mortality and family health history rather than the choice we make on how to live our life....Yes, if one has a history of Cancer and alcoholism in their family and then of course children in that family will have a certain pre-disposition.

While environmental factors may influnce our judgement, we are still free to choose a career, marry who you want or live where we want....Life is filled with patterns often negative and the truly strong person can break them and really exhbit free will in his decision making process.

Ashwin Narayan said...

Reply in next blogpost.