From: utzoo!watmath!watarts!felix Newsgroups: net.misc Title: Re: Re: determinism vs free will Article-I.D.: watarts.1421 Posted: Sat Jul 31 17:27:42 1982 Received: Sat Jul 31 23:46:51 1982 sed on physical laws, but what rules the way your brain acts (i.e. thinking) ? I tend to disagree that you can gain the knowledge of what you will going to do tomorrow by just looking 3 seconds after Big Bang. We don't actually know if there was a Big Bang, even if we assume it did happen, can Mr. Gardner tell that there would be an insignificant planet (named Earth by its dimwitted occupants) formed in an insignificant corner of the Universe so many seconds after Big Bang based on a model of Cosmology? If such a model *actually* works than we should be able to tell precisely how the Universe looks right at this moment, how many planets have inteelegent beings, what will they do, etc. Even I can tell this is totally rediculous, let alone that we all know extrapolation is risky and generally unreliable. So after we have that out of the way, determinism can only be acheived by a supreme being, or what we called God. In that case, free will will be nil, since what we have which is totally useless is as good as nothing. To Mr. Gardner, why would you think free will does not exist? Does it has anything to do with your bodily functions? Do you think what are you thinking right now is not controlled by yourself (i.e. free will) ? Does your everyday life not controlled by your very own will? Free will and determinism may coexist, but they contradict each other. Say, if God correctlly predicts your will and shape your furture according to it, than it *is* free will, not determinism, since if what you do affects the furture, it is not determinism at all. On the other hand, if your choice is predetermined, than it is not free will, even you think it is. Regards, Felix Luk