Is There Free Will Or Is Everything Really Predestined?
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New Mexico by Wolfgang Staudt, Flickr.com
It was 5 am in the morning when I came across a request to write about free will or predestination. I thought that it's an interesting topic to mull about and accepted the request without even thinking.
I sat down in my easy chair, gazed out into the night and pondered about the different approaches I could take.
I thought about identical twins. There have been documented cases of such twins separated at birth and reunited decades later. When their lives were compared, there were uncanny similarities, down to even the names of their wives.
I can argue that this is predestination at work, with the whole course of their lives already charted out at the time of their birth. But I can also argue that identical twins seem to have a psychic connection, and that it is through this connection that they can lead near identical lives, although they might be physically apart and might not even know of the existence of the other twin.
I can be scientific about it and start off with Newton's classical universe. Every particle in Newton's universe is 100% predictable, and since we are made up of those exact same particles, it follows that everything single thing we do have been predestined from the very moment of creation.
But I will continue with the discovery of the quantum properties of microscopic particles, which effectively gives "free will" to those particles - and we are in control once again.
I thought about God. If he created this world such that every single thing is predestined, then won't it be a fruitless exercise, since the outcome is already known right at the beginning?
And I fell asleep.
I dreamt of wild billy goats roaming the streets. There are people on the streets who risk being attacked and go about their business as usual. There are others who stay behind their fences. And there was even one guy who has a special metal casket-like container that he can hide inside.
Not sure how this dream relates to free will or destiny, but it certainly is about the difference between living your life and merely existing, and is definitely worth a mention in a hub about free will. I mean, even with all the free will in the world, if you choose to merely exist, then it would really be such a supreme waste of free will. :)
Anyway, back to free will and predestination.
Nobody can prove free will or predestination conclusively. It is a great mental exercise to consider the possibilities, but at the end of the day, all such inquiry will end with a question mark.
If everything is predestined, then nothing matters. Every single thought in your head, every one of your actions, is not you but predestination. You have absolutely no control.
If you have free will, then you and only you are responsible for the mess or distinction you make out of your life. And at the end of it, there might be somebody holding you accountable.
Kinda makes you want to get up and get going, doesn't it?
Maybe the request should be renamed, "If there is free will, what should you be doing with your life?"
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Comments
Did a bit a reading - and there is A LOT of material out there - and it seems that predestination can be defined in 2 ways.
The first way is more religious, in which an individual is predestined to do a certain thing. But that individual has a choice, he can decide to do what he is predestined to do, or follow another path. I think that is the predestination that you were talking about.
There is a second way, more commonly referred to as determinism, in which everything that happens can be predicted with 100% accuracy. That would be true of Newton's classical universe, in which free will is but an illusion.
I was referring to the second way when I mentioned that nothing matters if everything is predestined.
Personally, I believe in a combination of free will and predestination. We are born into our circumstances, that is predestination. We can go with the flow, or choose to rise above our circumstances, that is free will.
Anyway, nobody really knows. So your opinion is as valid as anybody else's.
I think what wandererh is saying is that if your life was predestined, then it would not matter what you did, or didn't, do, your life would turn in a particular direction reguardless. So nothing matters in that reguard. If you made what would be considered the "wrong" choice, or just sat and did nothing, you would still end up where you were predestined to be. Perhaps you are thinking a bit in terms of Homer's the Odyssey as far as the journey goes. Even so, Odysseus was placed at the right place at the right time for what was suppose to happen, reguardless of his own wants and desires. No free will, despite his trying. No true choices, just hypnotics and trances, and predestined choices (which would not really be ones own in the first place, just seemingly so.) The how is irrelevant, except to possibly make a good story. Well, that's my take on it anyway.
Nice hub. Interesting thoughts. We all go around and around in our minds about this topic, just as you did. Nice job of portraying that. I liked the dream tye in too.
Oh, great comments from both of you, Wander and Frieda, helped me a lot. Yeah -- in a Newtonian universe, predetermination could exist, no matter what. I guess though that the spontaneity of chaos theory has finally put the Newtonian model to rest, though, and so I particularly like your conclusion, Wanderh, when you say that we can go with the flow or choose to rise above our circumstances. Neat connection to Homer, Frieda, as I was starting to think about Greek tragedy, where the protagonist such as Oedipus tries to avoid his fate (of his own free will) but by doing so walks right into the pre-determined situation he wanted to avoid.
Frieda - the billy goats really stood out. They had these crazy eyes, like they were on drugs or something. And there were these brave souls walking on the streets, keeping a wary eye out for the goats. I just had to find a way to work that dream into this hub. :)
Teresa - If I may, I think in a Newtonion universe, even with the discovery of chaotic phenomenon, would still be 100% predetermined.
Chaos theory states that extremely small differences in the input conditions could result is a large variation in the output.
It is, in fact, our inability to replicate exactly the input conditions, or measure accurately those input conditions, that result in some phenomenon being relatively unpredictable.
If the input conditions were exactly the same each time, the output would also be exactly the same.
What do you think?
Great Hub! I like the analogy of your dream with the wild billy goats and the difference between living your life and merely existing.
Thanks, Darlene! I think the billy goats were the best part of this hub. :)
good hubs
Thanks! :)
Hi Wandereth,
Thank you for the hub. I agree at the end of the day I will never know. The question should really have been did we choose to exist. If the answer is yes then we have free will, if no then we do not have free will and nothing at all matters.
I run into people and they tell me that we came from the "spritual world" and we were embodied to have a material experience because that was our desire. That would mean that ultimately we "the spirit/soul" do have some kind of free will to make that choice. Then when we get here to earth and we have to negotiate with everyone else.
Thank you for sharing you dream. It was interesting.
Best wishes.
Darrell
Science is nowhere close to finding out whether we have free will or not. And maybe that is something we will never know.
I guess we just have to choose to walk the streets (billygoats and all), or stay safe in our own homes.
Since, ultimately, the destination is the same, I choose to brave the streets with the billygoats. :)
Free will suggests that decision making involving thinking is autonomous. Yes many things have autonomy, but what we define as autonomous is only systemic of what existed before it to give a thing that has autonomy its abilities. To be free is a matter of experience, and it is an experience that is "in the eye of the beholder." What this means that the question of free will is an "eye of the beholder" - speculation. The reason being, that as you exist in an entire matrix of all that is known to be "real"; your reality can never-ever be "freely autonomous" - that my friend is a different reality altogether and one of fancy and of gods. Oh, predestination is a hypothesis that is as gigantic and as miniscule as the "universe" is unfathomable. In other words, predestination is real only in the sense that all probabilities can be known - by you. And that my friend, is impossible to know, because then, you would "gnosis" existence itself. Now alas we arrive at what is missed by everyone who contemplates this; there is a peculiar psychology behind this question that is really too deep for this topic, but, I will say this: the extra-natural is superfluid with the energies of your unique existence, what you do ultimately relies on the foundation of what made you to be - no matter your "choices." This is the ancient understanding of fate and of destiny and why certain "things" no matter how hard you try (at least you think you try) cannot be avoided. Your difficulty is deliberately trying to know what is in fact an integral part of your being. The probability of you making deliberate choices to alter it, is as likely as you altering the universe with a thought. Read me soon.
Hi Tien Kai, I can't say I understand what you are trying to put across. But I will keep an eye out for your hubs and maybe I will understand more.
Hey wandereth! how about this. Free will is like saying "I have the ability to do what evr I want - in reality." This means that doing whatever you want "freely" creates your own destiny. What are you Wandereth? What are you that you should have the ability to defy the very nature of your existence? That is that you do not exist "in" reality Wendereth as a being that has its own reality. You are an integral part of reality. reality is so monumentally "everything" and integrated that all manner of whatever things you feel you are doing "freely" will never amount to anything that has not been already factored into the very nature of your existence. What I am trying to "put across," is that "free will" is a question involving an illusion of "personal reality" that seems to "you" distinct and seprate from "everything else" and it is not. There is a psychological reason why human beings can "think" that they are seprate from nature, and, it is one of the major reasons why the world suffers from so much synthetic manufacturing and fabrication of artificial "things." In other words, when one thinks that they are seperate from nature, they will produce things that are nature's antithesis because of this thought process. This is somewhat Buddhist, a little Taoist, and some Native American, but it is mostly my orientation to get people to see that they spend too much time thinking and not enough time feeling. Predestination is simply a rationalization of what is natural to happen. For example, all things die Wandereth; would you consider that a predetermined path? You will do a million things and make a million choices in you life. Should that allow you to live forever if you so choose? The gift of choice, is no more than whatever that you can do as an integral part of the way that you exist. Choice as an absolute characterization of a "reality" is a delusion of the choice rationalization as a concept in your head. What that means is that, concepts seems to defy reality don't they? Take the word "infinity;" can you or any human being for that matter, actually literally experience some "thing" that is infinite? Wandereth; the answer is a very "de-finite" NO - you can't! "infinity" "exist" as a concept now - doesn't it? But where does it exist if it can be said to have an existence at all? You ask the question you do about "choice" and "free-will" because you don't understand that these "things" are concepts. For just like infinity you cannot experience either the reality-choice or the reality-free-will. You see you are missing the point of being able to live as a human being. Feel the reason for being - simply you.
Free Will and Predestination are IDENTICAL. I know that seems at first to be illogical but you'll notice that if you every try to argue either one you get NOWHERE. It's because one cannot exist without the other. In his autobiography, Winston Churchill likened it to the wings of a butterfly, at one moment they were a deep russet brown, and at the next moment they were a brilliant vivid blue. The color you see depends entirely on the angle at which you happen to have caught a glimpse of the creature!
Hi Ryan, would love it if you can explain further. I know that it's really difficult to argue free will or predestination, but I don't see how that can make them the same thing.
Teresa McGurk says:
10 months ago
Neat hub, Billy goats and all!
If everything is predestined, then nothing matters? I'm not sure I can agree with that, as it is "how" we would achieve a predestined end that would then be of importance, not "whether" we achieve it or not. I don't think that it's incompatible with free will, either: I mean, you can have the free will do decide whether or not to perform a certain action. That does not negate the possibility that the action was predestined -- that this is what you were destined to choose of your own free will. But what do I know?