• Chickenstalker@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Biology is complexity built upon simplicity. By asking this question, you are actually asking the same question philosophers and religions have asked for millennia: do we have a soul/free will?

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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      1 year ago

      No. If we are governed by the same forces as the rest of the universe, then even free will is an illusion caused by the myriad of interactions between the particles making up our bodies and the particles that make up the rest of the universe. If we could know the current state of every particle in the universe, we could accurately predict the future. Your destiny was set into motion the moment the universe exploded into existence trillions of years ago at the advent of the big bang. Knowing this not only doesn’t change the outcome, it was part of the design for you to know in the first place.

      Or maybe I’m just high. 🤷🏻‍♂️

      • Korne127@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That’s determinism, a very popular and nice logical philosophical thought. Sadly, it’s completely disproved by quantum physics.

        • AccountMaker@slrpnk.net
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          1 year ago

          Is it, though? Every organ has its inputs, things happen and they produce an output (a reaction). Like the eyes receive light, physics happens and signals get sent to the brain. The brain also gets inputs from the senses and the states (memories), then physics happens and it produces a reaction, I don’t see where can we place free will here. Free will has to invoke physical signals in the brain, but where can it possibly come from? Even if the universe isn’t determenistic (and it’s not just our lack of understanding that makes it seem so), free will implies that there is another force (for a lack of a better word) that does complex social things.

          Whereas I don’t see a need for free will, machines are capable of gathering outside information, processing it and making decisions without any free will involved, why would megamachines like human brains need it then?

        • MyFairJulia@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          If everything is so predetermined, why did Netflix allow me to pick who jumps out of the window in Bandersnatch? They could’ve saved a lot of production costs by just having Stefan jump.

          • Korne127@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I think you can actually still access most of the content if that option didn’t exist since you can chose not to go to the apartment in the first place.

      • skulblaka@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I disagree. I see it that Will is the ability of a particle or system of particles to affect change in the universe around it and alter the course of destiny. If we could know the current state of every particle in the universe, we could accurately predict the future, if nothing was then ever acted upon again. But particles possessing Will can alter their environment and effect a ripple of change that could then mean the entire prediction falls apart.