(January 26, 2015 at 2:48 pm)IanHulett Wrote: Hey guys. I know I've chosen to post this question, but how do I know if whether or not I have been preprogrammed to post this? It's not like I can go back in time to rethink my decision and choose another option. Does free will actually exist? Are all our actions just a product of time? Is there a way to actually test if whether or not we have free will? Thanks a bunch.Depending on how you think about it, it's impossible to tell. As you note, you cannot reverse time and face a particular choice multiple times, and if you could you wouldn't be able to tally the results (or if you could, you now introduce a bias that can skew the results).
This is probably a stereotypical question (maybe even viewed as dumb by some), however I want to know what your thoughts are on the subject anyway.
To me, it's a moot question. If it's impossible to tell if your actions are pre-programmed, then there's no reason to worry about it. Since there is no clear indicator that my decisions are predestined, a life with free will plays out no differently than one without, from my perspective. Hence, not something to get worked up about.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
