(October 5, 2010 at 6:52 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:(October 4, 2010 at 12:11 pm)Watson Wrote: If there is no such thing as free will, then all action and reaction can be, to soem extent, predicted. Wouldn't this suggest that if we have suitable means of predicting a person's actions before they happen, we are obligated to prevent those actions, if they are a crime in the eyes of the law?
Things can already be predicted, it is already known, in this world even if this is an indeterministic one. But not 100% otherwise how would it be indeterministic? For things to be 100% predictable it would require a determinsitic world. And I am a hard incompatiblist not a hard determinist.
I don't deny determinism though. I don't know if ultimately, when it comes down to it, the quantum world is really deterministic. I don't know either way.... I don't commit belief to determinism or indeterminism I just see 'free will' as impossible either way.
And furthermore, what if the Police are determined to fail at preventing the criminal from committing his crime?
There is a chance that both Determinism and Indeterminism exist simultaneously on different scales, that is the general accepted reality these days in physics.
Victor Stenger has an equation for working out the systems that conform to either.
Essentially, if m(Mass)v(Velocity)d(Distance) > h(Plank length) then the system is probably too large to be affected by quantum indeterminacy.
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