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From: victorf@houca.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Free Will. Free Lunch. Free Software.
Message-ID: <443@houca.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Jul-84 10:25:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: houca.443
Posted: Thu Jul 12 10:25:35 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Jul-84 04:21:43 EDT
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You learn something new every day. I thought I was the only one who had
come up with the idea that there is no such thing as free will and here
I learn that it is an ongoing debate in net.philosophy. Some friends and
I talked about this for many hours one night and here are some of the 
points we brought up.

First of all if you believe in God you probably think all your actions are
predetermined anyway by Him. Case closed if you're religious. If you don't
believe in a creator the subject becomes much more difficult.
According to Maxwell ( I think), if you know the location and motion of
every particle in a system at one moment then you know the entire history
and future of that system, if you're sophisticated enough. Now, if you're
a believer in the big bang theory you believe that all the particles in the
universe where in one place at one time. After the explosion, then, if you
knew *everything* about those particles you could certainly predict where
the galaxys would form, how long it would take, and what the galaxy would
look like (ie. where the stars are). Taking it one step further you would
be able to predict where the planets would form and their size, etc.

This is where the problem occurs. Agreeing that you could figure all that
out, why wouldn't you assume that you could also predict the possibility
and form of the *life* that might arise on that planet? You must remember
all through this that you knew *everything* about the particles at one
moment and you know everything about physics, chemistry, biology, etc.
If the universe follows the laws of physics, which we assume it does,
we should know what is going to happen given this information.

Taking it a step further, we will know everything about every organism, most
importantly, the *exact* function of its brain. We would know more about
that creature than it would know about itself. Continuing with the logic,
we would know what it would do in any situation, where it would go, even
when it would meet its mate and have children.

The best argument against this theory is that there exists 'free will' in
life forms. WHERE DID IT COME FROM? Did the physics of the universe form
free will? I don't think so.

	Ya know, we never did come up with any answers...
	Scott Thompson (my *real* path is ...houca!hoqax!rst)