[Avodah] Free Will vs. Physics

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 12:07:56AM -0400, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
: First off, believing in free will doesn't mean believing that physics
: has no effect on a person's choices, just that there are also choices
: that a person makes independent of physics...

As a mashal, the proverbial psychology experiment watches how mice learn
to navigate a maze. The maze limits the paths the mice can take, and
only give them a certain set of decisions they can make. But they do
freely make them.

Physics limits free will -- I can't choose to fly just by flapping my
bare arms. But within the domain of options physics allows, my choices
are free.

...
: Third, seems to me that if everything ran according to physics,
: much of it would be totally random...

This depends on physics.

In Aristo's conception, everything chain of events starts with an
intellect, and follows deterministically from that by the laws of nature.
Since intellect is built into the system as initiating the sequence
that must obey physics, there is plenty of "room" explicitly given for
free will.

In Newton's universe, everything was deterministic. If you had complete
knowledge of the location and momentum of every particle, if was believed
that you could use the formulae to know the state of the universe at
any other point in time.

Nowadays, we have quanum effects and consequential non-deterministic
elements to physics. All we can compute with certainty is the probability
of various future states.

: me that randomness leads to destruction and disorder. The world is a
: very ordered place, with many things in it operating along specific
: mathematic formulae like fractals and the Golden Ratio. It works very
: dependably and predictably. It doesn't seem random at all. So if I assume
: that everything is physics, then I would have to assume it was random,
: and if it was random, it should be totally unstable and destructive. And,
: in the main, it isn't.

This would argue for hashgachah -- hashgachah kelalis, if not HP. Not
for bechirah.

But it's untrue, because even just having laws that are statistical in
nature will yeild beautiful orderful things like crystals.

: I don't know how much proof this is, but if you look at people who
: clearly are not in control - schizophrenic, bipolar, depressed - you see
: that a lot of their behavior is destructive (that's in my experience with
: such people - I haven't studied the literature)...

It might be circular reasoning. We define the concept of mental illness
in terms of impaired function, and productive abnormalities aren't tagged
and studied. And some of it may be a problem of square pegs and round
holes; some people are simply less able to function in society because
our societies are built for more mainstream psyches.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where
micha at aishdas.org        you are,  or what you are doing,  that makes you
http://www.aishdas.org   happy or unhappy. It's what you think about.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Dale Carnegie