Sunday 24 March 2013

Fate vs Free Will

Do we have free will? Would we know if we didn't? What is it to begin with?

The concept of free will is a difficult one to comprehend. Basically it means that one has the ability to his or her own decisions and be able see them through to the end. In a free society like our one would think that every person does in fact have free will, but what really goes in this decision making?

The human brain is essentially a computer. I accepts input, calculates and stores data, and provides output. This means that any decision one makes is really just the product of calculations put through a machine that was programmed by an experience  that was affected by other people making the same type of calculations, making the whole thing one large loop that predetermines what every future decision will be. In this sense we really don't have free will do we?

However there is a way to break this loop. Fate. You make decisions not based on past experience  you leave it up to fate to sort it out. This is done through the flip of a coin or the roll of a die. Since your experiences has no control over what the out come may be this is the only way to ensure that a non preordained decision can be made.

Basically the more you leave if up to Fate, the more Free Will you have.

2 comments:

  1. I find your comparison of the human brain to be interesting. I have often heard people make this claim, but without elaboration. I agree that people usually make decisions based on "calculations", but I don't know if this necessarily equates to a lack of freewill. Our response to a situation is our choice, but we don't always have control over the situations that are presented to us. At the risk of being "wishy-washy", I think life is a mixture of fate and freewill.

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  2. Dude, my mind is blown. Seriously though, i agree that the human brain is like a computer and that we are molded by our experiences, but if fate determined that you do a certain thing, would that coin flip be rigged by fate? therfore, if you do leave things up to chance would you not have less free will ,a s you are giving up your choice? Taking things by chance, and random things happening is usually how a pre-determined fate is brought about.

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