ordered_universe_or_free_will andru235 if the 'universe' is ultimately ordered, if all matter/particles/energy must obey fundamental 'laws' (i.e. physics), and if the corporeal life-form can only be accounted for via such matter/particles/energy; then free will cannot be so. any deviation from these basic physical laws would require extraordinary forces. the sense of free will could only be a product of sensation and not, in fact, a reality. given, however, that the experience of most persons is one of possessing such 'free will', the ramifications of such a 'truth' would be almost entirely moot, other than as a curiosity. knowing that one really hasn't free will shant change the sensation that one does. what is really gained from this knowledge? everyone's behaviour was thus destined from the opening move of the universal chess board; those who persist in the 'delusion' of possessing 'free will' are powerless to change such a delusion until the mathematical (if one may call it that) processes of physics incidentally leads them elsewhere, mentally. the reality that one hasn't free will is directly opposite the actual reality experienced. therefore the 'one true reality' specifically has created 'multiple "true" realities'. on the other hand, if 'free will' is real, even in the slightest bit, then it must follow that there are 'places' or 'phases' in the microcosmos not subject solely to physical laws. for physical laws can allow for only one outcome; a strange quark cannot become charmed simply because it is in the mood to do so, and a light particle trapped between falling into the black hole and escaping the holes orbit cannot surrender to the black whole on a whim. the possibility of multiple outcomes based upon the will of a life-form necessarily means that at some microlocale, the life-form's perhaps ethereal will can in some way influence the physical procession across various levels of strata. if every part of my physical being is governed by physical laws, then any 'decision' to go left or right has already been determined for me. i was powerless to not type this. if such decisions are truly mine to make, then either our ethereal mind can 'bend' physical laws, or there are physical laws which have 'malleable' properties. what is the nature of the shaping force, then, if it isn't dependend upon pre-existing physical laws? the possibility that i have free will *and* that the universe is ultimately ordered would hinge on the possibility that somewhere there is a neutral micro force that awaits directing from a macro source, and that the macro source is not ultimately governed by the intermediate materials, which would necessitate more neutral or 'malleable' forces, periodically spaced about the micro-macrocosmos. how ordered, then, could everything actually be? such a duality would seem paradoxic. i simply cannot fathom how an ordered universe and free will are not mutually exclusive. either physics rules, and our choices only seem to be freely made; or our choices are genuinely ours, and some physical status awaits our offerance of definition. there is currently no way to test if our will is free or faux. possibly, there won't ever be a way to test such a thing... 051016 ... zeke the way i read the above is that determinism and an over dependance on absolute tropes are the unstated pinions to witch the above depends. the possibility that there is true randomness (read as chaotic behavior at the particle level) operant in the universe. i am referring rhetorically to actual unpredictable behavior, not just to complex or too resolved for us to detect. positing this removes (logically) the mechanistic problems of your excellent description. old school determinism models a finite universe with finite characteristics which is running a giant mechanical program (like an immense clockwork devise of inexpressible but finite complexity) until it runs out of energy or breaks. absolutism reduces the world to describable logical extremes, and infers the "final" threshold tolerable within it's initial parameters (forgetting that different thinkers will apply different boundaries to what they are willing to accept). both systems rely (as ultimately all forms of philosophy do) on first principles, the accepted underlying facts accepted at the start of the thought experiment. i infer from your conundrum that the idea of undetectable events or unpredictable behavior in nature are the crux. you seem to be saying that because there seems to be an ostensibly endless supply of what we cannot measure, that we must conclude that we can never know the truth about this point. i agree, if we measure the nature of reality by absolute standards. i will go out on a limb by saying that we all have "faith" in the set of underlying "laws" which seem "natural" or apparent to us. If we did not believe in some basic "truths" we would not be able to function. in effect we would be insane. enter descartes with his "evil genius" gambit. he posits that we are being fed false stimulus by this entity and that we can not trust our own senses. to avoid this he began his famously flawed proof from the one truth he was willing to posit as ostensibly true: cogito ergo sum. good old rene never found the exit to the maze he designed for himself. in the end i can only accept that all belief involves faith at one level or another. but then that is half the fun: knowing (as i believe that we all do) that ones own accepted "truths" are the real ones and that everybody else's are wrong to varying degrees. see: consensual_reality solipsism 051017 ... () (please forgive the broken syntsx in the above. i am very tired.) 051017 ... (duh) (syntax) 051017 ... daf Though it would seem (without dipping into the realm of claptrap) ridiculous to deny the role decisions have upon consequences, still, the presence of freewill alone does not make fate an impossibility. Surely neither the decisions nor the related consequences are set in stone until they're made or come to pass. Once made...once come about...are these not as fate ordains? 051018 ... z claptrap is in the eye of the beholder, ostensibly. 051018 ... z claptrap is in the eye of the beholder, ostensibly. 051018 what's it to you? who go blather from