This has been something I've thought about for many many years, and to me has massive implications to my life view...

Question: If you could rewind time, would it all happen the same way again (and every time)?

I came to the conclusion it would because everything that is happening is the culmination and result of the physical properties of the matter/particles in question. If the physical properties were different then the result would be something else, but they are not. Taking it deeper then, is there randomness at the lowest levels of matter/particles? And if there is would that change the result in a meaningful way (ie: maybe electrons move randomly but would that change anything?)

I think this is similar to evolution (it is the way it is because that's the only way it could have happened under the circumstances). People sometimes have a hard time accepting evolution when they see ultra-specialized life forms that can't seem to have evolved to their current state naturally. The truth is, the ecosystem could only allow for that specific creature with those specific attributes so it is here. Otherwise, it wouldn't be or it would have taken some other form/attributes.

So whether you rewound time a millionth of a second or half a second, and played it forward again - Or 5 or 5,000 years and reset every particle of matter to the exact same place, time, and state, (I look at it as a two dimensionally like a sliver of film from a film reel) wouldn't it all roll forward the same way?

If there is any research or common debates on the subject would be happy to read.

I think quantum randomness would effect the macro world. For example, maybe a few different lightening strikes here or there would change everything butterfly effect like. Masque might debunk that idea.

Don't worry. Just turn on the time machine and see what happens.

Lightening strikes are governed by the same laws and strike precisely where they do because that's the only place they can strike under the circumstances correct? Otherwise wouldn't they strike somewhere else?




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I'm assuming there's some quantum randomness there, but maybe not. Somebody who knows will be by soon to answer your question. Would you like some coffee?

Ya I love coffee in every dimension ever had it yo


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Only if there is strict determinism in place that is so intricate that passes in experiments for random then one could claim the system is fixed to always evolve the same way when re-winded back if one were able to do such thing by recreating the exact same properties say in a subsystem that is very clean from external environment (very hard to find so the question becomes academic because you cannot rewind in terms of reversing time so you cannot test the idea properly only very locally for a while maybe).


It all becomes a problem of when you can be sure 2 systems are identical at the beginning and isolated and left to evolve. My guess is they evolve differently over time because hard determinism is a very depressing thought. We will know one day for sure when QM is finally a finished theory.

A ruling for determinism would not have any implications for anything, right?

Right. a ruling against would though because i naturally fall into the causal determinist bucket. It would be like a whole new world.

We try not to believe (or may hit the RGT), but to know. We don't know if the world is deterministic, so we need to keep the option open it's not. And then the perfectness of determinism is already destroyed. You kind are forced to think it's not deterministic, until at least nearly proven wrong. Embrace it. The QM tells it's not deterministic that strongly I have no real reason to think it's deterministic at this point. It's just one of the possible options. And there are probably a ton of non-deterministic options.

Randomness doesn't (seem to) have a place in the philosophical debate of whether we are making free choices as behaving randomly doesn't imply behaving freely, no more than behaving in a determined, non-random way though, right?

I think the philosophical debate is entangled in imagined paradoxes. Maybe we'd better not mixing in the even more vague "free will" in this thread?

This thread is about if there in reality is absolutely no options to anything, the elimination of the free will included. Let's act like there is options until proven false, and then continue "doing" it...saying "we" even exist would be stretch then. Then it's just about how the determined world has "decided" for "us" to continue.

Interesting if determinism can be proven one day beyond doubt. But there could also come a proof that determinism cannot exist. In for example math there are proofs of both kinds.

About granting free will, Ethically, if you could reverse time and change things, that would interfere with the free will of everyone else acting in time, unless they are not granted free will to act in time.

We don't know.

It is possible Einstein is right that God doesn't play dice, we just don't have the right information to predict quantum collapse. It is possible we can never know.

But not the converse. It seems obvious to me that randomness is a necessary condition, though not sufficient, for things not to be pre determined and that you can't have free will if things are all predetermined.

You also can't have free will if things are all random.

If I were to prove beyond a doubt that your behavior is random, you would consider that to be an indication that you have free will?

Your last conjunct is denied by most philosophers. They're wrong, but if you want to be fair to them it's not like lol obvious.

No.

More specifically I am saying that if the laws of physics were able to allow everything to be predicted ahead of time and this prediction was conveyed to you, you could choose to disobey that prediction unless you don't have free will.

But this paradox goes away if one measily subatomic particle in your vicinity behaves randomly.

Maybe that's why the universe can be understood by considering what's most efficient - any non-efficient deterministic universe being impossible.

No. SMP would be an even better forum than it now is.

The prediction being conveyed would be a change of the initial conditions. It doesn't solve anything.

That universe where things behave probabilistically/randomly, I am sure you are aware, would just mean that there wouldn't be perfect prediction. This wouldn't speak to free will.

I've always believed in determinism. Now that my wife is in medical school and learning more about the brain she's becoming a believer in it.

I like to say... "Do you tell your brain what to do, or does your brain tell you". People think.. well I can choose blue over green. For some reason they can't grasp that you only chose blue because that's what the cells told you to choose. ABSOLUTELY EVERY thing you feel or think is just an output from the reactions of the cells in your brain. Every "choice" you make is because your brain told you too.

The universe is all just a mathematical equation.

As Einstein said "God doesn't play with dice"

If you are right you are right for the wrong reason. The fact we only choose blue over green because that's the output from out brain at that time, does not imply we don't have any choice about colour preference.

In fact you dont need to have done any experiments to know it's highly unlikely that the conscious thinking part of the brain is used when we make decisions. Rather it's used when we train the net i.e. when we think about (rationalise) what we did.

As always the question simply comes down to whether consciousness is some special thing. Or, can a computer feel pain?

You are the thing you see reflected the mirror. Thinking/deciding/choosing are among the things the thing you see reflected in the mirror does.

It also sometimes walks around.