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"Quantum physics shows that when certain processes of observation are used to measure "particles," the behavior of those particles changes. You seem to have taken the term "observation" and really run with it. "Observation" in this sense basically means "the process of manipulating photons so we can record them." It has nothing to do with consciousness or even with the normal use of the term. There's nothing magical happening - basically when we "touch" a wave, it collapses into a particle. We still call these wave-particle dualities "particles" out of tradition and convenience."

This is not true.. it seems you're this idea with the Uncertainty Principle. Or, if it is true it isn't widely known and accepted.

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The problem with your novel metaphor is that someone wrote the novel. I don't see how I am confusing materialism with determinism, I am aware they are different ideas that are often held by the same people.

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Moreover, If half of the people in the world, including many intelligent people, insisted that 2+2=5, then I would seriously question my belief that 2+2=4. Just because a belief seems fundamental to your understanding doesn't mean that belief can't (or shouldn't) be questioned and investigated.


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Then you should seriously give consideration (perhaps you have) to an all knowing and all powerful God. I have and for a variety of reasons it doesn't sit with me. I have also done the same with determinism.


My definition was a perhaps poor attempt to use what your first definition was minus the part where human's selections do not have an impact on the world. I don't understand that part nor how it is consistent with determinism.

However, my reason for believing in free will is actually not at all arrived at from logic. Logically consistent systems can be created on top of free will or on top of determinism.

One might think, "everything is an illusion, it only seems real" (like the matrix) or, "everything is real." How do you determine which is true? Well you cannot. If you believe everything is an illusion, then anything used to prove otherwise is an illusion in and of itself.

This seems to be how determinists deal with the fact that our choices feel free. Free being original and not exclusively coerced factors leading to decisions. No one is trying to deny subconscious choices etc.

To me, I arrive at the conclusion of free will not from intuition, because actually my intuition tells me that the world follows physical laws and we are a part of the world, and we therefore follow physical laws in an albeit more complex manner. The weather seems complex and hard to map, but I don't assume the weather has free will.

I experience free will very directly and when I do as Descartes did and not make any assumptions about anything. I disregard everything and start with what can I know? Well the only thing I know is that I have original control over images and thoughts in my mind.

Granted, that could be an illusion. But it could only be an illusion in the way that everything is an illusion, its not provable or unprovable.

Some might say well you can prove it, actually. Look at physics. And I say, LOOK AT PHYSICS! The thing about quantum mechanics that leaves the door open for free will is that when there is a probability wave that collapses, its not just that there was a wave breaking when we touch it; it's that when it collapses into a particle we cannot know where that particle is going to collapse.

That is, over an infinite amount of electrons we can tell what the wave pattern will look like when they hit a photographic plate. However, we cannot know where ONE will hit. Not that we don't know how and that some day we will learn, but it is inherent that there is an element of randomness in each particular particle even though on average we can know a great deal about them in general.