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https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...-free-will-an-illusion?source=techstories.org
A large number of scientists and philosophers make the claim that the human being is simply a collection of atoms operating in a deterministic way and that consciousness itself is just the product of these atoms. The idea is that free will is an illusion that everything we do is already determined beforehand by the state and movement of our atoms 'we' do not decide anything.
They also sidestep the potential effect of quantum effects on their idea, quantum effects are not deterministic as far as we know but they happen on a very small scale. The proponents of this idea tend to be hard atheists.
As i was reading this article it got me to thinking about theoretical physics itself, is theoretical physics good? In olden times they first gathered the evidence and then made a theory to explain it nowadays they perform their thought experiments first and then go looking for evidence trying to make it fit. This seems to be an example, they take an idea the idea that a human is really just a machine and this idea comes first before the evidence and the idea is remarkably compatible with hard atheism. They are trying to make the evidence fit the idea and perhaps this is related to their atheistic belief systems if they can get us to believe we are machines then religion and it's influence goes away too. I worry that there is something of a self fulfilling prophecy here, if we ever believe we are machines without will then we will be so much the poorer for it.
A large number of scientists and philosophers make the claim that the human being is simply a collection of atoms operating in a deterministic way and that consciousness itself is just the product of these atoms. The idea is that free will is an illusion that everything we do is already determined beforehand by the state and movement of our atoms 'we' do not decide anything.
They also sidestep the potential effect of quantum effects on their idea, quantum effects are not deterministic as far as we know but they happen on a very small scale. The proponents of this idea tend to be hard atheists.
As i was reading this article it got me to thinking about theoretical physics itself, is theoretical physics good? In olden times they first gathered the evidence and then made a theory to explain it nowadays they perform their thought experiments first and then go looking for evidence trying to make it fit. This seems to be an example, they take an idea the idea that a human is really just a machine and this idea comes first before the evidence and the idea is remarkably compatible with hard atheism. They are trying to make the evidence fit the idea and perhaps this is related to their atheistic belief systems if they can get us to believe we are machines then religion and it's influence goes away too. I worry that there is something of a self fulfilling prophecy here, if we ever believe we are machines without will then we will be so much the poorer for it.