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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mitch Blevins who wrote (7852)	9/5/2001 2:18:50 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

A universe where your actions are determined as you go along by coin flipping. If the universe has random components, then it does not follow that everything is random. Randomness can exist within boundaries and apparently it does or even the appearance of cause and effect would not exist. Free will means neither that we are in full control of our future nor that we have no control over our future, it is somewhere in between. TP

To: Mitch Blevins who wrote (7852)	9/5/2001 10:05:11 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

I think free will can be best described as that illusion that comes about by incremental collapses of wavestates. I think that reality is created (and ends) in a series of state fluctuations (like a very, very fast movie in which each sequential frame has multiple frames that COULD follow, each at a different probability of occurence). None of these actually exists until a wavestate collapse occurs. 'Free will' is the SET of courses of almost identical energy levels across this field. The energy difference between you swatting a fly and not swatting a fly is miniscule compared to the energy equivalent of your current quantum state (defined by E=mc^2). Certainly, no energy barrier prevents either action (the swatting or non-swatting you). This current state contains all the trajectories of all the atoms in your body (and those of the non-swatter AND swatter to be). Within that reference frame you have plenty of room for small information state differences and it isn't until ALL BUT one of the states becomes decoherent that a "choice" is made. Up until the point until an energy barrier exists, no choice has been made. After that point, the choice has been made and there is no going back because of the energy barrier (you can't unswat the fly). Actually, IMO, QM leaves lots of "choice" (practically infinite) for the collective states you can choose from. The more distant in the future a particular wavestate is, the less energy it requires to do it.