both.

we have free will but every decision we make has already been made. most people view time as a car on a road making its path up as it goes but in reality it is more like a train on tracks and its path is already determined.

and if you think "well if i decide to do something wierd that will mess my plan" then it was already part of your plan to do that.

think of it like this.

you've already taken the test completely. now the system is just going through showing you each question and revealing your answer. You think you are in control because you are in control but what you've done you've already done, in the future.

Time is not really a future and this is what most people can't understand. time is a LOCATION within the "verticle" universe stack. i say "verticle" because the universe as we know it is 1 but in reality there is a time dimension which in theory is like a stack of galaxies

heres a theoretical image of the complete universe with respect to all dimensions (up to time)
a graph could be represented by the integral from -oo to oo of the universe with respect to time
_____________________________________
-----------------------------------------
-->eternity
-----------------------------------------
______________________________________
-----------------------------------------
future
-----------------------------------
________________________o____________

-------------------------------------------
soon
-------------------------------------------enter the next in stack
____________________blackhole dumpage?________
-----------------------------------------
you are here
----------------------------------------thickness of galaxy as we know it
__________blackholes?___________________

------------------------------------------
recent past
----------------------------------------
_____________o________________________
----------------------------------------
history
---------------------------------------
_____________________________________
----------------------------------------
-->beggining of time.
---------------------------------------
_____________________________________

o-wormholes?
__-boundary to make time travel
-----edge of universe as we know it

the distance between said "layers" is unknown. the dotted lines represent possible boundaries because it is not likely that each would be "touching". Like i said before, its not really a versicle axis its a time axis which is not something we can fathom at this point so I just say "verticle stack" to make it easier to think about.

The easiest way to make long distance time travel would be to access a wormhole while already slowly traveling through time. This could possibly be done be reaching or exceeding lightspeed, thus stopping time(getting into the boundary layer.

These are obviously not factual but highly researched theories. feel free to discuss, disagree but no cheese please.

3/1/2008 1:29:23 AM

You should make that chart with the lines in Paint... that way I'll actually be able to read it.

3/1/2008 1:35:26 AM

Time travel to the past is not possible.

Any structure where your future actions are definitely known is not actual free will.

3/1/2008 1:38:12 AM

why is it not free will? you made all your decisions FREELY and CONSCIOUSLY

if you watch a video of yourself from yesturday and know what you did, is it free will?

3/1/2008 1:43:48 AM

TLDNR.

3/1/2008 2:01:18 AM

Look. You may think this is deep. You might think you're smart. You might not even think you're quibbling with semantics.

But until you learn how to spell "vertical," we're all just going to laugh at you.

3/1/2008 2:04:44 AM

I'm in a metaphysics class right now that deals exclusively with time travel. Until there is actually a way to time travel to the past there's no way you can say it's not free will. Free will only comes into question when time travel becomes possible.

3/1/2008 9:12:45 AM

Time has been considered a dimension for about a century by the physics community.

I generally agree with you that there exists both free will and predetermination. And I do think that part of the confusion about the mechanics of the issue has to be wrapped up in our naive concepts about time and causation.

3/1/2008 9:31:27 AM

Things are only predetermined if they happen. That sounds retarded but that's seriously something I've learned from that class.

[Edited on March 1, 2008 at 9:55 AM. Reason : ]

3/1/2008 9:54:24 AM

Quote :

" A very similar paradox, allowed by the possibility of the same kind of temporal loop, can become a reductio ad absurdum for time travel. We see just such a paradox in the 1980 movie Somewhere in Time, staring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. As a young man, Reeve encounters an old woman who gives him a watch. Later he becomes obsessed with the painting of a woman in an old 19th century hotel (actually filmed on the beautiful Mackinac Island, Michigan). He decides that he must meet that woman, and he thinks it is possible because of the theory of a professor he had for physics. The professor thinks that it is possible to will one's self back in time, as long as what one carries along is not anachronistic for that time. Reeve outfits himself for the 19th century and actually succeeds in willing himself back into it. He meets the woman in the picture, played by Jane Seymour, and he is able to win her heart, so that she returns the love he felt ever since seeing her painting. He gives her the watch that he had acquired many years before from the old woman. Then, as their mutual happiness seems assured, Reeve discovers a penny from the 20th century in his suit, and the anachronism vaults him back into the present. He is unable to endure separation from his beloved, starves himself to death in his hotel room, and, apparently, is reunited with her in the Hereafter. The old woman who gave him the watch in his youth was, of course, Jane Seymour's character, lived to a ripe old age just to see him again. The watch, therefore, was obtained by Reeve from Seymour and was obtained by Seymour from Reeve. In a closed temporal loop, like the knowledge in the notebook in Heinlein's story, the watch is uncreated. But this is impossible. The watch is an impossible object. It violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Law of Entropy. If time travel makes that watch possible, then time travel itself is impossible. The watch, indeed, must be absolutely identical to itself in the 19th and 20th centuries, since Reeve carries it with him from the future instantaneously into the past and bestows it on Seymour. The watch, however, cannot be identical to itself, since all the years in which it is in the possession of Seymour and then Reeve it will wear in the normal manner. It's entropy will increase. The watch carried back by Reeve will be more worn that the watch that would have been acquired by Seymour. The reductio ad absurdum created by the watch can be fixed up in a couple of ways. First, we might think that entropy could be reversed by time travel, so that forms of matter would be restored to that state they would have been at the earlier period. But this will not do, since Reeve himself would then be restored to the state his matter was in in the 19th century, which, whatever it was, would not be in the form of Christopher Reeve. Second, we might think that time travel puts one in an alternative universe. In some universe, the watch is manufactured and bought in the ordinary way, and then the older Jane Seymour, for whatever reason, gives it to the young Christopher Reeve. He goes back in time, to an alternative universe where Seymour did not acquire a manufactured watch, and gives her his. Then she gives it to him later; and he returns to a different universe, where Seymour does not buy a watch but acquires a somewhat more worn watch from him. The temporal loop thus generates a spiral of alternative universes. Unfortunately, it would require a spiral of an infinite number of alternative universes, as each watch in a particular universe is returned to a new universe where it can exist in its increasingly worn state. In some universe, the watch would disintegrate while in Seymour's or Reeve's keeping and need to be discarded; but Reeve would keep returning to the past, unless the watch turned out to be some causal factor in his falling in love with the picture.. Every instance of time travel generating an infinite number of alternative universes might be thought to violate Ockham's Razor, especially since the idea that an alternative universe could be generated in the first place has disturbing consequences for the metaphysics of identity. What does it mean if there are an infinite number of each of the characters, all facing a universe slightly different? Simplicity and common sense rebel against such principles -- although serious versions of such metaphysics have been produced to deal with quantum mechanics, and multiple real universes were proposed by the philosopher David Lewis to explain possibility and necessity (after Saul Kripke used Leibniz's idea of "possible universes" to produce a quantified version of modal logic) [note]. But without them, time travel, that would allow for the sort of temporal loop in which the paradoxical and impossible watch of Somewhere in Time becomes possible, is itself impossible. Kant's theory of time may go unrefuted after all. --Kelly Ross ph.D. "

[Edited on March 1, 2008 at 10:31 AM. Reason : .]

3/1/2008 10:30:20 AM

Quote :

"Any structure where your future actions are definitely known is not actual free will."

I know Luke Skywalker is going to blow up the Death Star but that doesn't mean he's not having free will doing it in the context of the movie.

As a Presbyterian, we're a bit famous due to our church's view of predestination, so I'll give my view.

God is all-knowing, almighty, and all-powerful is the driving force of Christian religion. If he were not those things, than God is not omnipotent and therefore could not be God. So God knows your future, as a side-effect of being all-knowing. So he therefore knows your future. That does not necessarily mean that he controls you, you control yourself and have free will, he just knows what decisions you will make in life. Think of it as watching a movie a second time. You know the movie's ending, but the characters in the movie are still responsible for their own fates.

[Edited on March 1, 2008 at 10:46 AM. Reason : /]

3/1/2008 10:42:42 AM

The freedom of choice in your argument remains an illusion created by your personal ignorance about the future. If the future remained set regardless of your ignorance thereof, it's not free will. QED.

Unless you're willing to accept the word "illusion" in the definition of free will...

3/1/2008 11:34:36 AM

Quote :

"Look. You may think this is deep. You might think you're smart. You might not even think you're quibbling with semantics. But until you learn how to spell "vertical," we're all just going to laugh at you."

/adam sandler

btw

i like to thik about time too

but you know, like, in a real way

and i'm still a poser

3/1/2008 1:46:34 PM

Quote :

" God is all-knowing, almighty, and all-powerful is the driving force of Christian religion. If he were not those things, than God is not omnipotent and therefore could not be God. So God knows your future, as a side-effect of being all-knowing. "

You're describing a paradoxical situation, but instead of rejecting your premises as being false due to the paradox, you take a leap in logic in order to rationalize it.

You're right though that the idea of non-illusioned free-will is not compatible with any Christian theological description of God. Therefore, either the theology is wrong, the interpretation of the theology is wrong, or the entire thing is wrong.

When you're watching the movie the first time, the only reason there is an illusion of freewill is that I don't have a god's eye view of the movie. But after watching the movie, then watching it again, I do have this god's-eye view to be able to see the mechanisms that appear to be free will, but really are not. And then every movie I watch subsequently I will know is not free will, and can see similar mechanisms. It would be theoretically possible to examine enough films to determine what'll happen each time in new films I haven't seen. Basically, the characters in the movie are not responsible for their own fate, some writer has written their fate based around some set of rules.

3/2/2008 12:14:14 AM

i can't wait for DNL to gives us histwocents about this topic

3/2/2008 2:27:04 AM

"Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus

3/2/2008 11:20:40 AM

^ http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?episodeId=156285

Scroll down to the interview with Dr. Zimbardo.

3/2/2008 11:30:02 AM

3/2/2008 1:26:59 PM

well this thread has been wrapped up

3/2/2008 1:50:09 PM

this is still pissing me off.

Quote :

" _____________________________________ ----------------------------------------- -->eternity ----------------------------------------- ______________________________________ ----------------------------------------- future ----------------------------------- ________________________o____________ ------------------------------------------- soon -------------------------------------------enter the next in stack ____________________blackhole dumpage?________ ----------------------------------------- you are here ----------------------------------------thickness of galaxy as we know it __________blackholes?___________________ ------------------------------------------ recent past ---------------------------------------- _____________o________________________ ---------------------------------------- history --------------------------------------- _____________________________________ ---------------------------------------- -->beggining of time. --------------------------------------- _____________________________________ o-wormholes? __-boundary to make time travel -----edge of universe as we know it "

i mean, who does this kind of diagramming, and why??

:grr:

3/2/2008 9:40:51 PM

Quote :

"i mean, who does this kind of diagramming, and why??"

Any questions?

3/3/2008 12:50:50 PM

what kind of diagramming would you suggest.

3/18/2008 12:04:32 AM

MS Paint
Graphs
Photoshop

SOMETHING

That ASCII shit was awful.

3/18/2008 12:08:41 AM

this thread was over at

Quote :

"free will vs predestination:EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT TIME"

3/18/2008 12:11:01 AM

^AHA True.

I'm an irrational person in that I don't believe in free will, and I feel pretty confident about it.

And tons of other shit makes me irrational, too.

3/18/2008 12:22:19 PM

Quote :

""Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus"

Epicurus was an idiot.

3/18/2008 12:55:06 PM

Quote :

"And tons of other shit makes me irrational, too."

two X chromosomes?

3/19/2008 10:37:23 AM

Time travel to the past is not possible.

3/19/2008 12:10:00 PM

yeah while we have free will to choose our own path realistically from a casual sense our path is already laid out as unless we have knowledge of the future we can not change or effect the action we will take.

Quote :

"God is all-knowing, almighty, and all-powerful is the driving force of Christian religion. If he were not those things, than God is not omnipotent and therefore could not be God. So God knows your future, as a side-effect of being all-knowing. So he therefore knows your future. That does not necessarily mean that he controls you, you control yourself and have free will, he just knows what decisions you will make in life. Think of it as watching a movie a second time. You know the movie's ending, but the characters in the movie are still responsible for their own fates. "

the problem i have w/ presbyterians is that i do not think "god" would choose certain people to be sinners and some to be righteous. He may know who's who given an omnipotent perspective but people follow their own paths that lead them to be.

[Edited on March 19, 2008 at 12:17 PM. Reason : a]

3/19/2008 12:11:45 PM

^^^Excellent joke. I've never heard it before.

3/19/2008 12:13:21 PM

someone's getting emotional...

3/19/2008 1:50:19 PM

this R serious thread

3/20/2008 10:42:11 PM

TULIPlovr is an idiot.



























What? I thought it was Unsupported Opinion Day.

[Edited on March 20, 2008 at 11:46 PM. Reason : snootch]

3/20/2008 11:46:30 PM

No this is not a serious thread, this is a stupid fucking thread and you tried to prove your point in the dumbest possible way. Have you ever read a thesis or a proof that included ascii art? No you haven't. Why? Because nobody does childish shit like that. Why don't you diagram the metaphysical separation of a soul and body using an etch-a-sketch while you're at it?

I try not to troll these threads but Jesus H. Christ some of you are so bloody stupid.

3/21/2008 12:30:31 AM

_____ __ .__ __
_/ ____\_ __ ____ | | __ __ _ _| |__ _____ _/ |_ ___.__. ____ __ __
\ __\ | \_/ ___\| |/ / \ \/ \/ / | \\__ \\ __\ < | |/ _ \| | \
| | | | /\ \___| < \ /| Y \/ __ \| | \___ ( <_> ) | /
|__| |____/ \___ >__|_ \ \/\_/ |___| (____ /__| / ____|\____/|____/ __ .__ .__ __
_/ |_| |__ |__| ____ | | __
\ __\ | \| |/ \| |/ /
| | | Y \ | | \ <
|__| |___| /__|___| /__|_ \
\/ \/ \/
\/ \/ \/ \/ \/

3/21/2008 12:55:10 AM

::rips huge bong::

Whoa dude!

I CAN SEE IT

YOU GOTS THE ESSENCE AT THE PINEAL GLAND LIKE DESCARTES

WHOA KEEEW

[Edited on March 21, 2008 at 1:00 AM. Reason : lock plz]

3/21/2008 1:00:11 AM

HAY GUYS I JUST REALIZED

IF FREE WILL EXISTS

THEN THE GENERAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE TYING ELECTROSTATICS, GRAVITY, AND TIME WOULDN'T WORK

BUT IF IT DIDN'T EXIST, THEN DOESN'T THAT MEAN WE AREN'T IN CONTROL OF OUR DESTINY?

*Completely ignores the difference between behavioral models at the micro and macro level*

DO YOU UNDERSTAND MAN

DEEEEEEP

3/21/2008 9:54:57 AM

EARTH HAS 4 CORNER
SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY
TIME CUBE
WITHIN SINGLE ROTATION.
4 CORNER DAYS PROVES 1
DAY 1 GOD IS TAUGHT EVIL.

I call down a Demonic Curse upon the Evil
Americans who ignore Earth's 4 Corner Days
within a single rotation of 4 quadrant Earth.
Believing in a God when there is proof that
there is no God, dooms humanity to a Hell
of Horror. America is 1/2 way to it's Hell.
The American "Bill of Rights" - "Freedom of
Speech", is BullShit. MisEducators suppress
The Time Cube Principle and will not allow
Students to discuss or debate it's merits and
application. Also, the Academic bastards
will not even allow Time Cube on their web
sites. On Yahoo, Time Cube - 81,000,000
and on Google was once 89,000,000 - until
cut back to 3,000,000 by ignorant believers.

3/21/2008 9:58:19 AM

XENU

SP's

AHHHHHHHHHH

3/21/2008 10:02:30 AM