ABSTRACT: There are good reasons for determinism — the option for pure freedom of will proves to be a non-tenable position. However, this collides with the everyday experience of autonomy. The following argument will attempt to show that determinism and autonomy are compatible. (1) A first consideration going back to MacKay makes clear that I myself cannot foresee in principle my own determination; hence fatalism has lost its grounds. (2) From the perspective of physical determination, I show that quantum-physical indetermination is not at all in a position to explain autonomy, while from the perspective of systems theory physical determination and autonomy is well-compatible. (3) The possibility of knowledge denotes a further increase of such autonomy. From this perspective, acting is something like designing-oneself or choice-of-oneself. (4) Consciousness of not being fixed in principle now becomes a determining condition of my acting, which appears to be determined by autonomy. This explains the ineradicable conviction that freedom of will is essential for human beings. (5) I conclude that the autonomy of acting is greater the more that rational self-determination takes the place of stupid arbitrariness.
...eality. Our knowledge will only allow us to go so far, but we have accomplished so much in the discovery of time and space. Technology will soon advance as to where these theories could be proven and physically be possible.
Holtzman, Jack M. "A note on Schrodinger's cat and the unexpected hanging paradox." The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science v39. 1988. 397-401.
In beginning his lengthy phenomenology for identifying the pathway in which Geist will realize itself as Absolute Knowledge, Hegel begins at what many considered the most basic source of all epistemological claims: sensual apprehension or Sense-Certainty. Though the skeptical tradition took this realm as a jumping-off point for making defensible epistemological claims, Hegel sees in the sensual a type of knowledge so general and abstract as to be entirely vacuous. Focusing on the principle that anything known in the Scientific sense must be communicable, through language or its approximations, Hegel shows that whatever the sensual purports to know is inherently incommunicable and therefore cannot represent true knowledge.
In contrast to The Many Worlds Interpretation is John Wheelers Anthropic principle, which states that an observer is needed to cause the collapse of a wavefuntion, and not just branes bouncing into each other. A good example of this idea is the experiment of Schrodinger’s cat. In this trial, a cat is put in a sealed box with a flask of poison and radioactive matter. If an internal monitor detects radioactivity (just one atom decaying) the flask will shatter and the poison will kill the cat. This makes the cat simultaneously alive AND dead until you open the box and make an observation.
and disassembled. Reductionists think that when everything is broken down a universal theory will become evident that will explain all things. Reductionism implied
It is clear that we would need further evidence and advances in physics before it will be remotely possible to know the fate of our universe. Scientists now think, and mostly agree with each other that the fate of the universe depends on three main things: the overall shape or geometry of the universe, how much dark energy it contains, and on the “equation of state”; which determines how the density of dark energy responds to the expansion of the universe.
We come first to premise (1), which is confirmed in virtually ever area of our sense experience. Even quantum fluctuations, which many suppose to be uncaused, are causally conditioned in that they depend on the existence of a pre-existing quantum vacuum. Indeed, if we suppose (1) to be false, then there is nothing preventing just anything and everything from popping into existence anywhere and at any time. But obviously this doesn't happen -- the universe exhibits regular law-like behavior.
Most earthquakes result from energy being released along plate boundaries and as such “earthquakes are manifestation of earth’s dynamic nature to the fact that earth is an internally active planet” (Hough). After an earthquake’s continuing adjustments along a fault may then generate a series of earthquakes. These certain earthquakes are known as aftershocks. Aftershocks can be as large, destructive and damaging as the first original earthquake that happened or it can be less destructive to not even knowing that this has occurred.
Collapse is a disastrous outcome that any nation or empire is susceptible to. Empires that are made up of even the most advanced citizens and span hundreds of miles are at risk of collapse. Rome was one of the biggest empires in the world, yet, they fell. This failure can be caused by lack of communication-- a devastating issue. If not resolved communication barriers can cause anything from the Roman Empire to small companies to collapse.
At the atomic scale of quantum mechanics, however, measurement becomes a very delicate process. Let's say you want to find out where an electron is and where it is going (that trooper has a feeling that any electron he catches will be going faster than the local speed limit). How would you do it? Get a super high powered magnifier and look for it? The very act of looking depends upon light, which is made of photons, and these photons could have enough momentum that once they hit the electron they would change its course! It's like rolling the cue ball across a billiard table and trying to discover where it is going by bouncing the 8-ball off of it; by making the measurement with the 8-ball you have certainly altered the course of the cue ball. You may have discovered where the cue ball was, but now have no idea of where it is going (because you were measuring with the 8-ball instead of actually looking at the table).
Our perception of our world has been shaped by centuries worth of studies, and recently with the help of technology. We believe what we see in textbooks, we nod in agreement to what we are told. This computer before me, why is it called a computer? How is it made? Why was it made? It is called a computer because that is what Konrad Zuse decided to call it. It is made with the help of other technology, and it was made to help with research. I am able to answer these questions because I believe what I read in a textbook and I believed what I was told. Yet similarly to how a computer often errs, humans err in their understanding of the universe.
The major strength of science is that it has uncertainty and skepticism. Science never claims to be hundred percent accurate. There is always some degree of ambiguity and probability in science. The Heisenberg’s uncertainty in quantum mechanics is a good example of this. According to the Heisenberg’s uncertainty, we can never be sure of the position of the quantum particles. There is always a degree of fuzziness in nature and a fundamental limit to what we can understand about these particles and their behavior. We can only calculate the probability of the nature of the particle and ho...
...is event ‘ just a coincidence because several small earthquakes happened before the big one’ ( Zhang, 2008), but it proved that if we can predict hazards accurately, much loss can be saved.