Human architecture - Part IV

A free will thought

In the pre-quantum, pre-chaos theory world of Pierre-Simon Laplace, he defended causal determinism with, "We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."

I think the word 'free will' is such a general term, the ability to make a choice, think, act voluntarily without outside coercion or pressure -- it begs for a playing field to play upon. And so that is what we consciously (or unconsciously) do, we construct playing fields to fit how we are using (or understanding the use of) the term. The super intellect in Laplace's quote would have the broadest playing field for free will to play upon, and so, free will would be lost in the observation of the every cause and effect that lead to the 'free will' act.

I can imagine a spectator in the stands watching a baseball game, with full view of the play action, this spectator would have a great view and understanding of the complete game. Yet say a TV spectator is watching the same game, and say the camera is fixed upon the pitcher the entire game! What an entirely different understanding of the game this viewer would have.

We are living a TV view of reality, and our brain/mind can but gather a 'sample' of this reality, yet using this sample, it 'reconstructs' all the missing data. In this reconstructed world, I think we do have free will. It is real to the world we live in. Of course if we ever evolve to become like Laplace's super intellect, then we will have to deconstruct and rewrite this story.