Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >   Not that this proves the existence of a creator being which transcends
> > the Universe, but that theory is as good as any.

> I would disagree, putting "a creator which transcends the universe" as 
> usually expressed being an untestable hypothesis.

  How can *any* hypothesis which states how the Universe came into existence
be testable? It's more or less by definition impossible to replicate the
circumstances of the Big Bang (eg. for the simple reason that time-space
is not currently in the same state as it was at the moment the Big Bang
happened).

  For this reason one hypothesis is as good as any other.

> In any case, my comment was more along the lines of "free will implies there 
> needn't be a first cause", not "there was no first cause." 

  What is "free will"? Do we have free will (regardless of what is your
world view)? Or is free will just an illusion?

  From a purely materialistic point of view there could be two ways of
thinking about how people make decisions:

  1) Everything is deterministic. Every action has a well-defined, unique
and deterministic reaction. Thus everything is just a consequence of what
came before that. Thus everything follows an exact path which cannot go
in any other way. The amount of interactions in the Universe is so
staggeringly large that we cannot even imagine it, which is why it may
seem that things happen randomly and that people make random choices, but
in the end it all comes down to the basic principle of cause and consequence,
of action and reaction. Every choice you make is just a consequence of your
past.

  2) Everything is chaotic. Uncertain quantum states make it so that it's
absolutely impossible to predict what effects certain actions will have.
It may well go one way or another (or even both ways at the same time!).
By the rules of the Universe it's physically impossible to predict what
will happen in the future from current events, because people will make
completely random and unpredictable choices which, deep down, are a
consequence of the complete uncertainty of quantum interactions.

  However, in neither case can you speak of true "freedom of choice".
In the first case every decision is pre-determined by your past. Every
electric impulse in your brain is determined by previous impulses and
physical events. You are not making a decision, you are simply reacting
to previous actions.

  In the second case you are not choosing. You are acting completely at
random (even if this randomness can be seen only in the tiniest of details).
You are not making decisions based on choice, but based on how some
quantum states happen to be at some point in time (at any point in the
timeline).

  Even if we make a mix of the two extremes, can it be called "free will"
even then? Your choices are only either a consequence of your past, or
caused by quantum uncertainty.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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