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Free will and determinism are incompatible for the reason that one cannot exist in the Universe with the other. If a person has the ability to make their own day-to-day decisions, their action could be classified under the principles of determinism or those of free will. For example, X (X being a person) woke up in the morning and decided to take the day off to drive their new car instead of going to work, is an example of a person exercising either free will or determinism. This action was completely the choice of X, who could have chosen to go to work or possibly not even to get out of bed, but if this was an act of determinism or free will depends on the abilities that X has. It is possible that X could have been creating the future as it was determined to be by the laws of nature and the set past. On the other hand, if X were gifted with the ability to control the effects of nature and the past on their decision, the action of X would prove to be an act of free will.
Determinism and free will can only occupy one necessary principle of the Universe, therefore if one proves true in the Universe; the ideas held by the other are automatically false, ultimately, proving the presence of both ideas impossible in the same Universe. According to the principles of determinism, every action in the Universe is governed by the laws of nature (assuming that the laws of nature are all true) and affected by events from the past. This idea opens the doors to the possibility of predicting the future or present actions of everything in the Universe. Determinism cannot exist if an act of complete randomness occurs in the universe.
This is because determinism is the theory that every action in the universe can be predicted, nothing can exist without being affected by any scientific laws of nature, and it is impossible for an act to occur without feeling any affect from the past. With this idea, the future is constantly determined by events in the immediate or distant past. Everything in existence is constantly faced with time and action, which are controlled by the laws of nature. These events that surround everything in existence might effect the individual actions of everything in the Universe.
Theoretically predicting the actions of the universe are possible, but practically, human beings can only calculate a fraction of what nature is capable of performing. Everything that is practically predictable is also theoretically predictable, but the opposite cannot be true. With the existence of determinism, no action can occur without being determined by a preceding event or a force of nature. However, this does not prove in any way that free will does not exist. The only possible way that a random event of unpredictability can occur is if a person, who desires free will, is able to control the laws of nature and the past in order to ensure that neither of the two will effect their action in any way.
The control over the past and the laws of nature would give a person the ability to do other than what they are determined to do. This would be classified, as an action made that would change the future, because it does not make the future as it was determined to be. There can be free will if only both scientific nature and the past are controlled, for example, if a person with special powers is able to control the amount of gravity applied on their body performs an action of jumping thirty feet up in the air, they cannot claim to have free will. Without any control over the past, for example, when this person was given this special power as an infant, determinism cannot be proven false because an act of the past determined one of many future actions that occurred. Control over just the past does not prove free will to be true as well. Free will can be an illusion in the case that a person, who considers their actions as act of freedom, does not realize that simply having a variety of choices does not prove free will to be true.
The choices must be unaffected by the past or any laws of nature making them unpredictable and completely random. Determinism assumes that there is not, and there never was, any possibility for a complete random act to ever occur in the Universe. Even if the probability of occurring was one in a trillion to the hundredth power and the act occurred a billion years ago, this act would prove determinism to be false. If free will is possible, then it is proven to be true and determinism is false. There is no such thing as free will occurring sometimes in a deterministic world. It cannot be mistaken that if determinism proves true, that there are no choices available for a person to choose.
It also cannot be assumed that freedom to choose between varieties of alternatives proves free will to be true. A person can choose to do what they desire to do, but they cannot change the future by something that they have done in the past. They have the ability to change the future to be something other than what it could have been otherwise. For example, if person X decides to go to work instead of sleep in, they are just choosing what the future will be like among all the other alternatives. This is not changing the future but making the future what it will be according to nature and the past. Either free will or determinism must exist in the Universe that can only supply room for one, so whichever one proves to be true, the other is classified as being false.
The existence of both ideas is necessary in defining and proving the validity of both theories. In order to define determinism, the principles of free will must be used as holds true for the definition of free will. If an act proves to be completely random, meaning that there was no theoretical way of predicting that act, that would prove free will to be true and determinism false. On the other hand, if any act proves to be somehow affected by the past or any laws of nature, determinism must be true, leaving no room for free will in the universe. The existence of only one must also exist in the Universe because people must either have futures that are determined, or live lives of free decisions The incompatibility of free will and determinism is the only way either of the two could be singularly defined. With one ideas falsity, the truth of the other becomes clear; with the existence of both, neither of the two could ever be defined. 319
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Research essay sample on Past Or Any Laws Future As It Was Determined Free
