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@Ventifact and Rasmurr
Very much agreed, except for Rasmurr staying that we couldn't judge people on moral grounds. If it was generally scripted that human life is deterministic, the definition of moral would change to work in that system as it has worked in our current system.
@zzmb
Those initial conditions are still factors, and yes, chaos theory is built upon the premise that initial conditions, changed slightly, give a different result, but it still gives a singular result, and since we can't change the initial conditions in our universe, it is deterministic. The reason that chaos matters is not because it creates randomness, it creates a seeming randomness because humans have finite knowledge about these systems.
@alchemist4u
Yes, in multiverse theory there are infinitely many universes, infinitely many initial conditions, but we still inhabit only one. These other universes become apparent because of their changes over time (they don't exactly "split off, asdfadf, if that's your real name), but even if we can't observe them, it doesn't mean that we can't know that we inhabit one, which has a predetermined outcome. If it doesn't have a finite end, since now there's evidence that our universe may not have one, but it still doesn't mean that the path will change.
I believe that people are being hung up on the fact that we can't know our outcome, but that doesn't mean that we don't have an outcome based on our initial conditions. We don't need to know what it is in order to know that there is one, dvds only one
So many people today don't want to take responsibility for their actions. See law suits about pouring hot coffee on your own lap and getting hurt while robbing someone. So many people want to believe that what they do doesn't matter. See universe-splits-when-anyone-makes-a-choice theory. I wonder why this is.
The point most of these posts miss is that the chemistry of the brain (human and animal) has become complex enough to achieve consciousness. All this means is that it is able to influence its own chemistry.
Yes, the chemistry of the brain controls what people do...AND free will (their consciousness) is able to control their brain chemistry. A person's actions are a result of the chemistry of their brain, and that same chemistry can change itself...so yes, you can hold a person responsible for the chemistry of their brain.
There is an obvious flaw in the logic in this strip.
Obviously, if people evolved from a ditch full of slime, than all of our actions are controlled by chemical imbalances in the brain. Because of this, people cannot be blamed for their actions, because it is just chemicals reacting with other chemicals. It also brings in the question of morality, because if one bag of chemicals wants to hurt another bag of chemicals, it doesn't matter because they are just sacs of compounds. This means that there is no difference between right and wrong, thus you can't "Blame" anyone for doing anything, because who are you to say what they did is bad?
However, the mere fact that people DO HAVE a sense of right and wrong means that something beyond the chemical nature is at work. Science can't explain this.
Let us assume for a moment that we all got here by random chance (evolution). Isn't it a little odd that people all over the world are equipped with a similar sense of morality? The mere fact that we have a sense of morality is evidence for intelligent design :-)
The multiverse theory that most, if not all theoretical physicists adhere to, then there was not one big bang, but infinitely many. Therefore it is impossible to know which of an infinite set of initial conditions the particular universe we inhabit had in the big bang.
This whole argument is pointless, it is like computers arguing with other computers whether or not they have free will. We can't even know because we are stuck inside our own brain framework.
