PHYSICS, MATERIALISM, AND FREE WILL

Setting science free from materialism.

Contemporary science is based on the claim that all reality is material or physical. There is no reality but material reality. Consciousness is a by-product of the physical activity of the brain. Matter is unconscious. Evolution is purposeless. This view is now undergoing a credibility crunch. The biggest problem of all for materialism is the existence of consciousness. Panpsychism provides a w...

In Quantum Physics, Free Will Leads to Nonconservation of Energy

Modern physical theories are deterministic in the sense that once we know the current state of the world, we can, in principle, predict all the future states. This was true for classical (pre-quantum) theories, this is true for modern quantum physics. On the other hand, we all know that we can make decision that change the state of the world – even if, for most of us, a little bit. This intuiti...

A study of Determinism and Free-will in Persian Proverbs

Proverbs as a part of colloquial literature are always nourished by religion, culture, traditions, and philosophical beliefs of a community, and thus they mirror the common beliefs of a people. The frequent repletion of a proverb pregnant with a specific thought makes that type of thought a behavioral pattern and affects the actions and behaviors of the people of a society. In the Iranian socie...

The Scope of Man's Free Will

Free Will and Moral Responsibility in Islamic Philosophy

According to a common view among Muslim philosophers, a moral agent has free will if and only if she is able to do an action when she wants to and is able to avoid it when she wants otherwise. Implicit in this view is the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP). On the other hand, according to this view, free will is dependent on requirements such as conception, judgement, tendency, decisi...