/sci/ - Science & Math

Assume the system in which humans are living in, the universe, is only controlled by physical laws.

Physical laws are either deterministic (for example in de broglie-bohm theory) or they are probabilistic (for example Copenhagen interpretation).

Thoughts, ideas and choices are formed through processes in the brain. Those processes inturn are governed by physical laws.

From those assumptions we can synthetize that thoughts and choices are governed by deterministic or probabilistic laws.

If we then define free will as the capacity for an agent to make choices in which the outcome has not been determined by past events.

We can conclude that free will is not possible either in a deterministic or probabilistic universe.

What would then happen to such a system (for example human society on earth) in which a great fraction of those agents would recognize that they indeed have no free will?