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Is there free will?
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this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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If the universe can be expressed as numbers plugged into an equation, doesn't that alone answer the question of free will?
That "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there
There are several fields of study dedicated to that if. And a galactic supercomputer dedicated to finding the question.
Exactly. If the laws of physics are absolute, then the brain—which is made of atoms—must follow those laws. Every choice is just a chemical reaction following a set path. The fact that we don't have a computer 'big' enough to calculate it doesn't mean the equation doesn't exist.
It is becoming increasingly clear in quantum mechanics that the universe cannot be expressed as number plugged into an equation.
The numbers don't lie.
That’s a very valid point ☺️
What if the equation is a wave function? And the free will is collapsed quantum state?
When a quantum event collapses in the brain, the result is unpredictable yet this randomness is still not something you control. True free will would require a selection process that is neither purely random nor strictly deterministic, but genuinely willed. Randomness just introduces chaos; it doesn’t produce the sense of "I chose this".
Well, the wave function collapsing to that universal reality 🙃