Free will vs. Predestination?

Many religious scholars have learned about this dilemma and many religious (an non-religious) people have asked themselves and others about this: is our future built by our decisions, or is it pre-determined? Are we really free in our decisions, or is everything allready set in stone and we're just actors plying our pre-written roles?

I believe the whole analysis is flawed from the start. We look at the impact of our decisions and question only the surface questions. "Did I make that decision freely, or was I somehow forced to make it?" "Was my decision, with its consequences predetermined?"

To answer such questions, I'll refer you to a scene in a movie, talking about the chaos theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-mpifTiPV4 . Basically, the idea is that everything can be predicted if you have enough pertinent data and the power to analyze it. Makes total sense.

Now let's get back to our question: do we have free will, or does God decide what we do? From what I've probably mentioned in the past, God is absolute. Everything. Obviously, that means He has all the data and infinite computational power to analyze it. So yes, he knows everything in the present and is capable of predicting everything based on the initial data. The question we're asking is wrong because we think God tells us what to do. Wrong. God tells us what we SHALL do. He simply knows our decisions in advance and, sometimes, tells us about that. Does that change the future? Definitely. It introcuces a new factor in the situational evolution. But that, too, is taken into account while doing the prediction game. We choose freely based on who we are, what we know and how we react to what we know. Totally predictible.

The fact that we make a decision is based on a lot of factors. Knowing them all doesn't mean that our choice isn't free - it only means that it's predictible.

 I'm reading a book called "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs ) and the author says there something that shocked me at first: that society is stagnating culturally and, for the first time in centuries, we are living worse than our parents - and this is still true for our children. It shocked me because though I had thought about the decline in our quality of life, I had never looked at it from a historical perspective.

And because it's true. Ever since the beginning of organized society, generations improved their lives. From hunter-gatherer to crop grower and live stock owner, to member of a tribe, from slave to owner, to misery worker to unionized, well compensated and less exploited factory hand, from just owning your clothes to owning your house, to owning everything you need... we evolved to live richer lives, with our work being rewarded more each generation. The human world was evolving to the benefit of the people.

Now we look at our parents and grandparents and we see their generations as builders of the modern society, creators of cultural and material wealth, people who enjoy their old age in decent economical condition. But we see ourselves struggling to stay afloat, losing buying power even though the wages go up on paper and envying the old, who lived better and are still doing better now. Better than those who, today, spend ten hours a day working hard.

Comparing the modern times to our history, we see a disturbing trend: the return to feudalism. I mean, look at the evolution since the middle ages. People used to own some of their things, payed huge taxes to the land owners, were more than slaves, but less than free people. The society was divided in two main classes: the rich, who owned pretty mnuch everything, and the poor, working hard just to keep the apparent ownership pf their immediate belongings. We evolved through free progress in science, with advancements being released publicly and helping us work better, produce more and benefit more from what we produced. Now, we can barely hold on to a house, a car and some collateral stuff, we pay huge taxes just to preserve the things we've allready payed for when we bought them, we create wealth for others and we have less and less control over our society, our families and even ourselves. We're living in what I'd call Neofeudalism. A polarized society that displays populist banners while robbing us of most of our possessions, freedoms and rights. How are we better off than the serfs five hundred years ago? And how much have we really evolved since?

Some would say we've made huge steps forward in science. True. But does that science really belong to us? Are we more evolved, or are our masters more evolved? The patent system makes sure the people only get what the masters decide. It's like the illuminism, only this time, the rich keep the progress to themselves and use it to keep the masses under control. Illuminist masters gave us, gave the world new ideas, new technologies and new cultural assets with no strings attached. Music wasn't owned, technology wasn't owned, discovery wasn't owned. It was a pride for the rich to share these values with the people (and get credit for it, which was enough for them). Now it's a pride to keep us in the dark and under control, with no benefits for the people. How are we better? How does this count as evolution, if half of the whole world's wealth is in the hands of one per cent of the population? How is this different from the middle ages? Especially since, today, even what you may say (or think) is controlled?

I'd say that humanity has peaked about half a century ago and the decline is following the same exponential curve as the evolution. Neofeudalism, it seems, is rapidly advancing towards total control, the next stage being a neosclavagism. And this time, the slaves, even those understanding their condition, will be too closely monitored to stage rebellions and gain freedom. The neosclavagism will engulf the whole global village and will be absolute.

 I believe science people today have two big cognitive problems that prevent them from evolving: the limits and the absolute.

Limits.

They talk about the cosmos as an infinite space, but what they actually think is "something really, really, really (as many times as you like) big. The problem here is that they still treat everything as finite. Even the universe. The big bang giving birth to our universe? The universe wasn't born. It has infinite existence in the past and future. And it's always changing. The big bang cycle did gather, on gravity basis, the matter in this area, then blew it outwards. It'll happen again. But this was a local phenomenon. The universe is full of big bangs, with "coagulation points" determined by the bigges concentrations of matter (mass). Dilating spheres of matter and energy meet, creating new points where these converge and gain more density than the surrounding space - and so, new contractions begin, with those points as seeds for the new big bangs.

Limits also affect the thinking when we discuss "parallel universes / realities". The trend is to imagine those as separated by shifts in an extra dimension, one we can't perceive from inside ours. But try picturing this: the universe is INFINITE, so the same thing can and does exist in an infinity of copies and variants. There's another me writing this text, but having... one extra white hair in his beard.  There's another you doing whatever you're doing now, in a house identical to yours, breathing in sync with you. Everything exists in an infinite number of copies, and also in an invinite number of variants, each of them in an infinite number of copies. Parallel universes as we see them today? Certainly! The only thing between you and your closest perfect copy is a space so vast, you can't imagine it. And that's only your closest perfect copy on a perfect copy of your planet and in peerfect sync with your time! Travelling between "parallel niverses" means just moving through space so that you land in a version that agrees with your temporal perception.

Absolute.

In an age where scientists accept relativity as a basis for all scientific thinking, one idea os completely wrong and out of line: the existance of absolute values. Like the speed of light (that's the one i've heard about a thousand times). There's an entire system based on this. They even explain time based on the absolute character of c. What is forgotten is that reference systems are arbitrary and any phenomenon can be analyzed only in the context of such a system. Everything we know is based on conventions, yet we pin one thing and say "that one's absolute". Really?!? Like... time dilation, people?!?

Time is a convention. It's the reference system tha allows us to compare change in different systems that aren't necessarily related otherwise. In conjunction (often) with a spacial reference system, it allows us to link separate components that don't interact directly in a manner we can perceive. That's all. Time doesn't flow faster or slower when you travel very fast or stand still, because time is just a measure of change. And change is measured in a reference system chosen arbitrarily. What happens slowly for a human happens extremely fast for a rock. From a shooter's point of view, the target stands still and the bullet is thrown at 1100fps towards the target. For the bullet, the gun pushes the universe backwards and the target with it - at a speed of 1100fps (if the bullet knows hot much a foot per second means). And the mountain where all this happens doesn't even know that the shooter, the bullet and the target ever existed. So... when you think "this is absolute", maybe you should add "in my reference system".