Is our fate determined?

2.3 Preordination of human behaviour? The previous expositions about freedom of will can be recapitulated as follows: A large part of the human decision making process must surely happen according to the causal principles of physics. Some of these decision making processes can also be realised with today’s computer systems and they also happen there along physically strict causal lines. But one has to add the decision making processes that result from conflict situations to this group of causally happening decisions of will. This is where the principle of causality and determination finds its limits. Random events come into play and they make a prediction of human behaviour impossible. Reports from parapsychology, they will be dealt with later, do not allow a conclusion of absolute determination of a human being’s fate into the distant future. 2.4 Ethical assessment We will now shine a light on a second problem. If, as we have demonstrated here, the freedom of will consists of information processing processes taking place within the human spirit along physical legalities, the obvious question arises of whether concepts like guilt, responsibility, punishment etc. do not become senseless and superfluous or should be given other meanings. The concepts of guilts and responsibility are usually given an ethical and moral connotation most of the time. But a lot of people will initially not be able to see that a possible connection between physics and information processing on the one hand and ethics and morals on the other hand could exist side by side. 2.4.1 The sense in punishment But let’s first deal with the concept of punishment . When we observe all of life’s processes on our Earth we can ascertain the striving of all living individuals to protect, respectively continue with their existence. Every species and type also has this striving and is therefore engaged in a fight, in a fight for survival that is usually to the detriment of others. To put it simply, the stronger will eat the weaker. But that this fight does not go on at infinitum and eventually lead to the annihilation of all creatures, because creatures of the same species developed forms of behaviourisms amongst themselves, or a creator instilled it in them, that has the result that creatures within the same species are spared or even promoted. This enhances the chance of survival for the whole species and, in the final analysis, also that of a singular individuum. A part of the behaviourism to protect other individuals is clothed in the form of regulations and laws that are based on specific moral expectations. Morals are however structures of expectations and thoughts people possess in regards to aims and courses of actions that protect and promote other individuals. These moral expectations can however be very different and it depends on whether they are of communistic, of Christian or any other origin. All moral expectations and the resulting laws have one thing in common, namely that trespasses by individuals against these laws are being punished. Punishment is coupled with reparation. Punishment thereby connotes an action (or lack of action) that the affected individual finds adverse, painful or something similar. It is designed to make the individual desist from trespassing against moral expectations and laws ever again.