To rapidly evolve humanity through the application of science is the goal of transhumanism
the future was a necessary consequence of the past plus the laws of nature, and inferred from this deterministic view that we do not have free will
We might not be perfect, but we can make things better by promoting rational thinking, freedom, tolerance, democracy, and concern for our fellow human beings. Transhumanists agree with this but also emphasize what we have the potential to become. Just as we use rational means to improve the human condition and the external world, we can also use such means to improve ourselves, the human organism. In doing so, we are not limited to traditional humanistic methods, such as education and cultural development. We can also use technological means that will eventually enable us to move beyond what some would think of as "human".
Determinism is when a person's behavior is considered to be affected by internal or external forces while free will is an individual's ability to make most decisions.
According to Watson, (1982:2), determinism is "the view roughly, that every event and state of affairs is causally necessitated by preceding events and states of affairs". On the other hand according to Gross, (2009:210) free will is, "the common sense, lay persons understanding of the term is that the actor could have behaved differently given the same circumstances".
The concept of free will revolves around the notion that we as humans have the ability to make choices and that these conscious choices exist, to an extent, irrespective from our own prior experience. Determinism on the other hand presents the idea that an event can be explained by a culmination of cause and effect relationships that have brought that occurring event into being.
If free will allows for the freedom of choice, determinism can be viewed as the lack of 'real' choice. The argument behind determinism is that every action can be accounted for by a sequence of causal chains that are responsible for the initiation of that action. This view suggests that no matter how complicated the universe seems, there is a pattern governing the nature of every possibility within it's bound One commonality that is put forth by the majority of deterministic theorists is the idea that free will is an illusionary state (Freud, 1916-1917). Hence, due to the logical implications of determinism (the cause and effect relationship), it has become the basis for 'scientific' theory.
The nature of determinism holds that every element of life is causally related, whilst the nature of free will maintains for the existence of choice.
In a deterministic world, for instance, free will may prevail at a level that even though everything is determined, the nature of complexity (based on the volume of deterministic factors) is so great; it may be considered random and free. Whereas in a 'free' world, patterns (determinism) may still be emergent in the outcomes of freely, s...
