Rob said - "So, do we have free will? No, free will is an illusion. Assume (like I do) that absolutely every single thing (NO EXCEPTIONS) is explainable by maths. that means that everything is pre-determined."

REP: If we stopped at Newtonian physics then I would agree that you are spot on, but since probablity is now in the frame you won't find many people who think the answer is so clear cut.

It would seem that, even by your definition of the universe (completely materialistic but allowing for probability), maths can explain how the universe is structured, but cannot predict all things.

The problem is the mind. Until a mind appeared, the universe was simply a deterministic system that followed an action-reaction-reaction-reaction? process.

Then minds appreared that are able to exert themselves somehow on the universe at a quantum level. Some scientist and philosophers believe that the interaction between what happens at a mental level and a physical level (ie. A non-physical thought being able to have a causative effect upon the physical body), must happen within the brain at a quantum level. This extends to the fact that when a mind merely observes the universe it still has an impact upon it.

I look around my room and see the decoration and the objects I have brought and colour matched etc. and look at my tropical fish tank, and then see the messy things lying around (my daughter?s toys scattered across the floor), I cannot for one moment accept that this is just a natuaral outworking of the laws of the universe. It is not just the way that the chain of reactions from the big bang have arranged all of those atoms.

I see a room that my mind has imposed order (or disorder) upon. I can only accept that I am an autonomous mechanism with an ability to break out from a deterministic framework and impose my own will on my surroundings.
Now how the universe was set up to allow the appearance of autonomous minds that are able to freely exert their will upon material nature, by interactions at a probabalistic quantum level is another question, and is actually one of the things I would say supports the idea of a creator. But that is just my conclusion and is not science and does not an any case lead us to a monotheistic universe.

From Wikipedia on determinism ? I have taken the liberty of replacing the word ?souls? with mind, to avoid its hermetic connotations.

'One approach to determinism is to argue that materialism does not present a correct understanding of the universe, not because it is wrong in its general picture of the determinate interactions that occur among material things, but because it ignores the minds of human beings. The mind is understood to be an autonomous agent of choice that has the power to control the body but not to be controlled by the body. Therefore it stands to the activities of the individual human body as does the creator of the universe to the universe. The creator of the universe put in motion a deterministic system of material entities that would, if left to themselves, carry out the chain of events determined by ordinary causation. But the creator also provided for minds that could exert a causal force analogous to the primordial causal force and alter outcomes in the physical universe via the acts of their bodies. No events in the physical universe are uncaused. Some are caused entirely by the original creative act and the way it plays itself out through time, and some are caused by the acts of created minds. But those created minds were not created by means of physical processes involving ordinary causation. They are another order of being entirely, gifted with the power to modify the original creation.'

I would be interested to hear your (or anyone else?s) thoughts on this.

Blacknad.