Hypothetical #1: Twins

In this hypothetical you have two identical twins, they were born the exact same way at the exact same time and instantaneously put in two separate but identical empty rooms. These rooms are identical in every way. The rooms additionally occupy the exact same space located in space, on the exact same timeline in time. Meaning there is nothing inherently different about the two people and their environments.

The question is: “Would the two twins do the exact same thing at the exact same time as each other, and if we were to look again in 20 years would they still be mirroring each other’s actions?”

Naturally this is difficult to visualize as many of the stipulations to this scenario would not be able to exist by the laws of this universe. But the idea that is being challenged is simple; free will.

To discuss this hypothetical we must answer some questions: What makes us different? What is the soul?

What makes us different? Our genes make us different, our experiences make us different, and our environment makes us different (things acting on us). And to be clear, environment encompasses many things including the relative temperature you feel, the speed of time for you, the force of gravity for you, the attraction of quantum bits around and in us. If that’s all that makes us different, then if we were to set all those variables equal to one another, are those two people different at all? If they live in the same empty room, share the exact same experiences, the same genes, the same environmental factors, then what makes them different? It would seem like they are no different.

Counterargument: Our souls are what makes us different. But what are our souls? No one seems to be able to give a good explanation. Every explanation I have heard cannot exist within our universe with our current laws. Now let me ask you this, if we did not possess a soul, would we create a soul for us to possess? And the answer is absolutely. The reality where there is no free will is terrifying, of course we would make an unexplainable feature of ourselves that makes us unique and everlasting.

Basically what this hypothetical is getting at is two things:

  1. Do we have free will or are we in a way programs. If all we are are our genes, experiences, and environment, then by controlling all three you can predict exactly what one might do, like a program.

  2. Is this universe we live in deterministic, meaning there is a definite outcome to any input, or is this universe probabilistic, meaning there isn’t a single defined outcome for every action. In layman’s terms, is destiny real or is it still up to us to determine.