Thread:User talk:Sheldor/Are the robots we create alive?/reply (29)

"Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." Or so it was once said.

I can imagine that the world might be entirely deterministic if you could truly know all the laws of the universe and all the states of matter and energy within. But I don't like the idea that people are how they are in a deterministic way rather than there being some non-deterministic quality to our free will. I think most of us would prefer the latter.

I'll end that thought with my cryptic answer to the question of the meaning and purpose of life: To be happy matter.

Presumably, that answer could be rewritten in a way that equals 42.