Free Will

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Free will does not originate from anywhere. It is merely an idea that our actions are driven by our own rational capacities.

One exhibits a free will just by choosing to act or not act.[/quote]

Succinct. I like it.[/quote]

But wrong. “choosing” isn’t a display of free will.[/quote]

I axiomatically define it that way.[/quote]

Which is exactly my point.[/quote]

And you argue in circles about nothing.

You either choose to act or not. You either agree that is free will or you don’t. It does not change the truth of my first proposition.

22

@Cortes: You are beautiful man. (Platonically speaking of course). I just read your opening post for this thread. Maybe we’ll never see eye to eye, I don’t know, but this will be good. I’ve always liked you but you shot up several notches on my respectometer with that post. I told my wife those months ago about a week after you disappeared that you were thinking about this. I meant it when I said you and your family have been in my prayers. I just knew this question was at least mildly nagging at you. I am still at work, but this post from a day or 2 ago is absolutely vital to this topic (and every other). I copy it here for that purpose for now. [quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:<<< Of course we don’t believe that, we believe that God is evident in every fact of reality and all things consist in him and not as the naturalist says that our God only exist in the gaps.[/quote]I responded with this: Amen. =] 2+2 does not equal 4 without Him because two, plus, equals and four all have no meaning without Him. The statement I just made has no meaning without Him. Every upcoming protestation to the contrary has no meaning without Him. As my man Van Til was fond of saying. God is Himself the emplacement upon which men mount they very weapons they attempt to use to destroy Him. They can’t help it.

You were pretty close BTW. Pagans jump and down, stamp their feet with red face glowing while they demand there be no circular reasoning. That is humorous at best. When forced to face the foundation of their alleged beliefs, every time it comes down to the laws of logic. Laws which are invisible, immaterial, absolute and universal. Sound familiar? When I demand proof of the validity of the laws of logic they are trapped either re-appealing to those same laws which is circular or hypothetically looking somewhere else which destroys their authority.

Of course I also engage in circular reasoning and make no pretense otherwise because ALL finite reason is by definition and in the nature of the case eventually circular. It never reaches the termination point of ultimate resolution because it’s like finite see? The dead logic of unbelievers circles around THEM and hence never ultimately explains anything whatsoever. Mine circles around an infinite intellect and ultimately explains everything. They by utterly preeminent unconditional faith in themselves loudly proclaim the brilliance of their own unavoidably content-less existence. I by utterly preeminent unconditional faith in the triune God of Christianity loudly proclaim HIS brilliance and rest assured that He is the explanation for everything.

It’s not that unbelievers do not advance true knowledge and hence contribute much good to the world. Of course they do, but they do it in spite of and not because of their own foundational beliefs. It’s only because my foundational beliefs are true that anything they do bears fruit. They hate that. They hate God. They are His enemies. Same as I was. That’s why Paul told us in Romans 1 that they “suppress” or as the Greek has it, they “hold under” the truth in their unrighteousness. Picture a beach ball in the water. They keep holding it down, while it keeps popping up. That’s how they attempt to hide from their true selves and the God who created them. Paul says they are without excuse. God has reveled Himself unavoidably everywhere and especially IN themselves as created in His very image fractured though it is.

THAT is the discussion that has to happen or any quibbling about this or that particular proof or evidence has no genuine framework to even legitimately take place.

23

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Free will does not originate from anywhere. It is merely an idea that our actions are driven by our own rational capacities.

One exhibits a free will just by choosing to act or not act.[/quote]

Succinct. I like it.[/quote]

But wrong. “choosing” isn’t a display of free will.[/quote]

I axiomatically define it that way.[/quote]

Which is exactly my point.[/quote]

And you argue in circles about nothing.

You either choose to act or not. You either agree that is free will or you don’t. It does not change the truth of my first proposition.[/quote]

Axiomatically defining choice is the same as Axiomatically defining what we have as free will. You are essentially just assuming free will. So yes, based on the assumption of free will, there is free will. You are the one talking in circles. I was just pointing it out.

But in a discussion of the possibility of free will, you can’t assume free will.

24

Like I said, free will is just an idea that we choose to act. Free will refers to human action and it only makes sense in the idea that we necessarily choose to act.

25

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
Free will is dead, long live free will!

Chance aside, if science and reason tell us anything at all, whatever we say, think, feel,
choose or do is utterly determined. And if it isn�??�?�¢??t, the alternative is unthinkably worse.

http://www.naturalism.org/Converse.pdf

[/quote]

Okay read the PDF. It’s a bunch of gibberish. The in-ability to know is not contradictory to free will as the author for some unsupported reason assumes.

Like when he is talking about initial conditions being the same with Bush’s decision to go to war. That very thought violates the uncertainty principal he’s discussing in the rest of the paper. You cannot ever know any initial conditions exactly. It is entirely possible there are no exact initial conditions because particles are always partially unresolved. He’s ignoring Schrodinger’s cat.[/quote]

Attempts to answer un-answerable questions usually result in a bit of gibberish. Like another mentioned Free Will is an idea. Perhaps I’m reaching, but I think his point is that one could never know ‘any initial condition’ and therefore all action is a reaction, hence ‘pre-determined’. I believe the quantum events issue is used to demonstrate that if free will does indeed exist, it has little to do with the practical world. Schrodinger’s cat is used to support determinism. As Einstein wrote to Schrodinger in 1950…
“You are the only contemporary physicist, besides Laue, who sees that one cannot get around the assumption of reality, if only one is honest. Most of them simply do not see what sort of risky game they are playing with realityÃ?¢??reality as something independent of what is experimentally established. Their interpretation is, however, refuted most elegantly by your system of radioactive atom + amplifier + charge of gunpowder + cat in a box, in which the psi-function of the system contains both the cat alive and blown to bits. Nobody really doubts that the presence or absence of the cat is something independent of the act of observation.” [/quote]

Einstein was wrong about a lot of things.

But quantum behavior makes a good case for Schrodinger. The possibility invalidates the bases of the guys whole argument.[/quote]

That is the argument…there is no base.

26

It might help if someone would define what they mean by free will.

Is free will the capacity to act without being influenced by anything external to the person?

Is it even possible not to be influenced by anything external to the person?

And is the person himself not a composite of influences outside his control?

27

if anyone actually cares about the issue:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

for everyone else who wants a place to put out their uneducated thoughts on the matter, please continue.

“hey i haven’t bothered to learn anything about the issue but i think ”

28

If the universe is in fact a closed system, i.e. if since the exact moment of the Big Bang there has been no force or energy outside of it exerting influence upon it (such as as supra-natural God), and if (regardless of whether or not we can discern it) the unfolding of events is governed absolutely and unerringly by a rigid and unchanging system of physical laws, then the free will of the individual cannot exist.

In other words, everything that has ever happened and will ever happened HAD to happen as ordained by the precise nature, velocity, heat, mass, etc. of the event of matter’s inception. Every thought in your head and the exact manner and timing of every breath you have ever drawn was written in stone since the beginning of time.

Obviously, the premises are two giant “ifs”, and either or both of them could well turn out not to be. Theology and quantum physics certainly cast heaps of doubt on them. But it is a possibility, and an interesting thought.

29

[quote]smh23 wrote:
If the universe is in fact a closed system, i.e. if since the exact moment of the Big Bang there has been no force or energy outside of it exerting influence upon it (such as as supra-natural God), and if (regardless of whether or not we can discern it) the unfolding of events is governed absolutely and unerringly by a rigid and unchanging system of physical laws, then the free will of the individual cannot exist.

In other words, everything that has ever happened and will ever happened HAD to happen as ordained by the precise nature, velocity, heat, mass, etc. of the event of matter’s inception. Every thought in your head and the exact manner and timing of every breath you have ever drawn was written in stone since the beginning of time.

Obviously, the premises are two giant “ifs”, and either or both of them could well turn out not to be. Theology and quantum physics certainly cast heaps of doubt on them. But it is a possibility, and an interesting thought.[/quote]

I conditionally concur, but only if two additional assumptions are true:

  1. The original system didn’t contain autonomous agents
  2. The components of the original system couldn’t subsequently combine or transform to create autonomous agents
30

[quote]smh23 wrote:
If the universe is in fact a closed system, i.e. if since the exact moment of the Big Bang there has been no force or energy outside of it exerting influence upon it (such as as supra-natural God), and if (regardless of whether or not we can discern it) the unfolding of events is governed absolutely and unerringly by a rigid and unchanging system of physical laws, then the free will of the individual cannot exist.

In other words, everything that has ever happened and will ever happened HAD to happen as ordained by the precise nature, velocity, heat, mass, etc. of the event of matter’s inception. Every thought in your head and the exact manner and timing of every breath you have ever drawn was written in stone since the beginning of time.

Obviously, the premises are two giant “ifs”, and either or both of them could well turn out not to be. Theology and quantum physics certainly cast heaps of doubt on them. But it is a possibility, and an interesting thought.[/quote]

No, we are not scientifically determined.

31

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Like I said, free will is just an idea that we choose to act. Free will refers to human action and it only makes sense in the idea that we necessarily choose to act.[/quote]

I donâ??t think the OP was asking if free will exists defining it as what humans do. That makes no sense.

32

Boy this didn’t take long.

33

[quote]joyfull_beast wrote:
if anyone actually cares about the issue:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

for everyone else who wants a place to put out their uneducated thoughts on the matter, please continue.

“hey i haven’t bothered to learn anything about the issue but i think ”[/quote]

+10 Douche-bag points.

You are right, on every issue we should just read the encyclopedia. If you discuss anything you’re an idiot.

You should let the mods know, they can close down this forum and just link us to an encyclopedia.

34

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Boy this didn’t take long.
[/quote]

How about a serious question I’d like your thoughts on.

If God creates the universe knowing with absolute exactness everything that will ever happen, are we not theologically determined from creation? Is the combination of him creating us and the knowledge of everything that will happen enough to suppose we don’t have free will?

Can a being that is all powerful create something he doesn’t have absolute control of? (can he make a rock so big he canâ??t lift it?) If he doesn’t control it or didn’t intend absolutely everything, he isn’t all powerful. I see god’s creation of free will as paradoxical.

35

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
If the universe is in fact a closed system, i.e. if since the exact moment of the Big Bang there has been no force or energy outside of it exerting influence upon it (such as as supra-natural God), and if (regardless of whether or not we can discern it) the unfolding of events is governed absolutely and unerringly by a rigid and unchanging system of physical laws, then the free will of the individual cannot exist.

In other words, everything that has ever happened and will ever happened HAD to happen as ordained by the precise nature, velocity, heat, mass, etc. of the event of matter’s inception. Every thought in your head and the exact manner and timing of every breath you have ever drawn was written in stone since the beginning of time.

Obviously, the premises are two giant “ifs”, and either or both of them could well turn out not to be. Theology and quantum physics certainly cast heaps of doubt on them. But it is a possibility, and an interesting thought.[/quote]

No, we are not scientifically determined.[/quote]

That you state this as fact does not make it so. On what basis is this claim made? What does it even mean?

36

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
If the universe is in fact a closed system, i.e. if since the exact moment of the Big Bang there has been no force or energy outside of it exerting influence upon it (such as as supra-natural God), and if (regardless of whether or not we can discern it) the unfolding of events is governed absolutely and unerringly by a rigid and unchanging system of physical laws, then the free will of the individual cannot exist.

In other words, everything that has ever happened and will ever happened HAD to happen as ordained by the precise nature, velocity, heat, mass, etc. of the event of matter’s inception. Every thought in your head and the exact manner and timing of every breath you have ever drawn was written in stone since the beginning of time.

Obviously, the premises are two giant “ifs”, and either or both of them could well turn out not to be. Theology and quantum physics certainly cast heaps of doubt on them. But it is a possibility, and an interesting thought.[/quote]

No, we are not scientifically determined.[/quote]

That you state this as fact does not make it so. On what basis is this claim made? What does it even mean?[/quote]

It means that science cannot predict the future. It can only look at a result and assign a cause in the past. All scientific predictions of a system are estimation.

It is possible the universe is predetermined, but if it is it is unknowable by science.

37

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
If the universe is in fact a closed system, i.e. if since the exact moment of the Big Bang there has been no force or energy outside of it exerting influence upon it (such as as supra-natural God), and if (regardless of whether or not we can discern it) the unfolding of events is governed absolutely and unerringly by a rigid and unchanging system of physical laws, then the free will of the individual cannot exist.

In other words, everything that has ever happened and will ever happened HAD to happen as ordained by the precise nature, velocity, heat, mass, etc. of the event of matter’s inception. Every thought in your head and the exact manner and timing of every breath you have ever drawn was written in stone since the beginning of time.

Obviously, the premises are two giant “ifs”, and either or both of them could well turn out not to be. Theology and quantum physics certainly cast heaps of doubt on them. But it is a possibility, and an interesting thought.[/quote]

I conditionally concur, but only if two additional assumptions are true:

  1. The original system didn’t contain autonomous agents
  2. The components of the original system couldn’t subsequently combine or transform to create autonomous agents[/quote]

Agreed. It could be argued that these caveats are contained in the original premises, however, because autonomy cannot exist in a world left completely alone (the first premise) and in which all events, including the electro-chemical signals responsible for human thought and emotion, are necessary consequences of earlier events (the second premise). Follow back along the trail of cause-and-effect physical phenomena to which you owe your being and you will eventually in all cases reach a cause outside of your mind/body which you could never have controlled. Follow those causes back to the beginning of time and you will find that all that ever was was necessarily so from the moment of creation.

If, I repeat, the first two premises are accepted. And they certainly don’t have to be.

38

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]joyfull_beast wrote:
if anyone actually cares about the issue:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

for everyone else who wants a place to put out their uneducated thoughts on the matter, please continue.

“hey i haven’t bothered to learn anything about the issue but i think ”[/quote]

+10 Douche-bag points.

You are right, on every issue we should just read the encyclopedia. If you discuss anything you’re an idiot.

You should let the mods know, they can close down this forum and just link us to an encyclopedia.[/quote]

Hit a nerve, did I?

On every issue you should know the basic issues before venturing an opinion, yes. No one here seems to know anything at all about free will so any discussion is pointless and doesn’t further the debate.

But no need to close the forum. Like I said, people love giving their opinions whether or not they have any fucking idea what they’re talking about. That’s the real purpose of forums, not to actually learn anything. Don’t mind me trying to elevate the level of discourse.

39

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
If the universe is in fact a closed system, i.e. if since the exact moment of the Big Bang there has been no force or energy outside of it exerting influence upon it (such as as supra-natural God), and if (regardless of whether or not we can discern it) the unfolding of events is governed absolutely and unerringly by a rigid and unchanging system of physical laws, then the free will of the individual cannot exist.

In other words, everything that has ever happened and will ever happened HAD to happen as ordained by the precise nature, velocity, heat, mass, etc. of the event of matter’s inception. Every thought in your head and the exact manner and timing of every breath you have ever drawn was written in stone since the beginning of time.

Obviously, the premises are two giant “ifs”, and either or both of them could well turn out not to be. Theology and quantum physics certainly cast heaps of doubt on them. But it is a possibility, and an interesting thought.[/quote]

No, we are not scientifically determined.[/quote]

That you state this as fact does not make it so. On what basis is this claim made? What does it even mean?[/quote]

It means that science cannot predict the future. It can only look at a result and assign a cause in the past. All scientific predictions of a system are estimation.

It is possible the universe is predetermined, but if it is it is unknowable by science. [/quote]

Read what I wrote originally and take note of the fact that I never said anywhere that “science” could “know” the future, or even glean the slightest semblance of understanding of this infinitely complex cause-and-effect chain.

What I wrote was what I meant, and I never wrote or meant to imply anything close to what you took from it. I laid out an argument that is both simple and valid (i.e. the conclusion follows from the premises). Whether or not it is sound (i.e. the premises are true and therefore so is the conclusion) is another question, and one to which I do not have the answer (nor does anyone).

40

[quote]joyfull_beast wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]joyfull_beast wrote:
if anyone actually cares about the issue:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

for everyone else who wants a place to put out their uneducated thoughts on the matter, please continue.

“hey i haven’t bothered to learn anything about the issue but i think ”[/quote]

+10 Douche-bag points.

You are right, on every issue we should just read the encyclopedia. If you discuss anything you’re an idiot.

You should let the mods know, they can close down this forum and just link us to an encyclopedia.[/quote]

Hit a nerve, did I?

On every issue you should know the basic issues before venturing an opinion, yes. No one here seems to know anything at all about free will so any discussion is pointless and doesn’t further the debate.

But no need to close the forum. Like I said, people love giving their opinions whether or not they have any fucking idea what they’re talking about. That’s the real purpose of forums, not to actually learn anything. Don’t mind me trying to elevate the level of discourse. [/quote]

Then why are you here? Of all the people here, you’ve probably added the least to the topic at hand and been the most personal and least substantial.