[soon2bepro]

I don't see why God's desition can't work by causality too. I'm not saying they MUST, I'm just saying that if we are to understand any of them, it's because they're at least partially deterministic. And again, I don't see the fundamental contradiction here. Maybe you can enlighten me.

Sure, I'm open to hearing any arguments on the matter, bring them on [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] (if you think they're worth listening)




You can reduce this, but then you'll be making the wrong assumption that you already know what all the parts of our internal selfs are. I don't really see a reason to do that; unless it is for giving someone an example so they can understand the idea.

I understand the idea, and I too don't see a way for us to measure that. However I will add that as far as we know, humans can be extremely different individuals as far as their mind and opinions go, so long as the information they receive from outside influence during their life is entirely different. We do know that much. Of course you could consider stored external information to be part of the "self", and only consider external influence that which is being taken as of the moment (maybe, all external information that resides in consciousness before being stored). In that case it would be easier to conclude that we have free will.
In all examples though, there is really no way to measure this, so the idea that we have free will would be purely based on faith.

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It also addresses this issue that we empirically idenfity with ourselves as possessing free will.

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Hmm, yes, but also our empirical knowledge of the world suggest that (theoretically) we dont. At least not in the way we assume we do. (this assumption is usually unclear as to what it exactly suggests, btw)
My opinion is that what we have is the feeling/sensation of free will. Ultimately there isn't very much of a difference as far as how to act and feel about it; but philosophically speaking, there is a difference.