free will and god poll

[hitch1978]

^^^

I am English and his English/grammer and spelling is better that mine.

[eof]

^^^

I hope you're actually from the US that would be hilarious

[theAMOG]

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if God exists, then freewill can't. if it's so obvious, just tell me.

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i think it's basically that god is all knowing and all powerful, and made the universe and everything in it according to his will. therefore anything that you think is your will is actually his

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1. It is not impossible for God to exist but also NOT be all knowing, and NOT know everything we are going to do before we do it.

2. Even if God is all knowing, nothing forces us to do what we do we still choose. It's all a matter of how you look at it really, as with everything in life.

And yes I do think there is a higher power, only because it seems like the most logical answer to me, and refer to it as God, since that is most easily understood. This doesn't mean I necessarily believe in the God talked about in the Bible, or from any other religion.

[eof]

Well I was trying to distinguish between the way you (and I also, fwiw) believe in a higher power and the more often accepted notion of God.

So, for 1. I think you're missing the intended definition of 'God'

and for 2. this isn't actually that simple. Lets say you are given a choice between a blue card and a red card, and you get to choose one and only one and there is no clear advantage to you for choosing either. If God knows what you're going to pick before you are ever presented with the cards, you cannot choose the one God didn't know you were going to pick, thus calling into question whether or not the choice was truly free or just felt free.

[theAMOG]

you cannot choose the one God didn't know you were going to pick.

I disagree.

Firstly, I don't see how this takes away my choice. I am never made aware that God knows what I am going to do. No one ever is in reality, so that point is moot to me, since that is actually how people argue that free will does not exist. With a scenario in fantasy that somehow proves reality.

But let's assume that it did (which it never has). I know that God knows what I'm going to pick.

First consider I pick blue, God tells me he knew I would pick blue. I do it again and pick red, God tells me He knew I would pick red. Anyone could do this if they wait to reveal the information until after. But you assume since it is God He did actually know and therefore you never had a choice. But how do you know He actually knew? Cause he told you? You don't.

Now, consider he infact tells me I will pick blue. I pick red. Then He tells me He actually knew I would pick red. So did He know or not? Does it matter? Did I choose or didn't I? I did. Whether He knew or not, which I will never know if He actually did, didn't affect my ability to choose.

The only situation which would disprove freewill would be He tells me I'm going to pick the red card, and every time He tells me I still pick the red card. So once this happens, I will believe. But I'm not too worried about it.

[willie24]

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you cannot choose the one God didn't know you were going to pick.

I disagree.

Firstly, I don't see how this takes away my choice. I am never made aware that God knows what I am going to do. No one ever is in reality, so that point is moot to me, since that is actually how people argue that free will does not exist. With a scenario in fantasy that somehow proves reality.

But let's assume that it did (which it never has). I know that God knows what I'm going to pick.

First consider I pick blue, God tells me he knew I would pick blue. I do it again and pick red, God tells me He knew I would pick red. Anyone could do this if they wait to reveal the information until after. But you assume since it is God He did actually know and therefore you never had a choice. But how do you know He actually knew? Cause he told you? You don't.

Now, consider he infact tells me I will pick blue. I pick red. Then He tells me He actually knew I would pick red. So did He know or not? Does it matter? Did I choose or didn't I? I did. Whether He knew or not, which I will never know if He actually did, didn't affect my ability to choose.

The only situation which would disprove freewill would be He tells me I'm going to pick the red card, and every time He tells me I still pick the red card. So once this happens, I will believe. But I'm not too worried about it.

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i agree with your logic. whether or not god is all-knowing is uninteresting to me

[madnak]

Okay. This is going to be one hell of a long post. I'll skip what's not important to keep it as short as possible. I may also inadvertently miss some major points. Oh well. Anyway, here I go...

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What are the two ways? I define it here as the experience of having control over our mind/body and the ability to make choices outside of external influence. Everyone has this experience afaik, yet some people chalk it up to illusion due to other metaphysical things they believe in... ie God or physical determinism. I don't believe it is an illusion and I will talk more about that in a bit.

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This definition is unclear. What do you mean by "having control?" What do you mean by "external influence?" These are contingent and vague terms, but you're using them like they're absolute.

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I grant that cold is probably a terrible choice to use because of the seeming appeal to emotion. It wasn't meant as that, I didn't mean anything negative by it. A better word would be meaningless? By 'cold' (again, I used the wrong word lets just assume i said 'x') I meant that the universe is just a bunch of sub-atomic particles that are arranged randomly with no deeper meaning and our existence is coincidental.

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This is false. First, determinism and materialism are two very different perspectives. Most determinists are probably materialists, but that doesn't justify confusing the philosophies. I'm a (probabilistic) determinist and even an empiricist, but I'm not a materialist.

Regardless, materialism doesn't imply that the universe has no meaning, and it certainly doesn't imply that our existence is coincidental. It may imply that our universe is a bunch of particles, but it doesn't imply that it's "just" a bunch of particles. Everything is composed of particles, but the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.

Let me provide an analogy to illustrate. A novel is a collection of letters. Is a novel "just" a collection of letters? Human beings are composed of atoms. Are human beings are "just" atoms?

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As for why I don't believe that our experience of free will is an illusion, it's because I have no reason to believe it. Simple, maybe too simple. But it seems to me people say it is an illusion for one of two reasons... either God arranged the universe in such and such way so everything is His Will, or, the universe acts according to strict laws and we are part of the universe therefore we act according to strict laws.

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You're making lots of assumptions here about what other people believe. It will be hard to shatter all of these assumptions in one post. That's why I keep bringing up the fact that many smart people are determinists, and many smart people outright reject free will. Some of these people have written books on the subject. How likely is it that all of these people have the simplistic views you describe here? It seems to you that people call free will an illusion for only two reasons, but you are wrong - there are many reasons that people reject free will, and some are nuanced.

You say your position is based purely on your intuition.

Are you aware that many early thinkers used intuition to discover truth? They sometimes used intricate argumentsto support those intuitions - but the arguments boiled down to "it seems that way to me, and I have no reason to believe otherwise." A few of the beliefs that were based on this position: Maggots come from bread. Each sperm contains a tiny human inside. The sun revolves the earth. Heavy objects fall faster than light objects (this is false, in case you didn't know). Releasing a person's blood will cure their illnesses. There were hundreds of such "facts" accepted by the smartest people around - because they seemed true, and those smart people had no reason to disbelieve. This is part of why we now choose the opposite approach - the approach of science - if there is no evidence that something is true, then we remain skeptical of it until we find such evidence. This approach hasn't resulted in any major errors so far.

Also, what seems intuitive to you probably doesn't seem intuitive to everyone. There are many examples of this, but I'll talk about free will in particular. The notion of free will would have been alien to the ancient Mycenaeans. To them, it seemed "obvious" that human actions were determined by fate. Fate was a big deal for them. And some groups even in later Greece had the same perspective - they had trouble even imagining the concept of free will, much less believing in it. Hell, fatalism was the prevailing view even in Athens! That's probably where the idea of free will (and philosophy as we know it) originated. You said earlier that "everyone" has an experience of free will - you should know that this is untrue. Not only have entire cultures had no such experience, but even some people in our own free-will saturated culture have no such experience. I'm a great example. I was puzzled and confused by the "experience" everyone around me seemed to have when I was young. I thought I was missing something. That something was have been wrong with my mind.

Then I realized that people were just talking about the experience of making choices. Somehow most people felt like that experience was intrinsically tied to free will. This realization helped me arrive at my compatibilism.

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However, my most fundamental experience is that of free will. If nothing else I can modify images/thoughts that are floating around my head, not to mention tough moral decisions we've all had to face. The experience of free will is at the same level as logic. I experience 2+2=4 in my mind as a whole complete idea with no moving parts once i understand 2,+,4, and =. Its deep and fundamental and true. Could it be an illusion? Of course. I don't have any reason to think it though because any of the metaphysical ideas that lead me to that conclusion are built ON TOP of the underlying direct experience of logic and free will.

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This is what you claim, but belief in free will is heavily dependent on culture. Belief that 2 and 2 make 4 is universal. So there's something dissimilar about the two beliefs.

Moreover, If half of the people in the world, including many intelligent people, insisted that 2+2=5, then I would seriously question my belief that 2+2=4. Just because a belief seems fundamental to your understanding doesn't mean that belief can't (or shouldn't) be questioned and investigated.

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Besides, where science (again afaik) stands on the issue of the determinability of 'stuff' it leaves the door wide open (if not a custom mold for) free will.

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It leaves a tiny crack. I'll get to this. You may think it "leaves the door open" because...

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Quantum physics necessitates a conscious observer which seems like there is plenty of room for free will. And we know almost nothing about our consciousness.

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This is false. There's a reason most physicists are atheists.

Quantum physics shows that when certain processes of observation are used to measure "particles," the behavior of those particles changes. You seem to have taken the term "observation" and really run with it. "Observation" in this sense basically means "the process of manipulating photons so we can record them." It has nothing to do with consciousness or even with the normal use of the term. There's nothing magical happening - basically when we "touch" a wave, it collapses into a particle. We still call these wave-particle dualities "particles" out of tradition and convenience.

Moving on...

Free will. It's arguably one of the concepts most frequently misunderstood in the West, by those on both sides of the issue. The ideas are nuanced and almost systematically ill-defined, leaving room for all kinds of missteps. To make matters worse, most conceptions of free will necessitate the navigation of other philosophical swamps - consideration of empirical methods and their epistemological implications, application of statistical data to unknowns, microscopic versus macroscopic views of the world, linguistic analysis, the question of god, the list goes on. And some people toss in the idea of moral responsibility - but nobody has ever been able to explain in rational terms why free will has any bearing on this idea. Worst of all IMO, most people choose to bring only their personal assumptions and intuitions to the table - as these assumptions and intuitions frequently differ, the disagreements can seem inextricably tangled and impossible to resolve. Maybe they are. But there are some relatively simple logical processes we can apply to the problem.

The first question in determining whether free will exists is determining what free will is. But people don't usually go very deep in defining free will. Often they stop at "free will means we can control our actions." Then different people with different ideas of what "control" means can debate for hours/pages based solely on the poor quality of that definition. A good example of these simplistic arguments is as follows...

"Of course we have free will. If I go into an ice cream store I'm not forced to choose vanilla. I can choose any of the flavors. I can choose strawberry or mint or chocolate chip. If people had no choice in the matter, they'd always choose vanilla."

"But if you choose mint, that's because you like mint. Or because you're in the mood for mint. Or because of something. There is a reason you chose your flavor - a cause for your choice. If you absolutely hate rocky road, if it makes you nauseous just to think about it, then you won't choose rocky road without a special reason for it. If you love mint more than all the other flavors combined, you'll choose mint most of the time. You don't have control over your choices, they're based on causes! If people just did things without having any cause for doing them, we'd be killing each other on the streets!"

Both arguments are valid, but they're based on different intuitions and different takes on what "free will" means. And neither one has anything to do with the real question at hand. Everyone agrees that nobody is forced to choose a given flavor of ice cream. And everyone knows that people usually have a good reason for doing what they do. Both arguments are based on a poor understanding of the opposed position. Suggesting that there's no free will isn't suggesting that people are forced to do what they do - it's not the will part anyone argues with, it's the free part. This is confusing because here "will" means "voluntary action," and "free" means "independent." Usually we think of "free" meaning "voluntary," so it's easy to confuse the terms. A determinist believes in voluntary action - he simply believes it's not at all independent. And suggesting that free will exists doesn't mean saying prior events and causes have no impact - most people take prior events into consideration when making their choices, and most people will choose an option if there's a good reason for doing so. But they could have chosen differently if they had wanted to.

So we're already stuck in the muck. How do we clear this up? We use a better definition of free will. There are a couple that are commonly used.

The first definition is that human beings can make selections that do not immediately depend on external factors (ie factors that aren't contained in the decision-making process itself), and that do have an impact on the world. This is a simple macroscopic definition that is wholly consistent with determinism. It is also consistent with personal experience at all levels.

The second definition is more problematic, and is the definition used by most supporters of free will. Thankfully this is the definition that is most vulnerable to logic. It describes free will as an intrinsic ontological property that allows action to be independent from random and causal factors. The negative definitions are easiest to understand - free will is neither caused nor random, free will means that human action can't be determined by evaluating prior events. I don't like these definitions, because they describe what free will isn't rather than what it is, but positive definitions get convoluted. This view of free will is incompatible with determinism.

Obviously the meat of my post will be the arguments against this second definition of free will. But I'm tired so I'm taking a break. To be continued...

[einbert]

atheist undecided

What I want to know is how you converted baptists. Those are a damn stubborn group of people, and old fashioned to boot.

[eof]

"Quantum physics shows that when certain processes of observation are used to measure "particles," the behavior of those particles changes. You seem to have taken the term "observation" and really run with it. "Observation" in this sense basically means "the process of manipulating photons so we can record them." It has nothing to do with consciousness or even with the normal use of the term. There's nothing magical happening - basically when we "touch" a wave, it collapses into a particle. We still call these wave-particle dualities "particles" out of tradition and convenience."

This is not true.. it seems you're this idea with the Uncertainty Principle. Or, if it is true it isn't widely known and accepted.

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The problem with your novel metaphor is that someone wrote the novel. I don't see how I am confusing materialism with determinism, I am aware they are different ideas that are often held by the same people.

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Moreover, If half of the people in the world, including many intelligent people, insisted that 2+2=5, then I would seriously question my belief that 2+2=4. Just because a belief seems fundamental to your understanding doesn't mean that belief can't (or shouldn't) be questioned and investigated.


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Then you should seriously give consideration (perhaps you have) to an all knowing and all powerful God. I have and for a variety of reasons it doesn't sit with me. I have also done the same with determinism.


My definition was a perhaps poor attempt to use what your first definition was minus the part where human's selections do not have an impact on the world. I don't understand that part nor how it is consistent with determinism.

However, my reason for believing in free will is actually not at all arrived at from logic. Logically consistent systems can be created on top of free will or on top of determinism.

One might think, "everything is an illusion, it only seems real" (like the matrix) or, "everything is real." How do you determine which is true? Well you cannot. If you believe everything is an illusion, then anything used to prove otherwise is an illusion in and of itself.

This seems to be how determinists deal with the fact that our choices feel free. Free being original and not exclusively coerced factors leading to decisions. No one is trying to deny subconscious choices etc.

To me, I arrive at the conclusion of free will not from intuition, because actually my intuition tells me that the world follows physical laws and we are a part of the world, and we therefore follow physical laws in an albeit more complex manner. The weather seems complex and hard to map, but I don't assume the weather has free will.

I experience free will very directly and when I do as Descartes did and not make any assumptions about anything. I disregard everything and start with what can I know? Well the only thing I know is that I have original control over images and thoughts in my mind.

Granted, that could be an illusion. But it could only be an illusion in the way that everything is an illusion, its not provable or unprovable.

Some might say well you can prove it, actually. Look at physics. And I say, LOOK AT PHYSICS! The thing about quantum mechanics that leaves the door open for free will is that when there is a probability wave that collapses, its not just that there was a wave breaking when we touch it; it's that when it collapses into a particle we cannot know where that particle is going to collapse.

That is, over an infinite amount of electrons we can tell what the wave pattern will look like when they hit a photographic plate. However, we cannot know where ONE will hit. Not that we don't know how and that some day we will learn, but it is inherent that there is an element of randomness in each particular particle even though on average we can know a great deal about them in general.

[eof]

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atheist undecided

What I want to know is how you converted baptists. Those are a damn stubborn group of people, and old fashioned to boot.

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I was in high school. These kids didn't know why they believed what they did, and I used arguments like, 'would an all loving god do xxx" and the bible contradicts itself 'here here and here.' And I got them to smoke a lot of weed.