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God and "Free Will"

Professor Yaffle said:
What does "fundamental processes beyond the control of a consciousness" mean?
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Nobody can say.

It can be mathematically shown that such a process would be unknowable to a human. Mainly, because such a thing doesn't exist in mathematics.

Which brings us to what I consider a more interesting question -- why on Earth are so many people advocating something they can't even frame a coherent idea of?
 
ServiceSoon said:
He demonstrated free will.
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No, he didn't. I could construct a very simple device which raises its arm. A device could even be constructed which raises its arm in response to a challenge to its free will. Any conclusive demonstration of free will would require, at a minimum, an action which could not be performed by automata.

Good luck.
 
westprog said:
I know what my neighbour did yesterday. Does the fact that I now know that he did it mean that his choice was necessarily limited?

A God which lives outside time can be omniscient simply by remembering everything that happened.
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That is not omniscience.

Omniscience is knowing everything that can be known, not just everything within spacetime.
 
Marquis de Carabas said:
No, he didn't. I could construct a very simple device which raises its arm. A device could even be constructed which raises its arm in response to a challenge to its free will. Any conclusive demonstration of free will would require, at a minimum, an action which could not be performed by automata.

Good luck.
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Who lifted my arm? Who scratched my balls with my hand? (Well there was that one time ... )

Maybe someone else chooses to do those things for you ... ?
 
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If we're in a physical universe in which God does not intervene but simply knows what's going to happen, the question arises--how do you know there's a god there in the first place, and what point would there be in believing in him if he never intervenes in the physical world anyway?

If indeed there is an intelligent source of creation for everything, I don't even think physical concepts like "knowing" or "remembering" could be applied. It would be totally outside the scope of anything we could comprehend as physical beings with our physical ways of understanding physical things. Things like time, creation, paradoxes, limits of power, and so on don't extend to a god's scope because he would be outside the rules of a physical world. So, really, it's moot to bother with God in logical or scientific terms, because they wouldn't apply if God is real.
 
A Christian Sceptic said:
I just raised my arm.
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But you can't prove God didn't make you do it and while he was at it, make you think he didn't. With God, after all, anything is possible. If you're going to have the kind of god that grants free will in the first place, then I think you're stuck with the kind of universe in which free will cannot ever be quite proven.
 
bruto said:
But you can't prove God didn't make you do it and while he was at it, make you think he didn't. With God, after all, anything is possible. If you're going to have the kind of god that grants free will in the first place, then I think you're stuck with the kind of universe in which free will cannot ever be quite proven.
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But "free will" is actually completely nonsensical if you think about it. The only people who believe in free will are those who either haven't thought about it or who don't want to think about it.

For free will to exist you need an entity that can operate without the need for any form of internal or external process. Know ye of such a beast? Can you even conceive of such a thing?

Nick
 
A Christian Sceptic said:
In all seriousness though ....

Just wondering on peoples thoughts - maybe Free Will is a sliding scale - sometimes for some choices and in certain circumstances you're closer to 100% having it and other times you have virtually none (or absolutely none). And for that matter - maybe certain choices (say, maybe, immaterial spiritual choices/ideas or thoughts) may operate in a whole different domain then the material.

And maybe even in the material we have the power to override pure reactions to things.
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I disagree. It has been shown that changes to the brain can and often will change the spiritual choices/ideas/thoughts made by a person. How is this free?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18171635
 
A Christian Sceptic said:
Who lifted my arm?
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You did. Nobody here disputes that (so far as I am aware, at least). So? This isn't about whether you can raise your arm. It's about whether you can freely raise your arm, independent of prior cause and, possibly, randomness.

Again, good luck demonstrating that.
 
To make things clearer, the deterministic problem of free will is as follows: If effect follows cause, then are not our actions merely products of what we experience?

The idea is that if humans are just part of the cause-effect flow, then they don't exist as thinking entities; But this is a categorical error, it's like stating that molecules don't exist because they can't be seen when viewing matter at an atomic level.

Humans do exist as thinking entities, the way they think dictates the relationship between their experiences and their actions.
 
Marquis de Carabas said:
You did. Nobody here disputes that (so far as I am aware, at least). So? This isn't about whether you can raise your arm. It's about whether you can freely raise your arm, independent of prior cause and, possibly, randomness.

Again, good luck demonstrating that.
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Can you slow down or speed up your breathing? Can you blink your eyes slower or faster?
 
These sort of threads are not about randomness or prior cause - they are about whether humans can choose actions and be held responsible for them. And they are about the apparent paradox of an All Knowing God creating humans while knowing the humans can make bad choices and monkey up the whole thing.
 
People love the idea of there being no free will because then they can't be responsible for their choices ultimately and without free will it wouldn't matter whether there is a God.

After all, you only did that bad action because earlier actions from the material world made you. And ultimately, since everythng is only reacting to actions acted upon them backwards to the beginning, God started it all - so it's really His fault.
 
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A Christian Sceptic said:
People love the idea of there being no free will because then they can't be responsible for their choices ultimately and without free will it wouldn't matter whether there is a God.

After all, you only did that bad action because earlier actions from the material world made you. And ultimately, since everythng is only reacting to actions acted upon them backwards to the beginning, God started it all - so it's really His fault.
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YHVH is generally attributed with absolute power, which would indicate absolute responsiblity.
 
Let's tackle free will and god a different way, as this mostly seems to be a question of morality. In order for free will to play a part, the chooser must have an understanding of right and wrong (right and wrong in god's eye, I would assume).

The problem I see with this line of argument is that there are people who apparently cannot make this type of determination. Whether is nature or nurture is irrelevent at this point. For example, the US courts allow something known as the Insanity Defense. This has several flavors and interpretations. For example, irresistible impulse:

Wiki said:
There is also an idea of irresistible impulse, which argues that a person may have known an act was illegal but due to mental impairment lost control of their actions. This is a more liberal test than that set by the M'Naghten Rules because it applies to defendants who are fully aware of their actions. The defense was first approved in the U.S. in Ohio in 1834[10] and emphasized the inability to control one's actions. Since then it has been adopted by other States, but is open to criticism since there is no way to identify impulses which could be resisted or controlled, and each case must therefore turn upon its own facts. In 1994, Lorena Bobbitt was found not guilty of the felony of malicious wounding when it was argued that an irresistible impulse led her to cut off her husband's penis. The principle has not been applied in the U.K.
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Does this mean that free will sometimes exists and sometimes does not? What determines that difference? Do some people have free will and some never do?

Without consistency, I cannot see how free will can exist, or how it can be used by any god as a tool of judgement.
 
A Christian Sceptic said:
People love the idea of there being no free will because then they can't be responsible for their choices ultimately and without free will it wouldn't matter whether there is a God.

After all, you only did that bad action because earlier actions from the material world made you. And ultimately, since everythng is only reacting to actions acted upon them backwards to the beginning, God started it all - so it's really His fault.
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If a murderer claims he shouldn't be held responsible because he lacked the free will to choose otherwise, we can claim we lack the free will to choose not to punish him.

Double edged sword.
 
A Christian Sceptic said:
People love the idea of there being no free will because then they can't be responsible for their choices ultimately and without free will it wouldn't matter whether there is a God.

After all, you only did that bad action because earlier actions from the material world made you. And ultimately, since everythng is only reacting to actions acted upon them backwards to the beginning, God started it all - so it's really His fault.
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Well, it's been experimentally demonstrated that unconscious readiness potentials precede subjective experience of will. This strongly implies that the brain has already made up its mind about how to act in many situations prior to us having the experience of consciously choosing to act.

However, other researchers have concluded that there is evidence also for a "conscious veto" which can block the potential to act. This is sometimes referred to as the "free won't."

Finally, I figure it's inevitably all deterministic.

However, as I see it, simply because you believe in determinism does not mean that you have the right to go around acting on every impulse you have and later claiming that you had no choice. And, in terms of actual criminal acts, I'm pretty sure that vastly more have been blamed on God than on Determinism.

Nick
 
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