The non-existance of free will, and religious ramifications

Brad, no offense to you personally, but this is a philosophy debate. I would take you sooo much more seriously if you actually gave supporting arguments instead of just making statements.

You say that free will and hard determinism aren’t incompatible, which is what my previous post proves. Not just what my previous post says, but what it proves. The only way that they could not be incompatible is if my argument has a flaw in it, and this is very much possible, but you have to show me how it is flawed instead of just saying so with no justification whatsoever.

does determism match our experiences of the world around us? How can we talk about logic, or argumentation when everything was determined by chains of events and causes preceding our discussion. The point is that if we follow determinism to it’s logical end, we are all correct. Both free-will and determinism are just as valid, and we shouldn’t have to argue because the opinions we hold now are just the logical end of a chain of events that no one can do anything about.

Is it just me taking crazy pills or does that make any sense? The debate is pointless because…well, there isn’t anything to talk about. Why argue?

oops…forgetting to log in again…

Wow, that’s such a good point. Here I am arguing for the non-existance of free will, but if I am correct, then the person I’m arguing with had no choice but to believe what they do, and argue against me.
Score one for thinkykid.

This is not a proof, this is an assertion. Your ice cream argument spends a lot of time discussing the factors that make up the determining of intent but it can’t determine intent. This is something you said – it’s too complex to determine but theoretically possible. This is another assertion. There are other explanations for ‘atomic noise’ than the hidden variable argument (but that’s a different discussion).

Uh, you know that be making it look like symbolic logic, doesn’t make it, poof, a proof, right?

I argue that even if your or my intent were predictable (And believe it or not, they are predictable sometimes, it happens.), you still have free will because it won’t change the fact that that’s what you or I want to do (something you don’t deny). I argue that even if hard determinism is true, it doesn’t lead to a lack of free will. Why? Because it’s just a description of the act, it, the belief in hard determinism, completely ignores intent by reducing it to it’s component parts but doing this doesn’t make intent disappear – anymore than a ship disappears when you describe it in terms of its component parts. You ascribe intent all the time or at least you have and that’s what free will is about, not determination.

If you want to give up on free will, you have to drop intent, but that makes it extremely difficult to live with other people, doesn’t it?

So my proof would be your own experience in this little experiment.

But what’s worse is the sheer confusion that hard determinism actually creates as seen in the last two comments. Hard determinism, perhaps because it means so little to our everyday lives, seems destined (determined?) to be confused with apathy and futilism. Why are we arguing if everything is already determined? The implication is that we shouldn’t because it’s already determined (AG, you actually agree with this?), but what is already determined? Everything is already determined which means the argument is already determined, it’s stopping is already determined, therefore that ‘already determined’ can never be a reason for continuing to argue or stopping the argument because it’s already determined.

Sorry, I hope that wasn’t too annoying.

I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner, Brad, but this impass between us has been a definition problem from the start.

The problem is with our deffinitions of the self, like ‘you’ or ‘I’, and becuase our arguements were each given with the assumption that the other’s matched, our deffinitions of ‘free will’ were also subsequently different.

(I’m going to talk in the third-person to make this a bit clearer, hopefully it won’t backfire and make everything a mess…)

When Brad talks about ‘you’ or ‘I’, he means the physical self. The ‘you’ or ‘I’ that exists solely within this construct, or reality. Therefore the definition of ‘free will’, using this basis for logic, would simply be the ability of the physical self to make a decision. Therefore, if hard determinism exists, it changes nothing, becuase the physical self is still able to make decisions in the same manner as before.

When Asok_Green talks about ‘you’ or ‘I’, he means the ‘core self’. If souls exist, then this is the ‘you’ or ‘I’ that Asok_Green is talking about. Therefore the deffinition of ‘free will’, using this basis for logic, would be the ability of the ‘core self’ to make a decision in spite of, and possibly contradictory to, the physical self. Therefore if hard determinism exists, it changes everything, becuase if the physical self cannot be moved by anything other than the physical world, the ‘core self’ could not possibly be making the decisions.

In effect, Brad, you and I believe the same things, that if the ‘core self’ exists, that it doesn’t run the show. I believe that as this is the basis for the accepted concept of free will, the accepted concept of free will is incorrect. You have gone a step further, and have re-incorporated the use of the words but with a slightly revised meaning.

You and me are on the same side after all!

Say we can predict the outcome of what someone is thinking. Wouldn’t that give us more of a choice? Say we know what is supposed to happen and because of that choose the other. Would that be freewill? With the known outcome in mind does that add to our free thought or does having a known outcome restrict our freewill?

This reminds me of the movie A.I though. The boy was being programmed to think like a human which is supposed to be freely. The normal robots explained love in symptoms but couldn’t understand what it was. Once emotions are solved is there really no difference between us and robots? I don’t remember how that applies to the post. I had it a second ago… O well I’m going to leave it in hopes that someone can understand what I was thinking before and explain it back to me… I’m a sad little boy

Asok Green,

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I knew we were close, I just assumed that I could get away with saying the “I” and leaving it undefined except it terms of everyday usage (Thus, my emphasis on saying that this question is asking the wrong question.). That, apparently, is NOT how most people see it. Thanks for the help here.

Still not completely sure that your distinction between core and physical self will help without going through the time and effort that we’ve both put into this thread. People can be pretty stubborn, can’t they?

Asok_Green read my thread in Philosophy called Open or Closed Future?

Good discussion - I even read all the posts!

It seems to me, after reading Asok/Brad debate, that you have concluded freewill is just an illusion. From a practical standpoint, our brains think and operate as if we have freewill; but from the perspective of God/our soul, all future actions are common knowlege.

So, why does this facade exist? Does God just have a really whacked sense of humor, or what?

No, not really. Free will and knowing what happens next are two different things.

I haven’t read everything everyone said so if someone said something that answers a question of mine I hope you don’t mind repeating it

Okay so if all of our lives are predetermined, it practically all just one little play. A man kills someone, he was destined to do that, so wouldn’t that make it all right? he couldn’t help it, it was that physics stuff that caused it.

Doesn’t predetermination and no free will excuse murder and other actions like it? doesn’t it free all of us from responsibility? no choice, where just little robots created by a God, a big bang or what have you.

Why would a God create beings with out choice? to entertain himself/herself/it’s self? are we just it’s little play things?

Isn’t life meaningless? excusable now? we’re merely blobs of predetermined actions and chemicals, little insignificant specks in a vast and endless universe. Why even live?
everything’s planned out you aren’t yourself if you have no choice, you are just a robot a toy like ever body else.

"Isn’t life meaningless? excusable now? we’re merely blobs of predetermined actions and chemicals, little insignificant specks in a vast and endless universe. Why even live?
everything’s planned out you aren’t yourself if you have no choice, you are just a robot a toy like ever body else.

No comment
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(1) I agree with Spinoza, who said, “Freedom is the recognition of necessity.” He meant that once we recognize that we are not free not to drink, we become free to drink what we please: water, Coke, coffee, beer, and so on.

We are not free to change or ignore determinism, but we are free to relate to determinism as creatively as we can and wish.

For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. That is determinism. Because a rocket ship is the creative application of that principle, Armstrong walked on the moon. That is freedom.

(2) I reject pure determinism. Philosophically, it is dubious. If determinism is true, determinists cannot prove it because they have been determined to believe as they do, not because they have examined determinism and found it to be true.

Their conclusion is not the result of judgment; it is hidden in their premise.

(3) That said, freedom cannot exist apart from determinism. When I choose Coke over Pepsi (free will), I depend on determism to make the vending machine work as planned. Without determinism, I could not actualize my choice.

In short, freedom is tactical; necessity (or determinism) is strategic. It is a mistake to mix the two.

Reluctantly, I admit culpability for the comments of “Guest” above.

Fogot to login.

Boy I’ve been gone for awhile, lots to catch up on!

I spend the bulk of my philosphpical thinking bent on this very question, and as of yet have not come up with any justifiable answer. I personally believe (and like I said this is completely unjustifiable, so don’t bust my chops. I’m not trying to prove this) that this whole facade is a kind of message. A message either from God to humanity, or from God to life in general. I believe that time only exists in this construct, and therefore to die, is to also be disconnected from time. I believe that once we die, we are all instantly joined with every other conciousness that ever was, experiencing in a flash every moment that any lifeform ever felt. With infinite comprehension, the work of creation can be seen as a whole, and the message finnally recieved.

But that’s just me. I suggest you find your own meaning for it all, it’s more fun that way.

Brad, you’re killing me here…

I appreciate your following up and everything, but you’re really confusing alot of people becuase of the deffinition thing. Most people, and I’m not saying all people, but when most people talk about free will, they mean the part about the soul making decisions apart from the physical self. If you want to start your own debate about the whole mess go ahead, but please man, don’t make me go through the hoops again…

It makes me so very very happy to be reading posts like this. Finally! We have gotten to the second part of the topic message: “…AND religious ramifications” I want to thank amina and FrozenViolet for making this possible…

As far as the excusing murder and all that goes, my answer would be…kind of. What HD may be capable of doing is excusing your soul for the actions of your body. It would, however, most likely not excuse your body from the actions of your body. Therefore if your body kills someone, society would have no “moral right” to kill or imprision your soul on the grounds that “the ‘soul you’ was evil”. Your ‘soul’ didn’t do it, your body did. However, society seems more intent on killing and imprisioing bodies. This, will most likely be argued about…

As far as life being meaningless…who knows? It very well could be. Day to day stuff anyway. But I guess I believe that, on the whole, existace has got to mean something. Truth is I can’t prove a damn thing on it one way or another, I think I may to have to wait 'till I die to find out.

It’s like Brad all over again folks…(I’m sorry Imagistar, I’m not really trying to insult you, I just poke fun at people sometimes. I actually liked the way you explained the logic used to come to your conclusions.)

But I’m going to have to dissagree here. Your first point (above) is then reinforced by these comments here:

What this seems to say to me, and please correct me if I have gotten your point wrong, is that ‘determinism does work for the small things like vending machines, but it’s still up to man to initiate the events that allow determinism to unfold.’

This basicly dismisses HD as commonplace physics, and excludes the human mind from all equation. I don’t know if you have read the posts from the start of this thing, but your stance on the issue suggests to me that you have not. The difference between Hard Determinism, and phyics is, that it requires us as humans to include all of ourselves in the world of physically determined things. That which we consider to be our bodies AND that which we consider to be our minds. That means, for you, at least considering the possibility that decisions themselves could be nothing more then extremely complicated chemical reactions occuring inside our heads.

I gotta see what you think about that before I continue on that line of thought…

Then there’s this:

I guess I find fault with this dismissal becuase it seems to imply that, ‘HD makes examination impossible, and is therefore false.’

Yes, it’s correct that if HD is true, then “celestial examination” is impossible. That is to say, the ‘souls’ wouldn’t be doing any of the examining and proving, it would just be bodies doing chemical reactions.
But is the higher concept of “celestial examination” really required for something to be proven? To assume that it is required, is to assume that HD is wrong, for the two cannot co-exist.

I maintain that examination need not be celestial in order for something to be proven. On this issue, we may reach an impass…

AG
It seems clear to me now that you want to discuss something quite different from free will. If you think for one moment that I will stop arguing against silliness, you are mistaken. Ramble, pretend, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I was willing to accept what you said (in terms of definitions), but what you are saying is unacceptable. You don’t realize yet that my definition is the only one worth talking about. Everything else, real free will, free will is an illusion, is the result of being a control freak.

That’s not my fault, it’s the fault of those who don’t understand terms and what they mean.

Talk about a soul, I’ll stay out of that one. I live in this world.