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Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
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 Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 4:22 am Post subject: |
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| Incidentally I often think that principle is a strong indication that there can be no such thing as an omniscient god. |
Warning: Theology.
Well, it's been said that Protestants insist on choice already being made, but Protestantism predates Calvin and has a variety of viewpoints on free will. As Protestants generally emphasize the personal relationship between God and the individual, most would likely see a greater role for personal choice and responsibility for choice.
I don't get it, though; I see this argument a lot, that because God knows the future we don't have free will; or here, that because we have free will, God can not be omniscient. But these assumptions suppose a cause and effect relationship that doesn't apply to God, who exists above our limitations of time and space. Thus God knows all human events in the past or future, but this alone does not negate our ability to make choices. To use a crude analogy, if I see the same movie again I know what the characters will do, but I certainly haven't controlled what they do in any way.
Ken:> |
You're misunderstanding me but it's entirely my fault as I suddenly brought in an unrelated issue as an aside. The principle I was referring to was Heisenbergs uncertainty principle. I don't think it has any bearing on the issue of free will......merely that it seems to imply the impossibility of an omniscient god.
Apologies for confusing the issue. |
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kimchi story
Joined: 23 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 6:05 am Post subject: |
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The anachronism of Protestants and Calvinists might have been mine - Luther predates Calvin by a generation.
Actually it was a cheap dig, lumping Protestants and Calvinists on the issue of predestination (I don't know what I was thinking) - apologies where necessary.
The point is, a phrase like 'free will' can't be uttered without theological implications. And that makes me weary. On one hand we have the idea that faith comes from free will - the idea that we can choose evil and don't. On the other hand we have the idea that free will exists within the limits of predestination (the latter is represented by Calvinist Protestantism, the former by virtually every other Christian denomination to the best of my knowledge). In this sense, free will is one helluva an illusion whether you feel we have it or not.
I default to an earlier argument: the fact that we can ask is all the evidence I need that free will is not only an illusion. |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 6:29 am Post subject: |
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| I default to an earlier argument: the fact that we can ask is all the evidence I need that free will is not only an illusion. |
Yes, it may be an effective argument. Fish don't imagine being dry as they have no comprehension of not being wet; but we can imagine free will and believe that we understand what making a choice is like, which suggests that we have the power to do so. Perhaps if we did not have free will we would be ignorant of the possibility of it.
Ken:> |
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kimchi story
Joined: 23 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 7:30 am Post subject: |
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Fish don't imagine being dry as they have no comprehension of not being wet; but we can imagine free will and believe that we understand what making a choice is like, which suggests that we have the power to do so. Perhaps if we did not have free will we would be ignorant of the possibility of it.
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Memorable! And perfectly a propos. Nicely said. |
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BrianInSuwon
Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 8:38 am Post subject: |
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Nothing escapes the cause-effect chain. Even with atomic fluctuations. An apple isn't free to decide to fall to the ground. Gravity and weight are the influencing factors. There is no decision. Some bacteria "swim" towards higher salt concentrations (chemoattraction) they don't decide to do this. They have no freedom of choice. Go ahead and decide not to breath or not to die. See if it works.
Some guys are attracted to Pamela Anderson. Did they decide to be attracted to her?
A different example, take a criminal. Did he just wake up one day and say I'm going to be a criminal today? Was it an act of free will?
Everything is a reaction to something. It angers me to think about how un-free I am, about how much others have determined my decisions for me. Its hard to grasp how much cultural programming has shaped my decisions. Seeing how thin blondes are treated on TV has definitely pre-dispositioned me to thin blondes. Growing up in a culture were boys are given trucks and girls are given tea sets has influenced me. TV, parents, teachers, textbooks.....there is a reason why people from the same culture act the same way. Do you think I just chose to like steak and potatoes? I think the food I was fed while growing up influenced me. Take two Korean babies, place one in the US and the other in Korea. Wait 30 years, can you predict which one will like KimChi Soup? Was either child free to choose? Has the child been programmed by their culture? People are programmable. |
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SPINOZA
Joined: 10 Jun 2005
Location: $eoul
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| Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 5:53 pm Post subject: |
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| As for there being no free will - while it is difficult to refute it is also an argument in the negative and therefore impossible to prove. |
It�s not difficult to refute. The possibility that one can choose otherwise is the only evidence necessary to prove that we have free will, to some extent.
It pisses me off how people think we can have either 100% free will or have no free will at all. Exactly like theists and atheists, neither party has a freaking clue!
Did you choose to log on to my beloved Daves and discuss free will, or could you have done otherwise? You could�ve gone for a stroll, m@sturbated, done your ironing, many things. But no � you selected my beloved Daves.
This vindicates the common sense free will argument. |
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SPINOZA
Joined: 10 Jun 2005
Location: $eoul
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| Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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Gang ah jee,
I totally agree with your subsequent comments, but �everything is an illusion� is gratuitous.
Actually, it appears self-refuting. If everything is illusory, one has no justification for supposing the proposition "everything is an illusion" is not an erroneous belief.
But anyway, that humans have genuine choice is certainly not illusory. |
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SPINOZA
Joined: 10 Jun 2005
Location: $eoul
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| Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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Grimalkin and Brianinsuwon,
Your observations are worthwhile and interesting, but not on target.
The fact that you typed what you typed � as opposed to some other activity � is sufficient evidence for the existence of free will. You could�ve done something else, if you wanted. I granted on page one that we do not have the capacity to choose our desires. In this respect, we act in slavery to our wants - wants we did not choose.
In many ways, I�m not free. We know this. I did not choose to be a heterosexual male. I did not choose my upbringing. I did not choose to be good at music yet rubbish at painting (but did genuinely choose to learn piano and guitar). I did not choose to prefer beef to chicken. But I did choose to come to Korea � other options were available. I did choose to respond to your post on my beloved Daves � other options were available. Nobody forced me to run 3 miles on the cardio yesterday � I could�ve done 3km if I chose to. There is no compulsion for me to do some stuff near Samgakji station in a little while - there are numerous other things I could do instead.
The whole free will debate needs to end, since it�s obvious we do not choose most of our important things � sexuality, ability, desires. This is not in dispute. Yet we CLEARLY have the capacity for choice, many things are optional, thus we have some free will.
This is the common sense free will argument. |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| The whole free will debate needs to end, since it�s obvious we do not choose most of our important things � sexuality, ability, desires. This is not in dispute. Yet we CLEARLY have the capacity for choice, many things are optional, thus we have some free will. |
Yes. Again, the fact that some aspects of our life seem or are predetermined by birth circumstances-- our gender, cultural likes and dislikes-- doesn't mean that all aspects of our life are so. We can say "I chose to eat a candy bar at 9PM last night because my environment dictated it"; perhaps our environment did predispose us to the candy and not to halvah, but we still made a mental decision based on what our appetite and mood suggested to us.
Rousseau made the same argument, that you can take two children and raise one to be a math professor and the other to be a thief. But he never attempted to carry out this experiment, and I doubt such an artificial exercise would really work. It scares some people to think that people simply arbitrarily choose something important in their lives for no good reason at all, but it's the way things are.
Ken:> |
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mnhnhyouh
Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Location: The Middle Kingdom
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| Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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| SPINOZA wrote: |
Grimalkin and Brianinsuwon,
The fact that you typed what you typed � as opposed to some other activity � is sufficient evidence for the existence of free will. |
But if typing that was, in any way, pre-ordained, how would it appear different?
h |
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seoulunitarian
Joined: 06 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:24 pm Post subject: Re: re: |
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| gang ah jee wrote: |
| seoulunitarian wrote: |
| gang ah jee wrote: |
Without reading anything in the thread, I can confirm that free will is an illusion.
Everything is an illusion. |
What do you mean by "everything is an illusion?" Do you consider nothing to be physical? Please explain. I am having a hard time understanding how a materialistic atheist (assuming you are) can believe that everything is an illusion. I thought this was the type of absurdity reserved for us religious freaks~
Peace |
Your perceptions of things aren't the things themselves - not even your own internal processes. Everything we know has been processed through biological sensory systems, and isn't what we think it is, in the same way that a photograph isn't what it represents. The map is not the territory.
I'm not saying that nothing matters, however. |
Would I be correct in assuming that you believe everything is a product of the workings of the mind? In other words, that life is a dream, and that only mind is reality? Or that actual physical things exist, but we can never know them perfectly because of the perceptions of our mind(s)?
Peace |
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mnhnhyouh
Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Location: The Middle Kingdom
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| Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:36 pm Post subject: Re: re: |
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| seoulunitarian wrote: |
Would I be correct in assuming that you believe everything is a product of the workings of the mind? In other words, that life is a dream, and that only mind is reality? Or that actual physical things exist, but we can never know them perfectly because of the perceptions of our mind(s)?
Peace |
Sounds like Decartes as seen on The Matrix
| The Matrix wrote: |
Cypher: "I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss."
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h |
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BrianInSuwon
Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2006 7:25 am Post subject: |
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Just because their is a choice doesn't make free will necessary. I program a robot to turn left at every 3 way intersection and turn right at every 4 way intersection. Everytime the robot reaches an intersection, choices are presented. Does the robot have free will?
Is there a difference to will, to desire, to want?
My main argument is, if you didn't have the influencing factors how could you make a decision? |
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Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
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| Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2006 11:32 am Post subject: |
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| BrianInSuwon wrote: |
Just because their is a choice doesn't make free will necessary. I program a robot to turn left at every 3 way intersection and turn right at every 4 way intersection. Everytime the robot reaches an intersection, choices are presented. Does the robot have free will?
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I very much agree with this. The possibility of choice does not in itself imply free will. The analogy I was thinking of was a search engine. Enter a word into google and hey presto the search engine will choose amongst the millions of websites on the net, the ones that match your search. Because the search engine chooses some and not the ones that do not match your search does not imply it has free will.
Again I stress the point that it has been shown that humans will rationalise to deceive themselves into believing they have made a free choice where in fact they are following an irressistable compulsion. Because of that I think it's impossible to ever be sure that we have free will.
I'll go further. I strongly suspect that the more scientists investigate, the more they will find that fewer and fewer of our choices are as a result of free will, until it becomes widely accepted tho' not fully proven, that free will is actually an illusion. |
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seoulunitarian
Joined: 06 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2006 5:06 pm Post subject: re: |
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| Grimalkin wrote: |
| BrianInSuwon wrote: |
Just because their is a choice doesn't make free will necessary. I program a robot to turn left at every 3 way intersection and turn right at every 4 way intersection. Everytime the robot reaches an intersection, choices are presented. Does the robot have free will?
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I very much agree with this. The possibility of choice does not in itself imply free will. The analogy I was thinking of was a search engine. Enter a word into google and hey presto the search engine will choose amongst the millions of websites on the net, the ones that match your search. Because the search engine chooses some and not the ones that do not match your search does not imply it has free will.
Again I stress the point that it has been shown that humans will rationalise to deceive themselves into believing they have made a free choice where in fact they are following an irressistable compulsion. Because of that I think it's impossible to ever be sure that we have free will.
I'll go further. I strongly suspect that the more scientists investigate, the more they will find that fewer and fewer of our choices are as a result of free will, until it becomes widely accepted tho' not fully proven, that free will is actually an illusion. |
Then I suppose it's time to release every single prisoner, since they really had no choice in the crime they committed.
Peace |
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