So, free will

[ScAvenger001]

This kinda got started in the "Christianity" thread.

On the one hand, pretty much every major religion I've run into says that you're responsible for your own decisions because you have Free Will(tm). This is important, because if you're not responsible for your own decisions then you can't really be held accountable for them, meaning you can sin all you want and it's not really your fault because you don't have any free will of your own. If you're not responsible for your own actions, an afterlife in heaven or hell is purely arbitrary.

On the other hand, you've got predestination. Along with free will, pretty much every major religion I've run into says that God is omnipotent. If God is omnipotent, then God knows everything that will ever happen, and the only way to know everything that will ever happen is for it to be predetermined. Once your destiny is predetermined, you really don't have much choice in the matter, do you? If it's written in the Big Book of Things That Will Happen that you'll grow up to be a mass-murderer, and it's been your destiny since before you were born, what difference does it make what you decide? You can't decide for example "nah, instead I'm going to spend my life giving teddy bears to orphans." It's your destiny, you're practically on rails when it comes to what's going to happen, and whatever thought processes you may or may not have getting there are moot.

This is a problem: free will on rails isn't really free, is it? Any thought processes I'm having right now are the thought processes that I've always been destined to have, and there's no possible way that I could ever have done anything else.

There are only a couple of ways that I can see to reconcile this.

1) God isn't actually omnipotent. Maybe it's impossible for anyone to see what's actually going to happen, and even God can't do it. Well, we're not on rails any more, but we've also broken a major tenet of several religions. Suddenly we have a God with limits, and all sorts of things start to fall apart. This is also the easy solution for the atheists: if there's no God, He sure isn't omnipotent, problem solved.

2) We don't actually have free will, we only think we do. As I said above, that means that accountability goes right out the window. I'm on rails, just like you, and whether I scratch my nose or push you off a cliff is entirely out of my hands. Oh well.

3) There's also the wierd Schrodinger-esque possibility. God can look at the future and know what will happen and it's all predestined, and then He can stop looking and forget what happened (in a much purer way that a human could, since God is omnipotent and can do these tricks) and we're not on rails any more. Opening the box kills or saves the cat, closing it again puts the cat back into flux.

4) Something I've missed. This issue has been troubling theologians for a while. I heard once that Calvin (I think?) had come up with a good solution to it, but I don't know what that solution was (and the professor who was doing the talking immediately begged the class not to ask any questions about it due to its complexity and, I suspect, iffy reasoning).

So, what do you think? Are you on rails?

[FaKToR]

Taken as an extreme it's an irrelevant question, because if everything is predetermined (no freewill whatsoever) than I cannot chose whether to believe in freewill or not, nor govern my actions should I attain knowledge regarding this information. Or if you do have freewill, how do you know?

Edit: You know it might help to define what you mean by freewill.

[Daywalker]

you're on rails, but you keep passing switches. You are more or less locked into a number of destinations, you pick which one and how fast you get there through your actions. You are stuck with those destinations, your actions define which one you do.

[Bone_Vulture]

Whenever I hear the term "free will", I think of this. (http://www.capmag.com/)

[-V-]

Well, being a mostly atheist, I'm going to have to say free will definatley exists.

I mean it all comes down to faith, which being a highly subjective thing relying on someone to accept it as-is with no deep questions asked. However when you delve into it, it just gets plain silly. "god knows what I am gona do, but there is no predestination, or maybey there is, or not.." and on and on.

[FaKToR]

I'm distrustful of anyone who would reference Ayn Rand, I've been looking at her work "For the New Intellectual" and it's not a very well reasoned work so far. I would compare here to Ann Coulter with how she approaches debate.

What many of you are foregoing with your arguments about predestination, and why I asked Scav for a definition of freewill, is discussion on how the concept of time plays into this whole affair. Like the matrix, perhaps we make our choice before they occur. I might make a choice for how I'll act tomorrow, is that not a choice?

[M123]

I don't think it matters whether we have free will or not.

[ScAvenger001]

Taken as an extreme it's an irrelevant question, because if everything is predetermined (no freewill whatsoever) than I cannot chose whether to believe in freewill or not, nor govern my actions should I attain knowledge regarding this information. Or if you do have freewill, how do you know? That's a perfectly valid point, but it sort of kills the debate :p Since it means throwing up one's hands and saying "either way it really won't affect me."

Edit: You know it might help to define what you mean by freewill. In this context, I'll define it as having a genuine choice behind your own actions.

you're on rails, but you keep passing switches. You are more or less locked into a number of destinations, you pick which one and how fast you get there through your actions. You are stuck with those destinations, your actions define which one you do. To keep this analogy going, how do you know all the switches aren't welded in the direction you end up going? If your choice is right or left and you choose left, how do you know that right was ever truly an option? Or, an alternate analogy, if the destination has already been determined (predestination, ho ho), is there really a choice in the switches so long as they get you to that particular destination?

[FaKToR]

To keep this analogy going, how do you know all the switches aren't welded in the direction you end up going? If your choice is right or left and you choose left, how do you know that right was ever truly an option? Or, an alternate analogy, if the destination has already been determined (predestination, ho ho), is there really a choice in the switches so long as they get you to that particular destination?
To which I would point out Scav that you need to further elaborate on your definition of free will, as when you make the choice becomes relevant.

[Bobo*the*Clown]

Predestination is the antithesis of free will. You have no choice, you will end up where you end up no matter what you think you've choosen to do. Along those same lines, if there is a God and if there is a heaven and a hell, under full predestination, from before you are born, your soul is predestined to end up in one or the other-nothing we do will change that. However...the very basis of the Christian faith is the freedom to believe in God or not-and that choice to have faith in God/Jesus is what will land us in heaven or hell...no one is pre-destined to be there.

So that's the conundrum.
I balance the two out like this: God knows all and he knows the choices we will make before we make them. Our pre-destination is not that we are guaranteed to end up at one certain place, it's that we WILL end up at a certain place depending on the choices we make. God has not defined the end result, he is simply aware of it. God is omnipotent...he can see the outcome and consequences of all the choices you freely make-and he can see the end result of each. As you choose different 'switches' in life, you do change the end destination-unknown to you at the time, but known to God.

Maybe it's best to look at it this way. The entire focus of the pre-destination vs. free will debate is not about whether you're destined to wear your blue socks this morning or whether you'll have pancakes for breakfast-it's about how God determines who gets into heaven or not. Using that as a guide, there really are just two end destinations in life-Heaven or Hell. Your soul will land in one of those two pre-determined locations depending on the choices you make. If you reject or or choose not to believe in God, you are destined for Hell. You have the freedom to choose that pre-determined path. If you freely choose to believe and have faith in God, you will go to Heaven. Both paths are absolute, both paths are determined by the choice you make to have faith or not. God knows the end result of both choices, God knows which path you're on now and where it will lead. It is ultimately your choice to stay on that path though-it is your free will to decide your end destination and you can choose to change that destination at any time.

[Violin]

There will never be freewill. If there was, there would be chaos. We live by a ..... fair set of rules, we in the US that is. Rules that can be bended and twisted. Loosely constructed id guess you could say.

[Fearfisch]

Alright, so I'm going to say something that may seem rather confusing. You have been warned.

We do have free will, in the sense that we can act as we please, think as we please, etc. But what do we base what we please to do or think on? A combination of genetics and experience, both falling into the past. A series of events, cause and effect, leading up to that point in time. Everything is predetermined, but by the past, not by any god or mystical force. So we act as we choose, but we don't decide what we choose. So no, free will doesn't actually exist.

Fair enough?

[Violin]

Alright, so I'm going to say something that may seem rather confusing. You have been warned.

you werent kidding

[FaKToR]

It's an extension of cause and effect. Since we are formed by causes of genetics and conditioning then our actions or choices are effects of this.

[Bobo*the*Clown]

However you have the ability to overcome any pre-conditioned responses you may have learned. You choose your future based on your past experiences, but you can choose a future you have no experience with. If you are raised in an abusive, alcoholic home, you are conditioned to behave in the same manner...yet, you can also reject those behaviors and choose a new future that is neither abusive nor alcoholic. Your past does not determine your future, it can influence it, but it does not determine it.

[PopeDragunov]

I think god exists but he just kinda created the world and is checking stuff out from afar now. Why would he just create something KNOWING FULL WELL THAT 99% of them would be doomed to hell? Sounds like a dick move to me.

I think theres free will. God may know how it all turns out, but since we dont, we cannot speculate as to having free will or not. That sentence made no sense. Bwahaha.

[Fearfisch]

However you have the ability to overcome any pre-conditioned responses you may have learned. You choose your future based on your past experiences, but you can choose a future you have no experience with. If you are raised in an abusive, alcoholic home, you are conditioned to behave in the same manner...yet, you can also reject those behaviors and choose a new future that is neither abusive nor alcoholic. Your past does not determine your future, it can influence it, but it does not determine it.
It goes a lot farther than just how you grew up. I'd try and explain it with examples, but it's too vast. You have to consider everything, absolutely everything. It's an intricate web of action and reaction, on all scales of time and size. It's far too complex for any human being, but everything is set, can be 'predicted' because there is only one way.

True free will would require some sort of 'soul', part of you not affected by anything else, which can't exist because it would have to 'simply be', which requires faith rather than knowledge.

Continuing from the first paragraph, imagine if it were possible to know the past and present completely, and therefor 'see' into the future. But if you see the future, can you deviate from it? If you can, then the predictions must be illusions, not taking into account that one might attempt to alter them, and so things end up as they should, and as you believed they weren't supposed to. Just something to think about. ;o

[ScAvenger001]

Ok, here's a definition of free will. Free will means that your actions cannot be predicted with 100% accuracy. eg, if you put your hand on a hot stove, I can predict that you will jerk your hand away. But you might not because you have free will to override the instinctual reaction.

If I'm omniscient, though, I can predict anything I want with 100% accuracy. I can predict whether or not your hand stays on the stove and never ever be wrong. I can predict exactly where you'll sit on the bus on any given day, and I have been able to do so since before you were born, or for that matter before buses were invented (so it's not a cheat, as in two seconds before you sit down I pop in and say "aha, you are going to sit there!"). Fearfisch, I think, would say that you can replace "I am omniscient" (which implies divinity) with "I have the raw calculating power to take into account every physical law and every particle of matter and every nanojoule of energy in the entire universe and make predictions with that" and get the same result.

Is that a better definition?

Now, responses:
It goes a lot farther than just how you grew up. I'd try and explain it with examples, but it's too vast. You have to consider everything, absolutely everything. It's an intricate web of action and reaction, on all scales of time and size. It's far too complex for any human being, but everything is set, can be 'predicted' because there is only one way.

Chaos theorists would disagree, at least on the part about being able to take the past into account and perfectly predict the future.

I think god exists but he just kinda created the world and is checking stuff out from afar now. Why would he just create something KNOWING FULL WELL THAT 99% of them would be doomed to hell? Sounds like a dick move to me. This seems off topic, but oh well. Also, it's one of my major beefs with almost every major religion: if you don't practice this religion, you're going to Hell. All those people who didn't practice it because they were in, say, North America (pre 1500s, I mean) and there was a fucking ocean between them and anyone who could tell them about the religion? Hell. Sucks to be them, huh?

God has not defined the end result, he is simply aware of it. Um, how does that work? How can you be aware of something that is undefined?

God knows the end result of both choices, God knows which path you're on now and where it will lead. It is ultimately your choice to stay on that path though-it is your free will to decide your end destination and you can choose to change that destination at any time. How does God not know in advance which one you'll end up at, though? That's the real issue: if He knows, then the entire journey is moot and so are your so-called "choices", but if He doesn't then He's not actually God.

[-V-]

A little further off-topic, but what if god is basically an ant-farmer and we're all a bunch of ants to him. He may know exactly where we are going but he couldn't care less about us on an individual scale.

Just food for thought.

[Agent Law]

If God does exist, He perhaps may have more important things to do than to manipulate us, or does not want to interfere. It's a big universe, and a project like life you may want to see how it plays out without your continuous intervention. Maybe He has a parallel project to see how no intervention and continuous intervention affect the evolution of a spieces. If I were a god, I'd do that.

[Violin]

If i were god i would show myself .....

[Violin]

free·will Audio pronunciation of "freewill" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (frwl)
adj.

Done of one's own accord; voluntary.




Thats what dictionary.com says about it anyways. Is this also valid in your case?

[ScAvenger001]

A little further off-topic, but what if god is basically an ant-farmer and we're all a bunch of ants to him. He may know exactly where we are going but he couldn't care less about us on an individual scale.

Just food for thought.
Caring doesn't matter, it's the fact of knowing what will happen that gets the predestination going.

If God does exist, He perhaps may have more important things to do than to manipulate us, or does not want to interfere. It's a big universe, and a project like life you may want to see how it plays out without your continuous intervention. Maybe He has a parallel project to see how no intervention and continuous intervention affect the evolution of a spieces. If I were a god, I'd do that. Again, this isn't "we don't have free will because we're actually puppets and God is directly running the entire show." This is "we don't have free will because everything is predetermined and none of our choices actually matter because they're not actually choices."

[Violin]

This is "we don't have free will because everything is predetermined and none of our choices actually matter because they're not actually choices."

Why would you think this? Explain.

And heres what i think.

Nothing is predetermined. I could have a great job, become a great person, and support the good things in life with a single decision. OR i could become a bum, a do nothing, and yatta yatta, with a single decision.

Nothing is preset for you. You are on this earth to live, its your choice to determine how to live it.

[ScAvenger001]

Why would you think this? Explain.
If God is omnipotent, then God knows everything that will ever happen, and the only way to know everything that will ever happen is for it to be predetermined. Once your destiny is predetermined, you really don't have much choice in the matter, do you? If it's written in the Big Book of Things That Will Happen that you'll grow up to be a mass-murderer, and it's been your destiny since before you were born, what difference does it make what you decide? You can't decide for example "nah, instead I'm going to spend my life giving teddy bears to orphans." It's your destiny, you're practically on rails when it comes to what's going to happen, and whatever thought processes you may or may not have getting there are moot.
Reread first post.

[Violin]

Why would you think things are predetermined? You can easily make decisions that could lead you to each extreme.

An example. If i was told by a "Heavenly" being, that my destiny is to heal the wounded. But i could easily make a decision, of getting a gun, and killing people. That definatly wouldnt be healing anything.

[Agent Law]

Again, this isn't "we don't have free will because we're actually puppets and God is directly running the entire show." This is "we don't have free will because everything is predetermined and none of our choices actually matter because they're not actually choices."
Well, then, I'm inclined to believe that the choices I make do affect what happens in my life.

[ScAvenger001]

Why would you think things are predetermined? You can easily make decisions that could lead you to each extreme.

An example. If i was told by a "Heavenly" being, that my destiny is to heal the wounded. But i could easily make a decision, of getting a gun, and killing people. That definatly wouldnt be healing anything.
Yeah, but would you still have broken the vase if she hadn't said anything?

Follow my logic here:

1) God is omnipotent
2) Therefore, God is omniscient
3) Therefore, God knows how everything is going to go.
4) Since someone knows exactly how everything is going to go, it must be predetermined.
5) Therefore, if God is omnipotent, everything is predetermined.
QED

To use your example, God knows that you're going to get a gun and kill people (if He didn't, He wouldn't be very omnipotent). God also knows that part of the path that leads you to this point is seeing a "heavenly" being say that your destiny is to heal the wounded. Thus, at the appropriate time, God sends a messenger with the "heal the wounded" message, you say "nuh uh! You're not the boss of me!" and start killing people. Destiny fulfilled, you had no real choice in the matter. Had you chosen to say "ok, sure, I'll do that" and became a doctor, God would have known in advance that you were going to take that path instead. Either way, your "choices" are illusory.

[Klif]

On the other hand, you've got predestination. Along with free will, pretty much every major religion I've run into says that God is omnipotent. If God is omnipotent, then God knows everything that will ever happen, and the only way to know everything that will ever happen is for it to be predetermined. Once your destiny is predetermined, you really don't have much choice in the matter, do you? If it's written in the Big Book of Things That Will Happen that you'll grow up to be a mass-murderer, and it's been your destiny since before you were born, what difference does it make what you decide? You can't decide for example "nah, instead I'm going to spend my life giving teddy bears to orphans." It's your destiny, you're practically on rails when it comes to what's going to happen, and whatever thought processes you may or may not have getting there are moot.this paragraph seems like faulty reasoning to me. i can't quite put my finger on it, tho'. maybe it's that you're thinking linearly -- past to present to future -- and God (i'm referring to the Christian God) doesn't live linearly. maybe it's the statement "and the only way to know everything that will ever happen is for it to be predetermined." maybe it's a mix of the two, or something entirely different.

*shrug*

[Violin]

Lets say you are jogging. You come across 5 paths, and you dont know where they lead. So each day you go jogging, you take a differnt path. You discover that you reached the same main jogging path with all of the paths you took.

Meaning you have the choice on how you want to go to your special destineh thingeh. So its still freewill. And also, if you dont know your distny, and someone else does, its still freewill, because its what YOU think, you think you are making these choices. And you are. You can make ANY choice you want, but no matter what, somehow these choices will lead you to your distiny. If you didnt have freewill, you could only choose one path, to get to your main path. Only one way. Because by making these other decisions, you gain more knowledge, more skills.

[Bobo*the*Clown]

Knowing something will happen is not the same as forcing something to happen.

If I see someone lay down in the middle of a dark rail road track in the middle of the night when a train is scheduled to come, I can guess that that person will get run over by a train. I can see it happening...so can they. I can see what will occur before it does, but I am not forcing it to happen.

If I learn that a company is going to release incredibly good news, I can guess that it's stock value will rise. I can be certain to the point of knowing it will-based on all my past experiences. When the company releases the news and the stock rises-my knowledge that it would rise had nothing to do with it actually happening.

[Violin]

uhh...no. You can only imagine what would happen. But you have no final say on thats what WILL happen. The train could breakdown somehow and stop waybefore it hits him. And he would get bored and leave.

[Bobo*the*Clown]

True...in that case-some odd thing can happen to change that. With the stock example...the day the news is released the CEO could be arrested for fraud-which would drive the price back down-but-if I knew he was under investigation, I would know that could be the end result too.

I know if someone touches a hot stove, they will end up with a burn if they don't remove their hand. I know the stove will cause a burn, but I am not causing the stove to burn someone.

I know if I eat nothing but fattening foods and never exercise, I will end up with heart problems. It may take 60 years for it to develop because of my genetic makeup, but I do know the end result-before it happens. Knowing it will happen is not forcing it to happen though.

Knowing the result is not the same as causing the result.

[ScAvenger001]

Violin hit that one on the head: what you're doing there isn't foreknowledge, it's guessing. If you know that a company is going to release incredibly good news, you can guess that it's stock price will rise, but if someone sets off a bomb in one of their factories five minutes before the market opens then your guess will have been wrong. If you're able to say exactly how much the stock price will change down to the last penny, and you've been able to do so since before the company was ever founded, then you're in predestination territory.

[Violin]

Martha Stewart lawl.

K anyways.

I think im lost on Freewill and the Illusions of Freewill. If there is an illusion of freewill, and we do not know its an illusion, essentially its freewill.

I think, that freewill is sort of misplaced here. I think we are searching for another word. Because we do have choices, and they arent illuisions either. We are able to choose what we want. I think that it isnt our choices thats being affected. I think everything else acts around our choinces instead. To the sense of we have freewill, but we do not have the ability to change our fate if you think in terms of destiny. We can do all we can, but we cant change our fate.

[GrosPoisson]

I think god exists but he just kinda created the world and is checking stuff out from afar now. Why would he just create something KNOWING FULL WELL THAT 99% of them would be doomed to hell? Sounds like a dick move to me.

Agreed, and that's usually what gets me in trouble with most Christians when I tell them that. Plenty of people have told me they feel a personal connection to God; that's great and all, and I have no right to question that, but I personally have not, and that's why I make frequent trips into Heresy Land trying to make sense of things. I've always thought that the arbitrary and vengeful aspect of God is vital to explaining why so many bad things exist and that's probably why I would agree with the Old Testament more (relatively speaking, my views still deviate wildly from the norms). This is the same God that decided to mess with Job's life so his faith could be tested.

When I consider God as a deity in the sense that most people do, I tend to think of God in a humorous/ironic light (OMG BLASPHEMY). Humans being are sinful, etc. but was it really necessary for God to create impotence? Come on now, that's just mean.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my (crazy, contradictory, overly complex) view of God exists more as a function of my own need to make sense of the world, rather than a justification or a reason.

[Violin]

How can one have a personal connection with somthing that is only based on faith? Do they really think god is commuinicating to them through a series of random events that happen every day?

[mg23]

I had a rather large discussion with a friend of mine concerning this, and he informed me of a rather interesting idea. When we're born, we have "free will," which means we make decisions on our own, our destiny is not yet determined, and our belief in God is undetermined. Based on our environment or whatever you want to call it, a person can come to God where his life is then changed to "pre-destination," where he is now guarenteed Heaven when he dies. If the person remains an atheist, then his life continues under "free will," where the definition of "free" is in the eye of the beholder. Or something.

[Seanobi]

I have my own major qualm with Christianity, and it has to do with these several points.

1) God created man in his own image. Adam and Eve were created without sin, and existed as such until Lucifer tempted Eve into eating the forbidden fruit.

2) God is all-powerful, and could conceivably create a Heaven that would never need to hang up a "No Vacancy" sign in the front window. There could be infinite room to fit every soul he created.

3) Only those who accept God as their savior are allowed entrance to Heaven. All others, be they good-hearted Peace corps workers or evil serial killers, are to burn in hell for all eternity because they chose to not accept God as their lord.

With these three ideas presented, why did God choose to put humanity on Earth in the first place? Being an omnipotent, omnipresent being, he would clearly know that we were going to fuck up somewhere along the line and necessitate ourselves to be put to a test of our collective faith.

If God truly "is love", as they say, and wants only the best for his creations, why didn't he just skip the middleman and just send us straight to Heaven instead of exposing us to the possibility of falling out of his grace by not accepting him as savior? To me, this has become my major argument against Christianity, and pretty much all of its sister religions as they too share the idea that one goes to Heaven by accepting God and not falling prey to the temptations presented to us by some malevolent force. It seems like god dropped the ball on this one, but according to the teachigns of Christianity, god is not a ball-dropping kind of guy.

[puke o'hara]

Theologically, I think predestination is rubbish.

[Psyche]

I think orson scott card said it best:

"Even if there is no such thing as free will, we have to treat each other as if there were free will in order to live together in society. Because otherwise, every time somebody does something terrible, you can’t punish him, because he can’t help it, because his genes or his environment or God made him do it, and every time somebody does something good, you can’t honor him, because he was a puppet, too. If you think that everybody around you is a puppet, why bother talking to them at all? Why even try to plan anything or create anything, since everything you plan or create or desire or dream of is just acting out the script your puppeteer built into you. So we conceive of ourselves and everyone around us as volitional beings. We treat everyone as if they did things with a purpose in mind, instead of because they’re being pushed from behind. We punish criminals. We reward altruists. We plan things and build things together. We make promises and expect each other to keep them. It’s all a made-up story, but when everybody believes that everybody’s actions are the result of free choice, and takes and gives responsibility accordingly, the result is civilization."