Determinism/Free Will

[dybmh]

Ok! But you were not feeling lazy (or at least not lazy enough to prevent you from posting) back when you typed that post. That condition was not present. And since it wasn't present, you have typed that post. So thinking back about that specific moment in time, could you truly have chosen otherwise? Or does it only seem that you could have chosen otherwise because you can think of yourself feeling lazy and not typing that post?

From my perpective it feels like I am making a choice. The reason I'm replying is because I'm curious about your point of view, and I don't want to be rude.

 

[Brian2]

Hmm... Not really. Free will is the ability to have done otherwise, and not merely doing what you wanted to do the most. Think of it like this: Could I have done otherwise when I chose to type this post? It was indeed the thing I wanted to do the most, but to those that defend the existence of free will the answer would have to be 'yes'. But if I am always doing what I want to do the most (given my particular circumstances at that time, of course), could I truly have chosen otherwise given my will at that moment in time? Considering that it is my will that propels me towards my choices, how could I have chosen otherwise?

So for a determinist and using the same type of reasoning, we have no free will if God does know the future and even if God does not know the future we still have no free will.
It is just a matter of what we will choose, and if we choose it, that means we must have wanted to choose it.
But we have done away with God and I would say we could do away with what we want to do also in our argument against free will.
We will do what we will do and so we cannot choose any other path than the one we will choose, so we are locked into that path and so have no free will to choose anything else. We have done away with God and what we want to do.
You would say, as other determinists say, that if we had free will we could do other than we wanted to do most at a particular time. You would also say that we could do other than what God knows we will do. And I guess you would have to say that to have free will we could do other than what we are determined to do, that which we will do. If not, then we are locked into doing just that and cannot do anything else.
Would that be your deterministic position?
Does that describe what you mean by the absence of free will?

 

[Brian2]

@Heyo and @blü 2 ,

It seems to me that God uses its omnipotence to suspend its omniscience so that freewill can exist. Is that reasonable?

That sounds reasonable to me and is a good way to explain both God's knowing the future and at times seemingly not knowing it in the Bible.
Edit: It does sound like you agree with the determinist position that God's knowing the future does take away our free will however.

 

[blü 2]

God is using omnipotence to limit omniscience.

*Chuckle*

Danged clever. [He]'ll go far!

 

[Heyo]

Interesting

Neuroscience of free will - Wikipedia

Tackles, beside others, the (in)famous Libet experiment.

 

[MikeF]

My argument against free will goes like this: Imagine you want to eat pancakes. But you are on a strict diet. You want to lose some weight. So you resist the urge to eat pancakes. But what you are actually doing without realizing is having your behavior determined by your will to stick to a strict diet, your strongest will. So whenever you look at your past actions you are going to notice that you have always done what you wanted to do the most. Ask yourself, when has that not happened?

Are you saying we never subordinate what we want to do the most to some external circumstance?

We are constantly presented with the need to make choices/decisions. That we make those choices does not, in and of itself, speak to why we made those choices. I think the CNS is a very complex system that can handle choice in a multiple of ways.

As I have said in other posts, there is much that influences and constrains our behavior, our choices, but within that, we have some capacity to act contrary to those influences/constraints, we have some capacity for arbitrary choice, and we have the capacity to create unique or novel choices.

 

[Koldo]

From my perpective it feels like I am making a choice. The reason I'm replying is because I'm curious about your point of view, and I don't want to be rude.

The lack of free will is compatible with feeling like you are making a choice. The distinction between free will and it's lack of is not whether you perceive yourself making a choice but whether you could have truly made a different choice.

 

[Koldo]

So for a determinist and using the same type of reasoning, we have no free will if God does know the future and even if God does not know the future we still have no free will.
It is just a matter of what we will choose, and if we choose it, that means we must have wanted to choose it.
But we have done away with God and I would say we could do away with what we want to do also in our argument against free will.
We will do what we will do and so we cannot choose any other path than the one we will choose, so we are locked into that path and so have no free will to choose anything else. We have done away with God and what we want to do.
You would say, as other determinists say, that if we had free will we could do other than we wanted to do most at a particular time. You would also say that we could do other than what God knows we will do. And I guess you would have to say that to have free will we could do other than what we are determined to do, that which we will do. If not, then we are locked into doing just that and cannot do anything else.
Would that be your deterministic position?
Does that describe what you mean by the absence of free will?

There is a specific line of reasoning regarding God's omniscience that doesn't contradict free will in my perspective. But other than that, yes, that sounds like my view.

 

[MikeF]

The lack of free will is compatible with feeling like you are making a choice. The distinction between free will and it's lack of is not whether you perceive yourself making a choice but whether you could have truly made a different choice.

I disagree with the assertion that there is never any choice situation or circumstance in which one can truly have made a different choice. Having made a particular choice does not mean that you necessarily were always compelled to make that specific choice.

 

[Koldo]

Are you saying we never subordinate what we want to do the most to some external circumstance?

Can you elaborate what you mean by this?
As in someone threatening us, for example?

We are constantly presented with the need to make choices/decisions. That we make those choices does not, in and of itself, speak to why we made those choices. I think the CNS is a very complex system that can handle choice in a multiple of ways.

As I have said in other posts, there is much that influences and constrains our behavior, our choices, but within that, we have some capacity to act contrary to those influences/constraints, we have some capacity for arbitrary choice, and we have the capacity to create unique or novel choices.

I will deal with your 3 scenarios:

1) Acting contrary to influences - Whenever you act contrary to an influence what you are actually doing is acting in accordance to another influence.

2) Arbitrary choices - What do you mean by arbitrary choices? Whenever we choose randomly? It is hard to figure out whether truly random choices exist. But even if they do, what we wanted the most at that moment would be to choose randomly.

3) Unique or novel choices - I have no idea why or how unique and nivel choices would contradict the idea that we are always choosing what we want the most. Can you elaborate?

 

[Koldo]

I disagree with the assertion that there is never any choice situation or circumstance in which one can truly have made a different choice. Having made a particular choice does not mean that you necessarily were always compelled to make that specific choice.

Why would you have chosen differently?

 

[MikeF]

Why would you have chosen differently?

One example may be as follows: Someone wants to perform a card trick and fans out a deck of cards and asks you to pick a card, any card. There is nothing in that scenario that would dictate you deterministically pick a specific card. If the request was an hour later or on another day, I would posit that positionally in the fan of cards, you would not pick the same exact location. Having to make a choice, you are going to pick one, but you are in no way destined to pick the card you eventually pick.

 

[Koldo]

One example may be as follows: Someone wants to perform a card trick and fans out a deck of cards and asks you to pick a card, any card. There is nothing in that scenario that would dictate you deterministically pick a specific card. If the request was an hour later or on another day, I would posit that positionally in the fan of cards, you would not pick the same exact location. Having to make a choice, you are going to pick one, but you are in no way destined to pick the card you eventually pick.

It is pretty much impossible to know whether a truly random choice exists. But how would being able to randomly choose entail free will? I can create a software that makes random "choices". Does it have free will?

 

[Willamena]

I'll never understand free will in terms of randomness. There is nothing random about it. Free will is an action initiated by you versus one initiated apart from you. That's all it is.

 

[Brian2]

There is a specific line of reasoning regarding God's omniscience that doesn't contradict free will in my perspective. But other than that, yes, that sounds like my view.

When it comes to God, He knows what we will freely choose. We cannot choose anything other than what we will freely choose, so some say that we are locked into that choice and so have no free will.
That however ignores the fact that what God knows is what we do freely choose. So whether we are locked into that act or not has no bearing on us having freely chosen it.
Those who say that we are locked into that choice and so cannot choose anything else are saying the same as you are saying, which is that we do what we want to do and cannot choose anything else and so are locked in and have no free will to choose anything else.
Their argument and locking in is based on God's knowledge of what we will do and yours is based on our knowledge of what we want to do and no matter what we choose, it is what we want to do and we cannot choose anything else.
Those who argue about God's omniscience being the problem ignore the fact that God knows what we freely choose.
You ignore the fact that what we choose to do actually is what we want to do and so we do have free will to change that to something else which will be what we want to do. Even if we choose what we don't want to do, it will be what we want to do at that moment.
Sounds remarkably like free will to me.

In my post to you I said:
Brian2 said: >>>You would say, as other determinists say, that if we had free will we could do other than we wanted to do most at a particular time. You would also say that we could do other than what God knows we will do. And I guess you would have to say that to have free will we could do other than what we are determined to do, that which we will do. If not, then we are locked into doing just that and cannot do anything else.<<<
You agreed that this was your position, that if we had free will we could choose to do what was determined that we would do.
That would mean that if we managed to choose to do something else other than what was determined we would do, it would mean that our new choice was really what was determined that we would do and so we cannot break away from what is determined that we do,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, so we have no free will. IOW we cannot change our fate even if we managed to change it.
Is that your position?

 

[Brian2]

I'll never understand free will in terms of randomness. There is nothing random about it. Free will is an action initiated by you versus one initiated apart from you. That's all it is.

Quick, run, before you go down a rabbit hole into the warren of confusion that exists about free will.

 

[Koldo]

When it comes to God, He knows what we will freely choose. We cannot choose anything other than what we will freely choose, so some say that we are locked into that choice and so have no free will.
That however ignores the fact that what God knows is what we do freely choose. So whether we are locked into that act or not has no bearing on us having freely chosen it.
Those who say that we are locked into that choice and so cannot choose anything else are saying the same as you are saying, which is that we do what we want to do and cannot choose anything else and so are locked in and have no free will to choose anything else.
Their argument and locking in is based on God's knowledge of what we will do and yours is based on our knowledge of what we want to do and no matter what we choose, it is what we want to do and we cannot choose anything else.
Those who argue about God's omniscience being the problem ignore the fact that God knows what we freely choose.

How does he know beforehand what we will freely choose? A free willed choice is impossible to be known beforehand. The only solution I have found so far is to claim that God has a distinct perception of time, in that he sees the past, the present and the future all together, meaning he doesn't know our choices beforehand, he is merely witnessing them all at the same moment, right now. Whether that is actually feasible... I have no idea, but it is a quite intriguing solution.

You ignore the fact that what we choose to do actually is what we want to do and so we do have free will to change that to something else which will be what we want to do. Even if we choose what we don't want to do, it will be what we want to do at that moment.
Sounds remarkably like free will to me.

Free will is not merely doing what you want to do. A lot of people don't get this. Look into your past. Think of any given choice you have made. Could you truly have chosen differently? If and only if your answer is 'yes', you had free will. What you have done was a consequence of what you wanted and other factors like your cognitives abilities at that moment, all of which are beyond your control. You want what you want. You might even want contradictory things like eating french fries and getting thinner, and your highest/biggest 'want' is always going to win and decide the outcome. The act of choosing is nothing more than witnessing what 'wants' are going to decide the outcome of your actions.

In my post to you I said:
Brian2 said: >>>You would say, as other determinists say, that if we had free will we could do other than we wanted to do most at a particular time. You would also say that we could do other than what God knows we will do. And I guess you would have to say that to have free will we could do other than what we are determined to do, that which we will do. If not, then we are locked into doing just that and cannot do anything else.<<<
You agreed that this was your position, that if we had free will we could choose to do what was determined that we would do.
That would mean that if we managed to choose to do something else other than what was determined we would do, it would mean that our new choice was really what was determined that we would do and so we cannot break away from what is determined that we do,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, so we have no free will. IOW we cannot change our fate even if we managed to change it.
Is that your position?

My position is that the notion of free will doesn't make sense to begin with. How would we be able to choose freely if our choices are the outcomes of our 'wants'?

 

[dybmh]

How would we be able to choose freely if our choices are the outcomes of our 'wants'?

What you're describing is someone who is a slave to their desires?

 

[Brian2]

How does he know beforehand what we will freely choose? A free willed choice is impossible to be known beforehand. The only solution I have found so far is to claim that God has a distinct perception of time, in that he sees the past, the present and the future all together, meaning he doesn't know our choices beforehand, he is merely witnessing them all at the same moment, right now. Whether that is actually feasible... I have no idea, but it is a quite intriguing solution.

I don't think that us knowing how God knows what we will freely choose, has anything to do with whether it is true or not.
How do you come to the conclusion that a a free willed choice is impossible to be known beforehand?
Is this a presupposition that you come to the discussion with or do you say that God is forcing us to do what we do? If so, how?

Free will is not merely doing what you want to do. A lot of people don't get this. Look into your past. Think of any given choice you have made. Could you truly have chosen differently? If and only if your answer is 'yes', you had free will. What you have done was a consequence of what you wanted and other factors like your cognitives abilities at that moment, all of which are beyond your control. You want what you want. You might even want contradictory things like eating french fries and getting thinner, and your highest/biggest 'want' is always going to win and decide the outcome. The act of choosing is nothing more than witnessing what 'wants' are going to decide the outcome of your actions.

Free will is when we can freely choose between options, and of course, what we choose is going to be what we want at that particular instant after weighing up the options in whatever way we might do that.
Sometimes the choice is very plain to us and at other times we might fluctuate between a number of options and could have just as easily chosen something else. Sometimes we have a choice between things that we do not want and so choose the least bad option.
Whether the choice is easy or not is not a determining factor, the only determining factor is if we were free to choose between options, iow whether we are free to choose what we want or whether we were forced to choose what we did or not.
You have taken away any determining factor and said that it is not free will merely because we have made a choice.

My position is that the notion of free will doesn't make sense to begin with. How would we be able to choose freely if our choices are the outcomes of our 'wants'?

For you, even if someone holds a knife to our throat and forces us to choose death or somethings else equally as repulsive to us, whatever we choose is what we wanted in your argument even if we may not really want what we chose.
In that respect you are making all choices into free choices and then denying that they are free choices because we have a mechanism by which we choose them. (which is probably a combination of feelings and thought, and in the end can be said to be what we want).
You describe free choice (choosing what we want) and then say it is not free choice because we choose what we want and so wanting something is forcing us to choose it.
But who cares what factors determine our choice as long as we get to do it without being forced by an outside agency.
The agency you have forcing us to do something is ourselves. But that is the whole thing about free will, it is us, our thoughts, feelings, wants etc that get to choose, not someone else, even if our options are limited at times.
In the end your argument is not really an argument, it is just a denial of what free will is, so you can deny that we have free will.

 

[Koldo]

What you're describing is someone who is a slave to their desires?

Depends on what you mean by desires.
Do long term choices like saving money count as a desire?
This is why I prefer the term 'wants' than 'desires'. In a sense we are slaves to our 'wants'. But I think it is more apropriate to say we are our 'wants'.