existentialism

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

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The point is that I don't believe anyone can ever make a free choice.  I don't see any way that a person can do other than what they do.  All anyone can do is use the machine they were given and respond to a given stimulus.      

[close]

Interesting point. You can't do two things at once.

[close]

He made fun of bugs, that must mean he isn't him! hahahaha, yeah right.

And I believe that a god could exist that gave people free will, the problem I have in that quote is the use of the word "risk." If an all knowing, all seeing, all powerful god existed, wouldn't the notion of a risk not exist to him? He knows the future and he creates what is possible, how could anybody be taking a risk? Wouldn't he know all outcomes, even if they weren't the result of his doing, but rather that of a person with free will?

[GnArcIsSisTic]

i don't think any sober minded Christian would say that God 'risked' anything when creating man....

most people have difficulty comprehending a being with infinite knowledge, as they should! but i mean, you know, we don't even know 10% of our earths oceans... let alone how the mind of a God works.

[loophole]

god is dead

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

i don't think any sober minded Christian would say that God 'risked' anything when creating man....

most people have difficulty comprehending a being with infinite knowledge, as they should! but i mean, you know, we don't even know 10% of our earths oceans... let alone how the mind of a God works.

I wasn't trying to comprehend a being with infinite knowledge, I was trying to comprehend how it would be possible that a being with infinite knowledge could take any sort of risk, considering the fact that he has infinite knowledge. You seem to agree that such an idea wasn't sensible. Believe it or not, this time I wasn't trying to swipe at the idea of god.

[GnArcIsSisTic]

yeah, i get that your thought was a theistic one.

what i meant was that God DIDN'T take any risks when He created man... why is the real question, right?

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

I was just referencing the CS Lewis quote where he says god took a risk with man.

[Dr. Evan]

Any of you well bred young men read the "Screwtape Letters" by CS Lewis? 

[GnArcIsSisTic]

Any of you well bred young men read the "Screwtape Letters" by CS Lewis? 

yes

and gip, i think he was being rhetorical, or something of the sort.  Much of the context of 'mere christianity' was supposed to be from some juxtaposed atheistic perspective, seeing as how he was a converted atheist.

it's actually a really good book, he reads well into the non christian perspective.

[oyolar]

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"God created things which had free well. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, through it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata--of creatures that worked like machines--would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free."

"Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God...If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will--that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings--then we may take it it is worth paying."

-C.S. Lewis

[close]

Completely baseless. Not to mention the existence of an all-powerful God and Human free-will are incompatible.

John Milton in "Paradise Lost" attempted to explain this. I don't want to misquote him though so I won't try to do an exact explanation, but it's something to te fact that God gave man intellect and reason and if he follows those he will follow God's will, but if he doesn't listen, he'll "disobey" God. But whether or not to listen is up to the individual.

As for my view on free will-I'm not sure it matters whether or not it exists. Because individuals cannot decide to go back and do something else at a previous moment (i.e. Gipper can't change that he made this thread at the exact moment he made it) there is no way to prove that you actually made the decision. Perhaps you were acting exactly as you were "fated" or "pre-alligned" to act but the human mind believes that it was making a decision. That's because individuals need to believe that they have taken action. There's really no way to determine if you actually controlled your fate. Saying "But I ran into traffic because I decided to run into traffic." just makes no sense to me because you don't know if you actually decided or if you're telling yourself you decided. I'm not too into philosophy so maybe this has all been explained better than I've done it or maybe it's ben refuted.

Now are we applying "free will" to inanimate objects as well? Because to me free will only seems applicable to sentient/thinking entities.

[GnArcIsSisTic]

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"God created things which had free well. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, through it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata--of creatures that worked like machines--would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free."

"Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God...If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will--that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings--then we may take it it is worth paying."

-C.S. Lewis

[close]

Completely baseless. Not to mention the existence of an all-powerful God and Human free-will are incompatible.

[close]

John Milton in "Paradise Lost" attempted to explain this. I don't want to misquote him though so I won't try to do an exact explanation, but it's something to te fact that God gave man intellect and reason and if he follows those he will follow God's will, but if he doesn't listen, he'll "disobey" God. But whether or not to listen is up to the individual.

As for my view on free will-I'm not sure it matters whether or not it exists. Because individuals cannot decide to go back and do something else at a previous moment (i.e. Gipper can't change that he made this thread at the exact moment he made it) there is no way to prove that you actually made the decision. Perhaps you were acting exactly as you were "fated" or "pre-alligned" to act but the human mind believes that it was making a decision. That's because individuals need to believe that they have taken action. There's really no way to determine if you actually controlled your fate. Saying "But I ran into traffic because I decided to run into traffic." just makes no sense to me because you don't know if you actually decided or if you're telling yourself you decided. I'm not too into philosophy so maybe this has all been explained better than I've done it or maybe it's ben refuted.

Now are we applying "free will" to inanimate objects as well? Because to me free will only seems applicable to sentient/thinking entities.

in a similar note... Lewis briefly explained an explanation for free will in that we each individually hold concepts of right and wrong, but more importantly we are able to decide which to choose.  like you, any more explanation from me would most likely butcher the whole thought process... but if you get the jist...

[grimcity]

I always figured we had free will, we just a finite number of chances to use it, and a finite selection of things we can actually do with it.

As far as theistic free will, I see it the same way a domineering CEO might use it on his employees... that CEO might "urge" an employee to put in a few hours on Saturday even though that employee needed that day off. The employee does have a choice of showing up or not, but if he doesn't, he runs the risk of getting let go or fucked with in some other way. With Christian theism, you have a choice, but one choice leads to some sort of damnation (be it in a lake of fire or simply removed from the absence of the Christian god). Basically, that type of free will would lead to a lack of it, so is it really free in the long run?

I also question Lewis' take on God as a Hallmark Card-esque loving entity. Nearly every appearance God makes in the Old Testament, he's cursing someone, destroying a city, or causing plagues. I can't think of any OT story that shows God-the-father just flat-out giving love out to people. Hell, even Moses and "God's own" people were forced to wander the desert, and even through that act of faith, all he did was feed them manna?

Now, the character or person named Jesus seemed like a person with compassion, empathy, love, and all of that (though the Bible doesn't cover the majority of his life, and the parts that are covered were written well after his supposed resurrection), but that leads me to something else: doesn't God making himself incarnate, coming down to earth, and creating a new covenant with man question the concept of his omniscience?

If God is omniscient and knew us before we were born (Psalm 139), then he's still willingly sending his creation to some sort of eternal damnation, even with the new covenant. If he loves his creation, how can he reconcile an eternity of damnation for a human-lifetime's worth of not doing or believing as he wishes?

(seriously not flaming... I'm a former Christian who deconverted a long time ago)

[Sleazy]

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how so?

[close]

It's that an all-knowing God and free will are incompatible:

If God knows the future, then events unfold as God foresees
If events happen as God foresees, then they happen by necessity
If events happen by necessity, then we cannot choose otherwise
If we can't choose otherwise, then we have no free will
So, if God knows the future, then we have no free will

Unfree creatures are not morally responsible for their actions
It is unjust to punish an unfree creature for its actions
God punishes his creatures for their actions
So God is unjust

great argument but i believe that would be all knowing although if you are all powerful then i guess seeing the future would be a power

but fantastic argument eitherway

but the argument assumes that time follows a single timeline. if you don't make that assumption and make the assumption that j abrams made in star trek (yeah, yeah, i know...) that there are multiple threads through time, just like there can be multiple threads of execution in a program then it would be possible for him to see the future as all permutations of future events instead of one path. basically each binary descion we make would result in two seperate timelines and so there would be infinite timeline all of which he could be aware of because he's both all knowing and all powerful.

ad to this that if the universe is infinite it implies that there would be infinite parallel universes where everything that could happens does and then all of a sudden it's possible for both to coexist. he's aware of all permutation, all permutations will happen and our reality is just one instance of infinite paths through the same events.

[frig deuce]

I believe in free will, although I do not know for certain if it exists. As far as I know, it does.

Every moment of my life I am bombarded with information around me coming in through my senses. That information coming in through my senses does have an impact on me (though not all of it, its filtered through our reticular activation system first). Once I become conscious of something, I can judge it, and make a conscious decision. Sure, you could argue that "you are what you eat", meaning that the decision you are going to consciously make is influenced by some past experience or things youve seen/sensed, but back to the analogy of "you are what you eat", you can choose what you eat.

Im not here to attack anyone, so dont take this personally, but I strongly believe that people who don't believe in freedom of choice are just pessimistic folks who don't take much or any initiative in their lives and are deep down resentful, trying to blame their failures/sad lives upon the world they live in.

Life is just a series of probabilities, so you can make the best of anything if you choose to. Im also willing to bet that these folks who dont believe in free choice haven't worked on themselves much as people. To those people who dont believe in free choice, would you say you have a laissez faire attitude towards most of your life? Perhaps take an introspective look at your interactions and relationships with people, when someone is being a dick to you, do you say to yourself "hey, that guy is a fucking asswhole", or do you say "hmm i wonder what I did to make him think this and act this way".

Personally, im always progressing as a person. All the time i reflect on my actions. Im constantly reading books, informing myself about the world we live in, as well the self help section is a good friend of mine. I believe in making the best of this life by putting theory into practice and taking responsibility for my actions, not simply blaming others for my current shitty state of life. Anything i do wrong, I blame myself for it first, I dont take it personally, but i just try to take a lesson and learn from it so i can apply it next time. Anyways.

Have you ever heard of NLP? for those who haven't, it stands for neuro linguistic programming. Essentially you can reprogram your brain, through subconscious tricks that change your habits. You can change your personality to whatever the fuck you want, if you know what you have to change. I've been studying and practicing nlp for a little over a year now, and I have changed dramatically as a person.

I believe not believing in/denial of freedom of choice is simply ignorant.

"you are what you eat" right? so eat shitty food every day and keep feeling sorry for yourself. (note: to any the idiot who might read this like its the bible, im not personally attacking you, nor am i saying you eat shitty food, its an analogy, if you don't get it, shut the fuck up)

[4LOM]

i believe that would be all knowing although if you are all powerful then i guess seeing the future would be a power

but the argument assumes that time follows a single timeline. if you don't make that assumption and make the assumption that j abrams made in star trek (yeah, yeah, i know...) that there are multiple threads through time, just like there can be multiple threads of execution in a program then it would be possible for him to see the future as all permutations of future events instead of one path. basically each binary descion we make would result in two seperate timelines and so there would be infinite timeline all of which he could be aware of because he's both all knowing and all powerful.

ad to this that if the universe is infinite it implies that there would be infinite parallel universes where everything that could happens does and then all of a sudden it's possible for both to coexist. he's aware of all permutation, all permutations will happen and our reality is just one instance of infinite paths through the same events.

Power seems to require act to be realized. So, an all-powerful could know the future if the power was exerted to know the future, and then we would act by necessity if only that power was exerted, since then we would act as an all-powerful God foresaw. So maybe we would only be unfree if an all-powerful God exerted power to see our future.

But all-knowing doesn't require act or effort - all info would just be in God all the time. So with an all-knowing God, we could never be free, since we act by necessity - doing excatly what God foresaw we would do. Given that an all-knoiwng God foresees all.

If there are multiple timelines wouldn't the argument still hold? God, being all-knowing, would know the unfolding of each timeline before the events in that timeline took place. So, in each timeline we can't do otherwise than God foresees (and an all-knowing God foresees all timelines).
So in each timeline we don't have free will - we act by necessity of what God foresees.

God also sees new timelines being started, like when Nero starts a new Star Trek timeline.

[4LOM]

i believe in free will, although i do not know for certain if it exists. as far as i know, it does.

Every moment of my life I am bombarded with information around me coming in through my senses. That information coming in through my senses does have an impact on me (though not all of it, its filtered through our reticular activation system first). Once I become conscious of something, I can judge it, and make a conscious decision. Sure, you could argue that "you are what you eat", meaning that the decision you are going to consciously make is influenced by some past experience or things youve seen/sensed, but back to the analogy of "you are what you eat", you can choose what you eat.

Im not here to attack anyone, so dont take this personally, but I strongly believe that people who don't believe in freedom of choice are just pessimistic folks who don't take much or any initiative in their lives and are deep down resentful, trying to blame their failures/sad lives upon the world they live in.

Life is just a series of probabilities, so you can make the best of anything if you choose to. Im also willing to bet that these folks who dont believe in free choice haven't worked on themselves much as people. To those people who dont believe in free choice, would you say you have a laissez faire attitude towards most of your life? Perhaps take an introspective look at your interactions and relationships with people, when someone is being a dick to you, do you say to yourself "hey, that guy is a fucking asswhole", or do you say "hmm i wonder what I did to make him think this and act this way".

Personally, im always progressing as a person. All the time i reflect on my actions. Im constantly reading books, informing myself about the world we live in, as well the self help section is a good friend of mine. I believe in making the best of this life by putting theory into practice and taking responsibility for my actions, not simply blaming others for my current shitty state of life. Anything i do wrong, I blame myself for it first, I dont take it personally, but i just try to take a lesson and learn from it so i can apply it next time. Anyways.

Have you ever heard of NLP? for those who haven't, it stands for neuro linguistic programming. Essentially you can reprogram your brain, through subconscious tricks that change your habits. You can change your personality to whatever the fuck you want, if you know what you have to change. I've been studying and practicing nlp for a little over a year now, and I have changed dramatically as a person.

I believe not believing in/denial of freedom of choice is simply ignorant.

"you are what you eat" right? so eat shitty food every day and keep feeling sorry for yourself. (note: to any the idiot who might read this like its the bible, im not personally attacking you, nor am i saying you eat shitty food, its an analogy, if you don't get it, shut the fuck up)

I don't know why you'd think people that don't believe in free will are unmotivated or pessimistic. Wouldn't most people who advocate no-free-will be philosophers or physicists, and those academics have to be highly motivated to have such jobs? Besides the question isn't about what's emotionally prudent to believe, but what's likely to be true. And free will probably isn't true:

You don't choose your preferrences
You're motivated by events that happened to you in your childhood that you're unaware of.
You can say that you're making yourself with NLP- but you're not choosing what you think would be best to make yourself. At some point deliberation peters out and you just act or prefer - so you're not choosing what's at the bottom of your preferrences.

Also,
Your mind is caused by/realized in your brain
The brain is a physical object
Physical objects are determined by physcial laws
So, your mind is determined by physcial laws.     

[frig deuce]

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i believe in free will, although i do not know for certain if it exists. as far as i know, it does.

Every moment of my life I am bombarded with information around me coming in through my senses. That information coming in through my senses does have an impact on me (though not all of it, its filtered through our reticular activation system first). Once I become conscious of something, I can judge it, and make a conscious decision. Sure, you could argue that "you are what you eat", meaning that the decision you are going to consciously make is influenced by some past experience or things youve seen/sensed, but back to the analogy of "you are what you eat", you can choose what you eat.

Im not here to attack anyone, so dont take this personally, but I strongly believe that people who don't believe in freedom of choice are just pessimistic folks who don't take much or any initiative in their lives and are deep down resentful, trying to blame their failures/sad lives upon the world they live in.

Life is just a series of probabilities, so you can make the best of anything if you choose to. Im also willing to bet that these folks who dont believe in free choice haven't worked on themselves much as people. To those people who dont believe in free choice, would you say you have a laissez faire attitude towards most of your life? Perhaps take an introspective look at your interactions and relationships with people, when someone is being a dick to you, do you say to yourself "hey, that guy is a fucking asswhole", or do you say "hmm i wonder what I did to make him think this and act this way".

Personally, im always progressing as a person. All the time i reflect on my actions. Im constantly reading books, informing myself about the world we live in, as well the self help section is a good friend of mine. I believe in making the best of this life by putting theory into practice and taking responsibility for my actions, not simply blaming others for my current shitty state of life. Anything i do wrong, I blame myself for it first, I dont take it personally, but i just try to take a lesson and learn from it so i can apply it next time. Anyways.

Have you ever heard of NLP? for those who haven't, it stands for neuro linguistic programming. Essentially you can reprogram your brain, through subconscious tricks that change your habits. You can change your personality to whatever the fuck you want, if you know what you have to change. I've been studying and practicing nlp for a little over a year now, and I have changed dramatically as a person.

I believe not believing in/denial of freedom of choice is simply ignorant.

"you are what you eat" right? so eat shitty food every day and keep feeling sorry for yourself. (note: to any the idiot who might read this like its the bible, im not personally attacking you, nor am i saying you eat shitty food, its an analogy, if you don't get it, shut the fuck up)

[close]

I don't know why you'd think people that don't believe in free will are unmotivated or pessimistic. Wouldn't most people who advocate no-free-will be philosophers or physicists, and those academics have to be highly motivated to have such jobs? Besides the question isn't about what's emotionally prudent to believe, but what's likely to be true. And free will probably isn't true:

You don't choose your preferrences
You're motivated by events that happened to you in your childhood that you're unaware of.
You can say that you're making yourself with NLP- but you're not choosing what you think would be best to make yourself. At some point deliberation peters out and you just act or prefer - so you're not choosing what's at the bottom of your preferrences.

Also,
Your mind is caused by/realized in your brain
The brain is a physical object
Physical objects are determined by physcial laws
So, your mind is determined by physcial laws.     

in bold are things that true, to our current understanding. everything else is your opinion.

because we have no absolute proof of whether freedom of choice exists or not, i have to believe, by series of association, in freedom of choice.
freedom of choice is associated with taking responsibility for your actions.
not believing in freedom of choice enforces your view that things just happen because they do and you have no control over your self. the fact that you get up and walk around means youve chose to do so. adapt or die. have you studied any social psychology? have you read influence by robert cialdini? or any of malcolm gladwells books? if not, please go read them and come back to me when you have.

the fact that you have the option to adapt or die means that there is freedom of choice. please dont argue about being configured/programmed (not the right word but first that comes to mind) as a child to being the way you are, (thought beyond the point) you could have been programmed in any other way, and you have the choice to program yourself today now that you are conscious of your actions.

i kind of feel that we're arguing different concepts though using similar words - equivocating. whatever. my point is that freedom of speech represents something that i think is essential to believe in (taking responsibility for your actions), i realize i sound like some religious nut, but i feel as though we're not in any position to assume such a concept as a fact, thus it is left for interpretation until we learn about the true natures of whatever this thing is which we're experiencing.

and btw, i am choosing what i want to change for myself with nlp. just because we are bombarded with influences, doesn't mean thats all we are. we have the capability to create, did you forget that?

that makes me realize that what your arguing for, is obvious and redundant. of course you have no choice of living with what is around you. but you have the the power to alter and manipulate things that are around you, to your own will. you can choose whether to kill or not to kill that ant on the ground.

we have morals and a rational brain. just because the majority of the population are sheep, doesn't mean we all are.

[4LOM]

I don't doubt that there's will, I doubt that the will is free.
Maybe you're right that we're equivocating.
But, the definition I'm using, is that free will means that we could have chosen otherwise than we did.

Of course there's deliberation and morality, but this doesn't prove freedom of the will.
Responsibility probably relies on reactive attitudes like guilt or indignation, and in these emotions there's the desire to punish or make ammends. But an unfree creature could still feel such emotions. So that we ascribe responsibility to ourselves and others doesn't mean we are reallyresponsible; it's just that we feel as though we and others are responsible.

Deliberation isn't evidence of free will either.
Consider any choice you made
If you're free then you could have chosen otherwise than what you did
But if you went back in time, and all conditions were identical (your environment, your thoughts), then the outcome would be identical.
So, if you could repeat some moment of choice, you would not be able to choose otherwise.
Since you couldn't have chosen otherwise, you're not free

Regret is another emotion that fools us. We want to make different choices than we did, given the knowledge we have now, but if we went back in time with only the information we had then, we would choose the same thing. Same conditions, same outcome. So it's silly to regret since we couldn't choose otherwise than we did, and we don't have free will for the same reason.

I think your notion of free will fits with existentialism, since existential freedom is indifferent to the truth of determinism.
And I'm arguing for some kind of determinism.

[frig deuce]

what your arguing for is pointless and unpractical.

as far as we know, you can't go back in time, so why would you even bring up regret? its called learning a lesson, moving forward with your life so that next time a similar situation arrives, you know how to react. (this is what i meant in the analogy of people who continue to eat crappy food, they later whine about how shitty their lives are and blame society for the heart attack they just had)

philosophy is supposed to be a topic of understanding the world we live in. its not just theory but supposed to be put into practical terms in order to apply such philosophy to your life. some things can be proven today, other things not. we can't assume based on logic. life isn't always what we think it to be. check out the black swan by nassim taleb, i fucking love this guy, amazing book as well.

now people are majoring in philosophy but have no practical use of it. knowing every philosopher won't make you a better philosopher. and debating things that aren't provable. the sad thing is most "philosophers" are very unsuccessful people, to whatever subjective meaning you want to put to that. they are unhappy with themselves because life is a continuous debate. everything is debatable. 1+2 doesn't always equal 3, from some other society's point of view, the digit/symbol 2 might mean something else.

i see philosophy as something that everyone should be practicing, its an asset, philosophy is about better understanding yourself and the world you live in. it applies everything, science, psychology, semantics, et cetera... you name it.

learning philosophy is so that you can apply it to your life, in practical terms, so that you can better manipulate whatever it is you want to. the self help section should be called philosophy. god damnit. as uncredited and regular as i am, i need to write a book on this shit

[4LOM]

"back in time" was a thought experiment to prove a point - you can't do otherwise than what you did

Regret is pointless if people play scenerios over and over wishing they could have done otherwise (especially if they could not have). If you do this, you're not learning from the past, you're living in the past.

If philosophy is like a conversation, then learning every philosopher would make you a better philosopher since you'd know what was said.Otherwise you're walking in the middle of a much longer talk.

Isn't the claim that there is no free will or moral responsibility, and that these are illusions are created by our emotions an attempt to understand the world?

Why think application is the aim? Is there value to inquiry for the sake of inquiry?

You crossed out my claims that some determinists are neither unmotivated nor pessimistic, but then claim that philosophers are miserable. Shouldn't you have posted your claims crossed out too? And if a philosopher is a professional philosopher (academic/researcher), why think they're miserable? They get interested in a topic, see what others said, and then try to add to the conversation.

[grimcity]

1+2 doesn't always equal 3, from some other society's point of view, the digit/symbol 2 might mean something else.

Off topic, but there's an old programmer's saying that "2+2=4 only when the value of 2 is 2."
Basically, 2 can be a variable.

[4LOM]

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1+2 doesn't always equal 3, from some other society's point of view, the digit/symbol 2 might mean something else.

[close]

Off topic, but there's an old programmer's saying that "2+2=4 only when the value of 2 is 2."
Basically, 2 can be a variable.

And even if the value of 2 is 2, 2+2 doesn't always equal 4, 2+2 could also equal 3+1 or -8 - -12

[frig deuce]

If philosophy is like a conversation, then learning every philosopher would make you a better philosopher since you'd know what was said. Otherwise you're walking in the middle of a much longer talk.

true.

Why think application is the aim? Is there value to inquiry for the sake of inquiry?

Sure, its like recreational activity. Though true philosophy is to speculate and to progress upon facts, to evolve current knowns. Speculation can only take you so far until you have sufficient proof and understanding, even then things are still up for debate (though mostly due to problems of equivocation).

You crossed out my claims that some determinists are neither unmotivated nor pessimistic, but then claim that philosophers are miserable. Shouldn't you have posted your claims crossed out too? And if a philosopher is a professional philosopher (academic/researcher), why think they're miserable? They get interested in a topic, see what others said, and then try to add to the conversation.

I am wrong to say they are miserable. I don't know that. But the issue I was trying to point out is that philosophy as a subject should not be studied by itself, but rather philosophy is a personal approach to anything you do. We all have our own philosophies, its the way we see the world. Though it is important to consider other viewpoints.

Philosophy is like what religion is trying to preach, an understanding of the world. Its fun to speculate in theory, but you can't speculate theory and come to a final conclusion without concrete empirical explanations/proof. Its thus useless to speculate without applying your speculation to anything concrete in the real world, you could be doing something more productive with your time, unless you want to be a lawyer or if your in a debate club. Until something concrete happens (like some kind of scientific discovery) that allows us to understand a new domain of life, the debate will be infinite and never known.

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

4Lom- in terms of your talk of god and free will- Couldn't it be possible that god is just a perfect predictor? That is, God may know what you will choose before you choose it, but that's just because God knows everything. In the end isn't it possible that the choice is your own, but god knows that you will make it? You could choose another path, but you don't.  Just because god knows what decision you will make when the event takes place, doesn't mean he forced you to make such a decision, does it?

[oyolar]

4Lom- in terms of your talk of god and free will- Couldn't it be possible that god is just a perfect predictor? That is, God may know what you will choose before you choose it, but that's just because God knows everything. In the end isn't it possible that the choice is your own, but god knows that you will make it? You could choose another path, but you don't.  Just because god knows what decision you will make when the event takes place, doesn't mean he forced you to make such a decision, does it?

This is (somewhat) what I was trying to say with my earlier post.

[frig deuce]

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4Lom- in terms of your talk of god and free will- Couldn't it be possible that god is just a perfect predictor? That is, God may know what you will choose before you choose it, but that's just because God knows everything. In the end isn't it possible that the choice is your own, but god knows that you will make it? You could choose another path, but you don't.  Just because god knows what decision you will make when the event takes place, doesn't mean he forced you to make such a decision, does it?

[close]

This is (somewhat) what I was trying to say with my earlier post.

yeah but also consider that god might just be two or more atoms randomly colliding at extremely high velocities. those atoms might not be even able to think or speculate anything.

you guys seems to be arguing something completely different; predestination: that there is only one path in life, and no matter what happens, is what happened and it is the only way it could have ever been. past present and future are unchangeable.

if thats what your arguing, then yes, i agree there is only one path and no matter what, thats what has happened. though where i differ is that i believe we have the option to choose where we want our path to go. the future is for you to choose. in your perception, obviously there is no other way your future could have gone differently, because now its in the past, but think of how many ways your future can change right now. think of how many rational/unrational decision you could make right now, that have not been influenced by anything else.

i think if there was no freedom of choice, we would be able to see in the 4th or some further dimension. the reason why we see in the third dimension, is because we do have the option to choose.

[GnArcIsSisTic]

4Lom- in terms of your talk of god and free will- Couldn't it be possible that god is just a perfect predictor? That is, God may know what you will choose before you choose it, but that's just because God knows everything. In the end isn't it possible that the choice is your own, but god knows that you will make it? You could choose another path, but you don't.  Just because god knows what decision you will make when the event takes place, doesn't mean he forced you to make such a decision, does it?

that's pretty accurate... lots of Christians get stuck on that.

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

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4Lom- in terms of your talk of god and free will- Couldn't it be possible that god is just a perfect predictor? That is, God may know what you will choose before you choose it, but that's just because God knows everything. In the end isn't it possible that the choice is your own, but god knows that you will make it? You could choose another path, but you don't.  Just because god knows what decision you will make when the event takes place, doesn't mean he forced you to make such a decision, does it?

[close]

This is (somewhat) what I was trying to say with my earlier post.

[close]

yeah but also consider that god might just be two or more atoms randomly colliding at extremely high velocities. those atoms might not be even able to think or speculate anything.

you guys seems to be arguing something completely different; predestination: that there is only one path in life, and no matter what happens, is what happened and it is the only way it could have ever been. past present and future are unchangeable.

if thats what your arguing, then yes, i agree there is only one path and no matter what, thats what has happened. though where i differ is that i believe we have the option to choose where we want our path to go. the future is for you to choose. in your perception, obviously there is no other way your future could have gone differently, because now its in the past, but think of how many ways your future can change right now. think of how many rational/unrational decision you could make right now, that have not been influenced by anything else.

i think if there was no freedom of choice, we would be able to see in the 4th or some further dimension. the reason why we see in the third dimension, is because we do have the option to choose.

You clearly missed the subtlety of the entire conversation. We were actually talking about how it is possible that predestination does not exist in the presence of an omnipotent God.
I said there is only one path in life, because there is, you only go through your life once, so you can only take one path, but that this path is the result of your free choice, not a predestined route.

[4LOM]

4Lom- in terms of your talk of god and free will- Couldn't it be possible that god is just a perfect predictor? That is, God may know what you will choose before you choose it, but that's just because God knows everything. In the end isn't it possible that the choice is your own, but god knows that you will make it? You could choose another path, but you don't.  Just because god knows what decision you will make when the event takes place, doesn't mean he forced you to make such a decision, does it?

Are you saying that God's knowledge is like the knowledge a friend or parent might have? Given some situation, they can predict what you'll do?
But we can suprise those that know us by acting unpredictably. But we couldn't suprise an all-knowing/perfect predicter God.

Or are you saying that he knows what will happen in the future, and that includes knowing what free choices will be made? So he knows what you will choose, but he doesn't make you choose it? But that's just what the problem is, he knew you were going to log in today before you did, before you were born, before the beginning of the universe, and because he knows what you do before you do it, you can't do otherwise. And if you can't do otherwise, you can't be free. God's perfect knowledge necessitates that you act as God forsees, and necessity is incompatible with free will.

But maybe not, if I'm locked in a room, so I can't get out, but I don't want/try to leave, am I acting freely by staying in the room?

Or is "could have chosen otherwise" a bad definition of free will?

For God, we could say that God is eternal (not in time) and not infinite (perpetual). As eternal God doesn’t experience past/present/future, but rather experiences an eternal/unending now (God would see all events in the universe all at once and all the time).

So, as someone seeing you sitting in a chair knows you’re sitting in a chair, but doesn’t cause/necessitate your sitting there, so God knows what you’ll do tomorrow, but his knowledge doesn’t necessitate you to act/choose what you do tomorrow. God is just watching you tomorrow (and now and in the past) as someone can be observing and know what you’re doing now.

[Beer Keg Peg Leg]

4Lom- in terms of your talk of god and free will- Couldn't it be possible that god is just a perfect predictor? That is, God may know what you will choose before you choose it, but that's just because God knows everything. In the end isn't it possible that the choice is your own, but god knows that you will make it? You could choose another path, but you don't.  Just because god knows what decision you will make when the event takes place, doesn't mean he forced you to make such a decision, does it?

No. To have Free Will means that the future exists as an 'open nexus of infinite possibilities' (or whatever Sartre said). If one was a perfect predictor, the future we would exist not in a nexus but in a single timeline. The existence of an omniscient being simply wouldn't allow for that nexus to exist. What compatibalists say is that free will can exist in a deterministic universe if the source of our action is ourselves i.e. introspection etc... I think this is kind of what you're saying. However even our own thought processes are determined by our heredity/environment, so even then, how is that freedom?

4lom, I certainly agree with you on almost all your points. As it stands I believe your position to be the most defensible. However I will disagree with you when you say that because the brain is subject to the physical world, the mind is to. I simply don't think we know enough yet to conclude that.

[Beer Keg Peg Leg]

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4Lom- in terms of your talk of god and free will- Couldn't it be possible that god is just a perfect predictor? That is, God may know what you will choose before you choose it, but that's just because God knows everything. In the end isn't it possible that the choice is your own, but god knows that you will make it? You could choose another path, but you don't.  Just because god knows what decision you will make when the event takes place, doesn't mean he forced you to make such a decision, does it?

[close]

Are you saying that God's knowledge is like the knowledge a friend or parent might have? Given some situation, they can predict what you'll do?
But we can suprise those that know us by acting unpredictably. But we couldn't suprise an all-knowing/perfect predicter God.

Or are you saying that he knows what will happen in the future, and that includes knowing what free choices will be made? So he knows what you will choose, but he doesn't make you choose it? But that's just what the problem is, he knew you were going to log in today before you did, before you were born, before the beginning of the universe, and because he knows what you do before you do it, you can't do otherwise. And if you can't do otherwise, you can't be free. God's perfect knowledge necessitates that you act as God forsees, and necessity is incompatible with free will.

But maybe not, if I'm locked in a room, so I can't get out, but I don't want/try to leave, am I acting freely by staying in the room?

Or is "could have chosen otherwise" a bad definition of free will?

For God, we could say that God is eternal (not in time) and not infinite (perpetual). As eternal God doesn’t experience past/present/future, but rather experiences an eternal/unending now (God would see all events in the universe all at once and all the time).

So, as someone seeing you sitting in a chair knows you’re sitting in a chair, but doesn’t cause/necessitate your sitting there, so God knows what you’ll do tomorrow, but his knowledge doesn’t necessitate you to act/choose what you do tomorrow. God is just watching you tomorrow (and now and in the past) as someone can be observing and know what you’re doing now.

That's an interesting point. However if you were to make a choice and, get up from the chair, would his observation of you in the future change? Could he predict this change? If he could, wouldn't he have always known of this change? Wouldn't it therefore still be predestined? I'll wait for your reply, as my logic might be faulty, but as I see it, Christians have to either admit that their god is not all powerful, or that we are not free.