The non-existance of free will, and religious ramifications

Okay, I’m joining this discussion late, so forgive me if I miss the point with what I’m about to say.

AG, your stance - if I am not mistaken - is that human beings (regardless of how you wish to deconstruct them into essentially seperate entities like the physical self, the soul and so on) are subject to the exact same, universal laws that apply to everything else. Given this, every part of our being can be explained using the same principles that can, theoretically, explain everything else. Thus, if our being can be reduced to this set of immutable laws (which I think everyone concedes have not yet been described or “uncovered”), every action we commit can be explained by referring to some preceding “cause” that we have no control over, and, in most cases, no knowledge of. We choose the vanilla icecream, so to speak, because the endless series of causes and effects have led us, without any real say in the matter, to it. We are, then, entirely subservient to this set of laws and thus cannot transcend them, and in any way make a choice that is not entirely in deference to them.

Free will, then, becomes an illusion. The choice we make has little to do with will, but is entirely to do with the immutable laws of nature, that govern every other organism on this planet, and every piece of matter in the universe.

In this sense - being as objective as possible - I would be inclined to agree with you. So far as everything can be explained at the lowest level (which is becoming more and more a reality as we continue to learn about atmoic and sub-atomic properties), it can be expanded and, as these laws effect the whole of everything at its very foundation, it can thus be expanded and applied to the highest level where it culminates in determinism. I would be inclined to agree, that if you can understand the entire universe at this lowest level, that it can be used as a spring-board to explain everything else.

Thus we can attempt some definition of you hard determinism (correct me if this is wrong): that, as everything is governed by a given set of universal laws, everything can be explained in deference to them, and, indeed, only in deference to them. Every event or object is simply the culmination of a certain amount of causes and effects governed by these principles, and, as such, everything must have a prior cause. Thus, if these laws can be properly understood, rather than just using them to trace back the series of causes that lead up to an event, you could theoretically use them to predict what will happen (as these laws are universal and unchanging). Now I think we all agree that such knowledge is impossible, but it’s more the theory that we’re concerned with here.

The ramifications for free will are indeed dire, if what you say is indeed true. Your determinism states, as I’m fairly sure I’ve already pointed out, that a choice made by a human being was - given the cumulation of every prior cause and effect - inevitable. That this choice, if we were granted the gift of omniscience, could be traced back and explained purely in terms of these universal laws I’ve mentioned several times before. Given this, the conclusion goes, real free will is an illusion.

So is that basically what you’re saying then? Is that the brunt of the argument? (as I said, feel free to tell me if it isn’t :slight_smile: .)

If so, I think I could only agree. Determinism is, unfortunately, for me, the most logically viable of the perspectives offered here. There are few arguments that can refute the notion of determinism and causality (causality being, if I am not mistaken, the main principle behind determinism).

However, with regards to this free will debate, I still believe that all is not lost.

The main point of all the preceding text, really, is to make this question (which may only be valid if the said text is accurate):

Does it matter if free will is merely an illusion?

Suggest, for a second, that your deterministic stance does prove, once and for all, that - objectively - free will is an illusion. That given the laws that govern everything, including ourselves, there is no way we can ever, really, make choices in the way we’ve always assumed we can.

But how can such objectification be warranted? So long as we view the universe through human eyes, an objective position - attempting to explain the human condition from beyond the human condition - seems futile. All experience - including the experience of the principles we are discussing here - is through human eyes, and attempting to transcend our humanity to analyse these things from a non-subjectivist stance seems an impossibility. Where am I going with this?

My question is simply, how does an objective refutation of real free will undermine the very subjective, yet similarly “real” illusion of free will? So long as we experience free will - regardless of what the causes of this free will may be from an objective stance - how can it be dismissed? Whether free will is just an illusion brought about by the very act of being human or not, seems a rather idle query. We are human. The human perspective may be fallible, but it’s a perspective we cannot transcend. The same perspective the “wrongly” assumes we have free will, may be the same perspective that “wrongly” assumes there is a cause/effect relationship for every event, and that everything can be explained in deferece to similar principles. The same perspective that imagined free will, is the one that created your logic.

Now I’m not going to go down the opposite path here and suggest that nothing can be explained due to our inextricably fallible, subjectivist stance (a la absolute skepticism), but I will say that the illusion of free will - even if it is just an illusion objectively - is still part of what makes us human and cannot be neglected simply because, via our attempt at an “objective” critique (which is still entirely subjective at base) tells us that our experience may be entirely wrong.

If we dismiss our experience of free will (as illusory as it may be) where does that leave us? I may not be free to chose, but I am free to experience choice. Only you can say why the latter is far inferior to the former.

JP, you clearly understood everything wonderfully, and put it much better than I could hope to.

I’m glad that your comments also focus on the implications that HD would pose, and I completely agree with your point about objectivity. It even seems to me that keeping a connection with the human condition might be essential to maintaining the level of what we consider to be “order”. (I mean imagine trying to rewrite our justice systems to remove accountablilty and responsibility. It would be chaos!)

So if it doesn’t change hardly anything, why worry about if free will is an illusion at all? The only answer I can give you is that in doing so, we may be able to come to new logical conclusions to some of “life’s questions”. For example: If there’s no free will, then the course of human events is scripted. If it’s all kind of “just a play”, then it doesn’t really matter how it ends. The world could end in a firey nuclear apocolypse, and it wouldn’t mean that humanity had failed.

There’s also alot of “If, If, Then” statements, like:
IF God is all benevolent, - Meaning he’s fair and good
and IF The universe is determined,
and IF there is such a thing as a soul
Then: God would not punish our souls for the acts of our bodies, for that would be unfair.

The truth is that there’s a lot I’m undecided about on the implications of HD. That’s the real reason I started the thread, to get other people’s ideas about the ramifications of it all. But it kind of turned out being 90% battle, 10% philosophy.

So post some more JP! I wanna hear your ideas!

More ideas?

Well, I think if we strip away all the philosophy in my above post to examine the underlying rhetoric or “point” it’s that, yes, I do believe that determinism is an unavoidable reality of terrestrial existence, but at the same time, that it’s not something that we should be too pre-occupied with as human beings.

For instance, I used to be concerned - when I first had Cartesian dualism explained to me - that nothing really existed. I would be lying if I said that I would lie awake every night consumed with existential angst, but at the same time - even if purely from an intellectual standpoint - it did concern me deeply. However, as I came to learn more about philosophy the fears slowly dissipated. It wasn’t because Kant, Hume or anyone else resolved the issue using logic and I had discovered that there was a way to “undo” the main tennets of dualism, it was because I simply tired of concerning myself with it. I came to realise - albeit slowly - that the “real” world was unattainable. That my perspective, as subjective and imperfect as it is, is all I can be certain of. If my perspective is not real, then point out something that is.

And I hold a similar perspective with determinism. My choices may be out of my control, in that they are determined by forces and laws that have existed since the beginning of this universe, but it doesn’t make them any less real, or any less important. I may not have “real” choice - in the same way that I don’t have access to the “real” world - but I do have apparent choice which, like the apparent world, is all I know and all I can possibly know.

So that’s all I’m trying to say. Don’t concern yourself too much with “the implications of HD” because you’re searching for answers that may be inaccessible.

Anyway, that was just clarification on what I was saying before. I’ll write some more original material some other time. :slight_smile:

this could be old news for this thread for all i know… but since im about to fall asleep im just gonna reply to the stuff i had read on the first page. anyway. all the people talking about “well science cant prove it, thus we have free will” dont matter all that much… just because science CANT figure it out, doesnt mean that there are some underlying laws behind it, that are just beyond the ability to understand and analyze. Bein a hard determanist you gota think of it like this. ASSUMING you know everything there is to know about the present. every position, every velocity, every magnitidge, (insert some sort of made up value for so called unexplainable things) (regardless of weather or not you can know it) you could predict how everything will happen. while this may not be PHYSICALLY possible to do this, it is LOGICALLY possible. hard determanists dont expect TO be able to even someday understand it all. all they are saying is that it IS possible.

Hmm… Think about it… If there were no free will, what would be the point of good and evil, of morality?

That’s a difficult question to answer. Many people are unable to find the point of good, evil and mortality even if free-will is a given. But I’ll give it a go…

If there is no free will, then all of this, good, evil, the struggle of humanity, all becomes somewhat of a performance peice, or a play if you will. That which we consider to be evil would not really be evil, that which we considered good would not really be good. How to explain this…If I am a man, and I make choices in accordence to a set of morals and virtues I consider to be “good”. Then I am a “good” man. But if I am a man that has been controlled my entire life by an unseen hand to choose the things I did, to decide to follow one set of values over another, then I am not really “good” or “evil”, but merely shaped into a form that is either “good” or “evil”. And if everyone, everywhere is shaped into varying degrees of good and evil, then by their nature they would oppose one another, and thus become the struggle of humanity.

The point, then, of the human condition, cannot possibly be determined by us, as we are ourselves caught in the human condition. The point doubly cannot be determined, becuase the act of humanity has yet to end. The play isn’t over, so no justifiable meaning can yet be found.

We’re just going to have to be patient…

I get the point. Still… Suppose you’re not human. :slight_smile: Say “good” is what should be done. “Evil” is what shouldn’t be done. If there is no way to choose between the 2, why would there be 2? Isn’t one enough?

“Why?” questions concerning the way that the universe was made can’t be answered, especially not by us humans. If you ask me why the sky is blue, I can give you a bunch of stuff about light wavelengths. But if you ask me why God created the universe so that the sky is blue, there is no answer that I can give you that will be justified. I can speculate, but becuase I am bound by the human condition, speculation is all that I am capable of.

The same goes for your question. If you ask me why there is evil in the world, I can answer that God created the world to have some evil in it. But if you ask me why the world was made with evil in it, then I cannot give you an answer that is justified. As a human, I can only speculate.

http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/fwill.htm

That essay reminded me of how horrible my vocabulary is :frowning:

uwm.edu/~jreiland/proof.htm
THE REBUTTAL

“3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done. (premise)”

If determinism is true, then it is true, there’s no free will, so you can’t believe in something… say hypothetical. :slight_smile:
But who ever told you determinism is true?

Try to follow Charles S. Peirce’s logic.
http://www.nothing.com

Logic told me it was true.

Who ever told you that you had to have free will to believe in something?

By the way, that link is just another example of how you can use a lack of precision in language to make nonsense.

It usually goes like this:
“The word A is kind of a synonym for the word B which is loosely connected to the word C which is contradictory to the word A. So A actually contradicts itself!”

The reason these statements aren’t writen in logic system form is that they never work there. Becuase they’re nonsense. Some simple-minded people mistake these statements for real philosophy because they hold the belief that:

Confusing=Profound Truth

But in reality there’s no more truth to it then some pot-smoking epiphany like:

“The yoke of the egg is everything that’s not the white. But the opposite of white is black. The yoke is yellow, so black and yellow are the same thing…dude, pass the bong…”

So h2o, did you even read the first rubuttal? When premises 1 and 2 don’t work, you don’t get to add a third one. Maybe you should work on defending the first two…

I never said that. I only said you need free will to believe something HYPOTHETICAL. Because we suppose that the flying saucers example was just to replace anything of which you have no direct proof. Something that logics says it shouldn’t be.
Tell an ignorant that there’s oxygen on Mars, and he might believe you, he might not believe you. This is a matter of free will.

And yes, those logical essays, or proofs, however you might call them, on free will/determinism are based on such tricks of logic. Take it logically, and you can make black be white.
Personally, I believe that free will <=> existence of good and evil, morality.

A wise person is hungry for truth, while the fool feeds on trash.
–Proverbs 15:14

You’re a class act, AG.

Let me know when you open a charm school. I want to short your stock.

(Sorry. I was determined to say that.)

lol, I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not, 'cause I’m unfamiliar with the term “short your stock”…

Wow… A determinist quoting from the Bible…

This is a direct cut & paste from a post I made to the newsgroups a while back

I believe that if we knew all the rules of
the universe and could measure every atom in our body we could now the
actions of a person or what they were thinking.

I would say you’re a believer in predetermination them? As this is what you seem to imply from that statement. We don’t have freewill as we live out a series of calculations where none of the variables are unknown or random. Life is a process of 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. Would this be a fair definition?

Why does a certain unique DNA chain make me or
why is H2O water or 12 electrons make carbon? The fact that certain
arrangements of matter make things. The rules of the universe are
consistent and there is seemingly endless variety

Or why do we live in a Universe that follows rules, which would seem to require more effort to create, then a random universe? This is one of the five proofs for the existence of God give by Aquinas. (i.e. the world as its created follows order not chaos).

I’ve thought about this problem for a long time and I keep coming back to the fact I just don’t have enough information to make a fair and rational decision. What it comes down to is I either believe that the Universe begot itself and always existed in some form. Or I can believe that some intelligence (most would call God) created the Universe so I can live in it for purpose that is still unknown to me. (I don’t believe a single world religion is right, but I still believe the existence of God is a valid choice).

This is a repost of an old post I made, which was talking about a Chemical Deity.

The basic idea behind what I said was: What physics is, is the simulation of the “real world” in a “perfect world” (maths being that perfect world). But does our “real world” work to the same level of accuracy that is possible in the perfect mathematical world? Because, if there is margin for error in the “real world” this error might be utilised in away to create freewill. (Some how?)

Getting back to freewill; I think there is a small randomness to the universe. Maths as we use it is still quite simple. 1 + 1 = 2, are whole numbers. 1.3 + 4.3 = 5.6, are decimal numbers (or fractions). As you know there are an infinite number or numbers. Between 1.0 and 2.0 there are also an infinites number of decimal numbers (or fractions). To recreate the universe with maths would require infinite number accuracy. Something we are not capable of yet, maybe never? But maths is also unlike anything else in the world, it is pure and incorruptible; meaning 1 + 1 will always from this day to the end of everything even beyond that, 1 + 1 will always equal 2. I don’t believe the universe lives up to this perfect accuracy. In chemical reactions (and the expending of energy) in the universe I think there is margin for error like the way in maths you round up or down at a centain number of decimals, and this error over time can create randomness. This randomness could create something along the lines of freewill. (I’m still thinking about how this works as the last step is a bit of a jump). But it would be like this: some how the human brain has found away to harness this error to allow freewill. (As a side note, this might be why computers have problems in imitation of human thought.)

PV