is there free will?

[Reenk Roink]

Everything is predestined from eternity even one's choices, so they don't have free will in the commonly thought sense of being able to choose differently.

im also trying to find a definition of will or free will in which the rational element is excluded. we are free as a body i believe. i will explain more after dinner.

If you take a (naively) non deterministic view of the world, then human actions aren't caused or influenced by anything, "rational" considerations or not. So if you wish to go that way you can have it.

[Beskar]

Everything is predestined from eternity even one's choices, so they don't have free will in the commonly thought sense of being able to choose differently.

This has always been an interesting point of view especially with religion such as Christianity which believes in redemption. Hypothetically, if there is no free will then what is the point in redemption? As the end result, the Lord Almighty will know that we will commit sin and in the same breath the Lord Almighty would know if we will redeem ourselves or not. then the act of redemption becomes trivial as ultimately we are slaves to our destiny and we do not have the choice to redeem ourselves, as our fate has already been decided.

[Reenk Roink]

This has always been an interesting point of view especially with religion such as Christianity which believes in redemption. Hypothetically, if there is no free will then what is the point in redemption? As the end result, the Lord Almighty will know that we will commit sin and in the same breath the Lord Almighty would know if we will redeem ourselves or not. then the act of redemption becomes trivial as ultimately we are slaves to our destiny and we do not have the choice to redeem ourselves, as our fate has already been decided.

The problem comes because many people seem to require a sense of free will for moral responsibility (in both secular and religious contexts).

Aquinas made a really good case for double predestination (of the elect and the damned), even though I don't think it's an idea the Catholic Church endorses (correct me if I'm wrong Catholics).

[The Stranger]

The problem comes because many people seem to require a sense of free will for moral responsibility (in both secular and religious contexts).

Aquinas made a really good case for double predestination (of the elect and the damned), even though I don't think it's an idea the Catholic Church endorses (correct me if I'm wrong Catholics).

i dont know... aquinas is one of the major authorithies for christianity and has been redeemed quit alot since the 19th century. so its much possible.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Aquninine determinsim, itself essentially Augustinian in nature, was rejected as heterodox by the Catholic Church, and remains so today. Interestingly, Aquinas also proposed that beings are capable of independent agency seperate from God's direct control. From my persepctive, it seems that every attempt to remove Free Will from the Christian worldview is born of angst over relatively minor questions regarding how God's own nature and Divine Knowledge interact with the world he created.

broadly speaking, determinists usually feel the need to explain away one of two logical inconsistancies. The first is that God is all powerful, but that Free Will allows beings to rebel against God's power; the argument is easily undone by stating that God allows rebellion (Sin), but does not condone it. The second argument relates to God's constancy and his Onnicience. While this is harder to answer, it is easy to ignore because, bluntly, the Bible contains numerous instances of rebellion, so it clearly does happen.

On to the more philosophical question:

Why must the exercise of Free Will require reationality, and how do we define who is "rational"? For me, Free Will is apparent because if there were no Free Will or Random Chance the universe would be a perfectly ordered and regular place. It would also be a lot less interesting.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

On to the more philosophical question:

Why must the exercise of Free Will require reationality, and how do we define who is "rational"? For me, Free Will is apparent because if there were no Free Will or Random Chance the universe would be a perfectly ordered and regular place. It would also be a lot less interesting.

The problems I see with this are:

a) Who says there isn't random chance?
b) How do you know the universe isn't orderly? It could be a very complex order.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The problems I see with this are:

a) Who says there isn't random chance?
b) How do you know the universe isn't orderly? It could be a very complex order.

Well, I claim there is random chance, and it therefore follows that there is random chance in our decision making. This being so, our decisions are not pre-determined, ergo Free Will is possible.

As to the Universe being orderly, Quantum Theory tells us that a situation has a variety of possible outcomes with varrying probability, not one pre-determined outcome.

[The Stranger]

i just am not in the mood to continue where i left of yesterday so ill just post the things i do have. sorry if its a bit fragmented or inconsistent.

Freedom in its most radical form is when one is subjected to nothing but oneself, meaning that nothing outside the individual controls his choices. This type of radical freedom would only exist in a situation when the individual is all there is, usually only Gods are attributed this type of freedom. Yet somehow this type of freedom, which is a divine freedom is also the standard to which humans are sometimes held. We must return freedom to the humans, it must become a human freedom, not an animal one, nor a divine one.

With neurosciences on the rise, more insight is being gained into the biochemical processes of our body. So while our conception of what a human is, is changing rapidly, our concepts which apply to humans are not changing at the same rate. This results in a Cartesian concept of free will, e.g. the idea that there is a rational faculty in each human being which controls it from a centralized point in the body, being pitted against a modern conception of what a human being is, e.g. we can conclude as much as that there is no such centralized rational faculty in our body. From the absence of this centralized rational faculty some people like to conclude the absence of free will. This is not a valid conclusion however. Free will may very well still exist, but instead of just one part of our body deciding for everything else, parts of our body decide for their own jurisdiction and as a body together they decide for the body as a whole. So human bodies are not a dictatorship or an autocracy but more a federal constitution. However it is still very much possible that our body as a whole has free will, because there are (many) situations thinkable in which nothing from outside this body influences the body in such way that the body has no choice left but to obey. The point I'm trying to make is that our concept of freedom must evolve alongside our conception of human beings. Since the idea the mind and body are separated is fading in our conception of human beings it should likewise fade in our conception of free will.

To say that a person has free will because he (in this case is soul or mind or any similar phrase) makes his own choices, amounts to as much as to say that, a person is free because nothing outside this person influences him so that he has no choice but to obey that external influence. So if our conception of what we are as human beings changes from the soul to the body than so must it change in our conception of free will. Thus the 'he' is no longer soul but body, yet the concept of free will applies to the body as well as it did to the soul before.

The objection can be made that we are not aware of these choices at the bodily level and thus the choices are not rational and so one is not free. Yet why is rationality a requirement for freedom? Are animals not free, or rationally impaired human beings? And if it is truly so that our current conception of human beings is the right one, than it has always been so. Why should the actions we would have labeled as an act of free will not years ago be labeled as determined only because it turns out we are not aware of them.



if this: "a decision or situation is often called rational if it is in some sense optimal, and individuals or organizations are often called rational if they tend to act somehow optimally in pursuit of their goals." is the definition of rational. i dont see why the body cant be rational. and thus when the body is rational and the body makes choices, then the body must have free will.

[The Stranger]

Everything is predestined from eternity even one's choices, so they don't have free will in the commonly thought sense of being able to choose differently.



If you take a (naively) non deterministic view of the world, then human actions aren't caused or influenced by anything, "rational" considerations or not. So if you wish to go that way you can have it.

wow reenk how very constructive of you haha... who the hell is being naive thinking he has knowledge. that he knows the truth of anything?

if everything is predestined, by what is it predestined?