Is it 'boring' being God?

I'm saying that it is impossible to conceive of our not having free will.

When he asked for the cup to pass from him, he was engaging in a momentary desperate hope to be saved from torture. So he was not omniscient as a man. There is only one God. God gave up his omniscience.Or at least it sounds better to me that way.

Impossible like conceiving square circles?I seem to have rejected the notion of free will quite happily. But maybe I just haven't thought things through.

One instance would be enough to establish the fact.

I suppose you didn't reject it out of your own free will. So I suppose your conclusion, "There is no free will," could be true only by a fluke, since you couldn't help but conclude that there is no free will.But I'm glad you're happy about it.abe: wording changed slightly to increase precisionThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-15-2006 06:03 AM

Can you show that there? Can you show that there isn't? I don't think so, in either case.

"true only by a fluke"? is this an obscure reference to something like quantum indeterminancy in brain state decision making?The conclusion of no free will can arise from a long series of causes, things like language arises, logic being developed, where you are born, educated, the way your brain is conditioned to think and view things and one day all these processes result in a philosophical perception and linguist statement "there is no free will". Someone else having been exposed say to Christian conditioning would counter with their learned response that "there is free will is says so in the Bible".Believing in free will is not a matter of free will but of conditioning.lfen

Skinner, Ramesh, and I don't recall any other names this morning, well, me, I conceive of our not having free will. So your conditioning hasn't thus far resulted in you conceiving of free will and mine has.lfen

I'm not denying that choices (possibilities) exist or that choices are made. The question is HOW choices are made, or how we explain or describe the processes of the behaviour called choosing. Some parameters of this problem are explored in behaviourism, some in philosophy and religion, and recently it's being studied in neuro science.Do plants make choices? Do amoebas? Jumping way up the evolutionary ladder (it's clear which campsite I pitch my tent at) does a parrot make a choice? A chimpanzee? Of those you say they make a choice do all choose with free will? Is free will a property of all living things? Humans only? At what level of neuro organization does free will emerge?lfen

No, it's a reference to logic. That which is caused physically is not necessarily a logical consequent. If he HAD to believe there is no free will, then the statement, "there is no free will" is not determined logically but physically. It could only be true by accident.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-15-2006 01:36 PM

The answer that Ramesh Balsekar gives is to watch the unfolding process of your self. That means the decision making process whether it is to laboriously list variables or go with a hunch.Predestination is interested in a linear end point. Advaita is interested in the present moment. The notion of freedom is moved from the actor to the observer. The universe unfolds from the galactic to sub atomic scales. We can translate the common use of "free will" to mean those actions that are not physically coerced by violence or threats, a kind of legal definition. But I'm interested in how actions arise in the organism. Actions initiated by an organism can be described as FREE but are they?How long would people continue going to work and working if they didn't get a pay check? Do people go to work of their own free will then?What if God appeared in an irrefutable way to everyone in the world and said something like "I've reconsidered. I'm destroying Heaven to build a golf course for the angels. There will be no life after death. I'll continue to let the earth exist as it always has. This decision is final and irrevocable." Would believers still go to church to worship? This is not a good example as I think believers get a lot of social benefits and reinforcement from going to church but I am suggesting that their love of God is motivated not by free will but by promise of benefits.Anyway, I agree with you that we experience decision conflict as the complex brain processes information and we await the outcome of that processing.I think the really vague term in all this is "will". We need to clarify what we are referring to when we speak of will.lfen

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I'm saying that it is impossible to conceive of our not having free will.

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In other words, you are destined to believe in free will ??

Robin,Before we can go much further we are going to have to clarify and agree on the terms "free" and "will". If you mean an action takes place by "free will" in the legal sense that there was no physical coercion that still leaves the conditioning of thought processes to be explained.Are you saying that by definition thinking is free? In that case saying 2+2=57 is an example of free will because I thought of it, and 2+2=4 is not because it's constrained by the development of mathematics and the real world.So I will ask you what are you refering to as "will", what do you mean by "free" and how do explain "free will".People were converted to Islam under threat of death. Chritians cite the martyrs who died rather than renounce their religion. So would you say those who converted to Islam with a sword on their necks did so out of free will or no?I am using the term "free will" not in the legal sense but in the sense of conditioning or prior causes. An organism, even you, and I are complex conditionings and our behaviours arise from our conditioning. I'm asserting that free will doesn't make sense in the context that Christians use it to make people responsible. If Christian conditioning doesn't work because it doesn't result in a brain that believes (takes as real) the doctrine attempting to be instilled should we blame those attempting to instill the doctrine or those who failed to develope it?As an educator let us say you are attempting to teach a child to read. If that child doesn't learn is that failure the result of their "fallen" "free will"? Or is it the result of problems with their brains and/or techniques of teaching or perhaps medications to help with attention?Where in all that would "free will" play a role? The doctrine of "free will" in Christianity is an excuse for the church to lay blame and convict people who disagree with it. It's an old explanatory fiction used rhetorically to absolve the Church and it's God of blame.lfen

BINGO!That is it exactly.Well, destined to believe in free will for some period of time that we can't know.lfen

Yes, the classic problem of multiple personalities with amnesia. One personality gets up to something and then leaves and the other personality is in the situation and doesn't know how it got there.It's a controversial diagnosis in psychology but there have been some good books sales and movies other the NT on the topic in modern times as well.lfen