Free will vs Omniscience

I don't know whether or not we have free will. Some things appear to be true (the Earth looks flat from where we stand on it) but turn out not to be true.

I don't know whether or not we have free will. Some things appear to be true (the Earth looks flat from where we stand on it) but turn out not to be true.

A flat earth would be perfect to you if you don't have a need to know it is a sphere. It has nothing to do with the truth. I said it several times, we have free will until we find we don't. I don't believe a human being will ever say he is not able to make any free choice at any age of his life.

Theologically, the free will issue is focus on whether a person has a free choice to believe or not to believe. On this regard, angel and human both have free will. Other creatures don't.

But the earth is either flat or it isn't. Whether or not we know that fact is irrelevant. The same goes for free will. Either we have it or we don't. Whether or not we know that fact changes nothing.

But the earth is either flat or it isn't. Whether or not we know that fact is irrelevant. The same goes for free will. Either we have it or we don't. Whether or not we know that fact changes nothing.

It will change YOU. In the whole issue, YOU are the most important subject, not anything or anyone else.

How would one determine if someone or something has free will? If you drop a rock it will fall. It doesn't seem to have a choice, no matter how many times you drop it, it does the same thing. On the other hand, a coin may come up heads or tails when we flip it. There doesn't seem to be any pattern in the sequence of heads and tails if we repeat the experiment. Is the coin choosing what to do? Salmon return to the same spot to spawn. Do they have a choice? A person seems to make a choice, but if we had a supercomputer with enough power and enough data about the chemical composition of that person's brain would we be able to predict what each choice is?

How would one determine if someone or something has free will? If you drop a rock it will fall. It doesn't seem to have a choice, no matter how many times you drop it, it does the same thing. On the other hand, a coin may come up heads or tails when we flip it. There doesn't seem to be any pattern in the sequence of heads and tails if we repeat the experiment. Is the coin choosing what to do? Salmon return to the same spot to spawn. Do they have a choice? A person seems to make a choice, but if we had a supercomputer with enough power and enough data about the chemical composition of that person's brain would we be able to predict what each choice is?

Science limits choice. We call that prediction.
A salmon would have to make a Free choice if the entrance to the spawn location is blocked.
In science fiction, AI would one day be unpredictable. That means the AI system has free choice.
A lot of people choose the same thing or the same act, it does not mean each of them does not have free choice. Statistics on human behavior usually has larger deviation. That, shows the fact of free choice.

I think you are repeating the same question again and again and not trying or willing to draw a conclusion. I guess that is also a free choice. I won't (choose not to) do that.

Edited by Juvenissun, : No reason given.

Edited by Juvenissun, : No reason given.

The issue of AI is an interesting one. Since a computer is a deterministic thing, a computer should give exactly the same output on the same input. But that would mean an AI, a program run on a computer, if it were to exhibit intelligence (passing the Turing test, for example), would also be deterministic. That is, it wouldn't have free choice.

But if an intelligent entity doesn't have free choice, what would that say about us? After all, our brains are just chemical (rather than electronic) computers.

The issue of AI is an interesting one. Since a computer is a deterministic thing, a computer should give exactly the same output on the same input. But that would mean an AI, a program run on a computer, if it were to exhibit intelligence (passing the Turing test, for example), would also be deterministic. That is, it wouldn't have free choice. But if an intelligent entity doesn't have free choice, what would that say about us? After all, our brains are just chemical (rather than electronic) computers.

No. Many AI programs NOW are not deterministic already. They may tell you that an idea is only 59% true.

Whatever chemical made up a person, the person is ALWAYS more than the total chemicals he has. Free will is one of the extra.

Can you do it just like putting out the trash?

Of course not. But this doesn't mean I don't have free will.

I have free will to drink pink lemonade over white lemonade.
But I don't drink lemonade just like putting out the trash.

I like lemonade.
I don't like putting out the trash.

I don't mind putting out the trash, it's something that needs to be done.
I would very much mind killing a baby cold-blooded, it's something that doesn't need to be done - but I could do it.

If you could you have free will and you're a psychopath.

A psychopath is someone who does not have feelings.
If I tell you I could do it, but I would feel incredibly bad about it - this is the opposite of being a psychopath.

Your definitions are not working.

Juvenissun writes: Stile writes: I have not found a situation in reality where I can identify the difference of "being incapable of" doing something vs. "choosing not to do it" scientifically. It depends on how much you (scientifically) understand the person. If you do, then it is quite easy to tell.

What if you just think it is easy, but actually it is not?
I know that sometimes I smile and nod, and even my close family thinks everything is just fine... but I'm not doing fine.

People cannot read minds (yet).
We certainly cannot confirm thoughts scientifically.

In certain situations - we may be highly-likely to be correct about what we think another is thinking.

But, still - there's no way to confirm this scientifically, and we could be wrong.

It's not like measuring the length of a 2x4... where it's impossible to be scientifically incorrect.

Of course, if you really think you can know as well as you can know the length of a 2x4... please provide more details or an example.

Sarah Bellum writes: Interesting! A god of the classical sort, a powerful being but not the decider of destiny.

Yes.

Perhaps I should have made my intentions clearer in the beginning.
I was not attempting to think of any sort of "acceptably Christian God."

I was only attempting to think of "a God" that was capable of the conditions put forth (creating the universe, allowing free-will to exist and also knowing all past and future within the universe.)

I had no intentions of having this God, specifically, be "all powerful" or "all benevolent" or any other condition normally placed upon a Christian God.
"Powerful enough to fulfill these conditions..." was my only limit.

I have no problems even speaking of this God hypothetically:

"If a God can think of a universe, incorporating our real free-willed decisions into that thought-experiment-universe - allowing our decisions to drive the universe where they will and therefore this God would not know what we would choose beforehand - and then this God creates that universe... THEN, this God would be capable of creating a universe where free will exists and this God would also know all past-present-future within that universe."

I didn't mean that the AI couldn't give ambiguous answers. But the answers will always be the same given the same input. It will always tell you that particular idea is 59% true, it won't change its mind.

As for the other issue, a person is more than the chemicals in them, of course, but only in the sense that a painting is more than a collection of pigments. Assuming accurate enough knowledge, wouldn't it be possible to predict, just from the chemical reactions, the "choices" a person might make? And then would those really be choices?

But suppose another, sufficiently knowledgeable being takes a look at this universe a minute after it has been created. This being, having a sufficiently powerful intellect, could say, "Looking at everything in this universe, I can see the trajectories of all the matter and energy in it and all the changes that will happen. To me, this young universe is as deterministic as a cuckoo clock. Eventually intelligent beings will develop in this universe. Those beings will say they have free will, but I can see, from the initial conditions, what will happen every time one is faced with a choice."

Stile writes: Of course not. But this doesn't mean I don't have free will.

It means that your freewill is bounded.

I have free will to drink pink lemonade over white lemonade. But I don't drink lemonade just like putting out the trash.

Dinking or not drinking lemonade either pink or white does not involve moral choices; you do not feel morally constrained. Exercising trivial neutral preference is not normally considered a freewill issue.

I would very much mind killing a baby cold-blooded, it's something that doesn't need to be done - but I could do it.

If you qualify this such that you are able to do it only when it becomes a moral good, you've proved my point. To have real freewill you must be able to do things that you know to be properly bad. You must be able to choose evil over good.

A psychopath is someone who does not have feelings.

Nope, a psychopath is someone who lacks empathy. It's the existence of empathy that proves that we lack free will.

Your definitions are not working.

Or maybe you're not understanding the argument?

Stile,addressing Sarah Bellum writes: I'm specifically claiming God can create a universe in a certain way so as to keep us having our free will because I'm imagining (defining...) a way God could do this.(...) The fundamental, common answer would be "if it isn't conscious - it's not making decisions, and therefore cannot have free will"

Some Christians claim that we are all born sinners, but I ask that we examine the mind of a baby. At first the baby is entirely dependant on her Mother to feed, clothe,sooth,provide for, and quiet. Mother and Dad represent a benign and acceptable authority that the Baby can trust. This is why babies and children from broken homes can become psycotic and unstable in life because they had no initial stability. In Genesis, Adam and Eve were like children. They initially had the stabalizing presence of God and basked in the security of that authority. As children grow, they also have a desire for autonomy. In order to achieve this, they must fight the authority in their environment. Some would argue that authority and autonomy are as natural as yin and yang, but I do not believe this to be the best state of affairs. No man is an island, and humans were never meant to be autonomous from either God, each other, or our societal structure of family, government, and community. Now you all know my theory and take on Revelation and the introduction of The Beast as a counterpoint to God. I believe that there is a cosmic war of sorts...not simply a dualism of opposites which is the natural order.

[qs=Thomas Aquinas Commentary]“The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble, and the like. But more and less are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God” [/quote.]

In the link that I was sharing with PRC, the author alluded to the idea that God represented more than just another choice on the shelf. ( according to Catholic Author Mark Brumley who wrote Aquinas Proves Atheists Are Closer to God Than They Think )
he mentions Aquinas understanding of a God Who exists as a Being Outside Of All Others.

quote:

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It may seem obvious to say that a Christian or even a generic theist is someone who says, “God exists,” and an atheist is someone who says, “God does not exist.” However, the traditional Christian (even the mere theist) wants to say more things about God, things that affect the use of the word exist as applied to God. Here is where Thomas comes in. When he says, “God exists,” he doesn’t mean by exist exactly the same thing that he means when he says, “Rome exists” or “Jupiter exists” or even, “I exist.”

There are, says Thomas, things that receive their existence, that are dependent for their existence. I exist because my parents existed; I received my existence from them. That mountain exists because the earth exists and certain geological principles exist that go into the formation of mountains. And so on.

Not everything, argues Thomas, can be a receiver of existence. Something (or Someone) must exist in its (his) own right, and not because of something else. Otherwise, there would be no existence to be passed on by the all various receivers of existence we encounter in the world around us. That something which (or Someone who) exists in its (his) own right and not as dependent on another is God. He, says Thomas, simply is, with the fullness of all that the word “is” can contain. This is why God is called “the Supreme Being.” Lesser beings are dependent for their existence on others. Not so God.

I have just summarized one of Thomas’s arguments for God’s existence. Whatever you make of it, my point here is to focus on the kind of existence that Thomas says God has, not on Thomas’s argument for God’s existence. God’s kind of existence is uncaused and independent. That is why Thomas can say that God “is to be thought of as existing outside the realm of existents” (Commentary on Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias, 1.14). That does not mean it is right to say, “There is no God.” If we use the word existent to refer to beings that get their existence or are dependent for it on another or others, then it is right to say that God is “outside the realm of existents.” Indeed, God, in this view, would be the cause of existence, the reason there is something rather than nothing. Yes, there is a perfectly good sense in which we must speak of God as “existing,” but, as Thomas would quickly add, God’s existence is radically different from the existence of everything else.

Only God Truly Exists
Davies says we can look at the same truth from a different angle. If we want to use the word exists for God’s kind of existence, then everything that is not God can be said to exist only in a qualified way. The atheist, in such a scenario, is as wrong as he can be. For he says that God does not exist, but if we use the word exist in the fullest possible sense of the word, then only God exists. Other beings can be said to have existence—they get their existence from something else. Only God fully exists, only God is existence; that is, only God exists by nature. Only God is not dependent on anything or anyone else for his existence. He simply is.

So if we want to talk about God using the word exists in the way we use it of everything else, the daily objects of our experience, then we can say, “God does not exist.” That is, he does not exist as dependent, as receiving his existence from somewhere else, the way everything else does. If we want to take God’s way of existing—uncaused, independent, not received—as full existence, then we must say that nothing but God exists, because everything else is caused, has existence as dependent, and received, etc.

The atheist would be on to something when he says, “God does not exist” if he meant by “exist” that God is a being or object like all the beings and objects of our immediate experience in the universe. That God does not exist.

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It goes on...

And Stile, I know that the argument is only acceptable within the realm of philosophy and not so much within scientific materialism, but it is an attempt by humans to eloquently argue for belief over materialistic rationality.