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The good guys lost
How do you know this?Causality is not linked to naturalism. Even fully supernatural things still have to be either caused, or uncaused.
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How do you know this?Causality is not linked to naturalism. Even fully supernatural things still have to be either caused, or uncaused.
if God is love, then He will not predetermine some to burn eternally. The idea is completely contradictory.
But if the will is free to the extent that it can be judged
You show here how compatibilsm is false. But it's not because there is no libertarian free will. It's because determinism is false. I am an incompatiblist because of arguments such as the one you have presented here. To hold libertarian free will one must reject determinism, and once this is done the argument presented says nothing about free will. B does originate with X. Otherwise judgment is irrational.100% agreed
Would would a "free" will be judgeable? If it's free from causality, then it was not caused by any underlying rules.
That aside, the problem I find (and I suspect the reason that libertarian free will is overwhelmingly not believed in by philosophers) is that frequently the arguments in support of it do little to respond fully to incompatibilist's arguments:
Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
For reference, "iff" means "if and only if"
QUOTE ///
[...] let us simplify the above argument as follows:
- Any agent, x, performs an any act, a, of her own free will iff x has control over a.
- x has control over a only if x is the ultimate source of a.
- If x is the ultimate source of a, then some condition, b, necessary for a, originates with x.
- If any condition, b, originates with x, then there are no conditions sufficient for b independent of x.
- If determinism is true, then the facts of the past, in conjunction with the laws of nature, entail every truth about the future.
- If the facts of the past, in conjunction with the laws of nature, entail every truth about the future, then for any condition, b, necessary for any action, a, performed by any agent, x, there are conditions independent of x (in x's remote past, before x's birth) that are sufficient for b.
- If, for any condition, b, necessary for any action, a, performed by any agent, x, there are conditions independent of x that are sufficient for b, then no agent, x, is the ultimate source of any action, a. (This follows from C and D.)
- If determinism is true, then no agent, x, is the ultimate source of any action, a. (This follows from E, F, and G.)
- Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent, x, performs any action, a, of her own free will. (This follows from A, B, and H.)
END QUOTE ///
- A person acts of her own free will only if she is its ultimate source (A-B).
- If determinism is true, no one is the ultimate source of her actions (C-H).
- Therefore, if determinism is true, no one acts of her own free will (I).
And the argument that something can be "non-determined but not random but we have no idea how or what that even means or how it would be different from randomness or how something can cause itself without time-travel" (??? that's called a paradox!!!) or why that would even be considered freedom... this all makes no sense to me at all
You are struggling with the concept of creation right? That it is possible for two people to create a child with its own freedom. I guess the question is, do you see anything unique about human life to that of the rest of the universe with regard to freedom? If we take determinism to its conclusion there is no difference between a person and a rock. But I see human life as holding something unique with regard to free will. I think the evidence is seen internally every day. This must be our starting assumption and the proof must be very strong to refute such obvious internal evidence. Don't you think?And the argument that something can be "non-determined but not random but we have no idea how or what that even means or how it would be different from randomness or how something can cause itself without time-travel" (??? that's called a paradox!!!) or why that would even be considered freedom... this all makes no sense to me at all
You show here how compatibilsm is false. But it's not because there is no libertarian free will. It's because determinism is false. I am an incompatiblist because of arguments such as the one you have presented here. To hold libertarian free will one must reject determinism, and once this is done the argument presented says nothing about free will. B does originate with X. Otherwise judgment is irrational.
If we take determinism to its conclusion there is no difference between a person and a rock.
Going in circles here but until someone can explain to me how "free will" would look and behave any different from randomness then I do not know what this means.But I see human life as holding something unique with regard to free will
I think the evidence is seen internally every day. This must be our starting assumption and the proof must be very strong to refute such obvious internal evidence. Don't you think?
Then read the paragraph after that. I do not understand how I can judge something that has no underlying mechanism or rules. Why on earth would that somehow be MORE responsible? This makes judgment even more irrational.
This depends on what you mean by "no difference" but I would completely disagree. Humans have consciousness, which differentiates us from inanimate matter.
Going in circles here but until someone can explain to me how "free will" would look and behave any different from randomness then I do not know what this means.
Is "free will" the only possible cause for the experience of freedom? Look up the Libet expiriments. The people in question were experiencing freedom of choice, yet the evidence showed that their conscious mind did not receive the neurological signal until their muscles had already been activated. This is at least enough to show that conscious experience of freedom does NOT imply actual freedom. This is the distinction between freedom of the mind (nothing outside of my body is physically forcing my to do X) and freedom of the will. Our minds are capable of feeling free even if they don't find out about our actions until after the fact.
The burden of proof lies with the person claiming the existence of X. If I say purple flying giraffes exist, it's not your burden to prove that they don't. So the burden of proof lies with the people saying "there's this conceptual thing that looks identical in every way to randomness but it's not randomness."
This gets back to the first point. If a universe filled with "free will" is completely indistinguishable from a universe without it, what's the point of "giving" the conscious entities within that universe free will? Going back to the example of the three machines and the human taking the test. I cannot distinguish between the agent with free will and the agents without. So what is the point of free will??? All it seems to do is somehow justify allowing that agent to be tortured for eternity, even though the other agents (who were also fully conscious, just without a free will) get off scott free. Thus free will is a cruel curse! It would have been better for that poor agent to be conscious but not free.
(Pre-empting "but machines can't be conscious..." - do you believe your pets are conscious? Then that is not unique to humans, so there's no good reason a robot can't also be conscious)
I think there are two separate issues here. The first is the question of whether the universe is deterministic or non-deterministic. Quantum mechanics leaves open the possibility that that reality is non-deterministic. Look up bell's inequality as a proof that there is no underlying deterministic mechanism (hidden variables).
The second is the question of free will. Compatiblism holds that free will exists within a deterministic universe. Libertarian free will would require a non-deterministic universe. So it all depends on what exactly we mean by free will.
Another separate issue is that of eternal torture. There is certainly not agreement among Christians on this. Perhaps a better question is are we responsible for our moral actions? That way even if we hypothetically assumed atheism the question of moral responsibility would still be valid.
The Libet experiments have too many variables, too many possible factors that weren’t considered—the experiments themselves required no higher order decision making for example; they should not be used for proof either way.
Have you read Chisholm’s Human Freedom and the Self? (https://wmpeople.wm.edu/asset/index/cvance/chisholm). It is only short and deals with free will from the libertarian perspective addressing some points you bring up. If you are committed to compatiblism I’m probably the wrong person to discuss this with because I find compatiblism and Gods omnibenevolence incompatible.
If God, as the Prime Mover, has libertarian free will, then I believe He can bestow this on others. Do you believe God has libertarian free will?
We must establish moral responsibility in the first place before we can even discuss fairness of punishment. Under hard determinism we are not responsible for our moral actions in any way so any punishment at all would be technically unfair. You seem to be a Hard Incompatiblist, wherein you feel that free will is incompatible with either determinism or indeterminism. We are not morally responsible for our actions even if there is some randomness involved because we don't control randomness any more than we control determinism. Again it would seem unjust to punish people for their actions even under indeterminism. The only scenarios, as far as I know, under which we are morally responsible are compatiblism or libertarianism. If you can't accept either of those then you can't really even begin to evaluate the fairness of punishments.This is a good point. I don't want to derail the original intent of the thread but yes for me personally the issue is with moral responsibility and eternal torture. I am struggling to find a solid reason for why any individual should be held ultimately responsible, and yes, I admit that I find the thought of eternal torture of even Hitler or any other universally reviled person to be the darkest thing I can think of, but from my personal upbringing I've been taught that not believing in hell was a heresy
We must establish moral responsibility in the first place before we can even discuss fairness of punishment. Under hard determinism we are not responsible for our moral actions in any way so any punishment at all would be technically unfair. You seem to be a Hard Incompatiblist, wherein you feel that free will is incompatible with either determinism or indeterminism. We are not morally responsible for our actions even if there is some randomness involved because we don't control randomness any more than we control determinism. Again it would seem unjust to punish people for their actions even under indeterminism. The only scenarios, as far as I know, under which we are morally responsible are compatiblism or libertarianism. If you can't accept either of those then you can't really even begin to evaluate the fairness of punishments.
the Agent being something indistinguishably different from randomness yet morally responsible.
I think it is important God is defined as free in a libertarian sense.
Otherwise He is not in control of anything but bouncing along with rest of the determinists.
I think of it like this: God is not bound to one perfect path but instead perfection entails infinite options that are all perfect. For example, God can create (there are infinitely unique perfect things to create) or remain (as He is already perfect). Heis presented with multiple perfect options and chooses to create.
If He had instead remained He would have still been perfect. His actions are not bound to one trajectory. It can be summed up in this way: there can be choices available to God that are equally perfect. If this is true then He can choose in a libertarian sense -- He makes uncaused choices.
If we can establish God as libertarian then it should follow He can create libertarian agents.
I'm not sure I've addressed this adequately, can you be quite specific in your criticism? I really like the Chisolm paper even though it's been criticised a lot more recently.
Hope ur Xmas was good, ours was pretty relaxed
Sorry, you missed my point. I was attempting to say that God would no longer be in control of Himself, but just another billiard ball bouncing around in the sea of causes. As a side note I argue from a libertarian perspective that God is not in control because He’s given real responsibility to agents (those who are out of Gods control).I do not believe that these this follows from denying Him libertarian free will. He still has absolute and total control - there is nothing external forcing Him to do anything. So a compatabilist would not say "He is not in control".
Of course, but there are suppositions either way, whether libertarian or not. Even the perfection of God is up for debate.Perhaps, but this supposes multiple perfect options
Again, debatable. I do not see Him as outside of time (be it in this reality or some other) because anything outside of time doesn’t exist.Perhaps speculating about this in regards to God is ultimately kind of silly because He is not constrained by time as we are.
So what caused His nature? The chain of causes either must begin somewhere or have continued forever from the past. If it began, it began uncaused in God. If forever, God is the billiard ball bouncing around without proper control over His decisions. God would be determined and His free will would be the illusion that compatiblism promotes as it relies entirely on causes that are not in the control of the agent.My definition of "uncaused" is just that - there is no underlying nature
Fair enough, but I see no reason that He can’t make a person with less libertarian freedom than Himself. Just as He can give us some power, some knowledge etc. it doesn’t have to Omni or nothing.A being more powerful, knowledgable, loving, etc., than Himself, off the top of my head. It could even be that, if He is a libertarian agent, that is something that is tied intimately with being God, just as His omnipotence etc. is
But He can create us libertarian only if He is libertarian—that is if being libertarian is an improvement to ones being.And even if He is a libertarian agent and also can create other libertarian agents, it does not necessarily follow that He did. There are many things that He has clearly chosen not to create us as. We are not beings capabale of experiencing time in more than one way, and He created us only capable of experiencing a measly three dimensions of space. It certainly seems that He gave other supernatural beings such gifts that He withheld from us
But the same could be applied to an infinite regression of causes. If everything moves because the total sum of its causes then the only cause that matters is the first; but there is no first and so everything that happens is random (occurring without definite aim).First, the semantics, mentioned above.
A common instance I see among libertarians is "uncaused, but not random". Okay, but if an event is uncaused, then there is no underlying reason, and there would logically be not following pattern... which is the actual definition of "random": the definition of random