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Can anyone provide an alternative to determinism or non-determinism?

S.O.J.I.A.

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Some more random thoughts:

- God predetermined all actions and events in time(Isaiah 46:9-10)

- Man makes decisions based on his own will and desires unforced or coerced by God(James 1:13-15)

- Eternal suffering in Hell is God's just vengeance on the wicked(romans 12:19; Hebrews 10:30-31)

- God's love is displayed in the fact that He sent His Son to die for those who hated Him and promised them eternal life(romans 5:6-11) ("Us" in this passage refers to those who are in Christ)

- It is God's will to show off all of his attributes. His love, mercy, and grace as well as his justice, power, wrath. we are not in position to question or judge God's decisions as we are His creation(romans 9:19-24)
 
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looking_for_answers_

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Invoking the supernatural doesn't really change anything, though, because I can ask the same question about moral responsibility there, too. If a soul's action is determined by precending events (including the soul's "state", nature, etc), then why is it responsible? If a soul's actions are not determined by anything at all, then why is it responsible?

Also, if the supernatural was causing interference patterns in electron spin, why would it be a probablistic distribution?
 
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looking_for_answers_

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You keep on using the word "free", but the crux of my issue is that this makes no sense. By what definition can the will be "free"??? All of our decisions are caused by some combination of external influence, internal state, and/or randomness. Non of us cannot escape this and this holds true even for supernatural things like souls. If you had perfect knowledge of an agent, you could trace back the line of causality for each decision that agent made "freely" and you would ultimately see that eventually, the causes all end up outside of the agent itself.
 
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looking_for_answers_

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And the answer to both questions is compatibilist free will: Free will - Wikipedia
Free will - Wikipedia

Compatibilism gives us "free" will by redefining "free". If someone does not accept Christ, sure, there were no evil scientists planting electrodes in their brain preventing them from making the decision to be Christian. But I don't really see how this is satisfying. It ultimately is arguing semantics about "free".
 
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looking_for_answers_

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Sure, but that isn't a Biblical belief, and my cognitive dissonance is coming from realizations about God as described in the Bible. What you're describing kind of sounds like some form of reincarnation-based universalism, which would indeed address the issue
 
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Tayla

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If a soul's action is determined by precending events (including the soul's "state", nature, etc), then why is it responsible?
The soul makes free will choices, not determined by anything previous.
 
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Tayla

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Also, if the supernatural was causing interference patterns in electron spin, why would it be a probablistic distribution?
Probably it's the location of the electron which affects the chemical interactions. Over the long run it is random. But each quantum mechanic event can be directed.
 
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looking_for_answers_

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The soul makes free will choices, not determined by anything previous.

Not determined by any form of logic? Nor reasoning? Nor emotion? Literally not determined by anything?

That is literally the definition of random:
the definition of random

"proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern"
 
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Paul of Eugene OR

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What if being a spirit, autonomous, and able to choose turns out to depend on lower, atomic particle level, biochemical forces?
 
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looking_for_answers_

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Many factors and considerations go into a free will decision. But it is free will.

Then it's not free.

Let's imagine a decision like this, with whatever your definition of "free" is represented by the "?":
(prior factors + randomness + ?)

The part that is based on prior factors is not free. It is caused by those factors.
The part based on randomness is not free. It's random.
So what in the world is the defintion of the "?" if it's neither determined nor random?

A coherent definition of a decision is just this:
(prior factors + randomness)

The combination of two things that are not free is still... not free.
 
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Paul of Eugene OR

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Hmmm . . . if its random, how can it be from "will?" If its not random, how can it be free?

If I try to be, personally free, what am I trying for? Seems to me in seeking my own freedom I seek to eliminate external influences, allowing internal influences their maximum play. Including my randomizer. Whatever that is. Does the content of my character . . . reduce the freedom of my will? How does it do that?
 
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Let's imagine that we have indeed eliminated external and random factors. Now, your will is determined by your current inner state. So it's still not "free". Whatever your current state decides, that is the only decision that was actually possible.

I don't believe that there is any random factor. As far as I know we have no evidence that quantum uncertainy interferes with the brain. But I include that becuase it hypothetically could, and many people mistakenly point to indeterminancy as "freedom" so it's best to clarify
 
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Paul of Eugene OR

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What we have in the brain is chaotic uncertainty, at least. The swirling patterns interact in the manner of such chaotic unpredictable things as weather or mathematical strange attractors. Small influences have the potential for influencing such patterns, all the way down to the level of quantum indeterminacy. So its no great stretch to admit quantum indeterminacy in the brain.

Perhaps we have simply failed to clearly specify what we are talking about when we wonder whether or not we have free will. What could free will possibly even be?

There is the matter of our "self". What can the self - the soul - possibly even be? I lean toward the idea that the soul, the self, is an emergent phenomenon based on a computer with enough smarts - enough adequate programming and memory - to form a concept of itself wandering through the universe, including a concept of itself having a concept of itself.

Its actions could be called the result of free will when viewed at the macroscopic level, where we intuit its personality and character, and interact with it as a friend or an enemy. It could simultaneously be called the result of its programming, which is alas too complex for our merely human mind to follow in detail. I would speculate this is the case even if it happens to be a computer with no random elements allowed in its programming except for a standard random number generating algorithm . . . as long as it was complex enough to meet the criterion of having a concept of itself wandering through a universe, including a concept of itself having a concept of itself.
 
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We're on the same page. The idea of God allowing such a conscious "computer" to suffer for eternity for following it's instructions is what's been fueling my crisis of faith over the last year, and my desperate post here to find more satisfying explanations than I've found anywhere else
 
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Paul of Eugene OR

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I think we can trust God to be as fair and just as we would, even more so . . .
 
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Radagast

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Compatibilism gives us "free" will by redefining "free".

There are a number of standard definitions of "free will." Compatibilism is consistent with some of them, but not with others.

But it is at least possible that compatibilist free will is the only free will that exists.
 
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Radagast

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The soul makes free will choices, not determined by anything previous.

That seems incoherent to me. You seem to have "free" meaning "random."

When you say "free will," which of the half dozen or so kinds of free will are you talking about?
 
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Radagast

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Perhaps we have simply failed to clearly specify what we are talking about when we wonder whether or not we have free will. What could free will possibly even be?

Like I said, there are a number of standard definitions of "free will." They're all quite different, and you can be "free" on one definition, but not on another.
 
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looking_for_answers_

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I think we can trust God to be as fair and just as we would, even more so . . .

But, given content of our previous discussion, I would by no means ever consider it fair to eternally torture someone. I'm not even sure it's really fair to punish them while they're alive, as opposed to just taking measures to ensure that they can no longer harm society.

In order to reconcile this with God being fair, just, and loving, I need to redefine what fair, just, and loving mean, and their new meanings in this scenario are pretty frightening if it's loving to create a conscious entity that was destined for eternal torment and was never truly capable of avoiding it
 
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