Free Will

[John Owen]

Does he use Koine Greek, or Classical Greek, in his hermeneutics?

Probably both.

 

[AV1611VET]

Probably both.

And does he recognize this passage ...

1 John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

... as legitimate?

 

[Bradskii]

Why?
Who can cite the relationship with certainty between presently 'true' conditions and those in the supposedly single future, in order to justify that claim there?

QM for eg, only describes the future in terms of probabilities ... and particles say, in the future, can be in several places, or states, all at the same time (superposition), so I don't see how one can state with certainty that the present used to be the future? In fact the two are entirely different(?)

If you could freeze time then there'd one one set of conditions. Only the one. And that set was the future one second before we froze it. One day before. A billion years before. It's the only one that all conditions led to.

We can't predict it. But there will be only one.

 

[Bradskii]

Ummm: for example, you and any other randomly selected atheist on this site will have vastly different outlooks on life...

So what?

It's the point I am making. There are commonalities. But not necessarily identical povs.

 

[SelfSim]

If you could freeze time then there'd one one set of conditions. Only the one. And that set was the future one second before we froze it. One day before. A billion years before. It's the only one that all conditions led to.

We can't predict it. But there will be only one.

Meh .. one dreamed up model from amongst many. Unevidenced (objectively). Supported by logic which assumes an unprovably true posit (just like all the rest of 'em). More unconvinced than I was from the outset .. I'll just continue to watch ..
Cheers

 

[SelfSim]

It's the point I am making. There are commonalities.

Unsurprising when the minds agreeing on the commonalities, (yet also perceiving in slightly different ways), do so by virtue of possessing a testably common type of mind .. (aka: human).

But not necessarily identical povs.

With the lack of 'identical-ness' there, providing the basis for variations which go on to produce behaviours referred to as free will choices, eh(?)

 

[Bradskii]

Meh .. one dreamed up model from amongst many. Unevidenced (objectively). Supported by logic which assumes an unprovably true posit (just like all the rest of 'em). More unconvinced than I was from the outset .. I'll just continue to watch ..
Cheers

The present isn't 'one dreamed up model from amongst many'. That's true for any potential future. Of which there are an infinite number. But we're talking about the actual future. The one that is impossible to predict but which does actuate.

That said, the future has no influence on the present. Only our beliefs as to what the future might hold has an influence.

 

[Bradskii]

With the lack of 'identical-ness' there, providing the basis for variations which go on to produce behaviours referred to as free will choices, eh(?)

Well, I was saying nothing more substantial than we are all individuals and our pov's are obviously different. Which means that under the same circumstances we will each make different decisions.

You preferring chocolate over my preference to vanilla has no connection with the concept of free will.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... in this case what we're doing is expanding the explanation for our choices from simply being the predetermined byproduct of a backward looking cause and effect to being something completely different. We're not only the byproduct of what was, but we're also an indispensable component of what will be, and we recognize ourselves as such. This I would argue is where the will becomes an emergent phenomena, when it recognizes what it is.

I don't follow you - what is 'completely different'? Our brains are the product of previous events like the rest of us and everything around us.

Not sure what you mean by being an 'indispensable component', but we're here and what we do affects the future as does everything else. Our self-recognition is an additional level of cognitive abstraction - self-awareness is another emergent phenomenon.

What happens when the process of cause and effect becomes conscious? When it recognizes the process and its place in it? Surely that must alter the process. The question is, would every choice made after that still be just a matter of cause and effect, or in achieving self awareness would the process have also attained free will?

Cause and effect is our label for how events propagate over time; consciousness won't change that, as a process, it depends on cause & effect. But because it's causal, it does and will affect the future, like all other causal processes - it's a more sophisticated way of processing information than other natural processes, so it has more degrees of freedom in its influence than they do, so the results are less predictable.

If we simply take a broader perspective and realize that it's not just "us" that has attained self awareness, but it's the entire process of cause and effect that has attained self awareness, and in doing so, has it attained free will?

Why select cause & effect for special attention? You could just as well say (as others have done) that the universe (or physics, or chemistry, or life, or evolution), has attained self-awareness. In my view, no, the process of cause & effect is just as it always has been, one thing leading to another; but, in combination with other factors (e.g. a low entropy initial condition, suitable laws of physics & forms of matter, etc.), it has given rise to self-aware entities.

It may seem profound to claim that, 'the entire process of cause and effect ... has attained self-awareness', but it sounds like a deepity to me. No offence intended...

Has cause & effect, or the universe, or physics, or chemistry, or life, or evolution, attained free will? Well, if we agree that conscious self-aware entities have compatibilist free will, I suppose you could say they have, in some vague & indirect sense. Entities with free will are (an infinitesimal) part of the universe; they depend on cause & effect, physics, chemistry, & life, and they have evolved.

But it sounds like another deepity to me.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

FB, let's not do this. Not only are you changing the goal posts, but you and I will just be wasting our time with a discussion that neither of us is that interested in. We're both more interested in other things, science being one of them.

I brought it up because it is something I am interested in and I don't consider it a waste of time. I've learned a fair amount just from the number of ways believers dodge it.

Moreover, to continue on this trope would be to hijack this thread, and I have neither the desire nor the time like some others here do with this stuff.

OK.

 

[SelfSim]

.. But we're talking about the actual future. The one that is impossible to predict but which does actuate.
...
You preferring chocolate over my preference to vanilla has no connection with the concept of free will.

My preferring chocolate over vanilla has the same basis (or type connection) with the concept of free will, that your actual future which is impossible to predict, has with its actuation, I reckon. (Its just a vanilla actuation not a chocloate one).

 

[renniks]

It's the concept that if we re-ran the film of our life, could we make different decisions? No, it's not credible. So free will in that sense doesn't exist anyway.

Why not? Why could we not have made different decisions?

 

[SelfSim]

Why not? Why could we not have made different decisions?

I think the argument is sort of like:
'In an absolutely perfectly understood universe, because one apple exists in front of me .. the scenario of two apples existing in front of me, could never have happened'.
(Which really ain't even worth saying, IMHO .. its an empty argument).

 

[Bradskii]

My preferring chocolate over vanilla has the same basis (or type connection) with the concept of free will, that your actual future which is impossible to predict, has with its actuation, I reckon. (Its just a vanilla actuation not a chocloate one).

They're entirely different things. The only connection is that if you make a decision (to have chocolate), that will happen in the future. We all make decisions that do that. Making a decision does not equate to free will.

 

[Bradskii]

Why not? Why could we not have made different decisions?

There must have been a reason to make the decision in the first place. Or else it was random. And the reasons were based on the circumstances. If the circumstances are exactly the same, what prompts a different decision?

 

[SelfSim]

There must have been a reason to make the decision in the first place. Or else it was random. And the reasons were based on the circumstances. If the circumstances are exactly the same, what prompts a different decision?

A self-initiated impulse response by a system having no predefinable transfer function.

 

[Bradskii]

. a system having no predefinable transfer function.

I have no idea what that means.

 

[Neogaia777]

A self-initiated impulse response by a system having no predefinable transfer function.

Self-initiated... Lol...

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

Everything you guys are saying on here was all fully known and was predicted way, way far in advance already...

And this includes me right now also...

But it also includes you also, etc...

But you just keep going on thinking it's all just you, and that you came up with it, etc...

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

Everything you guys are saying on here was all fully known and was predicted way, way far in advance already...

And this includes me right now also...

But it also includes you also, etc...

But you just keep going on thinking it's all just you, and that you came up with it, etc...

God Bless!

You may continue now.

God Bless!