God's will and quantum mechanics

[Diamond72]

That applies whether you believe or not.

Yes, but the power of suggestion and the power of positive thinking is real.

 

[Neutral Observer]

A collapsing wavefunction has a probabilistic outcome - can you explain exactly what you mean by 'free will' in this context?

This could be trickier than it seems, but I'll give it a shot. Take for example the case of Joseph's brothers deciding to throw him in a pit rather than kill him. If people truly have free will then up until the point that they threw him in the pit, the option to kill him should've been available to them, and only when that decision was ultimately made would the potential for all other options cease to exist. (MWI being a different scenario altogether)

Hence if we have the capacity to choose one course of action over another then the present should unfold like a collapsing wavefunction, wherein the potential for all available outcomes must exist prior to any choice being made, and apparently cease to exist afterwards.

Now I'm not really sure that that adequately defines free will or whether it even exists, but in this case the assumption is that a free will agent has the capacity to choose between different potential actions.

If that explanation is inadequate, please feel free to clarify any objections.

 

[Neutral Observer]

There's been a gradual trend over millenia of increasing degree of civilization, though with a lot of 2 steps upward then 2 or 3 downward. And of course a given nation/society can begin to degenerate. But despite the many failing societies, overall there's been an upward trend. That's what the OT is about, if you read through. The effort to establish and strengthen the Rule Of Law. Read it through and you'll see that very clearly.

The effort. The struggle of God to bring us around.

In other words Adam and Eve's attainment of the knowledge of good and evil may have been a one time event, but learning to apply it is an ongoing process.

Which makes me wonder why God would choose to truncate this process rather than simply allowing it to play out? To have allowed us to struggle for so long, and for He Himself to have sacrificed so much, only to stop us before we realize our true potential seems to me to be outside of His original intent. The process isn't broken, it's just not finished.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

There's been a gradual trend over millenia of increasing degree of civilization, though with a lot of 2 steps upward then 2 or 3 downward. And of course a given nation/society can begin to degenerate. But despite the many failing societies, overall there's been an upward trend. That's what the OT is about, if you read through. The effort to establish and strengthen the Rule Of Law. Read it through and you'll see that very clearly.

The effort. The struggle of God to bring us around.

But even here in the U.S. we get moments when the Rule of Law seems at real risk, in danger.... Trump was a strong test of it.

God's solution is to change our hearts, -- as we read that's what Christ came to do -- and then save all who change and walk in the right, as Christ taught in detail, into eternal life.

I'm aware that violence in general has been decreasing for hundreds of years, but the claim I was responding to was that a god belief helps prevent wrongdoing, and I would like to see some evidence that this makes a significant difference, because, AIUI, secular societies experience no more (and possibly less) wrongdoing than religious ones (with the caveat previously mentioned).

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

This could be trickier than it seems, but I'll give it a shot. Take for example the case of Joseph's brothers deciding to throw him in a pit rather than kill him. If people truly have free will then up until the point that they threw him in the pit, the option to kill him should've been available to them, and only when that decision was ultimately made would the potential for all other options cease to exist. (MWI being a different scenario altogether)

Hence if we have the capacity to choose one course of action over another then the present should unfold like a collapsing wavefunction, wherein the potential for all available outcomes must exist prior to any choice being made, and apparently cease to exist afterwards.

Now I'm not really sure that that adequately defines free will or whether it even exists, but in this case the assumption is that a free will agent has the capacity to choose between different potential actions.

If that explanation is inadequate, please feel free to clarify any objections.

A compatibilist (determinist) might argue that, lacking detailed knowledge & understanding of their internal state, any actor will perceive a range of possible options for action, and experience freely making a choice from those options. Nevertheless, the evaluations that constitute that choice, from mood to preferences, are deterministic - the result of a sequence of prior events. So, what looks like a choice from 'behind the veil of ignorance' is better understood as a deterministic calculation with many parameters, most of which are unknown to the individual.

But however you view the choice or decision-making process, once the choice is made, the other perceived options, whether real or apparent, are no longer available - the choice is made, the world has changed, and life moves on.

 

[Neutral Observer]

A compatibilist (determinist) might argue that, lacking detailed knowledge & understanding of their internal state, any actor will perceive a range of possible options for action, and experience freely making a choice from those options. Nevertheless, the evaluations that constitute that choice, from mood to preferences, are deterministic - the result of a sequence of prior events. So, what looks like a choice from 'behind the veil of ignorance' is better understood as a deterministic calculation with many parameters, most of which are unknown to the individual.

I was of course arguing from the assumption that people really do have free will, in which case the present emerges in seemingly the exact same way as a collapsing wavefunction, with actuality emerging from potentiality.

In any case, whether reality is deterministic, or probabilistic, or stochastic, or random it presents a problem for anyone who's worldview includes the assumption that people have free will. The entire biblical narrative becomes inexplicable if people really do have free will. But then again many Christian narratives become inexplicable if people don't have free will.

Either way, the Christian narrative has a problem. Unless of course one holds the position that, "Men freely will what God wills them to will". I'm not exactly sure how that's supposed to work, but it's a position that many Christians take.

Edit: Actually I can imagine a scenario in which that statement makes at least some modicum of sense.

 

[Yuppert]

Free will has many definitions, some more useful than others, some self-contradictory. At a practical level I’d define it broadly as any choice that stems primary from acting according to your nature, without external compulsion (but not necessarily without pressure and not necessarily with an unlimited and self-selected menu of choice options).

Some overanalyze it, to the point of losing either the freedom aspect or the will aspect. For example, everything we do and everything we are stems from either nature or nurture, but you didn’t choose either one of those. You were born with your nature, and nurture is what external forces have done to you. And if you make any choices that are not predetermined by either one, then those choices may be free, but if you have neither innate preferences nor external purposes, then you might as well be flipping a coin—there’s no real will or intent involved. I see free will as something greater than the sum of its parts, a gestalt that lays responsibility on us for the choices we make, regardless of the analytical foundations, and I see our character and nature as something molded, not just by birth and external experiences, but by every choice you make in life (whether influenced by nature and nurture or completely random), so that your personal responsibility grows with each choice. Even if you become so set in your ways that you can’t choose anything other than the same choices you always make, you’re still responsible, and the responsibility is my main interest in free will, not a dissection of its functioning.

Some say free will can’t exist if God knows with certainty what you’re going to do. But that’s like saying that the fact that I know what I chose to have for breakfast this morning with unchangeable certainty after the fact means I did not have a real choice at the time. I think this stems from an inability to see time from outside of a temporal perspective. You could choose a perspective outside time without time, so time is frozen, unchanged, unchangeable, and all of past, present, and future is set in stone. But I think God’s perspective, outside of time, does not rob him of one degree of freedom; he gains one. I think he sees every moment in time as “live,” as it happens. He sees both the past and the future as “now” simultaneously. And he makes his sovereign choices of which timelines and moments in time are among the potentialities we are offered while viewing the big picture of every choice made by every human of all of history simultaneously (if simultaneity has any meaning outside of time).

Being outside of time doesn’t freeze God, it frees him. So he knows my future because he sees me doing it right now, not because it’s a done deal with no freedom on my part to make my own temporal free will choices. And rather than men willing only what God allows them to will, I see God allowing men the freedom to will and choose anything according to their nature and making them responsible for those choices. And if at any time man chooses something that would contravene God's purposes and plans, he either wisely finds a way to work things back to the right track, or he will have, from outside of time, chosen a course and path for you so that the problematic choice never comes up. Yes, God's sovereignty trumps the chosen path our lives would have followed if God did nothing but sit back and watch us ruin everything, but it doesn't change the fact that every choice we make is a real choice with real options that we are truly and completely responsible for.

I believe that the physical wiring of our brains puts a lot of pressure on what choices we are capable of making (someone with an addiction may be physically incapable of choosing to stop), but the essence of free will comes from the immaterial spirit which transcends both nature and nurture. Exactly how the spirit interjects its choices, or why the spirit has the character it does (was it created with certain personality quirks? Is it more, or less, adaptable than the physical brain? Is it free of all the defects and physical limitations that affect our earthly mental abilities?)—that’s all a bit above my paygrade. But it is the soul that, more so than the physical brain, both possesses the true essence of free will and is fully responsible for every choice it makes.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I was of course arguing from the assumption that people really do have free will, in which case the present emerges in seemingly the exact same way as a collapsing wavefunction, with actuality emerging from potentiality.

But again, what do you mean by 'really having free will'? IOW, if it doesn't mean ranking and selecting from the perceived options according to one's causally determined preferences, desires, mood, and so on (as in the compatibilist account), on what grounds is a 'really free will' choice made?

In any case, whether reality is deterministic, or probabilistic, or stochastic, or random it presents a problem for anyone who's worldview includes the assumption that people have free will. The entire biblical narrative becomes inexplicable if people really do have free will. But then again many Christian narratives become inexplicable if people don't have free will.

Either way, the Christian narrative has a problem. Unless of course one holds the position that, "Men freely will what God wills them to will". I'm not exactly sure how that's supposed to work, but it's a position that many Christians take.

Edit: Actually I can imagine a scenario in which that statement makes at least some modicum of sense.

"We must believe in free will - we have no choice" Isaac Bashevis Singer

 

[Neutral Observer]

But again, what do you mean by 'really having free will'? IOW, if it doesn't mean ranking and selecting from the perceived options according to one's causally determined preferences, desires, mood, and so on (as in the compatibilist account), on what grounds is a 'really free will' choice made?

There's a sentiment expressed by Carl Sagan, Brian Cox and many others that "We are the cosmos made conscious". That can be a difficult concept to wrap one's head around. We are "star stuff" with the ability to think, and desire, and love, and hate, and marvel, and a million other inexplicable things. Who could ever have imagined that... stuff that can wonder.

And in that wondering we have become more than just a collection of particles governed by physics, because we're also governed by love, and hate, and hope, and remorse, and unceasing curiosity. And it's those immaterial bits, those inexplicable emotional bits that mean that I am not just the sum of my parts. I'm conscious. And it's that consciousness that gives me free will, because it allows me to take how I feel and convert it into what I do. And that as Frost said, has made all the difference.

Okay, as far as explaining free will, that may be the best that I can do. Free will emerges when how one feels serves to influence what one does.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Free will emerges when how one feels serves to influence what one does.

That was my point - if how one feels is causally determined by prior events, then free will is only a label for our ignorance of those causes.

 

[SelfSim]

That was my point - if how one feels is causally determined by prior events, then free will is only a label for our ignorance of those causes.

A sense of free will can emerge from an intense focus on the present.
Deliberate abandonment of the concerns of the past, leaves little room for the notion of causality (irrespective of ignorance .. the evidence is that free will choices frequently turn out as having been risky propositions, as in: 'what was I thinking?').

 

[Neutral Observer]

That was my point - if how one feels is causally determined by prior events, then free will is only a label for our ignorance of those causes.

I would argue that free will choices aren't simply random choices and therefore they'll inevitably be determined at least in part by prior events. But I would also argue that consciousness, of which "how I feel" is an integral component, is an emergent property qualitatively different from the constituent parts from which it emerges. Specifically, I would argue that the emergence of consciousness breaks the one to one correlation between the underlying cause of consciousness and its subsequent choices, and that it does this by giving rise to attributes specific to consciousness such as feelings, desires, emotions etc. It's these emergent properties, who's subsequent behavior can't be predicted from the underlying causes, that makes free will possible.

I would argue therefore that free will occurs when consciousness uses attributes specific only to itself in order to arrive at a choice that couldn't be predicted based solely upon the underlying causes. Yes, consciousness has an underlying cause, both for its own existence and for its content, but it also has emergent behaviors not discernible from the underlying causes.

Thanks, I always appreciate it when someone makes me really have to stop and think about something. To be honest I'm highly skeptical of free will, so forcing me to have to defend it gives me a unique perspective that I may not have considered otherwise.

 

[SelfSim]

I would argue that free will choices aren't random choices and therefore will inevitably be determined at least in part by prior events. But I would also argue that consciousness of which "how I feel" is an integral component is an emergent property qualitatively different than the constituent parts from which it emerges. Specifically, I would argue that it breaks the one to one correlation between the underlying causes and the subsequent choices, and that it does this by using attributes specific to consciousness such as feelings, desires, emotions etc. in the decision making process.

I would argue therefore that free will occurs when consciousness uses attributes specific only to itself in order to arrive at a choice that the underlying causes couldn't arrive at on their own. Yes, consciousness has an underlying cause, both for its own existence and for its content, but it supplements this with attributes peculiar only to itself, and that's what gives it free will.

Thanks, I always appreciate it when someone makes me really have to stop and think about something. To be honest I'm highly skeptical of free will, so forcing me to have to defend it gives me a unique perspective that I may not have considered otherwise.

No one can demonstrate objectively that free will is 'a thing', which exists independently from a human mind.
Neither is consciousness, or causes (for that matter).
Yet I notice how you appear to hold these mind concepts separately from your above commentary.
Why?

Own 'em bro! .. They're your concepts!

 

[Neutral Observer]

No one can demonstrate objectively that free will is 'a thing', which exists independently from a human mind.
Neither is consciousness, or causes (for that matter).
Yet I notice how you appear to hold these mind concepts separately from your above commentary.
Why?

Because a necessary attribute of consciousness, or a mind if you wish, is coherency. Where does it come from?

 

[SelfSim]

Because a necessary attribute of consciousness, or a mind if you wish, is coherency. Where does it come from?

Is it?
I'm pretty sure if we went back in history, we could find examples of people put into 'mental asylums' for displays of incoherency(?)
Are you excluding those conscious minds (and the reasoning behind 'putting them away')? Why?

 

[Neutral Observer]

Because a necessary attribute of consciousness, or a mind if you wish, is coherency. Where does it come from?

Is it?

Yes.

You have the ability to ask that question because you know what those words mean. You know what coherency means, and what consciousness means. You know what a tree is, and what a cloud is. You know that what goes up must come down, and every effect must have a cause, because the world is ordered and coherent. If it wasn't then there would be no words and there would be no clouds, and all there would be would be an orderless and senseless chaos.

But the world is ordered and coherent... so where did that order come from?

Most people would say that it came from a big bang that happened some 13.8 bya. Still others might claim that God created it. But wherever it came from, it's there, and you can only ask that question precisely because it is there.

So I'll ask again, where did it come from?

I'm pretty sure if we went back in history, we could find examples of people put into 'mental asylums' for displays of incoherency(?)
Are you excluding those conscious minds (and the reasoning behind 'putting them away')? Why?

I'm not excluding anything. If someone is incoherent and delusional, then there's a reason why they're incoherent and delusional. For every effect there's a cause, and the same holds true for the delusional. Which would seem to suggest that the mind isn't the cause of coherency, rather it's an effect of coherency, and a somewhat imperfect one at that.

But the original point still holds, absent coherency the mind wouldn't exist. You wouldn't have been able to posit your question and I wouldn't have been able to answer it. So where did that coherency come from?

 

[SelfSim]

Yes.

You have the ability to ask that question because you know what those words mean. You know what coherency means, and what consciousness means. You know what a tree is, and what a cloud is. You know that what goes up must come down, and every effect must have a cause, because the world is ordered and coherent. If it wasn't then there would be no words and there would be no clouds, and all there would be would be an orderless and senseless chaos.

But the world is ordered and coherent... so where did that order come from?

Most people would say that it came from a big bang that happened some 13.8 bya. Still others might claim that God created it. But wherever it came from, it's there, and you can only ask that question precisely because it is there.

So I'll ask again, where did it come from?

I don't deny the consistencies of our minds' perceptions.
I was querying your assertion that coherency is an attribute of consciousness in the light of there being evidence that there are other conscious minds, (including those completely different from our own), which may or may not share in our perceptions of what we mean whenever we use the term 'coherency' in our language.

Beyond that, your question of where the 'order and coherency' comes from, is simply: a mystery.
That's it!.. End of story! There's nothing more to say about that, except hear your made up beliefs about that.

I'm not excluding anything. If someone is incoherent and delusional, then there's a reason why they're incoherent and delusional. For every effect there's a cause, and the same holds true for the delusional. Which would seem to suggest that the mind isn't the cause of coherency, rather it's an effect of coherency, and a somewhat imperfect one at that.

So there's no known way to completely exclude your own mind's perceptions of 'order and consistency' from the perception of the same in your observations, (including the obvious coherency implicit in your imposed concept of 'cause and effect').
Would a dog perceive coherency? Would an octopus, or a butterfly, give it a second thought, given that none of them are likely to have a clue as to what you mean by it (in the same way yourself and I mean whenever we use that concept .. denoted by that word)?

But the original point still holds, absent coherency the mind wouldn't exist. You wouldn't have been able to posit your question and I wouldn't have been able to answer it. So where did that coherency come from?

You don't appear to 'get' the very concept you started this post out from. Let me remind you of what you said: 'You know what coherency means ...'.
Somehow, for some bizarre reason, you now completely dissociate the source of the meaning you are conveying to me, (ie: a human mind), when you now use the term 'coherency'. You now, for some unknown reason, imply that what you mean when you use that word, has absolutely nothing to do with your mind and everything to do with something else. Plucked out of some ethereal fog or something, it apparently is now .. for some indistinguishable reason.
Completely bizarre, it is!

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

A sense of free will can emerge from an intense focus on the present.
Deliberate abandonment of the concerns of the past, leaves little room for the notion of causality (irrespective of ignorance .. the evidence is that free will choices frequently turn out as having been risky propositions, as in: 'what was I thinking?').

Sure - but having a 'sense of free will' says nothing about detailed causality in any case, it's just a feeling. That we might regret our choices in retrospect just highlights how little we know of the reasons for them (their causes).

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I would argue that free will choices aren't simply random choices and therefore they'll inevitably be determined at least in part by prior events. But I would also argue that consciousness, of which "how I feel" is an integral component, is an emergent property qualitatively different from the constituent parts from which it emerges.

I agree, in as much as we are conscious of feelings.

Specifically, I would argue that the emergence of consciousness breaks the one to one correlation between the underlying cause of consciousness and its subsequent choices, and that it does this by giving rise to attributes specific to consciousness such as feelings, desires, emotions etc. It's these emergent properties, who's subsequent behavior can't be predicted from the underlying causes, that makes free will possible.

I disagree with this. The evidence suggests that feelings, desires, emotions, etc., are all of unconscious origin. IOW, we become consciously aware of them as unconscious activity brings them to prominence. As Schopenhauer said, "A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants."

Being creatures of habit, people are generally fairly predictable, but we (and they) can only guess at why they do what they do. Cunning experiments have shown that people make up plausible explanations for actions they're consciously aware of doing but don't really know why.

There are phrases in our language that reflect this, such as "I found myself doing xxx" or "Without thinking, I ...", etc.

It's often said that, 'Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second' - intuitions include all those unconscious processes, wants, desires, feelings, values, and intuitive judgements (including moral judgements). Strategic reasoning involves justifying them.

Jonathan Haidt (author of 'The Righteous Mind') has a memorable analogy: the elephant and its rider. Put simplistically, the elephant is the automatic cognitive processes, including intuition, emotion, and all forms of 'seeing-that' (roughly, Kahneman's 'System 1' thinking), and the rider is the controlled, conscious processes (roughly, Kahneman's 'System 2' thinking), including 'reasoning-why'. The elephant evolved first and the rider evolved later because it helps the elephant achieve its goals and, with its language skills, can speak for it, explaining and justifying its actions although it doesn't understand them.

The elephant is really in control, but the rider provides useful information that can influence it.

I recommend both Haidt's 'The Righteous Mind' and Kahneman's 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' as fascinating reads, grounded in empirical evidence.

 

[Neutral Observer]

I disagree with this. The evidence suggests that feelings, desires, emotions, etc., are all of unconscious origin. IOW, we become consciously aware of them as unconscious activity brings them to prominence. As Schopenhauer said, "A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants."

Being creatures of habit, people are generally fairly predictable, but we (and they) can only guess at why they do what they do. Cunning experiments have shown that people make up plausible explanations for actions they're consciously aware of doing but don't really know why.

But I would argue that this merely suggests that we may need to clarify what we mean by a free will choice. Are free will choices simply those choices that rise to the level of conscious reasoning? Is this a capacity that other animals lack? If so then what does this capacity to reason afford us if not the ability to consider the implications of our choices, and then to consciously choose between them based upon those implications? And is it really a misnomer to refer to these consciously derived choices as free will choices?

We can reason. Other animals can't. What does that ability to reason gain us?

Even if Schopenhauer is right, and "A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.", does the fact that a man can also consider the implications of what he wants mean that Schopenhauer was only partly right?

So I'll revise my previous argument that consciousness is the harbinger of free will to further stipulate that consciousness augmented by the ability to reason leads to free will.

Unfortunately we're then back to Schopenhauer again, because a man can freely choose between the things he consciously considers, but he can't choose the things he consciously considers.

A bit of a conundrum wouldn't you say? It hearkens back to the garden of Eden wherein Adam and Eve had to weigh the merits of two choices. Ultimately I don't think that it was the choice that mattered so much as it was the fact that they had the ability to weigh them that mattered. Because it's that ability to weigh one's choices that allows one to differentiate between "good" and "evil". And that I might suggest, is the hallmark of free will.