Free Will

I said:
Really? I was under the impression that morality is more complicated than that.

And looking at the world, it seems that most problems are caused by people claiming to be more moral than others. It appears we struggle with the distinction. :)
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Morality can indeed be complicate as it is not only to reason between good and evil but also to choose or to decide between good and evil. That's when it becomes complicate.

The best text to understand how complicate is Morality is to read chapter 7 of the Pauline letter to the Romans. Morality was so complicate to Paul that he was about to go crazy. That's what constituted his thorn in the flesh. When he found out he could not get rid of his sinful condition, he decided to make of himself the exception to the rule that one cannot serve two masters and contented himself with serving God's Law in his mind only while serving sin in his flesh. (Rom. 7:25) By doing so, he made of himself an amoral person.
 
In Christianity and Judaism (not certain re Islam) a perfect God is believed to have created the universe and created humans “In His image.” This implies that humans were created perfect. Yet humans spoiled the original perfection by choosing to disobey God. That premise is plain silly! How can imperfection come from perfection? Perfection in and of itself indicates the inability for imperfection. Furthermore, a perfect Creator cannot, without intent, create anything imperfect. Therefore, a perfect God who creates imperfect humans, without intent, is impossible.

The Christian explanation (to my recollection, not in the Book) of God’s “gift” of free will doesn’t answer the perfection implications. Christian’s feeble attempt is; “God gave humans free will to enable them to experience emotions like love and happiness.” Believers say without free will humans would be little more than robots. However, this free will idea is difficult to find in the Bible and it seems any insinuation of free will is quickly expunged by one stroke of the quill (Matthew 6:10) -- “Thy will be done in earth as in heaven”.

Free will seems to be the response to the paradox offered by the Greek philosopher Epicurus regarding God’s inability to control evil. To paraphrase Epicurus, he stated that either God can prevent evil and chooses not to, which makes him less than merciful or He can’t prevent evil, which makes him less than omnipotent. This was of course unacceptable to the Church so the answer was clear. Free will.
 
Free will and determinism are two sides of the same coin.
Where you have one you will necessarily also have the other -- they are, in actual experience, inseparable as are all the other dualities the human mind posits in it's attempts to statically comprehend a universe that is constantly in motion and transition, thereby defying conceptual encapsulation at any and every juncture.

And everything is so much more wonderful and awe inspiring than we can ever "conceive it" because of that.

It is more important to understand the filters we look at the universe through than it is to attempt to make sense of the appearance of a universe we see through them.

Clarity is a subtractive rather than an additive process.
 
Snoopy said:
Free will is the belief in the ability of an agent to make choices, free from certain constraints.

So first question that arises:

Does one believe in the existence of an agent?
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@Tiberius
Yes .. human beings have agency.

Snoopy said:
Moving on to constraints of choices: the possible constraint of major historical importance has been determinism.

Determinism states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen.

In contrast, indeterminism states that events are not caused deterministically and must involve chance.

So next question: Do you ascribe to either position? - if so no belief in free will arises.
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No.

Snoopy said:
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas and can be logically consistent.

Libertarianism (metaphysical, as opposed to the use in politics) is an incompatibilist position, i.e. agents have free will and this is logically inconsistent with a deterministic view of reality. Therefore determinism is false.

Final question: Do you ascribe to either position? - if so a belief in free will arises.
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Yes .. I believe that free will is compatible with a "determined" (known) future, with our
choices being involved in that future.

..and regards @Tiberius last post in Christianity forum:
"In a universe where I will wear the Blue shirt, God has known that I will wear the blue shirt since the beginning of time and everything. There is no way for me to avoid wearing the blue shirt."

If you will not want to wear the blue shirt, then G-d would know it .. so your
conditional statement would be false. 😑
 
muhammad_isa said:
..and regards @Tiberius last post in Christianity forum:
"In a universe where I will wear the Blue shirt, God has known that I will wear the blue shirt since the beginning of time and everything. There is no way for me to avoid wearing the blue shirt."

If you will not want to wear the blue shirt, then G-d would know it .. so your
conditional statement would be false. 😑
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And in such a case, would I be able to want to wear the blue shirt if God has always know that I would NOT want to wear it?

All these arguments seem to be nothing but a dressed-up way of saying, "Yeah, I always knew you were going to do that thing you just did."
 
Tiberius said:
And in such a case, would I be able to want to wear the blue shirt if God has always know that I would NOT want to wear it?
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If G-d knows you "would NOT want to wear it", then you will not want to wear it..
Whatever shirt you want to choose, He knows it ..

Of course, you might not think it possible for an agent to know what you will freely choose
at some time in the future. That has little to do with your present argument.
 
muhammad_isa said:
If G-d knows you "would NOT want to wear it", then you will not want to wear it..
Whatever shirt you want to choose, He knows it ..

Of course, you might not think it possible for an agent to know what you will freely choose
at some time in the future. That has little to do with your present argument.
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Let's say God knows today what shirt I will wear tomorrow.

He comes and tells you, "Tomorrow, Tiberius is going to wear the Blue shirt."

Now, because he's God, there's no way he can be wrong. That means, whatever happens, I have to wear the blue shirt.

So, tomorrow morning, is it possible for me to wear the red shirt?

Yes or no, please.
 
Tiberius said:
Let's say God knows today what shirt I will wear tomorrow.

He comes and tells you, "Tomorrow, Tiberius is going to wear the Blue shirt."
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OK .. because He knows what you will choose of your own free-will.

Tiberius said:
Now, because he's God, there's no way he can be wrong. That means, whatever happens, I have to wear the blue shirt.

So, tomorrow morning, is it possible for me to wear the red shirt?

Yes or no, please.
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No, it is not possible.
..because if you had wanted to wear the red shirt, G-d would have known it.

Whatever way you want to frame it, you are commiting the same fallacy.
You create a conditional that is dependent on what G-d knows, and then say
that you must choose it. That is false. It is not that you must, it is that you will.

i.e. what G-d knows is dependent on what you choose of your own free-will
 
@Snoopy,

I believe in free will, in more species besides humans.

For example, :kitty:s. If you place an open tin of gooshy food and a bowl filled with crunchies, the :kitty: will eat from one, then the other, no matter the order. Same goes with :dog:s.

A human might choose to have pancakes for breakfast or a bowl of oat porridge. Then again, they might splurge and treat themselves to an English breakfast.....

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine
 
muhammad_isa said:
OK .. because He knows what you will choose of your own free-will.
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So it depends on my free will.

Which means that he can't know ANYTHING about it until I make the choice.

So he can't know it today if I'm not going to choose until tomorrow.
muhammad_isa said:
No, it is not possible.
..because if you had wanted to wear the red shirt, G-d would have known it.

Whatever way you want to frame it, you are commiting the same fallacy.
You create a conditional that is dependent on what G-d knows, and then say
that you must choose it. That is false. It is not that you must, it is that you will.

i.e. what G-d knows is dependent on what you choose of your own free-will
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So if it's not possible for me to CHOOSE to wear the red shirt if God KNOWS I will wear the blue shirt, I have no choice.
 
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