Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: December 9, 2024, 9:21 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Free Will: Fact or Fiction
#31
RE: Free Will: Fact or Fiction
(September 25, 2012 at 9:45 pm)Tino Wrote: The lack of evidence to the contrary is what convinces me.

What spectacular non-logic.
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light!
Reply
#32
RE: Free Will: Fact or Fiction
(September 25, 2012 at 8:28 pm)Darkstar Wrote: We can go to hell for doing things we could not control?Confusedhock:
Roman 9:19-23
19 You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?"
20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?"
21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory-

If there really is a God, he can do whatever He wants.

Daniel 4:34,35
34 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?"
Reply
#33
RE: Free Will: Fact or Fiction
(September 26, 2012 at 12:02 pm)Reasonable_Jeff Wrote: If there really is a God, he can do whatever He wants.

Abandon all hope! 4 Horsemen Panic
John Adams Wrote:The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
Reply
#34
RE: Free Will: Fact or Fiction
(September 26, 2012 at 6:24 am)genkaus Wrote:
(September 25, 2012 at 5:58 pm)Reasonable_Jeff Wrote: On top of all that, you at all times choose what you most desire, our decisions are chained/limited by what our greatest desire is (you can have conflicting ones).....but we can't even choose our desires.

Wrong. Given that we can change our desires.

Can you elaborate on this comment?
Reply
#35
RE: Free Will: Fact or Fiction
(September 25, 2012 at 9:45 pm)Tino Wrote:
(September 25, 2012 at 7:15 pm)RaphielDrake Wrote: We appear to have free will do we? How so?

The lack of evidence to the contrary is what convinces me.

I'm sorry, did you just suggest it can't be proven it doesn't exist and so thats a good enough reason to believe it does?
"That is not dead which can eternal lie and with strange aeons even death may die." 
- Abdul Alhazred.
Reply
#36
RE: Free Will: Fact or Fiction
(September 26, 2012 at 12:33 pm)RaphielDrake Wrote:
(September 25, 2012 at 9:45 pm)Tino Wrote: The lack of evidence to the contrary is what convinces me.

I'm sorry, did you just suggest it can't be proven it doesn't exist and so thats a good enough reason to believe it does?

I think he;s saying that he doesn't consider the evidence against it to be strong enough.

I think that we have free will, but are still affected by biology and our past experiences. We aren't slaves to our impulses, but they do give us suggestions. There are certain things we can't control at all, like reflexes, but on a macroscopic level, I think that we have enough control to call it free will.
John Adams Wrote:The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
Reply
#37
RE: Free Will: Fact or Fiction
(September 26, 2012 at 12:37 pm)Darkstar Wrote:
(September 26, 2012 at 12:33 pm)RaphielDrake Wrote: I'm sorry, did you just suggest it can't be proven it doesn't exist and so thats a good enough reason to believe it does?

I think he;s saying that he doesn't consider the evidence against it to be strong enough.

I think that we have free will, but are still affected by biology and our past experiences. We aren't slaves to our impulses, but they do give us suggestions. There are certain things we can't control at all, like reflexes, but on a macroscopic level, I think that we have enough control to call it free will.

What I mean is that we appear to have free will. People around me behave as if they have free will. The world appears to be populated by people with free will. If I were to imagine what a world would look like if populated by people with free will, it would look like ours. So my observation is that we do indeed have free will. Now if you want to create a compelling argument that we don't have free will, I consider that to be an extraordinary claim and it needs extraordinary evidence - not just button-pressing studies measuring neural response times that can be interpreted to have nothing to do with free will. So I'm asking for an experiment that really gets to the heart of it. I believe I'm free to follow my will. If I'm not, someone ought to be able to place me or someone else in an experiment that shows I can't act on my will as freely as I believe.
[Image: generic_sig.jpg]
Reply
#38
RE: Free Will: Fact or Fiction
(September 26, 2012 at 2:33 pm)Tino Wrote: What I mean is that we appear to have free will. People around me behave as if they have free will. The world appears to be populated by people with free will. If I were to imagine what a world would look like if populated by people with free will, it would look like ours.

Question: How would a world populated with people who have free will be distinguishable from one where they only have the illusion of it?

I'm personally undecided as to whether truly have free will (for some definition of same), though I would agree that it appears to be so, to a degree.
Reply
#39
RE: Free Will: Fact or Fiction
(September 26, 2012 at 2:33 pm)Tino Wrote: So I'm asking for an experiment that really gets to the heart of it. I believe I'm free to follow my will. If I'm not, someone ought to be able to place me or someone else in an experiment that shows I can't act on my will as freely as I believe.

Experiments are unnecessary. All you need to do is study Tourette Syndrome.

As I said in my previous post, it's not as simple as free-will vs determinism. Sometimes you're able to make your own choices, sometimes your neurology & psychology make them for you and all you can do is act. When & how these options maifest appears to be individualistic: some can control their actions when others can't. Rather than seeing free-will & determinism as dichotomous, I see them as complicitous.
Sum ergo sum
Reply
#40
RE: Free Will: Fact or Fiction
(September 26, 2012 at 2:33 pm)Tino Wrote: I consider that to be an extraordinary claim and it needs extraordinary evidence
As a theist I hear this line all the time, David Hume right?

I don't think that's a good way to live life.

Consider this:

A man living in the tropics would never believe travelers eyewitness accounts that water can exist in a solid state. That would go against all the laws of nature that this man would know.

On Humes view, even though there are reliable accounts of water existing as a solid, we should not believe it.
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Why do people believe that Beowulf is fiction? I_am_not_mafia 59 15256 June 6, 2018 at 6:02 am
Last Post: Gawdzilla Sama
  Explaining the fact that we exist OttoVonKerpen 84 13704 November 5, 2016 at 11:18 pm
Last Post: TheoneandonlytrueGod
  When it becomes a fact? _Velvet_ 14 3138 October 10, 2016 at 3:59 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Fact, every single german nazi was a christian Deepthunk 249 68499 August 16, 2016 at 8:33 pm
Last Post: Anomalocaris
  Best use of hymns and bible quotes in fiction? Lemonvariable72 14 3830 November 21, 2015 at 6:14 am
Last Post: pgrimes15
  Jerry Coyne's new book: Faith Versus Fact Mudhammam 17 6470 August 13, 2015 at 12:22 am
Last Post: smsavage32
  My very first fiction novel officially debuts tomorrow! Mudhammam 18 6891 January 8, 2015 at 2:01 am
Last Post: bennyboy
  The more troubling fact is not that this may be genuine, but that it's hard to doubt Mudhammam 16 5488 August 13, 2014 at 1:50 pm
Last Post: Lucanus
  36 Arguments for the existence of god: a work of fiction AtheistChurch 1 2027 March 9, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Last Post: fr0d0



Users browsing this thread: 3 Guest(s)