Why would a perfect being make an imperfect world?

[Aroura]

My world view wouldn't unravel if I thought free-will was real, as I have nothing dependent on it.[1] If there were evidence of it (and there are plenty of arguments against mind/brain duality, such as the fact the the mind is ALWAYS damaged if the brain is damaged, therefore there is no duality [2]), I would accept it [3]. It would really change nothing for me, because it would still be explained by evidence.  I have no other major beliefs that are dependent on it.  I spent the majority of my life thinking free will is real, after all.  I'm not really different now, except I accept this very difficult truth.

Unlike some others, who actually have their entire faith in God apparently hanging in the balance of a single concept. Again project much?  lol.  But eve tough your current argument for God rests on the notion of free-will, I honestly don't think it would unravel your worldviews, either. I suppose you would fit God into your new paradigm, because that is what people do.  To suggest that you think my whole worldview would "unravel" with one idea changed suggests you have very little understanding of how the human mind actually works. [4]

1. I think if your worldview was Naturalism it would. For there to be real free will, the mind, something immaterial, would have causal effect on the world and the notion of determinism undermined. I have not heard of an argument that preserves both Free Will and Naturalism. Feel free...
2. My third reason addresses the brain damage objection: Lastly, while there is a causal dependency of the mind events on the brain events, you cannot confuse correlation with identity. It does not follow that if two events are correlated, that they are identical.
3. I presented 3 reason that you have not addressed specifically. Why is this not evidence that for mind/body duality? 
4. A worldview is measured on how well it assimilates reality into a coherent framework. I think mine does that better than yours for a lot of reasons. This one happens to be the topic of this thread. If you are okay with a worldview that fails to address everything, that is your business.

1. You make a lot of presupposed assumptions about me.  I fought very hard against the idea of determinism, for years.  I hated the idea, and had many debates about it.  I do not have a world view based around it, I just accepted it.  I already accept there are immaterial concepts and ideas.  I do think naturalism is correct, however, if it were proven incorrect, I would accept it and move on, just as I have done before.  I have no deep beliefs or philosophies based on it that would unravel.  I have no God or Soul or Afterlife to lose. 


(p.s. I've studied this in multiple college courses.  I know the arguments for and against.  I personally find the arguments for duality, free will, and a personal God all to be weak, and based on emotional attachment to the ideas, and little else).

How do you think you would react if it were proven that free-will did not exist?  Would it negatively impact your belief in God, or how you view yourself as a self made person, and how you view others as choosing to be sinful or good? 

2. No, it doesn't.  It also doesn't follow that they are not identical. There is no actual evidence that mind is not just an emergent property of the brain.  Illogical arguments are not evidence.
3. Fine, I'll address your 3 points.
 a Not everything that goes on in our mind is causally determined by our bodies. Sometime what goes on in our bodies is a result of what goes on in our mind. I am choosing to reply to you and do the necessary chores of getting sentences down on the screen. We have mental-to-physical causation. The explanation of both the choice I made and the physical events going on in my body is for the purpose of defending my position. A purposeful explanation is a teleological explanation and a teleological explanation is not a deterministic one. 

I already addressed this one.  I never said everything that goes on in the mind is determined by our bodies. But it is determined by something.  Just because you do not know the causation does not mean you get to insert magic. This IS essentially God of the Gaps. Also, if you are going to define free-will to mean purpose or desire, then just admit that and we can discuss compatibilism.  

 b. Secondly, electrodes can be used to stimulate the brain to do different things (make a noise, raise a hand, etc.). However the patient always says something like "I didn't do that, you did that". There is no place that can be stimulated to cause a patient to decide to do something. 

Exactly!  Because there is no decision making, so there is nothing there to stimulate.  The feeling that you "chose" something is illusory, this example exposes that illusion.  This is actually evidence of the illusion, not something magically exists outside the brain in some "real" way.  
At any rate, your final sentence isn't true.  The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) appears to profoundly affect cognitive control, and feelings of "choice". Damage to this region of the brain can make people feel as if they are not making choices, but simply responding to impulses. They describe themselves as feeling "robotic" or as if they are simply a passenger in a vehicle, watching it all happen. People can actually lose the feeling of free will, because it is caused by the brain!

In any case, you are still inserting magic where there is a gap in knowledge.  Back to God of the Gaps, but with free will. 

c Lastly, while there is a causal dependency of the mind events on the brain events, you cannot confuse correlation with identity. It does not follow that if two events are correlated, that they are identical.

Right, but that also does not mean you get to entirely dismiss that they might be.  Correlation does not imply causation, true, but it in no way dismisses causation entirely.

If the mind existed outside the brain, then we would have the ability for the mind to exist when the brain is fully asleep (not REM), or dead.  But that isn't the case. When the brain sleeps, so does the mind. When the brain is dead, so is the mind.  (waits to hear about NDE's next)

(p.s. In case I was unclear, I am not attached to the idea of determinism.  I actually still find it difficult to accept, and rather detestable to think we are either basically robots or perhaps slightly random robots.  I struggle quite a lot with the notion, and it causes me more than a little anxiety. I would probably feel relief, if anything, to find evidence that it is not correct. That being said, I don't deny things simply because they make me uncomfortable.  I face what seems to me to be truths, even hard or difficult truths.  So please stop asserting I only believe this thing because I want to, that's so patently absurd in my case, it's not even worth a laugh.)