Hypothetically, science proves free will isn't real

[henryp]

For religious folks, would you pack it in?  If they, in the future, could map out 'decision making', and show it's got nothing to do with 'choosing', that pretty much is game over for the foundation of all major religions, right?

Would you consider this to be proof that your God doesn't exist?

In other words: If science can prove that we can't make choices...would you make a different choice?   

Right.  If we think of ourselves as artificial intelligence, it's a lot simpler. A Chess AI has no problem looking ahead and determining how it would react to various moves from the opponent despite it having no choice in the matter.

[mlmooney89]

Wow this is a lot deeper than I thought it would be. I will go off a slightly different branch here. The whole free will thing is in itself proof that god doesn't make exist. We have freewill to do as we please, he can't make us do anything correct? So then how does he have a plan? He just knows what choices we will make and knows what will happen? My go to example of free will is a car wreck where one person is at fault; let's say a drunk driver. Our free will lets us decide to drink and lets us decide to drive and it lets us pick which road we are going down. The other person's freewill lets them get in their own car and it has to be by coincidence that they are on the same road because if not then that would be god moving them and he can't do that. So how did he get the cars to collide if our free will was what was driving them? A slight movement of our hand and the car would go another direction. It would derail the whole thing. But then at the funeral the people say it was part of god's plan to take so and so to heaven. That god wanted him in heaven therefore he made it happen. The whole thing is flawed and therefore the future isn't needed to disprove god.

[Edwardo Piet]

If God has free will, it's only a compatabilist free will... because if he knows the future he sure as hell can't do otherwise

So either he's not omniscient or he's not omnipotent. Unless he merely has compatabilist free will and his omnipotence is only "logically possible omnipotence."

[Drich]

For religious folks, would you pack it in?  If they, in the future, could map out 'decision making', and show it's got nothing to do with 'choosing', that pretty much is game over for the foundation of all major religions, right?

Would you consider this to be proof that your God doesn't exist?

Why would we do that? the bible tells us we are slaves to sin with no will of our own..

You are confusing church doctrine (based off a greek philosphy) with what the bible actually says.

[Edwardo Piet]

I think we are slaves to our motivations. I don't think any of our motives are sinful though. Some of them can be unethical, but not sinful. I don't believe in sin because it implies a supernatural judgemental overlord of silliness.

[Edwardo Piet]

And of course our motivations can change, and we can influence that, but ultimately "we" don't do the changing, ultimately. Because ultimately our own impulses that spring to the decision to change, and pick the options and opportunities we want to change, come out of unconsciousness of we know not where.

[Neo-Scholastic]

…brains which evolved as a means to survival.

In order to find and prepare food, it's necessary that our internal model of the world in some way correspond to what's out there, or else we wouldn't survive. There's reason to suspect that our perceptions are veridical. What makes you think evolution didn't design us to be capable of reason?

Your answer seems circular: humans survive because they can reason and we know they can reason because they survive. This type of answer reflects a general problem with tracing everything back to evolution. The fittest survive and we know they are the fittest because they survived.
It would seem that the mental abilities of humans serve well-enough the way we live. So do those of wasps, frogs, and horses. The question is whether reasoning is an advanced form of instinct or a different kind of thinking altogether. I believe it is because 1) instinctual reactions seem directly related to the physical environment of organisms, including Man, whereas the referents of reasoning are abstracted concepts and 2) concepts have positive ontological status.
This is not to say that the realist position is without problems (which I feel can be resolved). Rather, that as a theory it explains more of the relevant phenomena than competing positions that have their own problems (which I find intractable).

Mental events that yield reproductive advantages to the species do not necessarily correspond to things as they are.

And they don't necessarily not correspond to the way things are. The proof is in the pudding. In some ways the mind and perception can accurately model reality, in other ways, our biases, it does not.

Since the pragmatic approach to everyday living and even natural science works, I also say go with it - methogologically. At the same time, you’re avoiding the question of whether it is possible for reason to overcome natural biases when dealing with ultimate issues. If it cannot then rationality has limits that prevent justification of everyday and scientific observations and there’s no way to know how far down that rabbit hole goes or accounting for the arbitrary point at which you stop trusting reason.

Ultimately our behavior is non-rational; it does not conform to logic. Reason is but a small part of the self. You seem to think this 'not conforming to things-as-they-are' is some sort of horrific bugbear.

Most days it’s not. Most people go along to get along most of the time. And of course we don’t go through life like Vulcans logically calculating our every move. That’s irrelevant. This is philosophy and since its inception philosophy has been all about trying to figure out how things really are on the deepest possible level. Some say that science has replaced philosophy and for some things it has, but it hasn’t entirely displaced it; but rather, science still rests on the foundation of philosophy. Again, reason may be a small part of self, but that says nothing about whether it can overcome the self’s limitations.

… if we play on the other side of the fence, postulating that a perfectly rational superbeing imbued us and the universe with intelligibility doesn't get around the skeptical objections either. Ultimately there's no justifiable reason for suspecting that an ultimate being isn't deceiving us about things-as-they-are. It's no less an arbitrary assumption than is supposing that reason which comports with things-as-they-are has some sort of evolutionary value.

The existence of God is not my starting premise. My starting points are 1) the universe is intelligible and 2) human reason is effective. I freely acknowledge that those are existential commitments. I think knowledge of God’s existence follows from those commitments and reliable observations about reality. Skeptics make different existential commitments. Those commitments undermine the arguments for the existence of God. Those same commitments, as they relate to philosophical questions, come at great cost. They lead to paradoxes that undermine the veracity of reason or make ultimate reality absurd. That is the essence of my reply to the OP. Sure, determinism undermines many religious doctrines but in so doing it throws the baby out with the bathwater.

[Angrboda]

A choice is free if, at minimum, more than one possible world is reachable [1] from the actual world by a deterministic path [2] including the operation of the will. [3]

Could you elaborate on these 3 concepts?

Is reachable) there exists a path from the starting point to the end point using only available alternatives.
Deterministic path) all alternatives obey the law of determinism, meaning they accord with natural law.
Operation of the will) the human conscious will, which in its operation provides a non-deterministic path among alternatives.

I don't believe we have free choice or free will, but that would be its definition if we did.

[Ignorant]

If different circumstances were present then things would be different so WE would do things for different reasons. [1] Under determinism there is only one physically possible future at any given moment. [2]

1) If so, then 'we' are things with the ability to do different things (either self-determined or not). In other words, consider two actions (a) and (b). If both actions (a) and (b) are capable of obtaining through the agency of a human person (whether or not that agency is self-determined), then a human person 'could have done' (a) or (b) in the sense that human agency (whatever nature that agency may have) 'is able' to bring them about. People have the ability to bring about the existence of (a) or (b). 

In what manner do people bring them about? Do people 'self-determine' either (a) or (b), or does some other non-personal agency determine, through the persons natural and unintentional/impersonal operations that (a) or (b) obtains? <= Do you see how this last question is irrelevant to the question regarding the capacity for (a) or (b) to come about through human agency?

Two buttons, one red, one blue, one green. Is a red button the sort of thing that can be pushed by a human action? Yes. Is the blue button the sort of thing that can be pushed by a human action? Yes. Is the green button the sort of thing that can be pushed by a human action? Yes. Human action is able to push either the red, blue or green button. Which one will the human push, and how is that action determined? <= DIFFERENT question than the "If 'determinism' is true, and a human pushes the red button, then could that human have push the blue or green button?" <= depending on the sense of "could have" you can have two different answers, one being more fundamental and described above.

2) Yes, that is true, the present must actually have the potential conditions actually obtain so as to determine just that one future. However, as described above, if hypothetically removed from all external conditions and circumstances, a person has the intrinsic capacity to bring about either (a) or (b) given certain conditions, a person has the requisite powers required for pushing either a red, blue or green button. The intrinsic human potential for different action is real, and it is governed by many factors which contribute to the determination of which potential action will be the actual one. No action can be a future actual one unless it is presently a potential one (in the sense that the action can actual occur through human agency). 

Compatabilsm says our choices are free if they are voluntary or not coerced. You know what those words mean.

Of course I know what those words mean, but I don't know what YOU mean by them. I asked what makes a choice free and you said if they are voluntary or not coerced. For me, not-coerced and voluntary are not identical, although not-coerced is certainly a part of voluntary. Because you seem to identify them with the other, I would like to know what you mean by them if this discussion will be in any way fruitful.

An example of a choice being voluntary is a choice that we do intentionally. For example, someone can step on someone's foot intentionally to hurt them as opposed to by accident. 

I get the example, so allow me to help out and turn your example into a working definition. An action is voluntary when that action is done according to how it is known and according to the known purpose for which it is done. In this case, what separates a voluntary action from an accidental action is synchronous knowledge of the done action and knowledge of the reason for which that known action is done. So... knowledge of the action and the action's purpose makes a choice free?

Any definition of free will that merely talks about that kind of choice is a kind of free will that no one deines anyway. [1] Hence why that definition doesn't address the question of whether we can do otherwise. [2]

1) We may not deny it, but we don't seem to be able to carefully explain or understand it. See above. Rather than put it in a descriptive proposition, you used an example everyone can agree with, but not many people can explain exactly what is intentional or voluntary.

2) Maybe this is because that question does not have anything to do with the choice-as-made, but rather with the intrinsic potential for different sorts of actions.

 It's because this kind of freedom is perfectly compataible with determinism. It's trivially true and undeniable.

Remember those philosophers you said were strangely interrupted by the compatibilists? Do you ever wonder which philosophical discussion those philosophers strangely interrupted? What do you know about William of Ockham?

Choice that is not coerced.

What would constitute coercion?

It's only to those unfamiliar with it. I'm trying to introduce you to it.

Let me restate that. "This terminology is lazy and imprecise"

It would be if it was a coherent concept. We cannot determine otherwise because we ourselves would have to be determined in that case. If we're not, that's because indeterminism is true.

^ Here is an example of the imprecision I was referring to. Something as simple as saying "we cannot" is being equivocated. Suppose (a) obtained through human agency in the deterministic sense. I ask, "Could (b) have obtained instead?". I might mean two different things: 1) Is (b) the sort of thing, in general, which can come about through human agency in those circumstances (e.g. given a different person)? or 2) Can (b) have come about at all in those particular circumstances given that particular human and its causal history?

If (b) is the sort of thing which IS able, in general, to come about through human agency in the same circumstances in which (a) came about, then (a) came about in a determined but contingent way. In other words, if (a) occurs in a contingent but determined way, then determinism cannot be equivocated with 'necessity', and we begin to see the imprecision lurking in this often strange discussion.

Contingency does not equal choice or freedom

Determined actions do not equal necessary actions

If we do the determining then ultimately we have to be determined too and so ultimately we don't do the determining.

Can you elaborate?

[Angrboda]

It would seem that the mental abilities of humans serve well-enough the way we live. So do those of wasps, frogs, and horses. The question is whether reasoning is an advanced form of instinct or a different kind of thinking altogether.  I believe it is because 1) instinctual reactions seem directly related to the physical environment of organisms, including Man, whereas the referents of reasoning are abstracted concepts and 2) concepts have positive ontological status.

Weren't you the one who quoted Aquinas that there is nothing in the mind which doesn't first appear in the senses? You seem to be shifting your argument. Regardless, I don't believe that conceptual thinking is a special form of thinking. All our thoughts are essentially abstractions of our environment. It's possible that humans are alone in being able to do things like think of hypothetical futures and such, but there is nothing in any of this which implies it is more advanced than the thinking of animals. On top of that, unreason is built into the basement of reason. We have abstract thoughts to solve concrete puzzles, like how to get food and how to survive. These are the driving force of reason. “If everything on earth were rational, nothing would happen.” ~ Dostoyevsky

This is not to say that the realist position is without problems (which I feel can be resolved). Rather, that as a theory it explains more of the relevant phenomena than competing positions that have their own problems (which I find intractable).

Everyone always thinks this about the other guy.

And they don't necessarily not correspond to the way things are.  The proof is in the pudding.  In some ways the mind and perception can accurately model reality, in other ways, our biases, it does not.  

Since the pragmatic approach to everyday living and even natural science works, I also say go with it - methogologically. At the same time, you’re avoiding the question of whether it is possible for reason to overcome natural biases when dealing with ultimate issues. If it cannot then rationality has limits that prevent justification of everyday and scientific observations and there’s no way to know how far down that rabbit hole goes or accounting for the arbitrary point at which you stop trusting reason.

Your realism doesn't provide a stop for that any more than does skepticism. No it is not possible for reason to overcome its limits no matter what your existential commitment. As I've pointed out before, realism about the world doesn't lead to things-as-they-are, it just leads to models of what things-as-they-are is believed to be. But there is no way to tell if we are or are not at the last layer of the onion. It could go on further for all we know. Your commitments don't resolve that quandary. Reason, ultimately, cannot provide justification for itself. Your realism is no way out either.

… if we play on the other side of the fence, postulating that a perfectly rational superbeing imbued us and the universe with intelligibility doesn't get around the skeptical objections either.  Ultimately there's no justifiable reason for suspecting that an ultimate being isn't deceiving us about things-as-they-are.  It's no less an arbitrary assumption than is supposing that reason which comports with things-as-they-are has some sort of evolutionary value.

The existence of God is not my starting premise. My starting points are 1) the universe is intelligible and 2) human reason is effective. I freely acknowledge that those are existential commitments. I think knowledge of God’s existence follows from those commitments and reliable observations about reality. Skeptics make different existential commitments. Those commitments undermine the arguments for the existence of God. Those same commitments, as they relate to philosophical questions, come at great cost. They lead to paradoxes that undermine the veracity of reason or make ultimate reality absurd. That is the essence of my reply to the OP. Sure, determinism undermines many religious doctrines but in so doing it throws the baby out with the bathwater.

Even if I were to grant that your realism solves its problems, adopting an arbitrary response to these paradoxes is not doing philosophy, either. It's just a shortcut to a desired answer. The paradoxes are questions to be answered. This is not a bad result. Only the fool thinks he has it all figured out by merely avoiding the mysterious. Anyway, your argument that these paradoxes and seeming absurdities are a problem is at heart an argument from ignorance. We don't have the answers, therefore there is something wrong with the position. This kind of thinking characterizes all your attacks on atheism and skepticism. We don't have closure on the question of induction, therefore atheism is irrational for its dependence on science. We don't have an out from the regress of skepticism, therefore the position is flawed. It's a common theme in your thinking. And it's a fallacious way to reason about the subjects.