What do moderates think Jesus died for?

[tackattack]

thanks for the clarification max

[Nihilist Virus]

What exactly is free will without desires already in place to act on?

Don't we necessarily act upon desires that we had no control over being there in the first place?

That's one argument.  However, not all of our desires are based on unconscious motivations alone.  If I want to do what is reasonable, for instance, I may have to work against what I would prefer to do.

In other words, we have all sorts of conflicting desires and must choose between them.  We do this by consciously considering them, assigning priorities, constraining some while pursuing others, assigning certain times and places for certain desires, or just holding to what seems true and reasonable regardless of what we feel.

You assigned my quote to someone else. Anyway, your points here do not counter anything I said.

[Anomalocaris]

I agree Thoreauvian, nihilist was proposing that our only inputs are desires we can't control. In a materialistic view there can be no free will and we're all just robots, following programming.
We have multiple inputs for desires to inform our actions. Some can be responsive to instinctual desires, but the mere fact that we can plan our wife's 40 birthday a year in advance means at least some of those desires are non-reactionary and in line with free will .   I think the materialist view on a lot of things is rock solid and valuable, but I don't think it informs the entirety of the human condition. Thanks for the clarification Thoreauvian, I appreciate it.

How do you demonstrate you could really have done something else in that exact circumstance, as oppose to you will do something else in what you conceive to be like circumstances?

Free will is a pernicious concept precisely because it is utterly appealing while utterly undemonstrable.  Basing a world view on it is to base it on mere assertion.

[Nihilist Virus]

Why do you talk like it's 1811?

You asked a question.  That's my answer.

"To the Jews I am a Jew. To the Romans I am a Roman. To the Greeks I am a Greek."

So basically your idea must be that atheists are all pretentious ass holes. That would explain your behavior here.

But yeah you didn't answer anything. No one can understand "the whole of things."

I really just want to know why you pretend there's no advocation of slavery in the Bible. You're an apologist, aren't you?

[tackattack]

I agree Thoreauvian, nihilist was proposing that our only inputs are desires we can't control. In a materialistic view there can be no free will and we're all just robots, following programming.
We have multiple inputs for desires to inform our actions. Some can be responsive to instinctual desires, but the mere fact that we can plan our wife's 40 birthday a year in advance means at least some of those desires are non-reactionary and in line with free will .   I think the materialist view on a lot of things is rock solid and valuable, but I don't think it informs the entirety of the human condition. Thanks for the clarification Thoreauvian, I appreciate it.

How do you demonstrate you could really have done something else in that exact circumstance, as oppose to you will do something else in what you conceive to be like circumstances?

Free will is a pernicious concept precisely because it is utterly appealing while utterly undemonstrable.  Basing a world view on it is to base it on mere assertion.

Well since the party hasn’t happene, it’s in the future, I can stop planning right now if I choose to. The fact that you asked a question about it is also reactionary evidence for free will. Did you have to ask me the question, we’re you compelled to, or could it have been ignored and unasked?

[Anomalocaris]

How do you demonstrate you could really have done something else in that exact circumstance, as oppose to you will do something else in what you conceive to be like circumstances?

Free will is a pernicious concept precisely because it is utterly appealing while utterly undemonstrable.  Basing a world view on it is to base it on mere assertion.

Well since the party hasn’t happene, it’s in the future, I can stop planning right now if I choose to. The fact that you asked a question about it is also reactionary evidence for free will. Did you have to ask me the question, we’re you compelled to, or could it have been ignored and unasked?

No it’s not. Prove to me that you really had the capacity to do anything differently than what you were going to do in that exact situation at that exact same pint in your life.

The fact that you perceive there to be alternatives does not prove you were really capable of deciding differently. It could easily means you might be conscious of part of the deterministic process that made it inevitable you will do what you will do, but unconscious of other parts, and thus deceived your self into believing it is all up to you. If you were somehow to be able to wind the clock back 100 times to the moment before you made the decision, and let it run forward again 100 times, it could easily be that you will predictably make the exact same “elective” choice each time.

If your neural state can be mapped precisely, it could well be that your choices made with what you conceive to be free will can be predicted with rigorous precision and accuracy long before you are even aware of the need to exercise your free will to make them. Where is the free will in that case?

What can you do to exclude such a case?

[Alan V]

In a materialistic view there can be no free will and we're all just robots, following programming.

I think it's only reductionist materialists who say free will is impossible.  I am an emergentist materialist, who considers life, consciousness, and free will as emergent properties of complex arrangements of matter.

---

If your neural state can be mapped precisely, it could well be that your choices made with what you conceive to be free will can be predicted with rigorous precision and accuracy long before you are even aware of the need to exercise your free will to make them.   Where is the free will in that case?

"In the history of science, Laplace's demon was the first published articulation of causal or scientific determinism, by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814. According to determinism, if someone (the demon) knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed; they can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics. A desire to confirm or refute Laplace's demon played a vital motivating role in the subsequent development of statistical thermodynamics, the first of several repudiations developed by later generations of physicists to the assumption of causal determinacy upon which Laplace's demon is erected."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace's_demon

Another such repudiation was quantum mechanics.

In my opinion, the kind of determinism you are arguing for depends on an outmoded picture of material realities. We now know they are often statistical rather than completely determined. Thus even the underlying physics would allow for different choices with replays of circumstances.

[Anomalocaris]

In a materialistic view there can be no free will and we're all just robots, following programming.

I think it's only reductionist materialists who say free will is impossible.  I am an emergentist materialist, who considers life, consciousness, and free will as emergent properties of complex arrangements of matter.

Emergence says complex system can possess properties which are not easy to predict from simple statement of properties of its constituent parts.  It does not say complex system can possess properties which can not be predicted from the priories of its constituent parts.

In principle There is nothing free about any emergent property.  Only that the constraints on emergent properties of complex systems are not as easy to deduce from simple statements of the properties of its constituents as simple properties of simple systems.

Emergence is therefore as misused in the argument for free will as quantum mechanics.

The difference between reductionist materialism and emergentist basically comes down to this:

Reductionist say there is no free will and everything you do is deterministic, and relatively easy to predict. When we acquire the capacity to predict them relatively soon, the delusion of free will will be dispelled for good.

Emergentists day there is no free will and everything you do is deterministic, and relatively hard to predict.  It will be a long time before we can even try to predict it so we can go about safely pretendinf free will is a real thing and not just a convenient conceit or cover for ignorance for quite a while longer.

---

In a materialistic view there can be no free will and we're all just robots, following programming.

I think it's only reductionist materialists who say free will is impossible.  I am an emergentist materialist, who considers life, consciousness, and free will as emergent properties of complex arrangements of matter.

---

If your neural state can be mapped precisely, it could well be that your choices made with what you conceive to be free will can be predicted with rigorous precision and accuracy long before you are even aware of the need to exercise your free will to make them.   Where is the free will in that case?

"In the history of science, Laplace's demon was the first published articulation of causal or scientific determinism, by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814. According to determinism, if someone (the demon) knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed; they can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics. A desire to confirm or refute Laplace's demon played a vital motivating role in the subsequent development of statistical thermodynamics, the first of several repudiations developed by later generations of physicists to the assumption of causal determinacy upon which Laplace's demon is erected."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace's_demon

Another such repudiation was quantum mechanics.

In my opinion, the kind of determinism you are arguing for depends on an outmoded picture of material realities.  We now know they are often statistical rather than completely determined.  Thus even the underlying physics would allow for different choices with replays of circumstances.

1.  What you point out is unpredictability, not free will.  A dice has no free will.

2.  Determinism is not absolute.  Microscopic Uncertainty of the quantum type when aggregated yinto macroscopic systems becomes increasingly certain on the macroscopic scale.    The fundamental workings of nerve system is, by the standard of quantum mechanics, an totally macroscopic system.  Therefore one would expect not much more residual quantum uncertainty to the decision making process as, say to the behavior of a steam engine.

[Jehanne]

So Max and Thoreauvian, neithier one of you we actually have no real choice? So there is no free will for either of you?

In my opinion, only atheistic materialists can presume the existence of free will; theists are trapped by fatalistic, divine foreknowledge, which led John Calvin to conclude that even some individuals who die in infancy are predestined to eternal Hell.

[Anomalocaris]

So Max and Thoreauvian, neithier one of you we actually have no real choice? So there is no free will for either of you?

In my opinion, only atheistic materialists can presume the existence of free will; theists are trapped by fatalistic, divine foreknowledge, which led John Calvin to conclude that even some individuals who die in infancy are predestined to eternal Hell.

Well, you assume theists are also trapped by the need for rigor, accuracy, and internal consistency.

For them truth is what they really really want things to be, evidence is what they chose to label as evidence, and logic is what they assert as the connection between what they say is evidence to what they say is the inevitable conclusion.