In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus

[Nay_Sayer]

Quantum?!

Seriously? I'm putting to a vote to change the thread title to add [Literally everything]

[emjay]

But what I've personally always meant by free will, the altogether more reductionistic view, is that ultimately both the bottom up and the top down functions in the brain are enacted via the same physical mechanisms, eg neurons. Different areas of the brain may have different functions relative to each other, but they are all achieved through the same physical mechanisms, which follow the laws of physics and thus, barring quantum effects, are determined in my view, and thus cannot be considered 'free'.

I don't think we have to appeal to quantum mechanics to acknowledge free will in human brains, just to the processing of information.  We generate our own information, and respond to it just as readily, if not more so, than to any external stimuli.  We are, in fact, constantly talking to ourselves: describing realities, abstracting ideas, modeling possible responses, and assessing outcomes.  Somehow that is all done within the laws of physics, but I can only think it is because new properties operating by new rules emerged as life evolved.

As I said, I really don't think we're going to be able to get on the same page about this... and we've certainly tried... because it's as if we are talking different languages or at different levels of description. Basically, nothing you've said necessarily disagrees with determinism in my view but it does in yours, and therein lies the problem and why I think we keep talking past each other. Ie you can talk about all the cool things our brains can do, or 'we' can do in consciousness, but it's all in my view still ultimately achieved by and represented in physical neurons and thus determined by physical laws.

I think it basically comes down to... and I think this should go some way to addressing Breezy's point to me as well... whether you consider consciousness 'epiphenomenal' or not. There would seem to be three possible positions on that;

1. I believe it is epiphenomenal; that is for every conscious state I believe there is a corresponding brain state... a neural correlate of consciousness... and therefore to me the driving power is the physical brain, at all times, and any emergent properties are still represented physically and thus governed by physical laws.
2. The second position would seem to be a view where consciousness is emergent and has causal power of its own distinct from, and unrepresented by, the underlying physical structures of the brain, and somehow interacts with it but as two different types of 'stuff' interacting, ie a feedback loop of physical brain interacting with phenomenal consciousness (as opposed to my view of both phenomenal consciousness and non-phenomenal consciousness both being represented physically by the brain, and thus any interactions between the two occurring only on that physical level). Is that your position? Within that view there seems to me two basic possibilities:
i. that within that framework, consciousness is still dependent on the brain in some sense. This is what I assume is your position, but I'm not clear on how you relate consciousness, or its states, to the physical brain.
ii. the more extreme, typically theist position, that consciousness can exist completely independent of the brain, after death.

[John 6IX Breezy]

...and thus determined by physical laws.

You used determined, but why not just use described? It's not the role of physics to determine anything, but to describe whatever nature does. I think your perspective is putting the cart before the horse.

[emjay]

...and thus determined by physical laws.

You used determined, but why not just use described? It's not the role of physics to determine anything, but to describe whatever nature does. I think your perspective is putting the cart before the horse.

I'm not really sure I understand your objection. If a physical law predicts a given outcome in a given situation, and that given outcome occurs as a result of that law applied, then I have no problem in saying that that outcome was determined by the application of that law in that situation. In case you think I mean some fatalistic sense or whatever, I don't, I just mean simple cause and effect. The law describes that cause and effect, and therefore, assuming we trust its predictions, I think it's perfectly valid to say it determines a given and expected outcome.

[John 6IX Breezy]

I'm not really sure I understand your objection. If a physical law predicts a given outcome in a given situation, and that given outcome occurs as a result of that law applied, then I have no problem in saying that that outcome was determined by the application of that law in that situation.

Right, but I would say you're making an explanatory or categorical leap that isn't warranted. Similar to confusing correlation with causation. When laws and theories predict something they aren't giving you an inference into causation. For the sake of illustration let's say we can accurately predict the rain about 75% of the times based on whether cows lay down. Clearly, the accuracy of the prediction is independent of the cause. We wouldn't say the cows determine the rain, just that the correlation allows us to make the prediction.

Physical laws don't determine what happens, they just summarize what we observe.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's clearly ghosts. Ghosts are the cause of both will, and rain.

[Sheldon]

No, you don't.  That's got to be the most facile attempt to propose an unfree freedom I've ever seen, and it entirely gives the game away.

Everything in the universe exists and is defined by it's limits and constraints. 

Human imagination?

Life exists because it differentiates itself from the environment. 

Exactly the opposite, environmental pressures shape life into what it is, constantly. The theory of evolution, and natural selection evidence this beyond any reasonable doubt. 

Even games exist because of the rules that define it. 

False equivalence, games are always a result of human design. Are we really going to use Paley's watchmaker fallacy. 

The use of limitations as an argument against free will is both a strawman and incompatible with the structure of reality.

 Will me... to believe that claim...

[Nay_Sayer]

It's clearly ghosts.  Ghosts are the cause of both will, and rain.

Small correction. Ghost Ostriches 

[Sheldon]

...but it will let us shake our pecker one too many times...

This is why I rarely respond to you. It doesn't matter what the topic is, you always manage to go on unpredictable tangents that leave me blindsided. I'm sure you have good points to make, I just don't have the patience to go find them.

You see the thread title right? Care to give us your best reason? Beyond the circular argument, "you believe it, because it makes sense to you".

[The Grand Nudger]

Let's not be hasty, there's still credo quia absurdum. Christians often find themselves either believing or compelled to believe in things that don't make sense to them. Magic book even tells them that, in these moments, leaning on their own understanding would be a mistake. Even more fundamentally, no believer in a miraculous god actually thinks that the miraculous things are in the realm of our mundane possibilities. They are impossible, they are paradoxical, and that is exactly what makes them miraculous and mysterious.