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Free will deniers

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Ergo, free will can't exist at any level of a decision making process.
Call it free will or whatever you want to call it. Humans have volition and they act on their will.

volition: the faculty or power of using one's will.

Knowledge (in brain) -- Volition applied -- leads to Action.
In short, humans act on knowledge that is contained in the brain
Do you disagree? At which level do you think comes free will into the process? By what mechanism?
Free will comes into the process when volition is applied to knowledge. Then a choice is made and acted upon.
 

danieldemol

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Yes, I have heard that argument. It goes something like this:
We have a soul which has free will. The brain is like an antenna that receives the commands of the soul. If the brain gets damaged or drugged, it can no longer receive the soul's message perfectly.
I used to believe exactly that, but I dont anymore.
If the brain is an antennae that receives a signal then why can't an identical structure such as a cloned brain pic up the same signal and therefore make identical decisions? Also most freewill believers seem to believe that souls and freewill are unique to humans so why do animals have brains (the antenna) but no souls (the transmitter)? In the absence of a transmitter how do animals make decisions? If animals are able to make decisions using a brain without a soul why wouldn't humans be able to do that?

Plus the whole idea is just a load of assumptions with no evidence to base it on at any stage in my view.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
Call it free will or whatever you want to call it. Humans have volition and they act on their will.

volition: the faculty or power of using one's will.

Knowledge (in brain) -- Volition applied -- leads to Action.
In short, humans act on knowledge that is contained in the brain

Free will comes into the process when volition is applied to knowledge. Then a choice is made and acted upon.
You just explained will by volition - which is defined as using one's will.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
I did not say she said it, I was disclaiming that I said "science proves..." which is what she accused me of saying in her knee jerk statement which you blindly ignored because you are acting as her partisan instead of trying to remain objective in my view.
I did answer fast myself, and did think not think it through this time. I tend to do that when I'm emotional. Sorry.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
I'm sure I would be an atheist by now if it weren't for my years of experience with the supernatural.
I'd probably be an atheist if I hadn't become a Baha'i, and you know I like atheist men for dating. :D
It will be interesting to see what he thinks of the Baha'i Faith since surely the subject will come up when I meet him today.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Hey Koldo, sorry this reply is so overdue! Hope you don't mind me resuscitating our conversation:

What is this objective measure by which you see yourself judging the relevancy of morality in the absence of moral agents? Show me it.

This was in response to a question of my own, to you:

"This isn't an explanation, it's just a bald claim. Saying it's a personal value doesn't explain how morality without any moral responsibilities is relevant or what it even means. What is it that you're personally valuing? And what does that mean?"

It seems to me you're just avoiding the question here. The point is, morality has no coherent meaning or reasonable value to any of us if none of us are moral agents. Morality concerns questions of what people ought do or not do. If people have no control over what they do, questions of what they ought do become irrelevant and incoherent. Shall we ask questions about what Saturn ought do? Or whether it's moral for an atom's nucleus to degrade? The whole enterprise makes no sense. Morality is a relevant and coherent philosophical discipline because we all implicitly understand that human beings have a degree of agency, a degree of control, over their actions. And thus we hold them accountable when they make decisions that they ought not have made.

It is not internally consistent if I use your criteria to determine moral responsibility. If you disagree, show the inconsistency.

Again, I wonder if there are typos or double negatives going on here.

I am saying I know that because the alternative I have been presented is logically incoherent upon examination.

Again to refresh our memories, this was in response to these earlier comments:

You: But the mind itself wouldn't and couldn't exist without this "control".
Me: A) You don't actually know that.
B) How does that change anything? All it does is push the fundamental moral problem back a step.

The fact that you've been presented with explanations for the mind that you don't find satisfactory doesn't therefore mean your favorite explanation is the right one. If you're claiming that minds CAN'T come into existence without deterministic causation of every element of them that couldn't possibly have been otherwise, you have a burden of proof there. And it's not a burden I think you're going to be able to meet.


Since I could have used different terms to achieve the same end, this doesn't matter.

Well the point is, no, you couldn't have used different terms to build a morality that's coherent or reasonable. If you can, then I welcome you to do so.

A choice done based on what if not the greater motivation? If I asked you why you have picked any given alternative, your answer would be the greater motivation.

Or because I made a genuine choice between two motivations, both of which made some competing actions possible.

Since I said that there are other mental faculties involved and required, I have no idea what exactly you are disagreeing with.

Again, a refresher is necessary:

You: I have mentioned in P1 there are other mental faculties involved and required. However, none of them have anything to do with free will per se.
Me: I disagree. Someone with severe cognitive impairment is going to have less agency, for example, than someone with full mental capacity.

So what I disagree with is that no mental faculty besides motivation is morally relevant. Quite obviously, that's not the case.

I don't think that God needs to be the ultimate cause. Nor that there needs to be an ultimate cause to explain existence.

If your position is that infinite regresses are not possible, then it seems you're reasonably obliged to concede that there must be some ultimate cause.
 
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