What causes people to choose what they choose?

[Daniel Nicholson]

What causes people to choose what they choose?
Is free will the cause of human actions or is there another cause?
If free will is not the cause, what is the cause human actions?

I am not suggesting that free will means that we can choose anything we want to choose because free will has many constraints, but if humans have no volition and we never chose to do anything how would anything ever happen in this world?

(Please note that many things happen to us in this world that were not chosen by us and we are compelled to endure them (e.g., death, sickness, job losses, injuries and misfortunes). I believe those are fated/predestined by God, but that is another subject altogether.)

I am asking what causes human actions that are chosen, what causes us to choose them.
I am not asking what causes things that happen to us that are beyond our control.

Position A: Some people say that if God is omniscient and knows everything that will ever happen in the future that means we do not have free will because we can only make one choice (x), the choice God knows we will make. If we can only make one choice (x) what is causing us to make that choice? Is God’s foreknowledge of what we will choose (x) forcing us to choose x? If God’s foreknowledge is not forcing us to choose x, what is causing us to choose x?

Position B: It is my contention that God knows the one choice we will make and we will make that choice, but before we make that choice we have free will to choose from more than one option (x, y, or z). Whatever we choose will be what God knows we will choose because God has perfect foreknowledge. As such, whether we had chosen x, y or z, God would have known which one of those we were going to choose.

Which position makes the most sense to you? Do you hold position A or B, or do you hold another position?

Please explain your position and explain why you hold it.

Thanks, Trailblazer

Sam Harris has some thought provoking material on the illusion of free will. I find the whole topic hard to understand, but what I have taken from his position is that ultimately we do not have free will because our thoughts are a productive of our biology, environment, and circumstances. There is not predestination or fate, just that our choices are more of an instinct than a free thought.

I'm still on the fence, but either way God is not in the equation.

 

[John53]

You merely dismissed my explanation as "an excuse", and rather than attacking the argument, you resort to the usual "I have no proof" routine.

Proof of God's existence beyond time is besides the point .. it is a refutation of the argument that free-will is affected due to the future being known.
If you don't accept an explanation of what I think God is, then you have no business in discussing how free-will is not affected by His omniscience.

No proof required but some evidence would be nice. If I stick to the rules of the forum I can participate in any discussion I like just as you can. If you want to exclude people with different opinions to yoo open a discussion in a DIR sub forum.

 

[KWED]

[He] must have. Otherwise [he]'d have created the universe so that things [he] didn't want to happen would never happen.

With perfect knowledge and perfect power, God can't escape the fact that the universe MUST be EXACTLY as [he] intended when he made it. And there's nothing we can do about it. I'm therefore writing this sentence because nearly 14 bn years ago, that was exactly what [he] intended, typos and all.
In that case [he] can't lay claim to being omnipotent, omniscient or perfect, because if true, [he] doesn't have a clue what I'm going to type next.

But there's no reason why [he] couldn't have perfect knowledge, since in reality there's no way I can decide what to write here independently of the way my particular brain works, with its various capacities and weaknesses, cultural and linguistic background, its education, experience, hobbies, fascinations, dislikes, and so on. It makes my decisions as a result of the interaction of many complex chains of cause and effect, which it performs and the conscious I has no access to.

For example, where are >these immediate words< in the moment before I type them? In my brain's speech-composing mechanisms, modified in various ways for the written medium, but NOT in my conscious mind. The censor in my forebrain might call me back to fix something, but that too is automated.

The apologist' argument seems to rely on events being random and unpredictable, and god merely observes them, and then says "I knew you were going to do that" - which raises obvious problems with the whole infallible omniscience claim.

 

[KWED]

You are confused due to misunderstanding how God knows what will happen. God cannot know that we are going to make such-and-such a choice if we are not even here to make it.

But we are only here because he created us. There was never any need for us to exist so no need for god to know what we would do, so using our existence as an argument for why god has to behave in a certain way is meaningless question begging.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..If you want to exclude people with different opinions to yoo..

It's one thing having an opinion, and another to claim it is illogical to believe that our perception of time might not be what it appears to be.

I suppose many people considered Einstein to be illogical when he said that "now" is only a perception. Nevermind.

 

[KWED]

Our choices aren't made until we make them, as far as we are concerned .. God's ability to see the future does not change this.

So god doesn't have infallible omniscience in this universe's time and space. He is merely an observer of unpredictable events.

 

[firedragon]

If God know you will buy a red car, will you buy a red car then?

How do you know God knows I am going to buy a red car? What if he knows all the variables? My favourite colours are black, white, and red. I will choose one of them. And God knows all the variables.

Do you understand?

 

[KWED]

How is it logical to suggest that God could know the future in a world that He "did not bother to create"?

Being infallibly omniscient, he would know what would happen in it if he did create it, obviously.

This universe is like a bubble that is in a time warp.

Is it? could you explain the processes involved, and how you know that? Thanks.

God is outside of the bubble and can see all of time, while for us, it is the reality that the future has not happened yet.

That makes no difference, even assuming your hypothesis.
It would be like me rereading a book (the book is the universe and I am outside it and can see all the events in a different frame of reference to its inhabitants).
The characters behave as if they have free will. Within the narrative, they make choices, but every choice and action must correspond to the one that I already know will happen. I am not controlling or forcing the characters to do anything, but every action is inevitable.

Nothing illogical about that .. it is just a matter of belief about the nature of reality.

The idea isn't necessarily illogical, just your conclusion.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Sam Harris has some thought provoking material on the illusion of free will. I find the whole topic hard to understand, but what I have taken from his position is that ultimately we do not have free will because our thoughts are a productive of our biology, environment, and circumstances. There is not predestination or fate, just that our choices are more of an instinct than a free thought.

I'm still on the fence, but either way God is not in the equation.

If one was to flip a coin, roll a dice, select a number from a random number generator, or any other means of obtaining some unknown influence as to making a decision, might this be any different from what goes on in the mind? I'm a bit in the middle as to determinism and free will by the way.

 

[RestlessSoul]

If one was to flip a coin, roll a dice, select a number from a random number generator, or any other means of obtaining some unknown influence as to making a decision, might this be any different from what goes on in the mind? I'm a bit in the middle as to determinism and free will by the way.

I'd tell you to make up your own mind about these things, but if the super-determinists are right, you can't

 

[John53]

It's one thing having an opinion, and another to claim it is illogical to believe that our perception of time might not be what it appears to be.

I suppose many people considered Einstein to be illogical when he said that "now" is only a perception. Nevermind.

No idea what you're talking about. I don't remember mentioning perception of time.

 

[KWED]

If you choose to jump in front of a car, you will find out whether that choice was real or not .. or only "felt like it".

Most people will consider that, the actions of a mad person .. and not that we had no choice.

You clearly don't understand the issues here, which explains why you have been struggling with it.
It isn't whether events are real (they clearly are), just whether the "choices" that led up to them are merely an illusion of free-will.

Take your example of the person who decides to jump in front of the car. Your somewhat dismissal of the nature of mental illness aside - why and how did they "choose" to jump?
If your god had written in the preserved tablet 50,000 years before the universe was created that they would develop some mental illness that resulted in them jumping - could they have chosen not to jump? The answer is clearly "no".
Therefore how was free-will involved in their action at the moment they took it?

 

[blü 2]

The apologist' argument seems to rely on events being random and unpredictable, and god merely observes them, and then says "I knew you were going to do that" - which raises obvious problems with the whole infallible omniscience claim.

I seem to remember a similar technique being used by some of my peers in primary school. (Which reminds of, "I know what you're going to say next".)

 

[KWED]

This is called appealing to ridicule. Appeal to relevance.

A lot of people engage in it.

And it can be a perfectly sound argument.

Pupil: Miss, I haven't got my homework because a dinosaur ate it.
Teacher: Don't be ridiculous. Stay behind after school.

 

[RestlessSoul]

No idea what you're talking about. I don't remember mentioning perception of time.

Consideration of the manner in which we experience time, is implicit in any discussion about free will, determinism or causality. The linear experience of time is fundamental to our human perspective, but that does not necessarily mean that the true nature of time is linear. Our experience is framed by three spatial dimensions, and one temporal, and the arrow of time for us always points in one direction. We assume that reality is defined by our perception of it, but this is surely a solipsism, a symptom of our arrogance. In defining time by the manner in which we experience it, we effectively place ourselves at the centre of the temporal universe, in the same way our ancestors placed themselves at the centre of the spatial universe. For us, the future hasn't happened yet, so we can effect it; but this may be a false assumption dictated by perspective.

 

[PureX]

Omniscience and predestiny are both irrelevant concerns from our limited human perspective. Like perfection, and infinity, they only exist to us as ideological possibilities that we cannot possibly verify. Just more of the great mystery of being.

 

[Nimos]

How do you know God knows I am going to buy a red car? What if he knows all the variables? My favourite colours are black, white, and red. I will choose one of them. And God knows all the variables.

Do you understand?

If God have perfect foreknowledge, surely he knows all variables as you say, but that doesn't change the fact that he knows which car you will buy before you do, right?

Otherwise, I can do it as well.

"If you were to ever buy a car, it would be one of the following colors... (Add all colors here)"

That is not really impressive. The differences between me doing this and God, must be that God knows which you will choose and I don't.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I'd tell you to make up your own mind about these things, but if the super-determinists are right, you can't

Well I am more comfortable being in the agnostic position, as with God and religious beliefs, and it doesn't bother me greatly as to either.

 

[firedragon]

That is not really impressive. The differences between me doing this and God, must be that God knows which you will choose and I don't.

Do you know every single variable of every single human being on earth?

You are God.

 

[Nimos]

Do you know every single variable of every single human being on earth?

You are God.

You are not answering my question.

I don't have to know every single variable of each human. It wouldn't make any difference.

If God knows all variables, but is only able to say "I told you so" afterwards, then that is not impressive, its like me saying "I know everything, and no matter what you choose. I will also just say I knew it already."

If God doesn't have to more specific than that, then I don't see him standing out compared to anyone else saying what I just did.

If you were to buy a car, there are X numbers of colors or possibilities to choose from and clearly you are going to choose one of them. So me predicting that, is not impressive.