What do you mean by "free will?"

[Daisies4me]

I addressed this same topic in post #81 that previous thread, and I would also like to know how religionists who propagate "free will" would answer this:

When it comes to the "problem of evil," this is where the rubber meets the road. It's easy and convenient to blame humans and our alleged "free will" for the evil of this world, but what is that really saying?

When did "evil" in humans really begin? Was it when we were created? Or is it because humans don't like to feel cold, hunger, pain, or other such travails of life?

Imagine an early human, unable to find food or shelter, yet sees another human who has both but not enough to share. So, the first human decides "Hey, if I kill this guy, then I can eat his food, take over his shelter, and I will survive." According to religion, this human is exercising his "free will" to do evil.

But let's look at this more closely: Why would this person be hungry and cold in the first place? Who designed humans to get hungry in the first place? Who designed humans to require copious amounts of food on a daily basis? If humans were designed so that they could live on a single grain of rice every year, then I guarantee that most "evil" probably never would have happened. That's not because of humans and their "free will," but because of a bad "Designer."

---

If there was such a thing as "free will," there would be no such thing as "insomnia." If someone wants to go to sleep but can't, then something is keeping them awake, and there goes "free will" right out the window. Someone who is chronically sleep-deprived may go psychotic, and that may also affect their choices and "free will."

Another example is memory loss. Can a person instantly recall any moment in their life with absolute accuracy? If not, then there is no "free will." If one can't even control their own memory and thought processes, then where is the "free will"?

The entire concept of "free will" is BS. Anyone who would propagate that idea has not thought it out very clearly.

(quote)

Hi
"free will" of thought that leads to actions or non-actions on matters, is not in any way connected with the aging and ailments of a body that is in decline, due to the aging process that all humans experience as long as they are under the 'sin of Adam' that affects all of his offspring, as Adam sinned against God prior to siring offspring, who were then born with the death gene in them, as well.
what you choose to do according to your own thinking process and whether you decide to give in to desires to sin, as Adam did when he was still in perfection, is the choice made using your 'free will to choose'. no one holds a gun to your head to make you (you figuratively, not literally) act on any impulses to do less than stellar acts that many would call 'lawlessness', or sin. It is a conscious decision made, iows, free will.
peace to you

(quote)

 

[Koldo]

Thus, he doesn't find them "negative". You're still splitting hairs, to no reasonable end.

Not necessarily. A murderer can see his action as negative and still do it.

These are one and the same condition. I still don't see why you're trying to split them up. To be conscious of an evil act one must be aware of evil as a significant negative value, and aware that an action will result in that evil. That's what being consciously aware, means, in this instance. So, once one is consciously aware of this "evil act" as a possibility, one can then ignore it as a possibility, or consider it as a possibility (thus calling upon step 2 of the OP). But if one simply ignores the possibility because it is evil, then the OP's step 2 becomes irrelevant.

Because one might see an action as being evil and still proceed to do it because one doesn't care enough about it.
For something to be regarded as evil it doesn't have to be regarded as being of the utmost importance.
People do things they regard as immoral all the time.

To any extent that one wishes to do so. That's 'free will'.
Our you might have chosen to base your moral/value imperatives based on logic, only. Or maybe on pure intuition. Or simply on your unquestioned obedience to some religious dogma. But in any case, you are still choose to do so. And you are still being held responsible (by God and life) for the choice you've made. That's that 'other side' of having been given the gift free will.

How does one choose one own's moral imperatives through logic, for example ?
It can only be done if you have set your goals in the first place, and then then you use logic to tell you how to behave. Logic can't tell you how to behave if you don't "feed" it some sort of goal.

Pure intuition falls exactly within the spectre of feelings and experiences I am mentioning.

And why would one choose to have unquestioned obedience to some religious dogma ? Exactly because of the feelings and experiences this person had. That's what allowed this choice to happen in the first place.

 

[Willamena]

I look at it from two different ways.

On the one hand, if humans are merely products of nature and evolution, then we are basically functioning as "animals." We have the power to make choices within the limitations of our bodies and the physical laws. A fly has the power to act and fly into your potato salad. All animals, even insects, can make choices and have the power to act. Even with humans, most of our actions are influenced by instinct and emotion. We use our "intellect" as an attempt at a justification after the fact, mainly as a pretense that there's some "logic" or "rationality" behind our decisions.

But "free will" is a religious concept and assumes that we were created by God and that God will hold humans responsible for their choices. If this is true, then I would submit that it's grossly unfair of God to pass judgment, since humans are mainly victims of a bad design and a poorly conceived "creation." Humans can't be held responsible for their "free will" if it's merely an illusion or outside of our positive control.

Animals have will. It is doubtful, though, that they identify as free and independent agency. That requires the capacity for analysis of concepts, such as spatial and chronological positioning, that are beyond what is necessary to simply BE in the world.

Humans, on the other hand, excel at analysis, even to their own detriment. They will fraction the world into bits and assign each bit its own symbol to be recognized by (words); they will categorize the bits by types and bits of bits, and assign those categories to be more bits, and give them symbols; they will determine relationships between bits, and between bits and their categories, and assign those relationships to be more bits, and give them symbols; and they will negate bits, and do all of the above again, effectively doubling bits; and too they will insert their imagination into the world and assign it to be bits... The world for humans is a lot larger than it is for animals.

What "humanity" means is to be the mind, the collection of bits, that stands in contrast to, and hence apart from, the universe. Although we no longer view ourselves this way, we once did. While mankind looked at itself this way, it viewed the mind as above the universe and closest to what might lie beyond the limitations of the mind. Closest to the beyond. The universe is natural, and comes by things naturally, but as the mind is above, it is coming by its mind-things from beyond. And so there is a greater mind at work beyond, and we humans were connected through it.

Free will is a philosophical concept, developed by philosophers who recognized "the beyond" as the world, and with their ideas they pushed the world "out there," and inadvertently pushed the mind "in here" and the religious beyond even further beyond than it already was. Humanity became individuals, alone "in" the vast world. While we were connected as minds above (souls) by and through God, God's will was our bidding. With God twice-removed, though, we are all that's left to be responsible for our actions, and the debate began. Despite adopting individuality, religions still held tightly to the connection and out of that came the idea that God "writes" our thoughts. Are we free, or are we slaves? Human rights is born... but that's a longer story.

It's not free will that is the illusion, the illusion is that mind is "in here," removed from the world and twice-removed from a beyond that defines the world.

 

[PureX]

Not necessarily, one might see an action as being evil and still proceed to do it because one doesn't care enough about it.
For something to be regarded as evil it doesn't have to be regarded as being of the utmost importance.

No, but it has to be important enough to be regarded as 'evil'. Otherwise, it's just a meaningless label.

People do things they regard as immoral all the time.

Yes, by choosing to pursue a negative (evil) desire instead of ignoring it.

How does one choose one own's moral imperatives through logic, for example?

It is logical to presume that pain is unpleasant and debilitating. Thus, not inviting or generating pain for oneself or others would a logical and valuable moral imperative.

And why would one choose to have unquestioned obedience to some religious dogma?

Because it's available to them, and they don't wish to expend the energy needed to develop their own.

 

[soulsurvivor]

How do we choose our desires ?
Exemplify if you can.



Why do you see a distinction between God interfering and humans interfering ?

Because God already knows the karma of the person who will be affected by evil action. By interfering all he is doing postpone the effect of bad karma to a future date or future lifetime. In fact, if the intended victim has only good karma, God will interfere in some unobtrusive way to mitigate the ill effects. Unfortunately ALL of us after living hundreds of lives, always have some bad karma to pay off.

Humans interfering on the other hand, are actually doing their duty and in so doing are actually earning good karma.

 

[soulsurvivor]

Something built up through choices is emergent, it is not itself a choice.

Right! And a drug addict is not responsible for his addiction! Very perceptive!

 

[Koldo]

Because God already knows the karma of the person who will be affected by evil action. By interfering all he is doing postpone the effect of bad karma to a future date or future lifetime. In fact, if the intended victim has only good karma, God will interfere in some unobtrusive way to mitigate the ill effects. Unfortunately ALL of us after living hundreds of lives, always have some bad karma to pay off.

Humans interfering on the other hand, are actually doing their duty and in so doing are actually earning good karma.

You didn't reply my first question: How do we choose our desires ? Exemplify if you can.

But, in principle, couldn't God interfer in such a way that someone never did an action that would generate bad karma in the first place ?

 

[Enoch07]

Defeat? Honestly not seeing it.

Defeatist a person who subscribes to Defeatism - Wikipedia. That's what it seems like to me.

Because agency is just an illusion and free will is questionable at best. Simply put a victim of circumstance.

 

[soulsurvivor]

How do we choose our desires ?
Exemplify if you can.

Missed answering this in my previous reply.

Some desires are always built into our bodies as part of having an animal body - like hunger, thirst, wish for comfort, need to have sex, survival instinct. Each of these are NOT bad or evil in themselves.

But hunger can lead to gluttony , desire for comfort can lead to materialism, need for sex can lead to lust, survival instinct can lead to attacking others. If you succumb to any of these temptations, next time they get easier. After many times, they get easier still. In the next life, you will start with high desire for the same evil actions. Each lifetime, it will get worse, unless you break the tendency somewhere.

 

[soulsurvivor]

You didn't reply my first question: How do we choose our desires ? Exemplify if you can.

But, in principle, couldn't God interfer in such a way that someone never did an action that would generate bad karma in the first place ?

Sorry I answered that in a later post.

The whole point of life is to allow you to make mistakes so you can grow by them. That is what free will is about. After thousands of lifetimes of growth you will become perfect (relatively speaking), you wont need to incarnate any more, and will be ready for greater things than living on Earth as a human.

 

[savagewind]

I think that when a person does something wrong and even if he knows it is wrong he is doing it for something else that he believes is good and he wants that.

 

[Koldo]

No, but it has to be important enough to be regarded as 'evil'. Otherwise, it's just a meaningless label.

But not necessarily important enough to prevent them doing it.

Yes, by choosing to pursue a negative (evil) desire instead of ignoring it.

Sure, but not necessarily by ignoring 'what he knows to be so', as you have said.
One can pursue evil being fully aware of it.

It is logical to presume that pain is unpleasant and debilitating. Thus, not inviting or generating pain for oneself or others would a logical and valuable moral imperative.

That's either non-sequitur or there are some hidden premises you haven't written down.
The fact that pain is unpleasant doesn't really lead to the conclusion that one shouldn't inflict it upon others.

Because it's available to them, and they don't wish to expend the energy needed to develop their own.

Exactly!
They don't have the desire to develop their own. Therefore, they don't.
Choice relies on desire.

 

[Koldo]

Missed answering this in my previous reply.

Some desires are always built into our bodies as part of having an animal body - like hunger, thirst, wish for comfort, need to have sex, survival instinct. Each of these are NOT bad or evil in themselves.

But hunger can lead to gluttony , desire for comfort can lead to materialism, need for sex can lead to lust, survival instinct can lead to attacking others. If you succumb to any of these temptations, next time they get easier. After many times, they get easier still. In the next life, you will start with high desire for the same evil actions. Each lifetime, it will get worse, unless you break the tendency somewhere.

Sure, but what would make one refrain from succumbing to any of these temptations ?
Why would one choose to do so?

Sorry I answered that in a later post.

The whole point of life is to allow you to make mistakes so you can grow by them. That is what free will is about. After thousands of lifetimes of growth you will become perfect (relatively speaking), you wont need to incarnate any more, and will be ready for greater things than living on Earth as a human.

Sure, but let's take gluttony for example. God could make it so you desire to eat food when you are hungry, but not in any other situation. And this wouldn't interfer with free will.

 

[Willamena]

Right! And a drug addict is not responsible for his addiction! Very perceptive!

I sense sarcasm.

Regardless, something emergent from choices is still not itself a choice.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

exactly what do you mean by "free will" and how is it relevant?

Considering deliberate evil acts inflicted by one person on another, there's a three-step process:

1. The person has an evil desire.
2. The person chooses to act on their evil desire.
3. The person causes the evil desire to happen.

Any description of free will I've ever heard deals with step 2: the decision to act. It doesn't deal with step 1, since we generally can't choose our desires.

Choosing one's desires is what I mean by free will. The self, the seat of consciousness and the receiver of external sensations and memories, is either the source of will, or the passive recipient of extra-conscious neural circuits that inform us of what we want, such as a drink of water when the hypothalamic osmostat informs us that we are relatively dehydrated (hyperosmolar) and need more liquid.

I think that most people consider free will the ability to obey that command and get a drink unimpeded. They want a drink, they act to get a drink, and they drink. How's that different from the robot Christians say that God doesn't want?

So, if I find myself, like Jeff Dahmer did, living in a world where murder and cannibalism are frowned upon, yet I have the desire to kill and eat people, free will to most means the ability to resist that urge.

But the desire to resist that urge is also not freely chosen. I can have competing desires, including that I want to quit smoking and that I want a cigarette. Is choosing between conflicting desires free will? I don't think so. It's simply one command from one thought process (reason) being in conflict with a conflicting command from a more base neural center responding to addiction and withdrawal.

Free will needs to be not an order delivered to the self, but a desire chosen by the self to be free. That means that it must be indeterministic. It has no source or cause.Otherwise, what is free about it?

Okay, if there is a creator God I can understand how He would give us free will so that we're not just robots programmed to only do right.

I can't understand that.

I would have programmed the will of my children if given the chance. Be loyal. Be honest. Be kind.

I would have stripped them of the choice to be criminals, cowards, hypocrites and fools. The best I could do was to teach by argument and example and hope that they would make the choices I expected would make them happier. I settled for that because I had to.

 

[osgart]

How do you decide the nature of your intentions at some point in your life ?
Please do explain this process.

It is through the heart of loves, cares, hates, and ambivalences. We become what we truly love in our hearts. Whether we choose compassion for goodness, or hatred without just cause is entirely up to the individual. Ultimately what you love is your free will choice. It comes through understanding and experience, and decision.

 

[soulsurvivor]

Sure, but what would make one refrain from succumbing to any of these temptations ?
Why would one choose to do so?

If don't refrain from succumbing to these temptations, you become worse and worse each lifetime. There is no chance of liberation from this cycle of reincarnation on earth. Eventually of course, the earth itself dies and you may be a lost soul for ever - not a very pleasant fate.

Sure, but let's take gluttony for example. God could make it so you desire to eat food when you are hungry, but not in any other situation. And this wouldn't interfer with free will.

That's exactly how you were made when you incarnated the first time on Earth. Just a like animal, who did not eat anything more if you were already full (only pets and humans are over weight). But after many lives of human existence, people have developed the tendencies of gluttony, avarice, acquisitiveness which eventually may lead to evil desires and actions.

 

[soulsurvivor]

I sense sarcasm.

Regardless, something emergent from choices is still not itself a choice.

You can use that as an excuse on the 'Day of Judgment'.

 

[Willamena]

You can use that as an excuse on the 'Day of Judgment'.

I don't know what the "Day of Judgement" is, so I wouldn't excuse it.

 

[Glaurung]

What makes you choose which desires you want to no longer have ?

The intellect. I use my intellect and temper my desires to be in accordance with morality and reason. It's admittedly not prefect, as temptation is an inescapable fact of this life.

Regardless, if you are a determinist, then my answer is meaningless. Since all our thoughts are determined, no one can be said to really "think" yet alone have an "intellect". It is all just gears in a machine.