What is your stance on free will?

[Gjallarhorn]

Let alone a penal system...

Maybe in a few years insanity and mental incompetence will be replaced with "absolute determinism...not guilty your honor"

Punishment would not exist, but retraining or elimination would.

...which is not much different than what we have now.

 

[sandandfoam]

How would you define freewill? Is free will a reality or an illusion of false power fostered by an awareness of self and the choices we think we make consciously? I'm in the con freewill camp. What about you and why do you believe as you do?

I feel like I have free will and that is enough.

 

[Thief]

I haven't found the instance in my life...yet...
where I am caught holding the goods and then seek to excuse myself....
"I just couldn't help it!"

Regardless of my pen name.

 

[Nadia Faiazova]

Humans were created with the gift of free will. Adam was warned of whether to eat or not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. the choice was his ( and his wife's)

 

[ruffen]

How would you define freewill? Is free will a reality or an illusion of false power fostered by an awareness of self and the choices we think we make consciously? I'm in the con freewill camp. What about you and why do you believe as you do?

We have free will in the sense that we can choose what to do - it's just that what we will choose in each case, is already determined.

This is supported by both neuroscience, and special relativity (the hypersurface of simultaneity means that there is some high-speed particle leaving Alpha Centauri at any given time, whose "now" coincides with our "future").

 

[ruffen]

Humans were created with the gift of free will. Adam was warned of whether to eat or not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. the choice was his ( and his wife's)

So.... Before knowing good from bad, they were supposed to know that it would be bad to use their God-given free will walk into the trap God set for them (did the trees have any other function than temptation)?

And then God condemns us all for that even today. Did I or my free will have any choice in Adam's and Eve's decisions? Yet I am punished for a crime that my free will didn't commit.

So now I am punished for what my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather did with his free will (an estimated 200 generations).

That sounds plausible.... Thanks for the "gift" of free will, O Lord.

 

[ZenMonkey]

So.... Before knowing good from bad, they were supposed to know that it would be bad to use their God-given free will walk into the trap God set for them (did the trees have any other function than temptation)?

And then God condemns us all for that even today. Did I or my free will have any choice in Adam's and Eve's decisions? Yet I am punished for a crime that my free will didn't commit.

So now I am punished for what my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather did with his free will (an estimated 200 generations).

That sounds plausible.... Thanks for the "gift" of free will, O Lord.

Without prior knowledge and understanding, they (we) have no way of making informed decisions. It takes knowledge and understanding to know how to live effectively, which is the reason suffering is present in life. We suffer because we haven't enough understanding about our existence to prevent it. I'm a determinism also, so I agree our choices are determined by prior causes, which is why I also view knowledge to be power to change.

 

[idav]

Without prior knowledge and understanding, they (we) have no way of making informed decisions. It takes knowledge and understanding to know how to live effectively, which is the reason suffering is present in life. We suffer because we haven't enough understanding about our existence to prevent it. I'm a determinism also, so I agree our choices are determined by prior causes, which is why I also view knowledge to be power to change.

Believing you have it is enough to make a difference. I agree that knowledge gains us freedom from restrictions caused by ignorance. Even if free will is possible it takes omniscience to have full freedom.

 

[ZenMonkey]

Believing you have it is enough to make a difference. I agree that knowledge gains us freedom from restrictions caused by ignorance. Even if free will is possible it takes omniscience to have full freedom.

Yes, I agree. The belief that we act freely is able to make a difference in a persons mindset and in a persons life. Even more than this is attaining the knowledge and understanding of how to make a difference through our ability to choose. It's a dynamic process to be certain. However, even such omniscience would be bound to that which is inherent in nature and quality. We're bound by existence and existence is bound by law.

 

[Thief]

Humans were created with the gift of free will. Adam was warned of whether to eat or not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. the choice was his ( and his wife's)

So people say that event was a test.

I've come about to say otherwise.

Having altered the body of Man, and set a redirection.....
a test was made to be sure the alteration had taken 'hold'.

Freewill....

Given the choice would Man partake to satisfy his curiosity?...even at the risk of death?

Yeah.

We have become that creature.

 

[Skwim]

Humans were created with the gift of free will.

Chapter and verse please.

Adam was warned of whether to eat or not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. the choice was his

And god, being omniscient, knew that A&E would each take a bite. Kind of a wasted warning don't you think.

( and his wife's)

"Wife"? There's no evidence that A&E were married. They were simply two single individuals who engaged in wanton, promiscuous, immoral, immodest, indecent, shameless, unchaste, fast, loose, impure, abandoned, lustful, lecherous, lascivious, libidinous, licentious, dissolute, degenerate, and corrupt sex.

 

[Thief]

Chapter and verse please.


And god, being omniscient, knew that A&E would each take a bite. Kind of a wasted warning don't you think.


"Wife"? There's no evidence that A&E were married. They were simply two single individuals who engaged in wanton, promiscuous, immoral, immodest, indecent, shameless, unchaste, fast, loose, impure, abandoned, lustful, lecherous, lascivious, libidinous, licentious, dissolute, degenerate, and corrupt sex.

....something like God gave Man dominion....
That would be toward the end of Chapter One...Genesis.

Fair warning?....yeah they got it.

Well...seeing that Eve would be Adam's twin sister....cloned....no navel....
yep.....raw sex.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I believe in free will. I don't believe in fate or anything like that. Without free will, the idea of personal responsibility goes out the window and things just become a mess.

 

[Skwim]

....something like God gave Man dominion....
That would be toward the end of Chapter One...Genesis.

Nothing I see that suggests as much.

Fair warning?....yeah they got it.

But god knew they'd ignore it. So why the bother? God just like to hear himself talk?

I believe in free will. I don't believe in fate or anything like that. Without free will, the idea of personal responsibility goes out the window and things just become a mess.

In a very real sense everything people do can't be helped. But just because determinism takes away "the idea of personal responsibility" doesn't automatically invalidate it. Life doesn't conform to what we think it should or need it to be, but is what it is. I think the notion of freewill is, among other things, a coping mechanism our psyche has latched onto so as to give meaning to responsibility. Praise and blame, and everything in between are one of its basic needs; which has been determined just as much as any other action.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

In a very real sense everything people do can't be helped. But just because determinism takes away "the idea of personal responsibility" doesn't automatically invalidate it. Life doesn't conform to what we think it should or need it to be, but is what it is. I think the notion of freewill is, among other things, a coping mechanism our psyche has latched onto so as to give meaning to responsibility. Praise and blame, and everything in between are one of its basic needs; which has been determined just as much as any other action.

No, it's not a "coping mechanism". It's just reality, at least as I see it. I have no reason to believe in a deterministic model. I am not a robot. If someone else wishes to view themselves in such a way, that's sad and stupid, but that's them. People can believe nonsense if they want.

Of course a deterministic model invalidates the notion of personal responsibility. It would make a mess out of the justice system.

 

[Contemplative Cat]

So you believe because you just do?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

So you believe because you just do?

It's not really a matter of belief, but experience. I'm a human being with a mind, not a robot following programming.

 

[Skwim]

No, it's not a "coping mechanism". It's just reality, at least as I see it. I have no reason to believe in a deterministic model. I am not a robot. If someone else wishes to view themselves in such a way, that's sad and stupid, but that's them. People can believe nonsense if they want.

Not wanting to go through all my reasoning, HERE is an OP I created a couple of years ago explaining my stand on freewill v. determinism..

Of course a deterministic model invalidates the notion of personal responsibility. It would make a mess out of the justice system.

Only if everyone started to think deterministically. But, as I say, we don't because our psyche doesn't let us.

 

[Thief]

Nothing I see that suggests as much.

But god knew they'd ignore it. So why the bother? God just like to hear himself talk?
.

You're just rephrasing your questions.
and no...God did not know what Adam and Eve would do.
That wouldn't be freewill.

 

[Skwim]

You're just rephrasing your questions.

Just waiting for a chapter-verse answer that says humans were created with the gift of free will.

and no...God did not know what Adam and Eve would do.

So god isn't omniscient. Okay, I can buy that. God really isn't all-knowing.

That wouldn't be freewill.

Not sure what this is in reference to.