How far can you take the arguement of free will? Did we have to AGREE to be born?

DrFree said:
I'm not comfortable with the word "intention" here. It smacks too much of purpose, of Aristotle's final cause. Of course, since I believe in free will, I believe that much of what happens has purpose. I do want to resist the claim that everything has a purpose. I like Chisholm's word "intension" (with an "s"), because it comprehends all of the various psychological attitudes one might have and which might affect one's choices.
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I'm not suggesting that the future is made of intention, and maybe that isn't a good word. Imagine a floating envelope of temporal time, half of which is the immediate past, the other half the immediate future, and an infinitesimally thin line at the center representing the present. This is the movie frame. Right at the center on that razor thin line is the conscious observer. The conscious observer is collapsing the quantum wave to create the experience of localized phenomena associated with physical reality. The weight of probability created by the models and mechanisms deployed in observation, the built in bias factor of the parameters of the observation if you will, predisposes the immediate, if virtual, future in all of the ways necessary for the experience of time-space dimensionality to function. A simpler way to put it would be that for particles to have apparent locality and motion they need to appear to come from somewhere and go somewhere. Where they appear to come from is is weighted by the probability of the observation's parameters. Where they appear to go is similarly weighted. This creates the envelope of space for dimensional reality to play out in.

I like your expression "what gives the experience of the temporal flow of time it's smooth continuity and texture, and movie-like feel", though the verisimilitude of movies is because they are like our experience, not vice-versa. What's valuable about it is its recognition that consciousness is a model of reality assembled by complex processing of the brain; it is not merely an assemblage of our direct sensory experience.
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I agree. I'm thinking of the experience of suddenly noticing something, like a big tree, that I never saw before even though it's right there in plain sight on a route I've traveled regularly for years driving to work. It clued me in to the extent to which a modeled reality, like what you're describing, supplants, or substitutes for the actual objective reality of the physical experience. I was, and am all the time, driving and walking through a modeled virtual reality created by my consciousness. It is a greatly simplified caricature of objective reality not unlike a cartoon scenery background that keeps repeating. Kind of like the Flintstones where Fred and Barney keep running past the same background.

I wonder whether the causality suggested here is not backwards. If the evolutionary process i suggested in my other post is accurate, what was essential for evolution to the next higher level was choice: animals had to develop the ability to choose among complex alternatives. Consciousness emerged as a support faculty to enable choice.
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Chicken and egg? Yeah, I don't know which arose to to support the other. Probably shouldn't look at it as a linear process like that.

The "free" in free will has always puzzled me. Certainly we don't pay an extra fee at the hospital when we bring it home, though I hope that hospital administrators don't read this and discover another revenue option. In some sense it means unfettered, and I've had a lot of philosopher friends argue that we can't have truly free will unless it be totally free, i.e., unless there are no limits on our choices. The trouble is, I can't have totally free will without interfering with yours, since my choices would make things happen without regard to what you are choosing.

That's why I prefer to say that my choices have influence over, i.e., are part of the cause of, what happens. That makes us all co-creators. Of course if we're to make any sense of the concept of responsibility, we have to assume we can meaningfully weigh our respective measures of influence over an occurrence.
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I don't see how your free will impinges on mine. The fact that my choices are in some way limited by the available options doesn't affect the function of my free will. I can freely choose between all the options available, as can you. It does suggest that when group consciousness occurs the aggregate weight of the probabilities induced both increases the depth of complexity and the stability of the temporal time envelope. One the one hand this creates more possibilities, but the increase in stability tends to buffers out other, possibly more radical diversions. What you get is more choices but in a diminished range of possibility.

All of that is entirely speculative on my part. I don't have a clue how it all actually works.

Chris
 
fourgrtkidos said:
I was trying to convey a feeling in my OP of this: Supposedly "G!D" does not impose will on us. (Does this theory work if you talk about a collective Divine Universe and not a single G!d- diety?)
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It would imply that the animating Force of the collective divine universe is chaotic and violent just like the the physical universe itself since All is a reflection, emanation, or body of the One.

Chris
 
fourgrtkidos said:
I was hoping for some simple statements. But, you have all gone above my head again.;) I'll re- read and mull over.

I was trying to convey a feeling in my OP of this: Supposedly "G!D" does not impose will on us. (Does this theory work if you talk about a collective Divine Universe and not a single G!d- diety?) So it seems to me that G!d wouldn't thrust you into a horrible existance here on earth, without your agreement. But, maybe that only works out in religions that believe in pre-existance like a well of souls sort a theory- don't Mormons believe that we agree to be born here in order to learn lessons........
If you are "nothing" before and after you die then I get that you do not have any say.
And, I get that if everyone has free will.... my free will may get stampeeded for the collective free will.
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Everyone asserts their will on their neighbors. The question is the method the assertion is made. Is God any different?

To me the term 'free will' was never an absolute term. It does not mean free of all assertion, influence, physical laws, or bodily requirements. Unless you are able to separate those influences from the will, then it is always a 'partially free will'. No man has a free will over the entire world, or even a single neighbor, so there is an obvious limit to their will. But many people feel as though they are able to identify some choices that they make which can be considered theirs no matter how small, bound up and imprisoned they are. That choice, that will, if only a decision within a few neurons of the mind, is still free. So the 'free' is more like a quality and the magnitude of power or the sphere of influence that the will asserts on the world is the scope of it. For example if you lose arms, legs, eyes, or ears, then the scope of opportunity in the world is going to decrease.

To me, a relationship is not a matter of losing or shackling the 'free will'. Some people view marriage for example as the 'ball and chain'... no longer a 'free' man or woman. Any contract or agreement can be viewed as solely a commitment. Whereas I view in a relationship that my will extends over someone and theirs extends over me. The scope of the 'free will' increases in one way and it decreases in another way. The scope increases, but overlaps. With any cooperative effort or relationship something is gained, and something material is lost. I view the relationship with God in a similar way... as a relationship.
 
cyberpi said:
To me, a relationship is not a matter of losing or shackling the 'free will'. Some people view marriage for example as the 'ball and chain'... no longer a 'free' man or woman. Any contract or agreement can be viewed as solely a commitment. Whereas I view in a relationship that my will extends over someone and theirs extends over me. The scope of the 'free will' increases in one way and it decreases in another way. The scope increases, but overlaps. With any cooperative effort or relationship something is gained, and something material is lost. I view the relationship with God in a similar way... as a relationship.
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Nicely put! :)
 
Alex P said:
Depends how far you going to take "free will" concept... There was free will involved in your birth, people... Let's call them parents decided to have you. *shruggs* So may not been your free will, but there was free will :D
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Maybe your parents decided to have a child but you decided who your parents would be.

Or you and your parents planned this in another space and time to travel and learn together again in 3d from a different perspective (ie you gender, relationship is different than before)
 
wil said:
Maybe your parents decided to have a child but you decided who your parents would be.

Or you and your parents planned this in another space and time to travel and learn together again in 3d from a different perspective (ie you gender, relationship is different than before)
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Ah see my parents picked me lol (was adopted)
 
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