There is no such thing as 'Free Will'

rodgertutt said:
Neither determinedness nor randomness (nor any mixture of the two) can give or allow what is wanted, even though between these two the field of possibilities is exhausted.
Click to expand...
This is the fallacy of "false dichotomy": I believe in neither determinism nor randomness (nor any "mixture of the two").
 
bob x said:
This is the fallacy of "false dichotomy": I believe in neither determinism nor randomness (nor any "mixture of the two").
Click to expand...

He is assuming that you will take it for granted that "any mixture of the two" is impossible, although there may be some who will try mix the two.
 
rodgertutt said:
Yes I am.

Here is a good link on that subject
THE PURPOSE OF EVIL
http://thegloryrd.com:80/apadams/evil.html
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the links, Roger. I'll try to czech them out soon. I would love to hear your own words, stemming from your mind, and your beliefs directly though. As much as I appreciate the leading, I prefer personal dialogue as opposed to reading pre-existing texts written by others. I suppose I want to pick your brain a bit. :D

I would very much like to hear your views come from you, and not from another source (Even though they may be the same in essence). I have a very short attention span, so lengthy documents and I do not mesh together easily :p BUT, if you would like for me to read the documents, I will. It may take a while before I get through it all, but I'll certainly give them a look see if you decide not to discuss them from your unique perspective.

Blessings,
 
THE WAY I SEE IT

God has locked up everyone of us in a lifetime of unavoidable choices
that can only be made in the direction of what we want to choose the MOST.

The idea that it would not be "right" for God to punish us for doing what we could not help but do is merely an ethical opinion that is rendered irrelevant by the irrefutable fact that
WE ALWAYS, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, CHOOSE IN THE DIRECTION OF THE STRONGEST INFLUENCE, ALL OF THE TIME.

Like I said before, I believe that God will eventually fit every unique individual into His master plan in a positive way that necessitates their unique temporary involvement in evil and suffering that will enable God to manifest, and glorify, and magnify the many facets of His character in a way that uniquely involves that person, and everyone else involved in that person’s life too.

Then, after God has finished using evil and suffering for the reasons why He allowed them to temporarily exist, He will eradicate them from existence.

That is the Christian universalist point of view which I share.
THE PURPOSE OF EVIL- A.P. Adams
evil.html
 
Gatekeeper said:
Thanks for all the links, Rodger. I'll try to czech them out soon. I would love to hear your own words, stemming from your mind, and your beliefs directly though. As much as I appreciate the leading, I prefer personal dialogue as opposed to reading pre-existing texts written by others. I suppose I want to pick your brain a bit. :D

I would very much like to hear your views come from you, and not from another source (Even though they may be the same in essence). I have a very short attention span, so lengthy documents and I do not mesh together easily :p BUT, if you would like for me to read the documents, I will. It may take a while before I get through it all, but I'll certainly give them a look see if you decide not to discuss them from your unique perspective. Blessings,
Click to expand...

I realize it is a source of aggravation to some that I don't have many words of my own. If I have any talent at all it is to be able to guide folk to what has been a help to me, written by others.

Here is another site that helped me a lot.
UNIVERSAL SALVATION UNIVERSITY
http://richardwaynegarganta.com/universalsalvation.htm
 
citizenzen said:
Well then, I can see you need nothing more from me.
Good day, Mr. Tutt.
Click to expand...

Good day citizen.
Actually it's 2:50 AM here in Toronto.
I don't know where you are.

You might also want to check out
ABOUT "FREE" WILL
aboutfreewillnote

It's another thing that I "got right" :)
 
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citizenzen said:
Rodger, that's not the statement I called erroneous. Please read the words you submitted to this forum...
That is the premise based on a fallacy. No advocate for free will has ever suggested that choices are uncaused or absolutely devoid of necessity. We have in fact, argued just the opposite.
Causes shape every decision we make. Necessity shapes every decision we make. Yet within the confines of cause and necessity lurks the opportunity to choose our very next step.
Click to expand...

Good morning everyone. It's around 7 AM here in Toronto.

Since citizen thinks the above is a pivitol issue in proving us determinists wrong because we have a "false premise," I am repeating this post.

Here is why I do not think Jim's "premise" is false.

When you insist that you did not HAVE to choose the way you did, you are insisting that you were not caused to do it. That's what Jim Coram means by you thinking that you were "not caused" to do it.

But you were caused to do it. In fact it is not even possible that you could not have chosen what you perceived that you wanted to choose the MOST at that point in time.

"Within the confines of cause and necessity lurks the opportunity to choose our very next step" ONLY in the direction of the choice that we have concluded that we want to make the MOST.

Our will was not "free" to choose any set of influences that were not the STRONGEST on our mind to choose. We HAD to choose what we chose when we chose it.

Free willers claim that, notwithstanding the fact that we did choose as we chose, we nonetheless could have chosen otherwise? That is absolutely false.

"therefore contrary choice or “free" will not only does not exist but cannot exist."
 
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rodgertutt said:
But whatever you decide, it cannot help but be what you want the MOST at that particular point in time.
Your will is only "free" to choose what you want the MOST.
Every choice you ever made was the ONLY choice you could have made at that particular point in time, because it was what you wanted the MOST.
"therefore contrary choice or “free" will not only does not exist but cannot exist."
Click to expand...
Hi Rodg

Unlike some of your detractors, I recognize that your ideas (or, really, your ONE idea) is well grounded.

Take a look at Game Theory. It is based upon your argument.
(Except in Game Theory, the person who "only chooses what they want most" will always LOSE the game to a sophisticated opponent who will make seemingly irrational moves in the game in order to gain the upper hand.)

& & &

Back in the 1960s, when computers are a new toy, the U.S. State Department uses computers to run simulations:
We do not like this government in African-Country-A. What would it take to change the government in African-Country-A to a pro-Western government?
Experts compile 37 key variables. Then dream-up various scenarios:
What if we do A?
Then they run a simulation of Event-A, playing it out to its logical conclusion.
What if we do B?
And they run a simulation of Event-B, too.

Simulation after simulation. And if one of these simulations looks like it can work, they take the idea to the President.

In the real world, these simulations turned out to be pretty accurate predictors of behavior regarding each of the key players inside of and outside of African-Country-A. Events went pretty much as planned 96% of the time.

But the remaining 4% of the time?
Rodg? Just more variables needed here to get the success-rate up to 100%? Another 37 variables, another 300 variables? Even if you get the success-rate up to 99.9%, that still is not absolute. There is, in the real world, no absolute certainty.

Have to be careful, here, Rodg.
Your ruminations are dealing in an ideal universe, not in a real-world situation.

& & &

At lunch every day, you go to the vending machine and plunk in your coins. Out pops an almond-blueberry bar. Your favorite. Day in, day out.

One day you are distracted by a noise down the hall, and push the wrong button. Another day the guy who loads the vending machine accidently puts in two apple-coconut bars in the wrong column, and today you get one. 9 months later you see a pretty gal get a pecan-mandarin bar, so you do the same, hoping she will notice.

Rodg, sometimes (again in the real world) choices are made for you, or come out of the blue, or are just plain accidents. And you let them stand. You eat the bar that is in your hand.

It is NOT your preference, but you eat the bar, anyway. People do that in the real world. You surrender to randomness all the time.
You may be a Buddhist who wishes to never hurt a living thing, but you do not crawl on hands and knees down the sidewalk, lest an ant crosses your path at the wrong moment.

Introspect, Rodg. You do random things all the time because you cannot pay attention to everything that is going on around you.

& & &

Rodgertutt:
... at that particular point in time.

Surely you know your physics? Indeterminacy Principle?:
A moving object ... If you can pinpoint the exact location of this moving object, you cannot determine its velocity. It's hazy. Likewise if you can measure the moving object's velocity, you cannot determine the object's exact location. Its location is like a camera blur.

The choice you make and the action you take are not the same event. They have different measures. They are only proximally the same.

Your inner-choice and the outer-world consequences of that choice are not coequal. They are apprehended via a separate measuring-stick and contain a different physical dynamics.

& & &

Rodg,
You (and many of your detractors) need to be careful regarding the 'one-legged argument' fallacy.
My leg is the only true leg. The other leg does not actually exist.
You (and they) are arguing for a hop-along reality, not a fully mobile one.

In Ecological Theory, all things consist of matter and energy, plus TWO regulatory subsystems.

HOMEOSTASIS keeps the system in balance, and is a relatively deterministic system. Nearly all choices made by this subsystem are aimed at keeping the system in-balance.
Nearly all, but not all.

ASYMMETRY keeps the system open and adaptive to changing conditions, which means a large degree of the choices made by this subsystem are random.
Lets flip a coin. 'Heads' we go east, 'tails' we go west.
Choices made by this 'asymmetry' subsystem are relatively nondeterministic, relatively arbitrary.
But not 100% so. There is a learning curve at work, which begins to recognize profitable and unprofitable directions to go.
(It's called directional correctness which impinges upon the randomness.)

Systems that survive well, do so ... due to the successful operation of BOTH subsystems, neither of which are absolute in their tendencies.
(These subsystems each have to be flexible in order to operate together, guiding the larger whole-system, without undue internal conflict between subsystems.)

& & &

Arthur Danto is the leading art critic/philosopher espousing the Postmodern theory of art. To Danto, art is no different than any other commodity.

In a consumer marketplace, a person chooses what they like and rejects what they don't like. To Danto, the best artist (in a Postmodern milieu) is not the most talented artist nor the most original. The best artist is the one who is best at self-promoting themself. Their artwork is their brand, and he or she is trying to generate brand-loyalty. The LOOK of the artwork is all-important. The content is insignificant.

This, Rodg, is how I see your idea of CHOICE. Consumer impulse-buying (content be damned).

What you want MOST.
Choices, yes, but meaningless ones.

& & &
 
What you want most.
Choices, yes, but meaningless ones.

& & &

In Developmental Psychology, a person grows from child to adult not just biophysically, but neurophysiologically as well. The two principle pathways of this process are COGNITIVE and AFFECTIVE development.
(i.e. The evolution of your 'thinking' and 'feeling.' Or of your 'logic' and 'belief' - if you want more philosophical terms.)

Cognitively, (for example) after you conceptually understand simple arithmetic, you advance to be able to conceptually understand trigonometry, then advance your conceptual reach further in order to understand calculus.

Affectively, you begin with a simple AWARENESS, with simple choices:
Blue is my favorite color. I like boys with blue hair.
Not many of them around, so you choose which boys you should 'like' for other reasons.

Consumer impulse. This is where your (and my) social instincts began. With a simple awareness:
I like XCRETOI. You like XCRETOI. Let's be friends.
A simple idealized universe.

But as we develop affectively, the social environment becomes morally more complicated. We grow.
(Idealism finds too many wrenches thrown into it workings.)

'MOST' becomes less important. We compromise on one choice in order to realize another choice. Choices become intricately interwoven and contingent. Not easily separable from each other.
(Choices come in clusters. And often there is no clear and consistent hierarchy of 'more important' and 'less important' choices. Priorities fluctuate. Sometimes at the precise moment the final choice is being made.)
AWARENESS itself - this consumer marketplace - becomes extremely confused.

... Particularly where moral decisions are concerned.
(Here, content matters!)

& & &

In a mature adult, most choices involving objects are pretty clear-cut
("free to choose what you want most")
... but choices involving other people (moral choices) tend to be a blur.

How does a mature adult make such a choice?

You don't.
You step into a psychologically locked room of your own making. You pare the parameters of this room down to essentials. You take a deep breath. And ...

You DECIDE.
You do not choose.
(This is beyond mere 'awareness.' This is not a consumer thing. It is too important.)
You become self-aware. You decide.

Here you function by a different operation, entirely. 'MOST' is meaningless. It is no longer 'about you.' (Not about what you 'like' or 'dislike.')
There are CONSEQUENCES ... And it is this which makes you self-aware.
(If you have made any vitally important decisions in your life, Rodg, you know this. You know this.)

Free will or determinism are each (contemptibly) beside the point, here.
One-legged arguments.

To make a real DECISION - effecting people's lives - you need both feet securely on the ground.
 
Penelope said:
Hi Rodg
What you want MOST.
Choices, yes, but meaningless ones. & & &
Click to expand...

My mind simply can't wrap around much of what you said Penlope, but this one last thing I can respond to by repeating a previous post.

God has locked up everyone of us in a lifetime of unavoidable choices
that can only be made in the direction of what we want to choose the MOST.

The idea that it would not be "right" for God to punish us for doing what we could not help but do is merely an ethical opinion that is rendered irrelevant by the irrefutable fact that
WE ALWAYS, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, CHOOSE IN THE DIRECTION OF THE STRONGEST INFLUENCE, ALL OF THE TIME.

I believe that God will eventually fit every unique individual into His master plan in a positive way that necessitates their unique temporary involvement in evil and suffering that will enable God to manifest, and glorify, and magnify the many facets of His character in a way that uniquely involves that person, and everyone else involved in that person’s life too.

Then, after God has finished using evil and suffering for the reasons why He allowed them to temporarily exist, He will eradicate them from existence.

That is the Christian universalist point of view which I share.
THE PURPOSE OF EVIL- A.P. Adams
evil.html
 
I am bringing this post over to page 46 in the hope that citizen will see it.

Originally Posted by citizenzen
"Rodger, that's not the statement I called erroneous. Please read the words you submitted to this forum...
That is the premise based on a fallacy. No advocate for free will has ever suggested that choices are uncaused or absolutely devoid of necessity. We have in fact, argued just the opposite.
Causes shape every decision we make. Necessity shapes every decision we make. Yet within the confines of cause and necessity lurks the opportunity to choose our very next step."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good morning everyone. It's around 7 AM here in Toronto.

Since citizen thinks the above is a pivitol issue in proving us determinists wrong because we have a "false premise," I am repeating this post.

Here is why I do not think Jim's "premise" is false.

When you insist that you did not HAVE to choose the way you did, you are insisting that you were not caused to do it. That's what Jim Coram means by you thinking that you were "not caused" to do it.

But you were caused to do it. In fact it is not even possible that you could not have chosen what you perceived that you wanted to choose the MOST at that point in time.

"Within the confines of cause and necessity lurks the opportunity to choose our very next step" ONLY in the direction of the choice that we have concluded that we want to make the MOST.

Our will was not "free" to choose any set of influences that were not the STRONGEST on our mind to choose. We HAD to choose what we chose when we chose it.

Free willers claim that, notwithstanding the fact that we did choose as we chose, we nonetheless could have chosen otherwise? That is absolutely false.

"therefore contrary choice or “free" will not only does not exist but cannot exist."
 
rodgertutt: THE WAY I SEE IT

God has locked up everyone of us in a lifetime of unavoidable choices
that can only be made in the direction of what we want to choose the MOST.
Click to expand...
As individuals who have unique perceptual filter systems developed from birth which color our decision making process, we then all have uniquely different mechanisms for making those decisions.
So there is not a universal template which guides each and every person as what one would want the most, another would not.
Any observer of humanity can see this.

The game theory idea brought up by Penelope also raises a good question in that if your "theory" had validity, then how could people choose irrational moves which appear to cost them as each and every move is a choice and they are allegedly locked into a rigid pattern of doing what they want most. Since they are playing a game they must WANT to win, so what do you suggest?? that they are doing some mental gymnastics here and flip-flopping from wanting to win to wanting to lose to wanting to win again?
They would have to in order for the theory you propose (and I know it comes from the sources you have linked) to have plausibility.
 
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