Any free agent is an uncaused cause

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I think that STT has a point. Your actions or choices are either determined or they are not. If your actions are all determined by some previous events, they you really do not have free will. And if you do have free will, that means that your actions are not determined.
Some people (e.g. Sam Harris) say that free will is an illusion and that all of our actions are determined. Perhaps this belief is due to an extension of the laws of physics and their application to biological and chemical processes in the brain. But the Catholic teaching is that we do have free will.
I can hear someone saying that the quantum theory allows for uncertainty and indeterminism. But uncertainty and randomness do not explain how we get to make a definite free choice.
 
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Wozza said:
But you say it’s only a free decision if you can’t make a decision on what to decide.

C’mon, that’s got to win a prize of some sort.
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This is how you make free decision: You first compare options. If options have same weight then you decide freely. There is a moment that you are not thinking of options, mute time, while you are making free decision. If options have different weights then you choose the one with the highest weight.
 
No, that doesn’t quite work out. Even God is limited in options; He can’t make another God, He can’t commit evil, etc.
 
When a computer program makes a “decision” it does so based on pre programmed algorithms that take (name removed by moderator)ut data and through a logical sequence determines the proper process to follow. For example,

if x <= 3, then do Y
If x > 3, Then do Z

The decision is preprogrammed and thus there is no free will involved by the computer, but only by the programmer who has an immaterial intellect that can make decisions.

A decision can only be “free” if the decider has the ability to freely choose between available good options. For instance choosing between eating an apple or an orange are both good options that one could choose. Although one may favor one over the other nothing is forcing one to choose one or the other. This does not require something coming from nothing. For only nothing can come from nothing. Rather it comes from the intellect and will to decide based on available data and preferences.

As far as what causes the ability for us to make free decisions is God who gave us the ability. So it is not uncaused.

I think you are confusing predetermined with cause and free will. You are assuming that if one says each decision has a cause you are in effect assuming that is the same as being predetermined, like the computer program example. However, God could have caused it to function in a way that is not predetermined by him. But this does not mean the function does not operate without a cause or without rhyme or reason. In fact to make a good decision is a reasonable process.

There is a difference between the decision of a program to the decision of an animal to the decision of a human. Only the human has the intellect and will. Without the intellect we could not exercise the will. These are “powers” of the human soul that have been directly created by God and can not originate from some purely physical process.

The software algorithms do not create themselves but originate from a human intellect. Thus, the comparison that the human mind is just the brain and is like a computer is faulty. Since even the computer requires the human mind in order to function. There is nothing inherent in physical things that naturally give them symbolic representations, which is what computer programming is. Instead an immaterial mind to a degree free of physical processes is required to associate symbols with things. These decisions must be made by an immaterial mind like for instance deciding that the symbol 0010 in binary represents the number 2. There is nothing in physical nature that necessitates such an association and therefore can not come from purely physical processes, or even the physical brain.

If the human mind was only physical processes then it would be hard to argue against predeterminism.
 
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STT said:
The very act of decision is an uncaused cause since otherwise your decision is affected by something else which means it is caused. Therefore any free agent is an uncaused cause.
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Effects (all human beings) cannot be uncaused by definition. They are contingent.

The properties present or absent in contingent beings (e.g., free will) do not change that being’s ontological origins.
 
Choice is essentially an act of the will, i.e., an operation of the power of the will. Therefore, an act of choice is caused by the power of the will albeit not without the intellect.
 
o_mlly said:
Effects (all human beings) cannot be uncaused by definition. They are contingent.
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Your body was caused, your mind not, since you are free. Here is the argument in favor of this:
  1. The causation requires knowledge
  2. Knowledge is structured
  3. Therefore any caused thing is structured
  4. Anything which is structured cannot be free
  5. Therefore one cannot cause a thing which is free
 
I think you misunderstand what I wrote. Nothing i wrote contradicts the idea that we decide for ourselves. In fact that is what I argued.
 
fisherman_carl said:
I think you misunderstand what I wrote. Nothing i wrote contradicts the idea that we decide for ourselves. In fact that is what I argued.
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Do you think that free decision is an uncaused cause? The main message of this thread is that the being with ability to decide is also uncaused cause.
 
The will is created by God and therefore caused by God. Its decisions are caused by itself. So there’s nothing uncaused at any point, other than God.
 
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AlNg said:
I think that STT has a point. Your actions or choices are either determined or they are not.
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Correct.
If your actions are all determined by some previous events, they you really do not have free will.
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Correct.
And if you do have free will, that means that your actions are not determined.
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That does not follow. Your actions could be determined by your will. That would mean they are determined, but not by prior events.
 
STT said:
Your body was caused, your mind not, since you are free. Here is the argument in favor of this:
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We have no experience of a human mind operating w/o a body. The body and mind are not separate natures within us; together, they form a single human nature.
 
dmar198 said:
The will is created by God and therefore caused by God. Its decisions are caused by itself. So there’s nothing uncaused at any point, other than God.
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Your free decision is uncaused meaning that it did not caused by something else. Here we are discussing that any free agent is an uncaused cause.
 
o_mlly said:
We have no experience of a human mind operating w/o a body. The body and mind are not separate natures within us; together, they form a single human nature.
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I can buy that for sake of argument. My argument still stands for mind. Mind and body make the person.
 
From a point of view of Libertarian freedom, yes, any free agent is an uncaused cause. Following this line of thought, it is impossible for any agent to be truly free unless it is inherently outside of physical reality, as all other agents are subject to the influence of environment and past experiences. The body-mind composite automatically implies causality in its physical existence.

This, however, is not the case for Compatiblist freedom, of which Catholics ascribe. Compatiblist freedom is the choice to act in accordance to nature. In this case, a free agent can readily be a caused cause. It is the will’s ability to chose to conform to its nature or to rebel against it. Freedom, in this sense, has nothing to do causality.
 
Your free decision is uncaused meaning that it did not caused by something else.
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Your decision is caused by your will which is both free and created by God. Is there any logical contradiction there?
Here we are discussing that any free agent is an uncaused cause.
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But it’s not though. Free agents can be created, which makes them caused causes. There can be caused causes which have the ability to freely cause freewill decisions. There is no logical contradiction involved in this supposition, therefore it is logically possible.
 
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Non responsive. We were discussing whether humans decision has no prior cause which is false given prior cause limits options
 
CRM_Brother said:
From a point of view of Libertarian freedom, yes, any free agent is an uncaused cause. Following this line of thought, it is impossible for any agent to be truly free unless it is inherently outside of physical reality, as all other agents are subject to the influence of environment and past experiences.
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Mind however is not influenced by environment and past experiences when it make a free decision.
CRM_Brother said:
The body-mind composite automatically implies causality in its physical existence.
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No, when one is talking about mind as a separate substance.
CRM_Brother said:
This, however, is not the case for Compatiblist freedom, of which Catholics ascribe. Compatiblist freedom is the choice to act in accordance to nature. In this case, a free agent can readily be a caused cause. It is the will’s ability to chose to conform to its nature or to rebel against it. Freedom, in this sense, has nothing to do causality.
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You are not free if you decision is accordance to nature.
 
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