Breaking the Free Will Illusion

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Could you please take a look at those links
With all due respect, I think I’m going to pass, for now. I’ve pretty much had my fill of this guy’s take on “philosophy”.

He’s a materialist (I think he mentions that in the article on causation, right?), so that means that, based on his worldview, he’s going to have to come up with certain conclusions. (They’re conclusions that are hostile to belief in a God and belief in Christianity, by the way.)

Incidentally, if you’re a strict materialist, then yeah – you’re gonna be inclined to think it’s all deterministic, since all you can ‘see’ is the physical mousetrap and how it works. That’s the box he’s working in, and he doesn’t let himself out of that box. 🤷‍♂️
 
To clarify, do we possess the ability to choose differently if we were able to rewind time? Most skeptics say if we could go back in time, where all the same variables and desires exist, I would always choose the same choice every time.

Example: I desire to go to Mass today, but I chose not to because I wasted too much time and will be late. Skeptics argue my mind would also be rewound, so I if I could go back in time, I could not choose to leave earlier (because everything would be the same).

Free will is the ability to choose freely in any situation, even if I desire one option over the other, the choice is free. Do we have the ability to choose a different option if we rewound time (as a though experiment)?

God Bless
 
To clarify, do we possess the ability to choose differently if we were able to rewind time?
This question is irrelevant as far as free will is concerned. And the reason is that you have accepted a wrong definition:
Free will is the ability to choose freely in any situation, even if I desire one option over the other, the choice is free.
No, it is not.

That would be “random will”, not “free will”.

In what way is ending up doing something that was in no way desirable supposed to be “free”?

So, don’t start with question “Do we have free will?”. You already know the answer (yes, we do), and at this point you can’t derive it “properly” anyway. If you do want to derive it, start with defining free will properly.

And a good definition of free will have to demand that it is you (the person in question) who makes the decision. On the other hand, “your” definition might as well be restated as “Free will is the feature to have any decision made in any situation.” - and here we can see that the person making decision somehow vanishes from the definition.
 
This question is irrelevant as far as free will is concerned. And the reason is that you have accepted a wrong definition:
If we the person make the decision, why is it irrelevant to say we have the ability to have chosen otherwise? Could you clarify your post? Thank you.

God Bless
 
sin enslaves
Can you explain that further. For example, let’s suppose that one Sunday morning, you dilly dally and because of your deliberate negligence you arrive at Mass two minutes late, thereby committing a venial sin. How then does that make you a slave?
 
The author states: “… If we cannot predict the outcome, such is said to be ‘indeterministic’.”
I don’t see that. Suppose we have insufficient data to predict the outcome, so we cannot predict the outcome. That does not mean that the event is indeterministic. It may be determined by some data beyond our knowledge so we are unable to predict the outcome. But it is still an event determined by certain data.
 
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HarryStotle:
sin enslaves
Can you explain that further. For example, let’s suppose that one Sunday morning, you dilly dally and because of your deliberate negligence you arrive at Mass two minutes late, thereby committing a venial sin. How then does that make you a slave?
It isn’t so much that particular sins “make you a slave” as that your enslavement to sin causes you to act from that enslavement. Your sinful fault is the “deliberate negligence” which causes you to be two minutes late, not so much the other way around. Your actions proceed from the compounded state of your sinning that has been forged from the habit of acting out of deliberate negligence over a lifetime. Every sin we act out reinforces the state of slavery that itself leads to the particular sin.

Notice that Jesus words, “whoever sins is a slave to sin” keeps the causal connection open. It could mean the act of sinning makes you more of a slave, but it also means the enslavement (being a slave to sin) causes you to sin as the precondition of your actions. That means both are true. The only way out of this vicious and deadly circle is grace, which, I think, was the gist of Augustine’s On Grace and Free Will. Thus, we have the capacity of free will, but that does not mean we actually make use of it. Mortal sins completely debilitate that capacity, much like the effect of alcohol on a habitual drunk.
 
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I’ve never believed in the Free Will concept.
You will never find the phrase “Free Will” in the Bible whatsoever.
Free will is an extrapolation cobbled from subjective verses.
Ironically Protestants believe in Free Will even though it is not explicitly stated in the Bible.
There are a number of verses that deny the concept of free will.

Psalms 37:23 - The steps of a [good] man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.

Proverbs 16:1 - The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, [is] from the LORD.

Proverbs 16:9 - A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.

1 Timothy 2:4 - Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. ( Remove the extra words : Who will all men saved and come unto knowledge truth ) Which makes the case that non one will go to Hell. Except the word used for all is PAS which I a glittering generality if you may.

And more importantly the Words of Jesus in the Bread of Life discourse:
Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him. And I will raise him up in the last day.


No one can come to Jesus if God does not call him to do so…
 
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Veritas6:
The author states: “… If we cannot predict the outcome, such is said to be ‘indeterministic’.”
I don’t see that. Suppose we have insufficient data to predict the outcome, so we cannot predict the outcome. That does not mean that the event is indeterministic. It may be determined by some data beyond our knowledge so we are unable to predict the outcome. But it is still an event determined by certain data.
This is where @Veritas6’s author gets himself in trouble, and I suspect we’re closing to having the wheels fall off, too.

There’s an important distinction to be made here – there’s a difference between:
  • the assertion that physical events are determined by a number of causes which, when taken in aggregate, cause a physical event
and
  • the assertion that all events are pre-determined – “fixed”, if you will, by fate – and not only will happen, but must happen, and nothing can change that (not even the free will decisions of moral actors).
@AlNg’s assertion is one of the former: there are events out there whose causes are unable to be fully described by modern science. (Take a look at hurricanes, for example. We have a pretty good idea how they work, but not a fully complete one. (That’s why the weather reports about hurricanes show a range of possibilities and a number of possible tracks.)

Of course, that’s a completely different sort of assertion than saying that “Hurricane Maria was destined to be of a size and path that actually occurred.” If AGW is true, then moral agents – humans! – contributed to her appearance and size. In other words, the size and path of Maria was dictated by the sum total of the physical causes that together caused her, but human agents could’ve acted in ways that could have changed her features.
 
I’ve never believed in the Free Will concept.
Even though the Catholic Church teaches that it is true?
You will never find the phrase “Free Will” in the Bible whatsoever.
There’s a reason for that. In the Old Testament times, they believed that the sovreignity of God hinged on His controlling each and every event directly. (If not, they reasoned, then if you could do something that God didn’t directly want you to do, then that meant that you were more powerful than God. In other words, if you could force your will upon God, then it meant that God wasn’t omnipotent.)

Therefore, each and every thing that happened – this bird’s death, that flower’s trampling by deer, this man’s increased balding – was the direct will of God. Not of man. Not of natural forces. God and only God.

Therefore, according to them, there wasn’t “free will” as we understand it. It took a long time for the Church to be able to explain the concept in a way that preserved our ability to choose the good (which is critical for an understanding of personal salvation through faith), while not impinging upon God’s omnipotence.

Hope that helps…! 😉
 
If we the person make the decision, why is it irrelevant to say we have the ability to have chosen otherwise? Could you clarify your post? Thank you.
OK, let’s take an example. Let’s say we have a puppet and a puppeteer. Now if we want to find out which of them has free will, we do not have to find out if their movement is predictable (it is either predictable for both or unpredictable for both) - we have to see who is pulling the strings.

The same is true in a more general case: the right question is not “Is the movement predictable?”, but “Who makes the decision?”.
 
The same is true in a more general case: the right question is not “Is the movement predictable?”, but “Who makes the decision?”.
Could you please explain again or give another example, it’s kinda hard to understand.
Would his free will definitions be wrong?: “The ability to choose between more than one viable option or action, in which that choice was up to the chooser.” (OR)
“The ability to have, of your own accord, been able to have decided otherwise.”
The author restricts the universe to either casual (deterministic) or acasual (indeterministic).
 
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Regarding the video you posted, I found this in my recommended shortly after watching the video :


Does this disprove the video you posted ? Seems like it to me. ( I am a Christian I am just looking for stronger evidence ) I have been having this deterministic quesiton too, and it seems to be a problem.
 
There are times when a person can define a concept out of existence. If we define free-will as the total lack of external influence or internal preferance than free-will does not exist. But that is a rather strict definition of free-will and could only really be applied to God.

If one considers free-will to be the ability, within the perspective of the human actor, to choose between two or more actions as a mysterious and somewhat indefinable active power of the soul then the existence of free-will in man becomes self-evident. No one really believes in the idea that there is no free-will when it comes down to it. They might philosophically accept it as true that free-will doesn’t exist, but their reaction to me punching them on the nose proves their inherent inability to truly accept this “truth” even as they become convinced of it.

So really it’s either you pretend to believe free-will is not existent, but always prove yourself to be a hypocrite; or you accept free-will existence as somewhat mysterious and not entirely expressable using human logic.
 
Could you please explain again or give another example, it’s kinda hard to understand.
You know, it is also kinda hard to understand what in my example was hard to understand… 🙂

Is it unclear what is “a puppet” and “a puppeteer”? See Puppet - Wikipedia or some other dictionary or encyclopedia.

Is it unclear which of them has free will? A puppeteer does (a puppeteer is a human, a puppet is an inanimate object).

Is it unclear why the movement of puppet and movement of puppeteer are either predictable together or unpredictable together? It is so because the movement of puppet depends on the movement of puppeteer. If one of them moves predictably, it is possible to predict the movement of the other as well.

Is it unclear why predictability of movement does not help us to find out which of that pair (puppet and puppeteer) has free will? It is so because predictability of movement is the same for both and only one of them has free will.

Or is something else unclear?
Would his free will definitions be wrong?: “The ability to choose between more than one viable option or action, in which that choice was up to the chooser.” (OR)

“The ability to have, of your own accord, been able to have decided otherwise.”
Both those definitions are terrible. They have vague terms - for example, “viable”, if it is not used metaphorically (and metaphors should be avoided in definitions), means “able to live”, which makes no sense here. They have parts that add nothing while creating an impression that they do (“in which that choice was up to the chooser” - if it wasn’t, how can the word “chooser” apply?).

That is not surprising: both those definitions are based on a self-contradicting definition: “when things are unpredictable, but not really”. It’s just that this self-contradiction is masked a little. In the second definition it is masked less: “otherwise” will become “unpredictable”, while “decided” will become “not really”…
 
The author restricts the universe to either casual (deterministic) or acasual (indeterministic).
And this, as we’ve pointed out to you, is his major flaw. “Casual” and “deterministic” aren’t the same thing, particularly when applied to moral agents (i.e., humans).
 
IMO What I’ve read is quantum physics doesn’t really work with free will. But how Harris states that thoughts and intentions are determined by prior causes, I don’t think it follows that we’re not responsible them. I like @Gorgias post here:
there’s a difference between:
the assertion that physical events are determined by a number of causes which, when taken in aggregate, cause a physical event
and
the assertion that all events are pre-determined – “fixed”, if you will, by fate – and not only will happen, but must happen, and nothing can change that (not even the free will decisions of moral actors).
I like @Gorgias answers and hopefully he can help you more with that video you posted. Also @ChunkMonk post about free will:
So really it’s either you pretend to believe free-will is not existent, but always prove yourself to be a hypocrite; or you accept free-will existence as somewhat mysterious and not entirely expressable using human logic.
I think that “mysterious” feeling of free will might be God. 😁
 
I am not clear that it disproves the IP video, although it does claim to.

Regarding the idea reinforced by deGrasse Tyson that it is the interaction at the quantum level rather than the agent or free will of the agent that brings about indeterminacy, IP has several videos to answer that, including this one.


The point being that the indeterminacy with regard to observer interactions with the world may be agent dependent rather than interaction dependent, so it would still not rule out free will. I would suppose that the problem then becomes to prove that the indeterminacy is completely or potentially completely agent dependent. iP addresses that point in the video above.

The more important objection, though, is the one brought up at the end of the rebuttal video in your post, having to do with the predictability of actions. The claim is that by monitoring physiological interactions in the brain, the person’s choices can be predicted BEFORE the person makes them. That is supposedly a “slam dunk” rebuttal of free will since the choice comes after the physical activity in the brain, thus choices have dependency on physical causal events and cannot be free.

Notice the claim is that choices are predicted in the experiment “with reasonable accuracy.” That doesn’t imply they are always predictable, which leads to the question of why they weren’t in those less frequent cases. How are those to be explained? It could be that the monitoring was incomplete and some brain functions were missed, but until that question is dealt with, it cannot just be assumed to be what happened.

I recently listened to or read Edward Feser on the subject. I’ll have to find it, but he points out that even if the external indicator of choice (reaction) follows the neurochemical activity, that doesn’t prove the choice was dependent upon it. The final choice may still be agent-dependent, but the agent was taking into account the physiological factors BEFORE making the final choice.

Thus, even if the agent chose according to those physiological factors, it doesn’t mean the agent could not have chosen otherwise, just all things considered the physiological output matched the option chosen. For example, using a spreadsheet as a tool to provide answers to important questions does not mean the spreadsheet causes our behaviour (deciding based upon the output) as an inevitable outcome of all the (name removed by moderator)uts into the spreadsheet. We take the functional outputs of the spreadsheet into account and those become grounds for our choices and behaviours that derive from them. Even if it was found that the choices of spreadsheet users always or almost always align with the results of the calculations, it doesn’t follow that the functions of spreadsheets cause human behaviour.
 
Excellent. Along with my other post this is just what I needed. Thanks.
 
Only when we are acting “in the Spirit” are we
truly FREE. “Sin shall not be your master, b/c
you are not slaves of sin but God’s grace”
cf. Rom. 6:14. “If the Son sets you FREE, you
are free indeed” John 8:36 So if we live accord-
ing to our sinful nature, we are NOT free, but
if we live according to the Spirit, we have the
free will to CHOOSE what we do!!
 
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