Freedom as I describe is necessary when rationality for example fails to get us somewhere.
Your substance cannot be caused given the definition of free will.
Content of mind (what is stored in the brain for example) does change.
I highly hope so.
You are of course your substance.
Very good question @quaestio45 and the answer is plain and simple.
I would say that the ability to evaluate a number of possible solutions to a given problem according to the ideas you have accumulated thus far as well as taking into account other factors is to me a grand freedom. For after the evaluation is the choice, which is dependent upon what one has already judged to be a good current principal to abide by.
And what’s wrong with that? I think right now in order to solve the problem of your rubttals. I’ll think later on perhaps to entertain myself. I was thinking yesterday about a way to satisfy my hunger. It seems to me that mental activity are intimately related to giving prescriptions to possible problems.
Well I would say such is never the case because it always has the tool of simple random choice. I have two options, A and B. Both are equally appealing to my being, so no factors like bodily preference or ancestral principles or any other factors tip the scale. So, what do I do? I tell myself “close your eyes and whatever you grab thats your choice”.
The being which most freely deciedes considers every bias and possible outcome
Not philosophically. What you describe is essence (that thing A is of the nature A). If we are saying the mind is immutable because it stays like a mind its whole existence then yes, I suppose you’re right. But through that lens, I am in my body immutable because I am continually Quaestio despite specific changes in my existence. The way I’ve been using immutable was to mean that something is forever constant in its whole being, that being its nature and the manner of its existence. A chair which goes from red to blue is not to me immutable for it can undergo change.
Well what if it is effected by an external force?
If its complete in being, why does it lack in knowledge? To lack is to be limited in being.
Infinite actuality, or as I prefer calling it, pure actuality. It is pure existence itself. You are all powerful, all knowing, completely and utterly devoid of physical limitations.
So it has the power of a God indeed, yes?
But who is their initiator? The mind! And if the mind is their cause, and there is a diverse range of thoughts, we run into a problem of why. It can only be because the mind was different.
Well hold on good sir, your very explanation to my objection is presupposing what I object. If God is truly powerful enough to even cause evil without contridicting his nature of good, then why doesn’t he extend these powers and make us by default grateful and joyful saints who wouldn’t become brattish and spoiled in attitude?
Whether or not he refers to what is thought of as the soul or simply the mind is frankly irrelevant. The point of the matter is that he believes we have an uncaused cause, immutable element within us that is noncontingent and brings freedom to the being.
This follows from the reasoning above.
“No bias” isn’t the definition of “free choice”; it might be construed in terms of the amount of fairness or rationality in the decision process, but it’s not required for the ability to choose. Right?
This I agree with. But, all the arguments for this proposition “…and this is the being whom we call ‘God’.” STT doesn’t do this; he ends with “… and this is the being whom we call ‘me’.”
I’m still not seeing it as a valid argument, though. Do you think his argument holds up?
Well to be biased I think every man would agree is the holding of susceptibility to move towards one line of thought or act over another against said thing. But that does imply that one may move in another direction, so yes, bias is something which presupposes freedom. But the claim being made by STT (were I not mistaken) is that to befall into bias or act in accord with it is to not be in a complete state of freedom (or, as he might say, you don’t have freedom in this scenario). Freedom is when all possibilities are equal in value to the subject so that the subject isn’t moved by external factors more towards the inclination of choosing a given A rather than a given B. As such, given his interpretation of freedom, to be in bias is to be a slave to an external factor.
Yes, I very much agree with this contention. What I’ve been told in response was that at any point, the mind may break “free” of this chain, however, and move from a state of non-freedom to freedom. Effectively, we are discussing an agent that can have its powers caused in a given instance, yet uncaused in the next.
Correct, but he doesn’t say “I am God” but something more close to “the mind is Godly”. Further, I’m not sure if ge even agrees that the implications of his philosophy lead to a God entity, though I myself think its sufficiently evident.
No. The idea is built upon a (what I would say) faulty conception of freedom. Further, the implications of such philosophy are metaphysically contridictive and inconsistent with experience. As such, I am not convinced of its validity. My proposal for freedom is very different and he strongly disagrees with it. Its built on the idea that yes, we are inherently tied to the causal chain, but what makes us special as conscious entites is that when we are experiencing a cause, our effect is indeterminable by the cause. That is to say, we produce the quality of the effect. This is fundamentally different from a determinist who sees it that because we are inherently within a causal chain we must therefore follow the same rules of causation that any other entity obeys.
Ugh. This doesn’t help much! After all, having reached a decision, you now have a bias toward what you’ve decided! Therefore, by that approach, a “free agent” is only “free” until he decides – and at that point, he’s no longer “free” nor “able to act freely”!
But… if he’s merely made a personal decision, then that doesn’t make him an “uncaused being”! I mean… something caused him to make the choice, right?
Yep. That makes sense.
I didn’t think of that. So truly the idea of a “perfectly free being”, were we accepting STTs definitions, is not only implausible but plainly impossible.
Yes, that definitely seems to be an ultimate conclusion. Whats important to remember here is that the mind isn’t simply in a state of perfect freedom. It moves from one to another. There is a division between the free act and the nonfree act. The nonfree act is an influenced act, whilst the free act was completely devoid of influence, or at least total in indifference. As such, we could say that faith and a free agent are compatible, but not in the same way simultaneously. For example, I can freely decide to believe in God, but once that happens I have a bias towards God. Thus, every choice afterwards pertaining to God is unfree, unless it is perfectly counter balanced by an alternative in decision.
Well, to be perfectly uncaused in one manner would, I think, mean to be perfectly uncaused in every manner. This is because it means that you are noncontingent by an attribute, but noncontingency of course follows pure actuality, which isn’t an attribute but a state of a beings existence. As such, for anything to be uncaused requires it to be unchanging, eternal, and all other attributes which follow noncontingency. You may understand why this doesn’t make sense, as that would mean we are complete in being, and thus have, for example, complete knowledge, which we clearly don’t have.
Yes, thats the only way a limited being may function, if I’m not mistaken.
Because God doesn’t want to create puppets, God wants us to be highly trained, experienced and well informed joyful saints in heaven.
How can we say definitively that it is incompatible for a man to be free and be a good joyous Saint by creation? If God is all powerful and holds no limitations, then this explanation you have given me cannot be one of actual validity as it denies that God can make a free joyous saint by creation. Do you see the problem here? We are led further and further into this idea that God can do anything, but because of that we can never derive an excuse of why he would put limitations and suffering and evil into the world if the proposed end of such events is something he can simply will through his power. It is hard to then not fall to the idea that God is not all good, for he could’ve put creation in ultimate good to begin with without involving torment in the equation. Instead of befalling to this, I propose humbly that God simply cannot create a world of the free whilst also leaving it without evil because it would contridict his highest goodness.
Yes, the ability to evaluate things grant you some sort of freedom. Without this ability, we would be a cripple who was not able to do anything. But I think it is clear that free will is different from the ability to evaluate things.
Rationality cannot always provide an answer to a situation.
That is when you freely decide.
That is a non-free decision.
I am not talking about the essence or body.
You choose to move along an external force. That is a non-free decision.
Knowledge is the property of a person.
God to me is the creator. I am talking about mind in here.
You as a person are different since you have different body and you were exposed to different events your whole life.
Argument from change.OK. Personal opinion, then. Got it.
Yet… how can you posit that your opinion is true? What substantiates this opinion?
When I ask you a reason about the creation of soul upon conception you claim that is due to revelation. Now, I give you the reason and you call it an opinion.
Sure.
That doesn’t substantiate your opinion that mind is “a separate entity and can exist without any body.”
Umm… divine revelation is my substantiation and evidence that it’s not just my opinion.
Let me try again: I’m asking you to substantiate your opinion that the “existence of the mind is not due to the body in any way.”Gorgias:
Sure.
It does. Body changes. Mind doesn’t.
OK… you’re still just asserting, not substantiating.Gorgias:
It does. Body changes. Mind doesn’t.
You need to carefully think about the argument. The argument says that there is a unchanging mind since there is a change. You of course need another entity if mind itself was subject to change.
Yes.
And this doesn’t follow. Making decision does not mean that you change.
Non of these follows.
No… rather, you need to substantiate the argument, and not just tell me to re-read it.
Which is clearly false, since the mind participates in decisions. It literally changes by virtue of deciding!
Yes, it really does. You change from “not having decided” on a proposition or course of action to “having decided” on it. That’s literally a change. And it happens in the mind, as you posit it.
They really do:
