Free Will Is An Illusion

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hangnail said:
If a computer program has a logical glitch in it, do you blame the program or the programmer? (The program may produce bad output data. So, it is responsible in one sense. But is it really morally responsible? I don’t think so. But I would still attempt to reprogram it and fix the problem.)
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You are not a program. Though you may have access to your programmable code along with the ear, knowledge and advice of the original programmer - which means reprogramming yourself may, analogically speaking, be possible.

That is, if you choose to avail yourself of the option, so to speak, instead of insisting you can do nothing about it.
 
venerablejohn said:
But we are not saved by our works, indeed my parish priest called that idea a heresy from his pulpit. We are saved by accepting Jesus as our Lord and saviour. Our actions should reflect our faith not the other way round. As for free will, we cannot have total control of our destiny, how can we explain Judas’ role in the betrayal of Jesus? An event Jesus foretold.
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The fact that Jesus foretold it does not remove Judas’ free choice in the betrayal.

This idea has been rehashed a number of times in these fora.
 
Amandil said:
This sorely begs the question. You cannot possibly know this with any certainty unless you already know with certainty what your ultimate fate or destiny already is: I.e. you must have some ability to see into the future.

You don’t. Therefore your argument fails.
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It doesn’t require foreknowledge. But it does require the intellectual capacity to grasp basic logic.
Amandil said:
Aquinas spelled out very succinctly and specifically what free will actually is. And his definition makes a heck of a lot more sense than yours. And it’s your definition which is the cause of the failure of the rest of your argument. Good definitions are the foundation of any argument, without them they crumble.
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Aquinas would be forced to accept by the dictates of logic that either determinism or indeterminism holds true.
 
hangnail said:
Aquinas would be forced to accept by the dictates of logic that either determinism or indeterminism holds true.
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He would be forced by the dictates of logic to accept that determinism and indeterminism are logically contradictory, but he would not be compelled by any logic to accept that either one or both apply, necessarily, to the real world.

You haven’t proven that they do merely because you are compelled to believe your own argument.

I am not sure God has been cornered by your logic, either, into thinking that he must accept the implications of your thinking merely because you have. Perhaps, he is scratching his head, sitting up in Heaven, wondering why he had never considered the profound implications of creating a causal order and will merely absolve us all of responsibility because, really, we shouldn’t be held accountable for anything we do.

So issuing Ten Commandments, sending the Prophets, being born of the Virgin Mary, establishing the Church, along with everything else God, in his apparently limited wisdom, has conceived, have all been unnecessary – that is, had he just thought about it more deeply, or consulted you before undertaking the creation of humankind.

Que sera, sera, I guess. It’s too late to turn back now.
 
hangnail said:
It doesn’t require foreknowledge. But it does require the intellectual capacity to grasp basic logic.
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Which doesn’t solve your problem. You still can’t know with certainty that free will is an illusion. To second Peter Plato, your committing retrospective determinism.

And since your logic has been demonstrated as being fallacious, your assertion doesn’t follow.

So for all your calls for grasping basic logic, it seems that you can’t follow your own advice but would rather stick to what you want to believe, logic aside.
Aquinas would be forced to accept by the dictates of logic that either determinism or indeterminism holds true.
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Not at all, for the same reasons that I provided. Logic would also dictate that you posit an argument logically, not fallaciously

Fallacious reasoning is fallacious reasoning and need not to be considered at all, just dismissed.

You posited a false view of freedom and I have yet to see any definition of what the will is.

Without these all your doing is arguing from your own assumed beliefs and ideas, almost as if you’re assuming your conclusion as a premise and thus arguing in a circle.
 
hangnail said:
Because you’re either living a sinless life or you’re not. And if you’re not, then you’re not in control. The fact is that you’re not free, but a slave to sin.

“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” Romans 7:18-20
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Obviously you think in terms of black and white. Most of us are living neither a sinful or a sinless life. We are somewhere in between. The world is both random and deterministic in my opinion. You are just playing a silly game with your “model”.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
How can mere atoms imagine God and eternity? 😉
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That is a minor problem because atoms are capable of absolutely anything, if we are to judge by the history of the physical universe. They have even learnt how to split themselves… :idea:
 
hangnail said:
I

Aquinas would be forced to accept by the dictates of logic that either determinism or indeterminism holds true.
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Aquinas endorsed compatibilism (though, some argue otherwise) but that was before modal logic took off.

Modal logic is key to the free-will “problem”.
 
John Searle has recently come up with a type of two-stage model from the perspective of philosophy of the mind. His ultimate conclusion (tentatively) is that randomness at the micro level of the brain would not itself imply randomness at the system level, although it may explain the indeterminacy of the system. So while human choice may be indeterminate, it does not necessarily follow it is random.
 
Love how you write free and will in scare quotes. You do not believe any of those things or are you’sre ambivalent towards them, What’s wrong?
 
tdgesq said:
John Searle has recently come up with a type of two-stage model from the perspective of philosophy of the mind. His ultimate conclusion (tentatively) is that randomness at the micro level of the brain would not itself imply randomness at the system level, although it may explain the indeterminacy of the system. So while human choice may be indeterminate, it does not necessarily follow it is random.
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I have never argued that our decision-making process is a completely random process. That being said, it may be partially random.

I li
 
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