Free Will Is An Illusion

  • Thread starter Thread starter hangnail
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
DanielJT said:
Why is this a topic for a new thread? You ask for a challenge to your assertions, which I have given you, but the challenge is deferred to a latter undetermined time.
Click to expand...
I gave you the short answer. Did you not read it?
 
hangnail said:
I believe that determinism and the indeterminism are the only two logical possibilities. If you cannot accept that, then we will have to agree to disagree.
Click to expand...
Determinism and indeterminism may be the only two possibilities as far as the outcome is concerned but you are confusing the outcome with what brought about the outcome.

Even if true that an outcome must either be a determined or undetermined one, that leaves completely unanswered whether what brought about the outcome was, itself, a determined or indeterminate one.

In other words, it is quite logical to say an outcome was determined by free will, without being compelled to accept that free will is “determined” even though it “determined” the outcome. This is where your dichotomy becomes irrelevant. A determined outcome may in fact be “determined” by a huge range of possibilities beyond merely the two that describe the outcome. It is here you commit the fallacy of retrospective determinism.
 
Amandil said:
(I have a feeling that I can already guess this one…)

Hangnail-what is your definition of free will?
Click to expand...
Free will is the belief that we are in control. And I believe that that belief is what sin is. We’re not in control. And we never have been. It’s just an illusion. That’s what free will is. It’s an illusion. (Hence, the title of my thread.)
 
A third problem with your logic is with the terms “indeterminate” and “determined.”

“Indeterminate,” for example, means either that the causes have not been determined or that, in principle, they cannot be. However, how would we “determine” which of those is true, short of having a complete and exhaustive metaphysic that we are certain is absolutely true?

As it stands, “determined” means something like “determined” to be the cause by our limited understanding. However, since virtually all of that “determination” is grounded on inductive or probable evidence, we really have no assurance that “determined” means anything more than “we think this is how it works.” Hardly sufficient to go making absolute proclamations that by our “determinations” we have “determined” free will not to be “free.” A concept which, in turn, we have an even less clear understanding of, in any case.

Sam Harris, and you, can make all the “determinations” you want regarding what you have determined to be determined, but your determinations themselves remain indeterminate - meaning no logically consistent claim follows from them.
 
hangnail, I have a special interest in the problem of free will myself. The determined or random argument appeals very strongly to our intuition. But that’s because we cannot imagine how a process could be neither, as everything in nature, and everything we as humans have built, either acts in a deterministic or random way. We have nothing to model a potential metaphysical theory of free will on, making it extremely difficult to formulate one. The upshot is then that Harris’ argument is simply an argument from incredulity (rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity), a logical fallacy atheists often accuse Christians of.
 
Peter_Plato said:
A third problem with your logic is with the terms “indeterminate” and “determined.”

“Indeterminate,” for example, means either that the causes have not been determined or that, in principle, they cannot be. However, how would we “determine” which of those is true, short of having a complete and exhaustive metaphysic that we are certain is absolutely true?

As it stands, “determined” means something like “determined” to be the cause by our limited understanding. However, since virtually all of that “determination” is grounded on inductive or probable evidence, we really have no assurance that “determined” means anything more than “we think this is how it works.” Hardly sufficient to go making absolute proclamations that by our “determinations” we have “determined” free will not to be “free.” A concept which, in turn, we have an even less clear understanding of, in any case.

Sam Harris, and you, can make all the “determinations” you want regarding what you have determined to be determined, but your determinations themselves remain indeterminate - meaning no logically consistent claim follows from them.
Click to expand...
👍 In other words if their conclusions and decisions are not theirs they contradict themselves… 🙂
 
Hangnail said:
Free will is the belief that we are in control.
Click to expand...
That definition is at best vague.

In control of what?
And I believe that that belief is what sin is.
Click to expand...
And you would be wrong.
We’re not in control. And we never have been. It’s just an illusion. That’s what free will is. It’s an illusion. (Hence, the title of my thread.)
Click to expand...
So basically you’re arguing in a circle based upon a extremely vague and flawed concept that you have termed as “free will”?

How about you take the time to look at what other bona fide philosophers, such as Aquinas, have to say about free will before you just out-of-hand assert that its an “illusion”.

Filling your head with fifth-rate sophists like Harris is like gorging yourself on a pillowcase full of Halloween candy, it may be sweet at first, but you’ll rot your brain and end up spewing nonsense.
 
hangnail said:
Free will is the belief that we are in control. And I believe that that belief is what sin is. We’re not in control. And we never have been. It’s just an illusion. That’s what free will is. It’s an illusion. (Hence, the title of my thread.)
Click to expand...
Your conclusions are untrustworthy if you’re not in control - including the notion that “Free Will Is An Illusion”…
 
hangnail said:
But God predetermined it from our perspective.
Click to expand...
I think that predetermined is unclear and undefined in relation to our perspective. So predestined would need clarity. In other words what did God predestine for us?

He didn’t predestine that you would sin. But did He know you would sin and despite His extended hand of grace? He predestined all because He created all, we are predestined to conform to the image of His Son, and according to scripture. He creates without consultation and He doesn’t save without submission to cooperation. 😊

Free will is free, but also as indicated, narrow is the path which in effect becomes a funnel of which only one choice in the final analysis will remain. serve or not.

Matthew- Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

You have a choice to “take His yoke” The issues reside in that choice and through free-will. Some find the yoke of the world easier and the Lords heavy, but that is the illusion for that false reality will not find rest for your soul.

Peace
 
hangnail said:
This is why free will is an illusion:
Click to expand...
C?n bán g?p di?n tho?i LG Pro lite Dual D686 còn b?o hÃnh 5 tháng thegioididong.com. D?y d? ph? ki?n, còn m?i 95%. Giá cho em nó ra di là 3tr3 fix nh? cho anh em ? xa. Liên h? : 0967220124 ho?c 0917261445. Lê van vi?t Qu?n 9, TP.HCM.
 
hangnail said:
I believe that determinism and the indeterminism are the only two logical possibilities. If you cannot accept that, then we will have to agree to disagree.
Click to expand...
Agreed, we will have to agree to disagree since you’re unable or unwilling to deal with any of my arguments. perhaps the problem is deeper and needs to be solved first, maybe moral issues that moved you to embrace the absurdity of lack of free-will and a dis-ease of the soul that makes you militant enough to try convince other people of such absurdities. take care.
 
The choice isn’t a long list of multiple flavors. Perhaps a long list of discerning those mulitiple flavors is where the confusion resides.

Matthew- Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Those multiple flavors are better known as the seven deadly sins all which lead directly to hell and we should clearly understand this imho. He said, “prevail” and persevere and He would be with YOU every step of the way. 👍

I believe in God is the repetitive chant of the believer thus his free will choice.
 
hangnail said:
Free will is the belief that we are in control. And I believe that that belief is what sin is. We’re not in control. And we never have been. It’s just an illusion. That’s what free will is. It’s an illusion. (Hence, the title of my thread.)
Click to expand...
How do you reconcile your perspective with Jesus’ words in John 8?
Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”
Click to expand...
Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
Click to expand...
It appears the Jesus (and by implication God) values personal freedom as an end. He appears to be saying the knowing the truth is the means by which a person attains freedom - real freedom.

The other issue I have with your position is that it very much makes the allegory of the wedding feast into a kind of slavish relationship between God and man. If and when man becomes a “slave” to God then God will “marry” mankind. I don’t suppose this is the kind of relationship God wills to have with humanity, just as it is not the kind of relationship God wills a man to have with a woman. Jesus alludes to this very relationship when he refers to the “permanent place in the household.”

I strongly would argue that we take Jesus at his word here. What he means is that he has come to make us whole and that includes personal freedom because sin incapacitates and does not liberate us in any meaningful sense.

Jesus has come to make it possible to share the very life of God - the eternal self-determination of God - with us so that we can relate to God in the same sense that a husband and wife relate to each other. That means transcending the limitations - pride, egotism, self-determining will, vanity, etc., - of a sinful nature by becoming free from those limitations.

It isn’t that sin made us free in Eden. That is the ‘Father of Lies’ version of what happened. Sin places a cap on our freedoms by the very act of sinning. Before Adam and Eve’s sin they enjoyed complete freedom because they fully trusted, knew and lived according to the eternal self-determination of God. By distrusting that relationship, at Satan’s prompting, and looking for something “more” than was possible - more freedom than complete freedom - they bought into a lie and that lie became indistinguishable from the truth because they came to believe it to be true, i.e., “known” as true. Thus, they came to “know” evil - that is believe that knowledge encompasses lies and falsehoods - that falsehood has equal standing with truth and is as believable as truth regarding choices and actions AND believing that viewing it that way is a “freer” state than the truth itself.

Jesus contradicts that lie with the truth that lies and sin do not make anyone free, but rather enslave them because they lose the perspective of “person” from which to properly judge the truth and see it for what it is. The person who sins loses the true perspective and disintegrates as a person because they become what they love - the impersonality of objective existence.

By loving God, the Truth in Christ, we become reintegrated as the truly free person we have been created to be in Christ. By loving God with our whole mind, heart and being, integration into person becomes possible because we are liberated from the false perspectives of egoism, materialism, liberalism, and all the other -isms that falsely claim to make us free, complete and happy, but don’t.
 
Peter_Plato said:
You claim we cannot “extricate” ourselves from the temporal causal network. It would appear that consciousness does do precisely the work of extricating us. We are aware of being in a causal network. If we were simply a part of the network we wouldn’t be aware of that fact but would simply respond as caused with no awareness. Being conscious of the network means we have already transcended it and can look backwards, forwards and at our current position to alter the “network” without being caused, by any necessity, to do so.
Click to expand...
You are embedded in a physical causal (and ultimately divine causal) nexus. That you are aware of this does not remove you from it. It (your awareness) simply validates my point.
Peter_Plato said:
Another poster brought up the idea of teleology. He made a point that you haven’t considered seriously enough. If our choices were merely determined by past or current causal states, consciousness would be redundant. We wouldn’t need it. Consciousness, along with intentionality, means we can conceive of new future possibilities and create the conditions for achieving them. Ergo, our choices are not determined but willed.
Click to expand...
I never denied final causality (teleology). But final causality is simply another determinant factor of our behavior. Everyone is seeking the good. That seeking is a determinant factor. As such, it is compatible with determinism.
Peter_Plato said:
Another angle you haven’t addressed is the possibility that God’s grace (which you characterize as eternal self-determinism) is made available to us. In other words, we may be culpable precisely because God’s eternal self-determinism extends and underwrites our free will. By not taking advantage of that possibility we are culpable for what we have been made capable of by grace and not merely self-will or our own power to effect change. This, I submit, is Augustine’s position in On Grace and Free Will.
Click to expand...
Whether I take advantage of that possibility or not is completely predetermined or ultimately reduces to some element of chance. And I would argue that if I (in my finite wisdom) can clearly see this, then I am fairly confident that God (in his infinite wisdom) can clearly see this too.
 
hangnail said:
I never denied final causality (teleology). But final causality is simply another determinant factor of our behavior. Everyone is seeking the good. That seeking is a determinant factor. As such, it is compatible with determinism.
Click to expand...
Retrospective determinism in action. The outcome was “determined by,” therefore it was “determined.”

Argument by equivocation. Doesn’t hold up.

Of course, you are free to believe you are correct, even though you aren’t (correct, that is.) Which proves that the capacity to reason is not “determinate” in the sense you assume by equivocation precisely because it isn’t causal in nature.

Truth doesn’t “cause” anyone to believe it to be “true.” The choice is yours. You can decide it isn’t (denial) or you can decide to pursue the truth further. Where you cut off pursuit of the truth and “decide” what is or is not completely true is your choice.

I suggest rather that your making a determination that you are right and others are mistaken is, precisely, the choice that you have. By taking that option it may be true that you have “determined” it, but whether you were predetermined to make that your choice is not something that you can simply determine by fiat, no matter how much you insist that it is or must be.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top