This off topic and it is not related to OP but I give it a try. Option is what is available outside for choosing, Our act of choosing depends on the person we are at the spot, when we make a decision. The act of decision is based on what we want the most which this is related to the person we are. We have no freedom to change our personalities which means we are slave of what we want hence freedom is an illusion.I just disagree with Bahman’s understanding of free will. People will always choose the option they feel is best. That doesn’t make me a slave, it makes me free. The fact that I am always able to choose the option that I reason to be best is actually a ringing endorsement that my will is free and not imposed upon by the outside. In fact, should I find that anyone chooses what he does not think is best, I’d have to suspect that his free will has been compromised.
There are two things involved whenever we make a decision: Options and our personality which we have not control on any of them hence we are slave.You understand, Bahman, we Catholics are convinced of freedom, free-will. It is revealed to us that, “In order for you to use freedom, Christ has set you free!. Therefore, stand fast; and never submit again to a yoke of bondage!”
This is a revelation of freedom, and something we actually experience, this freedom - we find ourselves doing things virtuously, intentionally (meaning freely chosen to do them virtuously).
So we walk about with the assertion that we are free men and women, not slaves to always follow our passions triggered by things in the environment, by likes and dislikes, but instead we choose to love our neighbor rather than in bondage having any kindnesses being matters of liking or not liking our neighbor.
We are free, and know it; we are entertaining this discussion to lure you into desiring freedom also.
That is why I choose “want” instead of “need”. You need food and you may choose or want to starve because of a reason for example to show that you have free will. But the very fact that you want to starve is based on a reason means that you are not free.Not true. I need food, but I can choose to starve myself. This need, like many others, does not compel my will.
I am sure that you have experienced moments that you are not sure about what option to choose for period of time. I had such of experience.Because it is extremely difficult to discern equality in such matters.
You need a reason to do hunger strike hence you are a functional being therefore you are not free.Right, if you go on a hunger strike you will not be a functional being. You’ll be a non-functioning being by your own choice… free will, I mean.
“You need a reason to do hunger strike …” (Bahman)You need a reason to do hunger strike hence you are a functional being therefore you are not free.
I am afraid that we use different meaning for function. By function I mean that for a set of (name removed by moderator)uts/options and outputs/our choices, there exist a map which define a one to one correspondence between (name removed by moderator)uts and outputs. Are we functional being given the above definition.“You need a reason to do hunger strike …” (Bahman)
Who is saying this?, “I need a reason before I will do a hunger strike.”
The WILL is what moves our bodies. The Will is what must DO a hunger strike if it is done at all.
So, it is the Will that requires a reason before it will do anything.
Where the reason comes from is not from objects A or B. The Reason, the Intellect, are forced by the dictator WILL to come up with some Good Reason that the Will gives approval to before it will move the body to do anything.
The Will is the mover of any movement of the body and soul: The body will not move unless the will moves it. The intellect will not provide understanding and reason unless the will requires it. The will sets its requirements that it requires something good as its goal before it will move the person. Only a free thing can set requirements on obedient subjects.
The will is “functional” in that it was created to function as a ruler of the person’s activity. And, so it rules, fulfills its function necessarily. And its function is to be free to be.
It’s directly related to the topic. The determinism you see as slavery I see as a resounding triumph.This off topic and it is not related to OP but I give it a try. Option is what is available outside for choosing, Our act of choosing depends on the person we are at the spot, when we make a decision. The act of decision is based on what we want the most which this is related to the person we are. We have no freedom to change our personalities which means we are slave of what we want hence freedom is an illusion.
Why are you using such a restrictive definition when describing human behavior? What is the transfer function describing why a rape happens.By function I mean that for a set of (name removed by moderator)uts and output there exist a map which define a one to one correspondence between (name removed by moderator)uts and outputs.
So you agree that we are slave?It’s directly related to the topic. The determinism you see as slavery I see as a resounding triumph.
To say that not being able to change our personality and thus do not have free will is absurd. Each of us is an individual, formed and shaped by our experiences and nature. To just be able to choose to change my personality is to change me. If I affect such a change, then the person after that change is no longer me. Oh, it has the same flesh and bones, but it’s a completely different person at heart. The former person ceases to exist! And I’d say that the resulting person would be just as much as a “slave” as the first. This new personality had no choice in coming into existence. In fact, he might detest the personality he is! Who that new person is was decided by a now non-existent personality. Changing who we are at essence is by no means an escape from determinism.
There is a problem hidden here: God need a design for creation and design means that system perform any act functionally which this means that we are not free.I, for one, see no logical contradiction in God creating the universe as a whole: past, present, and future, down to the smallest detail, and doing so in such a way that all the rational beings within acted of their own will; each ultimately responsible his or her own individual and communal actions.
This is just a claim and not an argument.And that’s the disagreement. You can’t reconcile that and declare the world in slavery. Your conception of what it means to have free will is different. I look at it, and see the world as free. It’s a world where I am free to be me, to be an individual, to react on my own to my individual experience in a way that no other being has. A world in which I have responsibility and culpability.
Because God need a design in order to create and design mean that the system should be functional.Why are you using such a restrictive definition when describing human behavior? What is the transfer function describing why a rape happens.
There are two sorts of choices. Ones that you make yourself because you wanted to and those that are forced upon you. I think it’s fair to say that in the second case you are not making a free will desion.I feel free, very free and happy, I do not at all feel like a puppet or slave.
nYou need a reason to do hunger strike hence you are a functional being therefore you are not free.
Sounds plausible, except that the exact duplication of the decision circumstances cannot ever be duplicated, due to the fact of human intellect understanding through sensitive apprehension and reason. You would need to go back in time to re-enact the situation. Yet the soul, with intellect and will, is outside of time and only actualizes its being materially in time, since material reality cannot be moved outside of time. The soul knows “I am”, but the material thought (brain) knows, “I was, I will be” The moment of “NOW” is not knowable to the brain, except in reflection that it has to exist yet never be p(name removed by moderator)ointed in experience.…
Having said that, if you were to replicate the EXACT situation with the exact circumstances, then I find it impossible to believe that you wouldn’t make the EXACT same decision. Why wouldn’t that be the case?
For exactly the same situations you will always make the same choice. It then seems meaningless to say that you have free will if you always would do exactly the same thing. You still feel free. You still feel satisfied with your choices. But in what sense are they free?
I think we need to agree on the meaning of functional. How do you define it? I already defined it in several posts. Please see post #66.n
My thought is that because I’m functional–I am free…If I were not functional as God made me… I might be a robot. But He didn’t make me a robot… I’m free to do as I please.
Free will is simply the ability to choose one option among several options in a situation.What exactly is “free will”?
That is the definition of an un-determined will (able to do many different things)Free will is simply the ability to choose one option among several options in a situation.
And you have the ‘freedom’ to believe that and I have the ‘freedom’ to disagree with you. God Bless, MemawThis off topic and it is not related to OP but I give it a try. Option is what is available outside for choosing, Our act of choosing depends on the person we are at the spot, when we make a decision. The act of decision is based on what we want the most which this is related to the person we are. We have no freedom to change our personalities which means we are slave of what we want hence freedom is an illusion.
Yea, if you did go back in time and retained memories of the choices you originally made, then you would have the opportunity to change them. You would know if the choices had been good ones or not.Sounds plausible, except that the exact duplication of the decision circumstances cannot ever be duplicated, due to the fact of human intellect understanding through sensitive apprehension and reason. You would need to go back in time to re-enact the situation. Yet the soul, with intellect and will, is outside of time and only actualizes its being materially in time, since material reality cannot be moved outside of time. The soul knows “I am”, but the material thought (brain) knows, “I was, I will be” The moment of “NOW” is not knowable to the brain, except in reflection that it has to exist yet never be p(name removed by moderator)ointed in experience.