How does an atheist explain decision making?

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

god is omniscient: he knows every true propositions and no false ones. if the proposition “I chose to type k” is true, then he will know it. if not, not.

Ok, but how do YOU know? Can you decide, whether your decisions are free or not or purely random?

I seriously doubt, that free will is “more” than random acts. Any decision we make is based on the situation. We decide reacting to external influences and we use our knowledge and experience, in short what we learned or have been taught in the past. All that flows into a decision. Where is the freedom there?

Real freedom may occur in a creative act, in a brand new idea. But is there a way to tell, whether we have forced that new idea into existence or whether this idea is a random fluctuation in our brains? I don’t think so. And if this new idea is a result of a thought process, then what I’ve written in the paragraph above kicks in.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

jimmy:

That is not what I mean. What I mean is a specific scientific idea. It is the question, how is it possible for us to make a choice between two possibilities if science says that everything is by chance and that there is a scientific reason for everything. According to science how can I choose to hit the “k” on my keyboard instead of the “j”?

The only way I can reconcile science with decision making is the idea that every one of our decisions are determined. This would mean that my typing this post would be predetermined based on the physics of it. All my subsequent decisions could be predictable because they are the result of physical laws.

Maybe this is just a stupid question but it seems to make sense to me.

This a question about determinism, not (primarily) about science: the sciences do not themselves require or lay down any philosophical position: the connections made between the data of science, may do so. The data themselves do not.​

Determinism is as liable to crop up in theology as in the interpretation of scientific data.

There is the further question of the reliability of sense-knowledge and of our ability to perceive things. Immanuel Kant held that we perceive not things, but the epiphenomena of things - the thing as such, remaining for ever beyond our reach; which is not the position of St.Thomas - so a Thomist philosopher would have more confidence in tbe reliability of sense-knowledge than a Kantian. These are not matters of the data of science, but of philosophical positions relevant to the theories of knowledge which might be adopted to interpret scientific data: Kant was no atheist, just as S.Thomas was not.

“Science” - the word itself is an abstraction - only becomes a guide to conduct if interpreted materialistically, AFAICS. As metaphysics is in considerable disfavour - partly because of trends in modern philosophy, which has been much more interested in linguistic analysis and associated questions - materialistic presuppositions have filled the resulting vacuum; there are many reasons for this, of which many have deep roots in the past. I suspect that the weariness that set in during the 17th century after the Thirty Years War may be one reason; but only one.

Even if determinism be true, it also remains true that choices of letters while typing are limited by two things among others: the words we use are limited by our messages, & each word can be spelt in only so many ways; at least in English, “Qeedd12 fdeoaq ulmoon85” could never mean “Good morning” ##

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

Ok, but how do YOU know? Can you decide, whether your decisions are free or not or purely random?

you know because you’re the one making the choice.

choices are typically made as the culmination of a deliberative process - it’s not like they just “occur”. they’re something we do.

 

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

you know because you’re the one making the choice.

If the world was predetermined, you can’t know that. Your choice would be predetermined, as well as your illusion, that the choice was your own.

choices are typically made as the culmination of a deliberative process - it’s not like they just “occur”. they’re something we do.

Right, exactly my talking. Thus a choice is seldom free. They are based on a given state of parameters and the above said process. A choice, that is completely free of all influences, cannot be distuingished from a random choice. Even not by yourself. How would you explain a decision, if there was no thought process to reach it? You could as well throw dice.

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

If the world was predetermined, you can’t know that. Your choice would be predetermined, as well as your illusion, that the choice was your own.

well, sure. and we could all be brains in vats in the laboratory of some alien cognitive scientist. or i could be dreaming. or we could all be stuck in the matrix.

the possibility of each of these things has got nothing to do with their (im)plausibility.

AnAtheist:

Right, exactly my talking. Thus a choice is seldom free. They are based on a given state of parameters and the above said process. A choice, that is completely free of all influences, cannot be distuingished from a random choice.

sure it can: one would be random, and one wouldn’t. one would be something that happened to you, and the other would be something you did.

free choices are an irreducible ontological category - you are seeking to understand them in terms of some other class of things, to reduce them to something prior and more primitive. and that’s a mistake.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

AnAtheist:

There is no way to try to exactly predict the future without altering it.

This is a good point! I have wondered, though, whether the uncertainty principle was based on concession to current information.

To see a psychological equivalent, one needs go no further than to observe, “when the cat’s away the mice do play.” If the universe sees you observing it, its behavior changes.

Secondly, an act of Free Will must not be caused by the present state of the universe. If there is a causality between the state of the universe and a decision, that decision will be (theoretically) predictable. You need uncaused events to allow for free decisions. Quantum physics suggests, that uncaused event do occur. That is of course only an interpretation (the so called Copenhagen Interpretation), there are people who believe in hidden parameters causing those effects. But if the latter is the case - no Free Will.

I’m not sure what you mean by “uncaused events.” My modern physics is a little rusty.

Regarding Free Will, though, I ask whether Free Will is actually a relativistic phenomenon. Shoppers are all the time making “free will” choices that are statistically, if not individually, predictable. The state of the universe has, however, conspired to influence those shoppers in whatever way it has. I guess this brings up the mechanics of free will. If you are hypnotized either explicitly or by living under a cloud of false beliefs (like living in the Matrix for example) and make a free will decision, then whose will was it?

I think that by Free Will, I mean there is nothing to prevent me from making a particular decision (although of course paybacks are always invited thereby) as opposed to the fact that my choice was entirely random.

Randomness is very misunderstood, as you know. If I asked a human being to pick 10 numbers from 1 to 100, the person would not give me the same number five times whereas if it was truly random, that could and given enough chances, almost certainly would, happen. People tend to confuse “random” with “diverse.”

Interesting. I see it exactly the opposite way. As science is now, Free Will is possible, but only if no omnipresent god exists.

I don’t see Free Will in the face of an omnipresent god as a contradiction, and I am interested in hearing you detail that. To me, my children have the free will given by “God” or the universe of whatever, to disobey me right to my face. I have the free will to smack them for it. That influences free will in a way, but in another way destroys it.

For a decision to be truly “free” it has to be free of any perceptible ramifications. If one chooses a path because it is better than the other, it is not so much a free will choice, but a calculated result.

If one bears an image (idolatrous I might add) of God that He does this or says that or wants us to do this specific action, then we become slaves to a force we do not understand. We are His garden; you don’t “make” a flower bloom; you put manure around it and water it and it does it from “free will” in a way.

Sometimes I think “free will” is simply a psychological construct.

Alan

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Another thing that pollutes the minds of humanity is behavior modification. This robs people of free will in place of performance anxiety.

We intentionally train children as if they were lab rats; fully believing that we can punish and reward them all the way to salvation, I guess.

They become robots and lose their free will, but then when certain select choices are made available they have the illusion they really do have free will, when this freedom is narrowly restricted.

I’m curious to know how many children actually consent to Confirmation of their “free will” against known expectations.

The only truly “free will” I see is that which, when exercised, does not cause a discernable “judgeable” response from the rest of the universe. Anything else is “freedom under influence” of training and environment.

This could be one of the most dangerous components, especially as you look at the way politics if progressing. Over time, people gradually give up their free will to the government under the guise of protection, but with stipulations that disguise a small reward as pseudo-winning.

Practically every sells some of their free will for comfort/affection, security/esteem, and power/control, the three areas of the false self. One cannot truly be free until one loses that – and this is what Jesus really came to tell us is how to attain that freedom – not as some think to simply up the pressure for obeying the laws in a more rigid way. We wouldn’t have needed a Christ to do that.

Alan

 

[Kristina_P]

jimmy:

How do atheists reconcile that a decision can be made? If there is no god and everything is just chance, how do I decide between two or more possibilities? SPhysics says that the motion of an object will remain unchanged unless acted on by an outside force(3rd law of Newton?). If you have a poolball rolling on a frictionless table in a vacuum it will role with constant speed forever. Now, if I have a decision between two things, how do I affect the outcome of that decision considering this? It seems like it would be kind of circular that I cause the decision because it also seems that it is the change that causes the decision. Considering the example of the ball above, how can the ball change its direction without some outside force? Are all our decisions determined and predictable?

Using your argument, there’s really no reason a theist would be able to explain this any better.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

jimmy:

How do atheists reconcile that a decision can be made? If there is no god and everything is just chance, how do I decide between two or more possibilities? SPhysics says that the motion of an object will remain unchanged unless acted on by an outside force(3rd law of Newton?). If you have a poolball rolling on a frictionless table in a vacuum it will role with constant speed forever. Now, if I have a decision between two things, how do I affect the outcome of that decision considering this? It seems like it would be kind of circular that I cause the decision because it also seems that it is the change that causes the decision. Considering the example of the ball above, how can the ball change its direction without some outside force? Are all our decisions determined and predictable?

It almost sounds like you’re hinting at the thinking (probably more eastern than western) that no organism can survive – or even be defined for that matter – without also defining the environment.

We have a sense that is drilled into them that we are unique creatures, and by being “held responsible” for exercising a certain ability to affect our surroundings, we take on and maintain the illusion that our decisions are uncaused causes in themselves. This would imply that free will means a decision is made without any regard to the environment.

This is patently absurd on the surface, because we know that free will is actually the ability for a person to exercise a choice among more than one – and determine for oneself (and not the “feeling” of outside pressure) that choice A is the one to take. It may or may not have moral or physical ramifications that are commensurate with any others’ view on why – and certainly in most cases with the choice of decisions itself.

For example I used to like to take physics classes from the teachers that certain other people hated, specifically because I had a different interpretation and desire for my surrounding than they. When they hated a teacher, it was a pretty good indicator for me because such teachers were usually more interested in the concepts than in the details – my favorite kind of teacher. In these classes, I could usually skip a few classes and homework and still ace the tests (or get the highest grade in the class of 45% on one physics test – these teachers are notorious for writing tests kids can’t finish because they are so up there they have no idea – thank God for curves). Anyway, same facts, different decision. Others were very diligent compared to me, but notoriously unable to grasp concepts in deference to procedures. This is how a sluggard like me can get a master’s degree in electrical engineering on the least effort possible, although on paper it looked great because the courses I took (based on topic interest) were well in excess of the difficulty levels required to please the bean counters.

Alan

 

[AlanFromWichita]

jimmy:

Considering the example of the ball above, how can the ball change its direction without some outside force? Are all our decisions determined and predictable?

I am 100% confident that I could set up a physical experiment which would effect just this given the parameters you have chosen to hold under control. Not only that, but everyday examples abound.

The problem is in expanding your physics to include the unknown and unseen as well as the seen. The outside forces cannot be stopped, but they can be canceled.

For example, you never specified that the table was level. An evil lab assistant could thwart your theory while ostensibly following your instructions by simply building the table with a slight incline. (hint: devil is in the details) This way the trajectory in either space or time (or some combination) becomes parabolic, which is unexplained to somebody who doesn’t understand that we have not rid ourselves of an outside force gravity but simply canceled it out with an opposing force of the table pushing up.

Therefore, unless this experiment is conducted in space, the path requires a balance of seen (table) and an unseen (gravity) forces to simulate lack of force.

In another example where gravity is disregarded, once in a failure analysis class I found out that a satellite had failed due to the failure of a particular hermetic chip. There was a tiny impurity and it “just happened” to lodge itself in the only place in the chip where it would short out the power. This chip was probably the size of a dime, perhaps, and the impurity could be seen only with an electron microscope. Invisible failure, yet enough for the chip to “decide” to quit working and incur lots of monetary expense.

However, that isn’t even the point yet. The point was, most people would find it “bad luck” or “bad karma” or whatever the impurity found its way there. That is, unless one has some familiarity with the concept of scaling. To a physicist, the impurity has virtually zero chance of winding up anywhere else except across the power terminals, thus if there is a flaw it will find its way to the power source and disable the chip.

Given the hint that it’s a scaling issue, can anybody else explain how the physicist was able to predict this random event with enough certainty to stake her career on it?

Alan

 

[jimmy]

For example, you never specified that the table was level. An evil lab assistant could thwart your theory while ostensibly following your instructions by simply building the table with a slight incline.

I kept it simple for reasons like this. It is introducing other outside forces. It is the force of gravity that causes the ball to change direction.

Using your argument, there’s really no reason a theist would be able to explain this any better.

The atheist view is that everything holds because there are laws that say they will follow certain paths. Christianity says everything holds because God said so. God created man as an individual, therefore I feel myself as beiing myself and I can choose to do what I want.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

In the first place, free will comes from the spiritual realm, not the material. And so the laws of nature have no governance over free will. The confusion in much of the discussion above is to treat free will as a purely natural phenomenon. Are we supposed to think that the decisions we make are on the same order as the impulses experienced by other creatures … with no sense of right and wrong attached, or guilt or remorse?

In the second place, our free will can only be proven in the spiritual realm, not by the feeling that we are free (some feelings can be delusional) but from the assurance of our Creator that we **are **free. We have that assurance even in Genesis at the creation of Adam and Eve when God stresses that the fate of Adam and Eve is in their own hands depending on whether they choose to obey or disobey. Likewise, Cain is challenged by God to put his murderous thoughts behind him because it is in his power to choose right over wrong. The natural law, planted in the breast of every human, constantly whispers “This is right” or “This is wrong.” One way or another we carry the Commandments within us at all times because without them free will would be impossible.

And everywhere else in the OT and NT God treats sin as something we are to be punished for. Why should we be punished if God has predetermined everything we are and do? Even Satan was free to choose or disobey. And it is no accident that Satan is always present to whisper in our ears, "Do this thing, and don’t worry about guilt or remorse because, since there is no god, there is no ultimate price to pay either in this world or in the next. And if someone should catch you in the act, you can always cop a plea: ‘The Devil made me do it,’ or “My genes made me do it,’ or ‘I’m a victim of bad upbringing.’”