If Everything is Just a Physical Process then what space is there for freewill?

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If Everything is Just a Physical Process then what space is there for freewill?
 
Less than we imagine.

Perfect freedom is a mirage. The will is as conditioned as any Other part of our being.

ICXC NIKA
 
Our bodies are made of earth, water, and air. We are powered (indirectly) by sunlight. And yet we live, move, will, and love. Give thanks and praise to God, who created a universe where such things are possible.
 
IWantGod said:
If Everything is Just a Physical Process then what space is there for freewill?
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This question presumes that the physical world is all there is, which is not true. In fact, it is the heresy of materialism. We are made of both physical and spiritual matter, body and soul. It is our souls that are imprinted with God’s natural law, which we can choose to obey or not. That is essentially free will.
 
IWantGod said:
If Everything is Just a Physical Process then …
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It’s not clear what the hypothesis means. Consider the following two different activities:
  1. A chicken playing tic-tac-toe after the chicken has been trained using operant conditioning. The chicken is presented with a situation and rewarded for responses close to the desired response, but the chicken hasn’t been told either the rules of the game or the goal of the chicken as player.
  2. A person playing tic-tac-toe after the person has been told the rules of the game and while the person is pursuing a goal.
Notice that even the idea “has been told the rules of the game” goes beyond a fixed, physical process. If you are fluent in Korean and English, then spoken words in Korean could tell you the rules of the game, but the same spoken language won’t tell you the rules if you cannot understand Korean.
 
Things can be physical and psychological processes at the same time. If I ask, “Why did Kasparov move his knight in that way?” two answers are equally accurate:

(1) Because he thought it gave him a strategic advantage, and

(2) Because his neuron fired in such a way as to make his hand move.
 
IWantGod said:
If Everything is Just a Physical Process then what space is there for freewill?
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But the will is a power of the soul, …
Who has asserted that “everything” is a physical process.

The “space” where free will has its effect (as a power) and moves physical or material potential to act is the body, which is physical (including the brain, also a moved material, moved by a power that is not material).
 
Prodigal_Son said:
Things can be physical and psychological processes at the same time. If I ask, “Why did Kasparov move his knight in that way?” two answers are equally accurate:

(1) Because he thought it gave him a strategic advantage, and

(2) Because his neuron fired in such a way as to make his hand move.
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That’s a helpful observation. It’s interesting that (2) is basically meaningless. Which neuron fired, and why did it fire? Without more information, we don’t have an explanation, but instead have a bit of terminology (“neuron”) that was invented in an effort to describe the functioning of brains.

It’s interesting that you didn’t say for (1) that Kasparov thought the move was permitted by the rules. However, surely that’s a prerequisite.

As soon as we make reference to rules of the game, we are talking about something that is conceptual rather than physical. In fact, the same is true if we are talking about physical reality rather than board games: physical laws are conceptual rather than physical. One cannot study a physical law the way that one studies a pendulum.

The beginning of your message identified the key issue:
“physical and psychological processes at the same time.”

There is a problem at the beginning of this thread: the word “just.” What is excluded? Are diamond rings just jewelry? Diamond is an extremely hard substance, and gold is soft. So we can say something about diamond rings that goes beyond mere jewelry. However, it becomes unclear how it is possible for something to be “nothing but jewelry”, and unclear what it means to say that something is “just jewelry.”

Ten isn’t just an even number, because eight and twelve are also even numbers, and they’re different from ten.

The problem is the word “just” excluding something that isn’t specified.
 
PseuTonym said:
TU]

Ten isn’t just an even number, because eight and twelve are also even numbers, and they’re different from ten.

The beginning of your
The problem is the word “just” excluding something that isn’t specified.
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Well its quite simple. Should i use layman terms?

If - only - physical - things - exist, - how - is - freewill - possible?
 
IWantGod said:
Well its quite simple. Should i use layman terms?

If - only - physical - things - exist, - how - is - freewill - possible?
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WILL is not a physical thing. Therefore, if only physical things exist, then will does not exist. Hence it cannot be free.

But it’s awfully difficult to establish that only physical things exist.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
WILL is not a physical thing. Therefore, if only physical things exist, then will does not exist. Hence it cannot be free.

But it’s awfully difficult to establish that only physical things exist.
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Well, an atheist would say that physical reality is all that we know and therefore there is no reason to think there is anything else, and so the burden of proof is on the guy or gal who claims there is something more. They may also include the annoying mantra that if science can’t explain it then we must remain agnostic until science does explain it; just to cover their backsides.
 
IWantGod said:
Well its quite simple. Should i use layman terms?

If - only - physical - things - exist, - how - is - freewill - possible?
Click to expand...
The regularity of nature indicates the existence of laws of physics, but it’s no more clear how a law could be an electron or oxygen molecule or other physical object than it is clear how an idea could eat carrots.
 
IWantGod said:
Well, an atheist would say that physical reality is all that we know and therefore there is no reason to think there is anything else, and so the burden of proof is on the guy or gal who claims there is something more. They may also include the annoying mantra that if science can’t explain it then we must remain agnostic until science does explain it; just to cover their backsides.
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Numbers are used to explain nature, not vice versa. Nobody studies neuro-science first and then later learns elementary arithmetic by studying the patterns in the brains of people who are thinking about arithmetic.

Are there finitely many numbers? If there are, then what is the largest positive integer? If there aren’t finitely many numbers, then either the physical universe is infinite or there are things beyond the physical universe.
 
IWantGod said:
Well, an atheist would say that physical reality is all that we know and therefore there is no reason to think there is anything else, and so the burden of proof is on the guy or gal who claims there is something more. They may also include the annoying mantra that if science can’t explain it then we must remain agnostic until science does explain it; just to cover their backsides.
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The burden of proof **is **on us. And we have good arguments against materialism.
 
What kind of thing is a causal connection between two events? Is it like a kind of physical glue that used to be liquid and is now a solid that holds together two pieces of plastic?

Does the past exist now, and is the past also a physical object or a physical process? What is pain?
 
PseuTonym said:
What kind of thing is a causal connection between two events? Is it like a kind of physical glue that used to be liquid and is now a solid that holds together two pieces of plastic?

Does the past exist now, and is the past also a physical object or a physical process? What is pain?
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The last part is easy.

Pain is the sensation that is triggered when certain nerve endings in our bodies are energized and activate a response in the sensory cortex of the brain. The sensation is aversive, informing the conscious mind that a limb needs to be moved, e.g. off hot pavement; or that the body requires rest or maintenance.

At times, psychological events can trigger comparable brain phenomena, which is allegorized as “pain” even though body nerves are not involved.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
The last part is easy.

Pain is the sensation that is triggered when certain nerve endings in our bodies are energized and activate a response in the sensory cortex of the brain. [etc.]
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Before we go too heavily into the physiological details, the question is what do you rely upon. Do you get curious in an abstract way and request an investigation of the sensory cortex of your brain to find out whether or not you are in pain? Do you begin with the raw data that other people obtained by studying your brain, perform mathematical computations, and conclude that you are in pain, and then later discover errors in your computations and conclude that you had never been in pain?

We can think about some hypothetical scenario involving pain, but any actual pain is personal. There is a conscious being who is experiencing the pain, and it is consciousness – not the body – that experiences the pain.

If the physical body and other physical things are all that exists, then what room is there for pain or any other sensation?
 
IWantGod said:
Well its quite simple. Should i use layman terms?

If - only - physical - things - exist, - how - is - freewill - possible?
Click to expand...
Consider two books, both consisting of ink on paper. One consists of a random sequence of letters of the alphabet and punctuation marks, and the other book contains a message.

If there exists a message in one of the physical books, and if everything that exists is a physical thing, then the message would have to be a physical thing. However, is an idea a physical thing?

Without ideas, all you can recognize is that the two physical books are different. Without ideas, you cannot recognize that one of the books expresses ideas.
 
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