Why is freedom a necessary attribute of a personal being?

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blase6 said:
Why can’t God create a being which is as intelligent as us, and can know him, but doesn’t have freedom? Why can’t a person exist in a way where they are bound to accept God? Wouldn’t that be better than having the chaos of random choice?
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Why even allow a thing to have intellect. Why not just manufacture all of its thoughts too?
There is a kind of dignity or good involved in not being forced into a relationship. I think that is pretty self evident, or at least it would be a shame if you thought that slavery was better.
In the end, no matter how I act, it always feels like it was bound to happen. A personal choice can be reduced to an amalgamation of predetermined personal disposition to act a certain way, and of external stimuli. Saying that a choice is indeterministic does not make it feel any more free. It just feels like in the end, my choice was just random, and didn’t really “involve” me, if that makes sense.
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Well you look at the chocolate and you thought it would be nice to eat it. But you also know that you do not have to eat it and can choose to do otherwise, perhaps for reasons of health. Would we even have a concept of choice if we did not know that we could choose or that we were choosing according to our own self-determined goals or values?

We choose according to what we think is good for us. If we had no freedom at all, we would act to a given end regardless of what we think.

I cannot help but think that i do have to some degree self-determinism even if i am influenced by things.
 
ChainBreaker said:
Why even allow a thing to have intellect. Why not just manufacture all of its thoughts too?
There is a kind of dignity or good involved in not being forced into a relationship. I think that is pretty self evident, or at least it would be a shame if you thought that slavery was better.

Well you look at the chocolate and you thought it would be nice to eat it. But you also know that you do not have to eat it and can choose to do otherwise, perhaps for reasons of health. Would we even have a concept of choice if we did not know that we could choose or that we were choosing according to our own self-determined goals or values?

We choose according to what we think is good for us.** If we had no freedom at all, we would act to a given end regardless of what we think. **

I cannot help but think that i do have to some degree self-determinism even if i am influenced by things.
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It is a standard believe among theologians that all creatures pursue what appears good to them. So of course you will act according to what you think is good; you can’t act otherwise. It comes down to where your thoughts and reasoning come from, and I don’t have a convincing sense of it originating ultimately in myself.
 
blase6 said:
It comes down to where your thoughts and reasoning come from, and I don’t have a convincing sense of it originating ultimately in myself.
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How would you discover that? How is it possible to discover that your thoughts and reasoning are not originating from yourself if you have no freedom or power to reason and think? It doesn’t make sense. Surely you would have to be free in some sense in-order to have a concept of being controlled?
 
ChainBreaker said:
How would you discover that? How is it possible to discover that your thoughts and reasoning are not originating from yourself if you have no freedom or power to reason and think? It doesn’t make sense. Surely you would have to be free in some sense in-order to have a concept of being controlled?
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Options just appear to us either externally depending situation or internally through subconsciousness. That is duty of subconsciousness to deliver thoughts, reason, desires, need, etc, to consciouses when a situation is marginal and subconsciousness cannot do its job well, hence it is duty of consciousness to resolve the situation.
 
ChainBreaker said:
How would you discover that? How is it possible to discover that your thoughts and reasoning are not originating from yourself if you have no freedom or power to reason and think? It doesn’t make sense. Surely you would have to be free in some sense in-order to have a concept of being controlled?
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Simply, because I may be able to reason and think without freedom. Why is that not theoretically possible for you?
 
blase6 said:
Simply, because I may be able to reason and think without freedom. Why is that not theoretically possible for you?
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If all your thoughts or reasonings are determined by something other than you, then “you” are not reasoning anything. So how could you reason that “you” are not free? How can “you” distinguish between truth and false-hood? There is a contradiction involved there.
 
ChainBreaker said:
If all your thoughts or reasonings are determined by something other than you, then “you” are not reasoning anything. So how could you reason that “you” are not free? How can “you” distinguish between truth and false-hood? There is a contradiction involved there.
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Even if reasoning is a deterministic event, I am still performing it. Depending on if I was designed to distinguish truth from falsehood or not, I could come to sound conclusions. I am predisposed to have heavy bias towards believing my own rational conclusions and perceptions, as opposed to distant external information. So unless you can show me convincingly how I am incorrect, I will likely disregard you.
 
blase6 said:
Even if reasoning is a deterministic event, I am still performing it. Depending on if I was designed to distinguish truth from falsehood or not, I could come to sound conclusions. I am predisposed to have heavy bias towards believing my own rational conclusions and perceptions, as opposed to distant external information. So unless you can show me convincingly how I am incorrect, I will likely disregard you.
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If the reasoning process is not determined by you, then you are not reasoning. If you was a calculator, you might produce the right answer but that does not mean that you would know that it is the right answer because a calculator is not truly reasoning anything except in an analogous respect. A calculator does not know truth from falsehood. In order to truly know that it is the right answer you have to be in control of and be involved in the reasoning process that leads to the correct answer in order to understand why it is correct. This requires you to have your own power of reason and thought. It cannot be determined by something outside of you.

So if you do not have the freedom to reason and all your thoughts are being determined, then how is it possible for you to know that you do not have freewill? How did you get a concept of freewill in the first place?
 
ChainBreaker said:
If the reasoning process is not determined by you, then you are not reasoning. If you was a calculator, you might produce the right answer but that does not mean that you would know that it is the right answer because a calculator is not truly reasoning anything except in an analogous respect. A calculator does not know truth from falsehood. In order to truly know that it is the right answer you have to be in control of and be involved in the reasoning process that leads to the correct answer in order to understand why it is correct. This requires you to have your own power of reason and thought. It cannot be determined by something outside of you.

So if you do not have the freedom to reason and all your thoughts are being determined, then how is it possible for you to know that you do not have freewill? How did you get a concept of freewill in the first place?
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Reasoning is the process by which we examine information to see if it is correct, or to determine how to act. Why can’t this be a sort of spiritual calculator? Can’t a spiritual creature receive knowledge and thoughts and reasoning, and then act on it deterministically, in the same way purely physical creatures do?
 
blase6 said:
Reasoning is the process by which we examine information to see if it is correct, or to determine how to act. Why can’t this be a sort of spiritual calculator? Can’t a spiritual creature receive knowledge and thoughts and reasoning, and then act on it deterministically, in the same way purely physical creatures do?
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We examine things in order to understand them and that requires our own power of reason. Otherwise examining something is meaningless. What do you mean?
 
ChainBreaker said:
We examine things in order to understand them and that requires our own power of reason. Otherwise examining something is meaningless. What do you mean?
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To understand something is to just have a good sense of how it exists. And even though it involves reason, I haven’t been shown yet how reason requires freedom.
 
blase6 said:
To understand something is to just have a good sense of how it exists. And even though it involves reason, I haven’t been shown yet how reason requires freedom.
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If you are not free to reason, how will you understand how reason requires freedom?
 
ChainBreaker said:
If you are not free to reason, how will you understand how reason requires freedom?
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Because I may be able to reason, out of instinct or prior disposition. Like I said, I haven’t seen how reason requires freedom yet.
 
blase6 said:
Because I may be able to reason, out of instinct or prior disposition. Like I said, I haven’t seen how reason requires freedom yet.
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What does it mean to reason out of instinct or prior disposition?
 
ChainBreaker said:
What does it mean to reason out of instinct or prior disposition?
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Assume you are in a situation where you have to choose between X and Y. Thus your mind naturally considers all the pros and cons of X and Y, and comes to a conclusion of whether X is better or Y is better. This can be as simple as a “logarithmic” function. I don’t see why this has to involve freedom.
 
blase6 said:
Assume you are in a situation where you have to choose between X and Y. Thus your mind naturally considers all the pros and cons of X and Y, and comes to a conclusion of whether X is better or Y is better. This can be as simple as a “logarithmic” function. I don’t see why this has to involve freedom.
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Where is the person represented in this function?
 
blase6 said:
The person is the agent which carries out the function.
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My question still stands. The terms of the function need to include the person because it is the person who is affected by the function. They are not uninvolved bystanders.
 
davidv said:
My question still stands. The terms of the function need to include the person because it is the person who is affected by the function. They are not uninvolved bystanders.
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Yes, the person performs and is affected by the function of reasoning. I don’t see how freedom comes in as a factor.
 
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