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This question of free will only makes sense if you believe in god. If you're an atheist then the question just doesn't make sense. Edit: http://en.wikipedia.or

by gaika 18y ago

This question of free will only makes sense if you believe in god. If you're an atheist then the question just doesn't make sense. Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

river_styx 18y ago
Huh? If anything, the existence of God threatens the concept of free will. It's kinda hard to feel free if there's some omniscient, omnipotent dude who knows and controls everything that will happen ahead of time...
- gaika 18y ago
  Definition of "free will" is the ability to act free of the will of god. What do you mean by "free will"?
  - river_styx 18y ago
    Free will is the capacity of an individual to make his/her own choices and either to act or not act on those decisions. It really has nothing to do with God outside of theology and philosophy of religion.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
    - gaika 18y ago
      By this definition any control system will have a "free will".
      - river_styx 18y ago
        Yes, there are a lot of these kind of issues in and around the concept of free will, which is why there's a whole branch of philosophy dealing with it. But the point is that free will doesn't require God. You can believe in a perfectly deterministic, godless universe (or fluctuating quantum field universe) and also believe in a compatibalist form of free will. UPDATE: A brief summary of compatibalism: http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014SECT1 http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014SECT1
        gaika 18y ago
        "human beings are sharply marked off from dogs by their capacity to act for reasons that they explicitly take to be moral reasons." According to them dogs do not have free will but people do. Probably talking about ethics and moral side of "free will" question, not physical or religious. But even there "free will" is just an illusion in your mind.
    - Herring 18y ago
      And how do you know if the individual is "really" free? As opposed to being controlled the environment or god or some unknown factor? Set up an experiment & you'll be far ahead of all the useless philosophizing.
      - river_styx 18y ago
        And how do you know if the individual is "really" free? This is a philosophical question, and as such, can't really be answered experimentally. At the risk of sounding sophistical and clintonian, it depends on what you mean by "'really' free". You can be controlled by environmental factors and still exercise free will by some definitions of that term.
- ars 18y ago
  Knows? Yes. Controls? Not so much. Able to control? Yes. But free will was specifically placed (by God) outside God's control because otherwise reward and punishment would be a joke. Just because God may know what you will do ahead of time, does not mean God caused you to do it.
jamesbritt 18y ago
> If you're an atheist then the question just doesn't make sense. Sure it does. But feel free to disagree if you like. Or can.
- gaika 18y ago
  Free from whom or what is it then?
  - eggnet 18y ago
    Either God or nature.
    - gaika 18y ago
      Do you consider your mind a part of nature? If so, you're not free from it.
  - thaumaturgy 18y ago
    I'm pretty sure this specific point was addressed directly in the Wikipedia article you linked earlier, under the "In science" section. Within the confines of science, and outside the consideration of religion, philosophy, or faith, free will simply refers to the limits of determinism. i.e., is it possible to have enough information about the initial state of someone's life to perfectly predict all of their actions? At the moment, quantum mechanics says no, and so science says we have free will. However, it's not a black-and-white, on-or-off thing either. Psychology and sociology can both make predictions about a person's life based on specifics of the person's initial state, and as genetics and biological sciences continue to touch borders with psychology, we find more and more that there are physical forces which influence the way people behave. So, to what extent is there free will? If someone is born with the genetic traits for schizophrenia -- pre-determined by their parents, and their parents before them, and so on -- then just how much free will does that person have? The question of determinism has nothing necessarily to do with religion.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]

by gaika 18y ago

river_styx 18y ago

Huh? If anything, the existence of God threatens the concept of free will. It's kinda hard to feel free if there's some omniscient, omnipotent dude who knows and controls everything that will happen ahead of time...

gaika 18y ago
Definition of "free will" is the ability to act free of the will of god. What do you mean by "free will"?
- river_styx 18y ago
  Free will is the capacity of an individual to make his/her own choices and either to act or not act on those decisions. It really has nothing to do with God outside of theology and philosophy of religion.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - gaika 18y ago
    By this definition any control system will have a "free will".
    - river_styx 18y ago
      Yes, there are a lot of these kind of issues in and around the concept of free will, which is why there's a whole branch of philosophy dealing with it. But the point is that free will doesn't require God. You can believe in a perfectly deterministic, godless universe (or fluctuating quantum field universe) and also believe in a compatibalist form of free will. UPDATE: A brief summary of compatibalism: http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014SECT1 http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014SECT1
      - gaika 18y ago
        "human beings are sharply marked off from dogs by their capacity to act for reasons that they explicitly take to be moral reasons." According to them dogs do not have free will but people do. Probably talking about ethics and moral side of "free will" question, not physical or religious. But even there "free will" is just an illusion in your mind.
  - Herring 18y ago
    And how do you know if the individual is "really" free? As opposed to being controlled the environment or god or some unknown factor? Set up an experiment & you'll be far ahead of all the useless philosophizing.
    - river_styx 18y ago
      And how do you know if the individual is "really" free? This is a philosophical question, and as such, can't really be answered experimentally. At the risk of sounding sophistical and clintonian, it depends on what you mean by "'really' free". You can be controlled by environmental factors and still exercise free will by some definitions of that term.
ars 18y ago
Knows? Yes. Controls? Not so much. Able to control? Yes. But free will was specifically placed (by God) outside God's control because otherwise reward and punishment would be a joke. Just because God may know what you will do ahead of time, does not mean God caused you to do it.

jamesbritt 18y ago

> If you're an atheist then the question just doesn't make sense. Sure it does. But feel free to disagree if you like. Or can.

gaika 18y ago
Free from whom or what is it then?
- eggnet 18y ago
  Either God or nature.
  - gaika 18y ago
    Do you consider your mind a part of nature? If so, you're not free from it.
- thaumaturgy 18y ago
  I'm pretty sure this specific point was addressed directly in the Wikipedia article you linked earlier, under the "In science" section. Within the confines of science, and outside the consideration of religion, philosophy, or faith, free will simply refers to the limits of determinism. i.e., is it possible to have enough information about the initial state of someone's life to perfectly predict all of their actions? At the moment, quantum mechanics says no, and so science says we have free will. However, it's not a black-and-white, on-or-off thing either. Psychology and sociology can both make predictions about a person's life based on specifics of the person's initial state, and as genetics and biological sciences continue to touch borders with psychology, we find more and more that there are physical forces which influence the way people behave. So, to what extent is there free will? If someone is born with the genetic traits for schizophrenia -- pre-determined by their parents, and their parents before them, and so on -- then just how much free will does that person have? The question of determinism has nothing necessarily to do with religion.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]