Is free will a sign of love?

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Why are you aghast that religious people believe impossible things? Their structure from top to bottom is impossible. That's the meaning of faith.

Can you read? It should be clear from my posts and others that at least some theists seriously think about this. You would be surprised how much has ben said and written. Every possible paradox - and Christianity like other religions is full of them - has been worked over by generations of active minds.

On this subject - does anyone know if Physics has sorted out a why for the alleged matter / antimatter imbalance?

This train of conversation is exactly what I'm getting at. Sand started the ball rolling by mentioning that every decision has a precursor, based on our intellect, we make the best decision and if we do decide to do something intensely arbitrary to that its likely either a lymbic/neocortal clash where our self-interest ultimately tips in favor of the lymbic or its a situation where we're in a philosophical struggle, or stuck in a loop, and have a need to attack reality to change something, anything. All of the above choices are essentially logical, all come from some very complex math, and we have to remember - they're logical more often from the foundation of millions of years of evolution, the lymbic system, and the types of things that our lymbic systems do to us internally or the way they try to beat on us or excite us over one thing or another. The difference between needing to be a free man/woman for instance vs. being a slave and absolutely loving it really just comes down to internal pivots, pleasure and pain and how they internally interact. Most of that is genetic, that combined with external interactions, math from that, and then a history which gives you the best understanding of outcome.

The most important point to make though - there is no thought, idea, or notion, that absolutely comes from nowhere. At the most random its still dopamine, seratonin, nor-epinephrine, melatonin, GABA, and a barrage of other chemicals interacting with receptors. Something odd could happen that seems novel when really you either ate something strange or perhaps some type of transport chemical ran out temporarily and your brain chemistry took a hard jog for a moment in one direction or another.

What I have argued as well - every chain of events following a set of rules is followed by another set of events, unattached but with a set pace in time, to where there's no real difference over distance either. If you live in the US and you get a wrong phone number call from Malaysia at 3:44 PM, that's just as predestined as any decision you were to make, just like deciding to go to the store, get a lotto ticket, and winning mega millions.

On responsibility though, again, I'm with Scratchmonkey. We have no free will, then again that also means that certain rules have to be made - say jailing killers or having a society against pedophilia, and sometimes even have rules that just seem cruel on this basis, for no other reason that while one thing or another isn't a particular person's fault, we can't avoid dishing the consequences or having certain rules in place in society because, once you drop these rules, like clockwork, problems get worse. With that in mind its a game of dealing with aberrances in the human condition and trying to come up with the set of rules that the most humane to the most people and results in the least harm inflicted on the 'innocent' while at the same time having a standard for those considered rogue to where we decide that their punishments aren't too inhumane (ie. while most people would admit that it would feel great to take someone who dowsed another person with gasoline, locked them in a trunk, and burned them to death and do identical to them as form of execution - common consensus says that it would feel great, but, its wrong. Thinking things over like this is something that we just have to do as a society and, where at all possible, make well balanced choices rather than purely emotional or purely logical and these choices have to come from very good and solid information rather than agendas).

If there is no free will, no legislation or teaching or religion will stop a terrorist pedophile cannibal serial killer who by divine predestination or natural law is GOING to do what he is going to do.

But by the same token, nothing can stop us from passing laws, teaching, lynching and otherwise interacting with such predestined people if natural or divine conditions mean WE are going to do what we are going to do.

Why bother living? But we have no choice, cannot even suicide unless it is ordained.

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BUT:

when you say:

"Thinking things over like this is something that we just have to do as a society and, where at all possible, make well balanced choices rather than purely emotional or purely logical and these choices have to come from very good and solid information rather than agendas)."

I am wholeheartedly in agreement. Not bloody likely to happen soon.

I suppose leveling that claim against theists in particular is unfair, it does apply to most people. If you suggest free will to someone, they will likely do something bizarre and call it "proof" of their free will.

I believe that the matter/antimatter imbalance was believed to be a consequence of the uncertainty principle, . I'm not certain, but I believe Michio Kaku addressed it in his book, "Parallel Worlds". It's definitely one of my favourite topics in physics.

The robots I work on can be deadly. If one makes a wrong decision, and kills someone, punishment would make no sense, because it doesn't respond to that. Punishment is really more a primate colony response to keep the apes in line with the leader and keep the colony healthy and growing. It only works to the degree that the machines (ie. us) are programmed to respond to it, and respond to it more than other possible measures. Some human cultures focus on restitution rather than retribution, and have had good results with that as a social motivating force.

Scientific research suggests that our brain filters reality to fit the expectations of our experience, to create a unique representation of reality that has an element of illusion.

If this is true, no one's subjective experience of reality is exactly the same. Whatever it is that a person experiences that they define as God is as real as any other subjective experience they have in life.

It can be a moot point if you call it God or the experience of anthropomorphizing the intentness effects of the Universe around us; it is the semantics that matter most to an individual, not the syntax. A person can argue all day long if a word exists or a word does not exist, but it doesn't change the unique experience of the representation of reality that a person attaches to that word.

It is also possible that another person experiences something that you have never experienced in their experience of what they define as God. So, it is possible that not only does the word God not exist for you, but you have never had the experience that another person attaches to the word God.

It has been suggested, that the differences in brain chemistry among people affect the experience that they attach to the word God. If this is the case, and you don't have the brain chemistry required, you may never have anything close to the experience that some people attach to word God.

If a definition of God can be a unique experience in life that is attributed to the word God, then it is possible that God exists for some and does not exist for others. And on the other hand some people in the world may have similiar experiences in life and attach no word to it at all.

What will be will be. However, even in a world without Free Will, Law will still stop some people from killing. It wont stop others.

Input (Law) - - - Function ("Free Willless" Human Brain, with morality) - - - No Crimes

Input (Law) - - - Function ("Free Willless" Human Brain, without morality) - - - Crimes

Simple.

Wow, so you're using evidence to disprove evidence? Gödel would disapprove. God might feel real to someone, but that doesn't mean that he is real, even within someone's subjective reality. I believe Special Relativity is true, but that doesn't mean my belief makes it true.

I know what God is to people, I understand the word. The perceptions that people experience are deeply meaningful to them, but they certainly don't qualify as evidence. Usually they're along the lines of "I just Know it's true". However, why is it that the particular Truth tends to correlate to what their parents believe to be true? All it shows is your "Truth" is no better than anyone else's.

Religion cannot claim what does not belong to it. Spirituality (It's a dirty word, but the only one we have) is a feeling common to many people. I myself am religious, in the Einsteinian sense. The world is really, really beautiful, and it invokes wonder and awe in people. Science only makes this feeling more deep and profound. I feel that Religion gives boring, simple answers to beautiful and profound questions.

The Religious don't believe God is some "bit of brain chemistry", some result of perceptual relativism. They believe he is a man in the sky, who wrote a few books thousands of years ago. They think he literally exists, in four-dimensional space, in Heaven. What you are describing isn't God. Those unique feelings of beauty and awe aren't yours to claim in the name of Religion, no more that they are ours to claim in the name of Science. They are an inherent part of being human.

While one can argue that we don't have free will, most animals require a will, or intent to make decisions based on their experience and/or emotions to survive. Morality and law influence the will, but at times does not control it; sometimes emotion is a stronger influence.

I'm not sure you are suggesting the possibility we have no will by the term willless but that is what the term makes me think of.

If we had total free will without limitations or influence from our experience and/or emotions we might not survive very long. Total free will could mean that every decision we made would have to be a logical one that took a significant amount of thought to process. Imagine touching a hot burner on a stove and having to think about removing your hand before you removed it.

The whole process is extremely complex; We are designed to make quick decisions for survival. Too much free will or awareness of our choices could be a bad thing for survival.

I wholeheartedly agree. Well said.



Sorry, I couldn't think of a better neologism. Apologies for any ambiguity.



I'd argue that conscious cognitive processes aren't free either, rather they are shaped by a million factors. Consider the situations in which a man does what he wants. He wants do do it, so he does. However, he does not choose what he wants to do.

This is not a Universal argument (Like the cause/effect chain is), but it is an illuminating example of how subjective free will and biochemical processes interphase.



The distinction you are making here is more of a conscious/unconscious one, but it is nonetheless an important one. If the unconscious actions are predetermines (as in a given stimuli guarantees a certain output), why would other brain functions be any different?

Religion plays no part in my opinion, only the word God and a person's subjective experience that they attach to the word. If I attribute my unique feelings of beauty and awe of the world to the word science and you attribute your unique feelings of beauty and awe of the world to the word God, neither of us can claim ownership of the others experience with our word that we attribute the experiences to or hope to fully understand the others experience.

My point is there is no Universal word or definition that can strictly define a person's experience. Not everyone is religious that attributes their experiences in life to the word God. And, some people in the world have very little access to the study of Science. You can come to gain a partial understanding of what God means to some people, but you have very little idea of what the word God means to everyone who lives in the world because neither you or I have access to their subjective experience.

I like to think of God in a similiar way that has been described by the historical American Indian. The connective relationship between all life that can be brutish or harmonius, that deserves reverence. Really, a way of looking at it that is not too far from the perspective that science can give.

With the aid of science I can also gain a greater reverence for other peoples beliefs and look beyond the differences that have been created by culture and civilization.

ryan93 [I looked up the number, can't use memory]:

You say:

If you suggest free will to someone, they will likely do something bizarre and call it "proof" of their free will. Rolling Eyes

Which of course is stupid and shows complete understanding. Action is no proof of free will. A falling hail stone acts. There are a lot of stupid people out there, many of whom are too dumb to realize it.

And some smart ones who think they are not

You further say:

I believe that the matter/antimatter imbalance was believed to be a consequence of the uncertainty principle, . I'm not certain, but I believe Michio Kaku addressed it in his book, "Parallel Worlds". It's definitely one of my favourite topics in physics.

Thank you for this - I will likely look it up. Since I heard about it I have seen it as interesting and important, but where I am I don't get time to go there much.

Words can be defined arbitrarily, but they often aren't. God is defined as a theist being, not beauty and awe. We have to be careful not to abuse language; God is a being, beauty and awe are feelings. I believe in the latter, not the former.

What you are describing is real, is beautiful, and is certainly valid. It's called Naturalistic pantheism.

I'm satisified with describing will as will and not using the term free will. Someone can be held against their will or the ability to exercise their cognitive decision by health/human/ or environmental forces. In this sense external and/or internal factors can reduce the freedom to exercise will or the decision making process to execute action. Without these limiting factors we have greater freedom of will.

The unconscious plays a role in all decisions. Consciousness is different because we can understand that our unconscious plays a role and search our experience for alternate justifications for our decisions that we might not ordinarily consider, when a quick decision is executed. The alternates are still controlled by our experience. The term free will suggests that we have control of our life, where in actuality our will is limited by our life experiences.