Amos

Maybe that is why Jesus opened the jails and set the prisoners free.

Under hypnosis pain does not exist while we remains conscious and alert. The proof of this is that a painless child birth is possible under hypnosis.

Now Kent, just because pain is an illusion does not mean that pain is wrong. It just means that we must go by illusion because we are out of touch with reality.

Kent Stevens

I find some of your recent postings in this thread to be vacuous Amos. They seem to be devoid of meaning. They just reinforce the notion that theology is the study of nothing. Before I can really criticise or praise any of your posts, I would first need to be able to understand them. Any criticisms that I give of what you say seems to be responded to with elaborate unprovable imaginings.

Infinity Lover

Right; the naked chick thought a snake told her stories, took a piece of fruit containing knowledge.... off her rocker obviously... Solution: turn to ghost with holes for advise.

We go by illusion, result: out of touch with reality. Solution: go by illusion.

Makes nonsense to me.

Then again, I do smoke because I have a nicotinehabit, caused by smoking, so who am I to critisize?

---I.L.------------------------------------------------------------------------
without realizing it really, really is JUST US?


---Amos-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

By "us" you mean unbelievers, right?


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nope I mean us humans.

(Panta Pei: I get the Amos bit now I think )

Amos

Laurentius

AVE

Freewill philosophically distinguishes humans from all other forms of existence.

Sheer determinism (i.e. natural laws) rules in the vast kindom of mater&energy phenomena.
Structures form with no purpose and resist destruction passively.


Will adds with the biological kindom, where the activity of a wide range of self-regulating mechanisms leads to the emergence of purposes.
Structures form with the manifest purpose of self-preservation and multiplication - they will actively resist destruction.

Reflexive self-awarness allows humans to rationally opt for the choices that natural laws on the one hand, and biological determinators (such as instincts and emotions) force them to make, which renders human purposes self-assumed.

Freewill is the sum of volitive processes occuring at the level of a highly self-regulating system that identifies itself as a reasoning "I" and responsibly assumes its own purposes and means to achive them.


AVE

Kent Stevens

I think that if you can use the free will label it would apply to a variety of different systems. It would apply to sophisticated robots such as Data, the Terminator, and Isaac Asimov's robots. Free will would also apply to other organisms with will. Will would usually be associated with animals, but not other organisms such as plants. As long as animal with will was free to do what it likes it would have free will. The term freedom could apply to a much broader range of systems than free will alone does.

However, religious free will where what people do is without cause, so that an all powerful deity hs no responsibility for creating evil, is bunk.

We are capable of making the most complicated of choices because our thinking processes are the most complicated of all known systems. We do not just react blindly to conditions but can think deeply through the consequences of our actions.

Human choice has a great deal of complexity associated with it. Human choice is made by agents with self awareness who can see potentially far into the future what the consequences of action are. Human choice considers complex moral issues in making decisions. Humans can decide to do things other than for sheer survival and reproduction reasons.

But just because human choice is so complicated does not mean that we can not recognise more simpler forms of decision making. A snail is still making primitive choices where it will go looking for food, even though it's thinking process is much less sophisticated. A series of traffic lights is still making mechanical choices, even if all that the traffic lights are doing are reacting to current circumstances.

It would seem to be playing favourites if we say that only humans have free will, while say the family cat does not. The cats thinking process is more primitive, but that does not mean it does not freely will what it wants to do.

Amos

Nice post Kent and I agree that it is wrong to think that humans are the only organisms that think (I have a suspicion here that one must go to school for a very long time to reach that conclusion).

All sentient beings have a will and if they are sentient they are responsive to their senses and to be responsive they must make choices between good and bad and so, they, too, have a dual nature and are not free to choose. In other words, they have a soul in which they are determined and are free only in the context of their own existence as independent agents, but are motivated nonetheless by their soul in effort to survive in a compettitive environment.

Laurentius

AVE

Indeed, there is this unique drive in animals, which plants seem to lack, that we call will. But is it free? It depends on how one defines freedom. In fact, it shouldn't. The phrase "free will" has been created with the very purpose of distinguishing Man's will from all other forms of will. Man's will does not differ from others in that it bears more either freedom or complexity. What really makes Man's will unparalleled is the fact that it represents the act of a moral agent.
Self-awarness, reflexivity and cogitation induce in Man a quality that rest of the animal kingdom does not exhibit (except perhaps exceptionally, accidentally) and that enables him to identify himself as an "I", which in turn allows him to responsibly assume his own purposes and means to achieve them. This quality is free will.

AVE

Amos

All(?) animals are self aware and the difference between males and females along with their mating habits makes this very clear.

Humans are moral agents but many animals are monogamous for life and don't cheat. Others do cheat and others again are allowed to cheat. In that sense are they much like humans.

Achievements are part of the animal kingdom and humans today study their "material data sheets" and "building techniques."

I think that the Intelligent Desing (mind of God), is an integral component of all sentient beings (including plants to a lesser extent) and that the Free Will condition is achieved after metamorphosis. This same is true for humans but with our increased intelligence it is much more difficult to achieve. Domesticated animals may have similar problems but I really don't know this.

Theli

Not many animals has the concepts of good and bad, and very, very few desitions are made based on these. This includes humans, our choices are very seldom of good and bad.
I have no idea what you mean by "dual nature", perhaps you could explain it to me.

Motivated survival is an instinct necessary for any speices to survive and reproduce. Speices with the instinct survives, speices without it dies, nothing strange about it.
I don't see why it would need a "soul" to motivate it.