DRFseven

No, I'm not. I am telling you, we are not arguing soft free will. Do YOU get it? NO ONE says we don't make choices.

You're funny, Gurdur. You take some kind of a smart-ass tone with me and then proceed to tell me how you were professionally trained in neuroscience? Shall I tell you of my professional training in Cognitive Science? Why do you think I said what I said? It gets a little old when you come posturing around like a high school senior who's had a psychology class, trying to act as if you know the score. You could give our friend, Pompous Ass, some tips on how to live up to his name since he's not pompous at all. Well, I'm tired of catering to your adolescent defenses; grow up. Professionally trained, indeed! I was in Cognitive Science probably before you were out of diapers and though I retired two years ago, I've never stopped my studies, so don't go trying to impress me with that one. Let's hear you say something that shows you have an inkling of understanding about what you're going on about.

You still don't get it. People do what affords the most mental comfort at the time.

What difference does their reasoning make? They're still choosing the most attractive option available, even if that option is to be beaten. The fact that you, with your "professional training" don't get this is pitiful.

Oh, I see, you just don't want to right now, LOL You COULD set the world straight, but you just don't care to. Well, how about believing something else that you don't believe, just to humor me? You know there are reasons you can't fly (which is why you believe that you CAN'T fly), but just to show that our decisions are not tied to anything like reasoning, decide to believe you can fly for just a little while. Don't do anything dangerous, but just believe that you can fly a few feet off the floor by jumping up.

Gurdur, it's not hard to understand that people can decide to change and to educate themselves in all kinds of ways provided they have experienced some form of motivation to think this will work and to want to do it. If they haven't, then WHAT, do tell, causes them to do it?

Philosoft

Crimony! You guys certainly have to go through a lot of 'decision preparation' before making a decision. Why don't you describe the actual decision-making process rather than all the alleged pre-conditions necessary for decision-making?

<strong> I'm well aware of that. Still doesn't make it intelligible.

<strong> Science itself, eh? Guess I'll have to have a talk with it.

<strong> Timelessness is a "nature of time"?
Have you any sort of argument, logical or otherwise that supports this mess?

<strong> Where is the scriptural support for this?

<strong>
Methinks we have some prior "nonsense statements" to deal with before this.

DRFseven

It's the same thing. You and Gurdur need to explain how someone freely chooses to choose to believe.

You can't get around the problem that you choose what you choose because of the way you are. And you are not the author of the way you are.

ax

Luvluv,
Do you believe that God can choose to confuse someone's will so as to make them not believe the truth and be therefore condemed? Do you believe that He sends strong delusion to confuse people? or does he always allow us free will to choose our own things?

Jobar

Ladies & gents, while I find the discussion here extremely interesting, I want to point out that so far nobody has directly addressed my question, except facetiously. The questions being addressed here look to be in the nature of "What is free will, and what are its consequences?" The topic is Where is freewill? And I am obviously addressing our theistic posters, who believe that freewill is an entity, or gift, or ability, granted to humans exclusively by God. I'm really quite curious. Is freewill an attribute of the soul? Is it in our minds, our thoughts? I see serious contradictions in either answer, and want to know how individual theists think about this- the ones who think about it at all! (I warn you, if you say it's in the soul I am gonna ask you just what a soul *is*!)

For my purposes here, I am willing to accept that God is the omni(potent, present, scient, benevolent) creator of the universe and of us; that He is extratemporal; and that the Bible is by and large true, and ignore the internal contradictions in whatever manner you wish. (Damn I'm generous!) Another warning- unless you can come up with some really novel arguments and explanations, even with all these concessions, you will *still* wind up biting your own tail...

luvluv

DRF, I'm not the best guy for scriptural support. I'll have to do some digging. I heard the concept a lot in sermons growing up, but the first time I saw it explained so I could somewhat understand it was actually in the Screwtape Letters, believe it or not. I'm not sure it's in the Bible but I'm not sure what relavence that has. A Christian belief is not invalidated because it is not in the Bible. Most Christians do not believe that God has stopped speaking to us since the end of Revelations.

I really do think this thread is never going to go anywhere. I simply find your opinion unbelievable. I fully admit I do not have anywhere NEAR the training in this area as you and Gurdur do, so perhaps the best thing I can do is just listen. Here is the point where I fall off the wagon:

You are saying that I come to a fork in a road, and both forks look identical to me, and I have no knowledge of where either of them leads and no rational reason to pick one over the other... if at this point I choose to go right then it was IMPOSSIBLE for me to have chosen to go left? Is there any way to prove this?

This seems to me to be an unscientific statement because it is unprovable. It's just a philosophy.

I also would like you to answer my question about the hypothetical twins who were, at birth, placed in precisely the same position in a room with every possible environmental varaible as identical as is scientifically possible (same placement of furniture, temperature, air pressure, etc). These babies would roll around and wiggle and laugh and crawl and cry at precisely the same instant? If you are arguing that our behavior is determined solely by genetics and environment, it seems to me that it is possible to set something like that up that would at least come CLOSE to testing this idea (it can obviously never be tested perfectly). Has it ever been tried and what were it's results?

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

ax

Hey Jobar,
Do you believe that the bible is the inspired word of God? You conceed that there are faults in the bible? Surely there is no room for faults in God? and how far do these faults go?

Jobar

I've been wondering about this since talking to our 'Traditional Catholic', Albert Cipriani. (Albert, are you anywhere about?) He couldn't seem to decide if freewill was an attribute of the mind, or of the soul- and we never got a straight answer. I'm curious what other theists have to say on the matter.

And- of *course* the Bibble is totally inerrant, and absolutely error-free! (But only the KJV, o'course. The translators were guided by the hand of the Lawd, word by word!)

DRFseven

You must have me confused with some other poster about this; I don't think I ever mentioned anything about Christian beliefs being tied to the Bible.

I really want to answer this post but I've been busy with my two favorite things today; my granddaughter and my niece. They're spending the night, but now that they're asleep, I'm too tired to think (damn; where is that free will when you need it?).

I will give you a good answer ASAP, but for right now, let me just say that the fact that you think my opinion is unbelievable is not at all unusual for people who first begin seriously trying to understand what the secular free will debate is about. It's quite common for people to say something like, "You're kidding. You're seriously telling me I don't have the free will to decide whether or not to tie my shoes?"

What I'd like you to think about is what it means to say "I decided to tie my shoes." How did that decision come about? What caused your sensorimotor system to move your fingers the way it did to tie those shoes? What would have had to be the case for you NOT to have decided to tie your shoes? Are there any kinds of happenings that let you know that your shoes need to be tied?

In the case of the babies, who, of course do not exhibit identical behavior, I'll get back to it, but it has to do with the fact that the babies reacted to individual circumstances, i.e., one had a pillow under its tummy, which caused it to spit up, which made it move a certain way, etc., etc., which didn't happen with the other baby, who was reacting to other stimuli and who would have reacted differently anyway, because it has not been exposed to identical people and events throughout its life.

luvluv

DRF, is there a name for the opposite position, from a secular standpoint? I mean are there other people like Gurdur who are secular and who do not believe in determinism? Do they go by the name "free will" or is there some other name.

I also heard of some objection to determinism based on quantam mechanics. What up with dat?

Also, who is the "father of determinism"?

I've actually been having some fascinating conversations about this with a few coworkers of mine who are (reasonably) well read on issues of consciousness and the like, and they have reffered me to a few books I am going to take a look at (ever heard of the Emperor's new mind? My friend tells me that the author of the book posits specific cells in the brain which are composed of parts that might be small enough to be subject to quantum mechanics and not determinism, supposedly. Sounds fascinating. He's trying to find out where free will might be in the brain in that book). The whole subject is really a lot more engrossing than I thought it would be.

A few specific questions for you:

Do you base your belief in determinism on the nature of matter (the fact that humans are matter and energy and are therefore dependant on the same laws) or in cognitive science or in simple cause and effect? The first and the third I have some objections about, but admitedly I am almost wholly ignorant on the second.

I also would like to know whether or not it is possible to "measure" this "valence tagging" you refer to and monitor it so that we can actually see whether or not people always pick that which is most favorable to them.

Also, one of my friends is of the opinion that determinism is more philosophy than science. Is that how you would categorize it?