What is Free Will?

[gasgod]

How can you speak of sin on the one hand, and yet deny the existence of Free Will? These two notions seem incompatible to me.

GG

[udontknowmickey]

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How can you speak of sin on the one hand, and yet deny the existence of Free Will? These to notions seem incompatible to me.

GG



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The concept you bring up is human responsibility which is biblical. Scripture teaches that God has the power and knowledge to hold us responsible for our actions. Free will does not come into play at all.

If no one was going to judge and punish you for your actions but somehow (I don't know how) these actions were free from outside influences, you would have free will but not human responsibility. Human responsibility does not require free will in any shape or form.

Sin is merely going against God's "rules" of which the first was "don't eat that fruit." Just because He has complete control over whether or not they eat that fruit doesn't mean he's not going to hold them responsible for doing what they are doing.

[OrianasDaad]

Free will is defended by those who ask "why".

[David Sklansky]

You guys are all confused. People can be proved to have free will by the reduction to absurdity argument. Assume there is no free will for humans. That means the future can be predicted by a super intelligent entity. But if he tells you his prediction you can choose to disobey it. You have free will. Ants don't.

Put another way, anyone who wonders if they have free will, does.

[Scotch78]

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But if he tells you his prediction you can choose to disobey it.

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Your "prediction" lost its integrity when it was fed back into the system it was trying to analyze. In addition, your definition does not meet the OP's request for non-circularity.

Scott

[Piers]

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So, how can Free Will be defended?

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I think this issue is a confusion of levels.

‘Free will’ is a human term. It refers to the effect that we appear to be able to choose certain aspects of our future.

Whether the universe and therefore a human’s future is deterministic does not invalidate the use of the term ‘Free Will’ when applied at the level of human experience.

[Piers]

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That means the future can be predicted by a super intelligent entity. But if he tells you his prediction you can choose to disobey it

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I think to resort to omniscient entitles that can exactly predict the future, is a straw man argument. Reality is complete, models of it aren’t.

To know what was always destined to happen, you have to wait like everyone else.

[Larimani]

This is a brilliant post OP. Thanks for bringing this up, it's a fascinating question.

First, let's not mix the religion and free will question. I mean, they are closely related, but talking about religion will just make things more complicated. Let's argue the more simple notion of free will and whether such a notion exists.

1) I agree with OP. Decisions by 'me' are the result of neurons firing in your brain. These neurons follow the laws of Biochemistry and therefore your cognition can be reduced to these laws (which right now are not completely understood). Advances in cognitive neuroscience have shown that the dualist perception of the mind can be rejected, and that mind and brain are essentially the same thing.

2) David's argument is logically incorrect. As noted by another poster, by feeding back some information into the situation you're trying to analyse, you are changing the assumptions of the situation.

3) For those who do not understand what I'm trying to convey, I will give an example. Let's say that we take your brain and study every single neuron in it. We then create an electronic version of it where every single neuron is simulated or replicated. The question is: is this electronic brain going to behave any differently than you? is it going to be conscious? will it have free will?

I believe the anwers are : No. Yes. No.
No, because behavior and cognition are solely based on the underlaying neurons that govern them.
Yes, because consciousness is a result of neural function (read a couple of cognitive neuroscience textbooks if you don't believe that)
No, because this electronic brain is solely governed by its structure and the laws governing it.


PS: I realise this may be a very naive point of view... & that's why am opened to criticism

[purnell]

If you haven't read this yet it might give you some insight. As far as I can tell, "free will" is not provable, or, by making certain assumptions, one can prove both determinism and free will, making the whole thing moot. The concept really doesn't mean anything at all when you get right down to it.

[Larimani]

A good read on that subject: Wikipedia: Free will