Do we have freewill ? is it biblical ?

[grip]

Where on Earth do you get such superstition-based nonsense?

Not superstitious. If God is an eternal, infinite being, then he would fill all of space and time.

If it is known what we will do before we are born do we have a choice

Just because the choices are known by an omniscient being, it doesn't change us from making them.

That's nice. Prove it!

That foreknowledge means people are unable to act differently to result in different consequences.

People are not aware of the choices they'll make because they don't have all knowledge.

 

[Gordy327]

Just because the choices are known by an omniscient being, it doesn't change us from making them.

But it does mean we cannot make another choice different from what the omniscient being already knows.

People are not aware of the choices they'll make because they don't have all knowledge.

Our knowledge is irrelevant. It's what knowledge the omniscient being has that matters.

 

[grip]

But it does mean we cannot make another choice different from what the omniscient being already knows.

How would you know what choices you're going to make? God's not going to tell you.

Our knowledge is irrelevant. It's what knowledge the omniscient being has that matters.

Our knowledge is the only data we have on the matter.

 

[Gordy327]

How would you know what choices you're going to make? God's not going to tell you.

Our knowledge is the only data we have on the matter.

It doesn't matter. God knows what choices we'll make. So we're incapable of choosing any different. That's not choice. Only the illusion of one.

 

[noonereal]

Oh really? Let’s take a look at the headline in a Scientific American article:

Free Will Is Only an Illusion if You Are, Too​

New research findings, combined with philosophy, suggest free will is real but may not operate in the ways people expect

Free Will Is Only an Illusion if You Are, Too

New research findings, combined with philosophy, suggest free will is real but may not operate in the ways people expect

www.scientificamerican.com

Score: Free Will-1, noonereal-0

You are out of your league talking to me about this.

 

[Galactic Spin]

You are out of your league talking to me about this.

Then address the content of the article.

 

[watsup]

You are out of your league talking to me about this.

I showed you a science-based article from January 2023. Seems like you are out of your league when compared to real scientists who have studied the matter.

 

[watsup]

Not superstitious. If God is an eternal, infinite being, then he would fill all of space and time.

You were complaining about the Christian God, but then you replace it with your own God of no more evidence than that God. Both are based in the very same superstition that has been a part of the makeup of Homo sapiens since theIr beginnings.

 

[noonereal]

I showed you a science-based article from January 2023. Seems like you are out of your league when compared to real scientists who have studied the matter.

Nope, they are on my side.
First two paragraphs.
Also. In the story title it says "when combined with philosophy "

Philosophy! Philosophy is is bullshit.


"I magine you are shopping online for a new pair of headphones. There is an array of colors, brands and features to look at. You feel that you can pick any model that you like and are in complete control of your decision. When you finally click the “add to shopping cart” button, you believe that you are doing so out of your own free will.

But what if we told you that while you thought that you were still browsing, your brain activity had already highlighted the headphones you would pick? That idea may not be so far-fetched. Though neuroscientists likely could not predict your choice with 100 percent accuracy, research has demonstrated that some information about your upcoming action is present in brain activity several seconds before you even become conscious of your decision"

 

[watsup]

Nope, they are on my side.
First two paragraphs.
Also. In the story title it says "when combined with philosophy "

Philosophy! Philosophy is is bullshit.


"I magine you are shopping online for a new pair of headphones. There is an array of colors, brands and features to look at. You feel that you can pick any model that you like and are in complete control of your decision. When you finally click the “add to shopping cart” button, you believe that you are doing so out of your own free will.

But what if we told you that while you thought that you were still browsing, your brain activity had already highlighted the headphones you would pick? That idea may not be so far-fetched. Though neuroscientists likely could not predict your choice with 100 percent accuracy, research has demonstrated that some information about your upcoming action is present in brain activity several seconds before you even become conscious of your decision"

Here’s some more:

Why the Classical Argument Against Free Will Is a Failure​

Despite bold philosophical and scientific claims, there’s still no good reason to doubt the existence of free will.

“But now notice that if we don’t know whether determinism is true or false, then this completely undermines the classical argument against free will. That argument just assumed that determinism is true. But we now know that there is no good reason to believe this. The question of whether determinism is true is an open question for physicists. So the classical argument against free will is a failure — it doesn’t give us any good reason to conclude that we don’t have free will.

The first new-and-improved argument against free will — which is a scientific argument — starts with the observation that it doesn’t matter whether the full-blown hypothesis of determinism is true because it doesn’t matter whether all events are predetermined by prior events. All that matters is whether our decisions are predetermined by prior events. And the central claim of the first new-and-improved argument against free will is that we have good evidence (from studies performed by psychologists and neuroscientists) for thinking that, in fact, our decisions are predetermined by prior events.

The second new-and-improved argument against free will — which is a philosophical argument, not a scientific argument — relies on the claim that it doesn’t matter whether determinism is true because indeterminism is just as incompatible with free will as determinism is. The argument for this is based on the claim that if our decisions aren’t determined, then they aren’t caused by anything, which means that they occur randomly. And the central claim of the second new-and-improved argument against free will is that if our decisions occur randomly, then they just happen to us, and so they’re not the products of our free will.

My own view is that neither of these new-and-improved arguments succeeds in showing that we don’t have free will. But it takes a lot of work to undermine these two arguments. In order to undermine the scientific argument, we need to explain why the relevant psychological and neuroscientific studies don’t in fact show that we don’t have free will. And in order to undermine the philosophical argument, we need to explain how a decision could be the product of someone’s free will — how the outcome of the decision could be under the given person’s control — even if the decision wasn’t caused by anything.”

Why the Classical Argument Against Free Will Is a Failure

Despite bold philosophical and scientific claims, there’s still no good reason to doubt the existence of free will.

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

As this author points out, the “no free will” argument is more of a fad than a solid scientific and/or philosophical certainty.

 

[Galactic Spin]

As this author points out, the “no free will” argument is more of a fad than a solid scientific and/or philosophical certainty.

Maybe in the crosstalk that is flying in articles like this one.

But wade through the equivocation and gainsaying, and what we have learned is that the universe is a deterministic place, and the brain is a physical system.

What this means is that, no, there is no agency that wills bioelectric potentials into existence. They arise from prior potentials and chemical reactions. As do their predecessors.

So we can all pretend, for the sake of sanity, that we are the conscious agents of our choices. But we aren't. You are not going to change your personality by willing it. Not ever.

But I can change your personality with some ethanol, or head trauma.

 

[grip]

It doesn't matter. God knows what choices we'll make. So we're incapable of choosing any different. That's not choice. Only the illusion of one.

Then God is making our choices for us and we aren't real?

 

[Gordy327]

Then God is making our choices for us and we aren't real?

Who said anything about not being real? Unless one thinks we're all just the product of God's imagination or all Matrixy or something like that? But our "choices" are already set in stone if God is omnipotent and omniscient.

 

[noonereal]

Here’s some more:

Why the Classical Argument Against Free Will Is a Failure​

Despite bold philosophical and scientific claims, there’s still no good reason to doubt the existence of free will.

“But now notice that if we don’t know whether determinism is true or false, then this completely undermines the classical argument against free will. That argument just assumed that determinism is true. But we now know that there is no good reason to believe this. The question of whether determinism is true is an open question for physicists. So the classical argument against free will is a failure — it doesn’t give us any good reason to conclude that we don’t have free will.

The first new-and-improved argument against free will — which is a scientific argument — starts with the observation that it doesn’t matter whether the full-blown hypothesis of determinism is true because it doesn’t matter whether all events are predetermined by prior events. All that matters is whether our decisions are predetermined by prior events. And the central claim of the first new-and-improved argument against free will is that we have good evidence (from studies performed by psychologists and neuroscientists) for thinking that, in fact, our decisions are predetermined by prior events.

The second new-and-improved argument against free will — which is a philosophical argument, not a scientific argument — relies on the claim that it doesn’t matter whether determinism is true because indeterminism is just as incompatible with free will as determinism is. The argument for this is based on the claim that if our decisions aren’t determined, then they aren’t caused by anything, which means that they occur randomly. And the central claim of the second new-and-improved argument against free will is that if our decisions occur randomly, then they just happen to us, and so they’re not the products of our free will.

My own view is that neither of these new-and-improved arguments succeeds in showing that we don’t have free will. But it takes a lot of work to undermine these two arguments. In order to undermine the scientific argument, we need to explain why the relevant psychological and neuroscientific studies don’t in fact show that we don’t have free will. And in order to undermine the philosophical argument, we need to explain how a decision could be the product of someone’s free will — how the outcome of the decision could be under the given person’s control — even if the decision wasn’t caused by anything.”

Why the Classical Argument Against Free Will Is a Failure

Despite bold philosophical and scientific claims, there’s still no good reason to doubt the existence of free will.

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

As this author points out, the “no free will” argument is more of a fad than a solid scientific and/or philosophical certainty.

Its not a philosophy. Its neuroscience.

 

[grip]

Who said anything about not being real? Unless one thinks we're all just the product of God's imagination or all Matrixy or something like that? But our "choices" are already set in stone if God is omnipotent and omniscient.

It's God's will that we have free will.

 

[brianpatrick]

I’m all for a “do humans have free will” debate but this isn’t it. We don’t need god in the equation to NOT have free will. I would say the idea of free will is just that, an idea. Where do ideas (thoughts) come from? When you look very closely they come from nowhere. Does that mean that god put them there or is the cause of them? Maybe. But just as possible is we don’t as humans have to tools through consciousness to actually see where they come from. Consciousness may be just an evolutionary development that helped us adapt and thrive but have no relation to the reality of the physics of the universe other than the specialized ones we humans use it for.

 

[watsup]

Its not a philosophy. Its neuroscience.

You have not yet made your case. All that you have done to this point is make claims. Can you back them?

 

[watsup]

I’m all for a “do humans have free will” debate but this isn’t it. We don’t need god in the equation to NOT have free will. I would say the idea of free will is just that, an idea. Where do ideas (thoughts) come from? When you look very closely they come from nowhere. Does that mean that god put them there or is the cause of them? Maybe. But just as possible is we don’t as humans have to tools through consciousness to actually see where they come from. Consciousness may be just an evolutionary development that helped us adapt and thrive but have no relation to the reality of the physics of the universe other than the specialized ones we humans use it for.

Expand. Where are YOU saying that ideas come from?

 

[watsup]

Maybe in the crosstalk that is flying in articles like this one.

But wade through the equivocation and gainsaying, and what we have learned is that the universe is a deterministic place, and the brain is a physical system.

What this means is that, no, there is no agency that wills bioelectric potentials into existence. They arise from prior potentials and chemical reactions. As do their predecessors.

So we can all pretend, for the sake of sanity, that we are the conscious agents of our choices. But we aren't. You are not going to change your personality by willing it. Not ever.

But I can change your personality with some ethanol, or head trauma.

“Gleiser points out a third mistake — misinterpretation of neuroscience research on free will:

This shocking conclusion [that free will is an illusion] comes from a series of experiments that revealed something quite remarkable: Our brains decide a course of action before we know it. Benjamin Libet’s pioneering experiments in the 1980s using EEG and more recent ones using fMRI or implants directly into neurons found that the motor region responsible for making a motion in response to a question fired up seven seconds before the subject was aware of it. The brain seems to be deciding before the mind knows about it. But is it really?
The experiment has been debunked, which actually is far from surprising. But what was surprising was the huge amount of noise that the claims against free will emerging from this type of experiment generated. To base the hefty issue of free will on experiments that measure neuronal activity when people move fingers to push a button should hardly count as decisive. Most of the choices we make in life are complex, multi-layered decisions that often take a long time.
MARCELO GLEISER, “DO THE LAWS OF PHYSICS AND NEUROSCIENCE DISPROVE FREE WILL?” AT BIG THINK (NOVEMBER 10, 2021)

Libet’s conclusion that conscious decision-making was preceded by a half second of unconscious brain activity has been shown to be an error. The brain activity recorded by Libet and by other investigators who followed him appears to represent nonspecific “noise” in neuronal networks that is associated with the mental state leading up to making a simple choice. More detailed research has shown that the brain activity most highly correlated with decision-making happens simultaneously with the awareness of the choice. There is no neuroscientific reason to doubt the reality of free will.

Gleiser concludes:

This should be a relief to most people, for many reasons. First, we are definitely not automatons without choice. Second, we actually do need to take responsibility for our actions, from wasting water in a long shower to shooting someone dead. There is no cosmic machinery making us do stuff, one way or the other. This means that we must face up to the way we live our lives and how we relate to each other and to the planet, knowing that our choices do have consequences that go beyond our small bubble of being.
MARCELO GLEISER, “DO THE LAWS OF PHYSICS AND NEUROSCIENCE DISPROVE FREE WILL?” AT BIG THINK (NOVEMBER 10, 2021)

Our current state of physics and neuroscience is entirely consistent with the inference that free will is real. Our choices are not determined by our brain states or by our environment. Of course, we are influenced by a variety of factors, but under most circumstances we can freely choose our actions.

Does Science Disprove Free Will? A Physicist Says No

Apart from simple laws governing neurons, we have no clue what laws the mind follows, though it does show complex nonlinear dynamics.

mindmatters.ai

To repeat: the “no free will” movement seems to be more of a recent fad than a solid scientific conclusion.

 

[brianpatrick]

Expand. Where are YOU saying that ideas come from?

That’s the hard problem of consciousness. As far as I know, nobody has a definitive answer to that question. I’m interested in the ideas, but I have no idea what the answers are either. You are already far ahead of me in your understanding as evidenced by your post 119.
If pressed I would say that free will is probably an illusion. Not that we are hallucinating or in a simulation, but that human consciousness and brains cannot see or intuit reality because the properties that allowed us to thrive and flourish under environmental circumstances on this particular planet were not conducive to understanding the reality of the physical universe. That’s my best guess.

 

[Galactic Spin]

“Gleiser points out a third mistake — misinterpretation of neuroscience research on free will:



Libet’s conclusion that conscious decision-making was preceded by a half second of unconscious brain activity has been shown to be an error. The brain activity recorded by Libet and by other investigators who followed him appears to represent nonspecific “noise” in neuronal networks that is associated with the mental state leading up to making a simple choice. More detailed research has shown that the brain activity most highly correlated with decision-making happens simultaneously with the awareness of the choice. There is no neuroscientific reason to doubt the reality of free will.

Gleiser concludes:



Our current state of physics and neuroscience is entirely consistent with the inference that free will is real. Our choices are not determined by our brain states or by our environment. Of course, we are influenced by a variety of factors, but under most circumstances we can freely choose our actions.

Does Science Disprove Free Will? A Physicist Says No

Apart from simple laws governing neurons, we have no clue what laws the mind follows, though it does show complex nonlinear dynamics.

mindmatters.ai

To repeat: the “no free will” movement seems to be more of a recent fad than a solid scientific conclusion.

Not sure about Lebet, but it has been shown pretty conclusively that your decisions are made before you are aware they have been made. Which destroys the idea of conscious agency over your decisions.

 

[brianpatrick]

Not sure about Lebet, but it has been shown pretty conclusively that your decisions are made before you are aware they have been made. Which destroys the idea of conscious agency over your decisions.

it could be that like how we don’t have conscious control over our internal functions like breathing and heartbeat, we don’t have conscious control over the genesis of our thoughts, and only become aware of them once they’re made.

 

[Galactic Spin]

it could be that like how we don’t have conscious control over our internal functions like breathing and heartbeat, we don’t have conscious control over the genesis of our thoughts, and only become aware of them once they’re made.

Yes, agreed, very much like that.

We used to think our consciousness gave us agency over all of our thoughts and actions.

With each passing day, it becomes clear our consciousness simply allows us to observe consider our own behaviors and thoughts rather than fully control them.

 

[brianpatrick]

Yes, agreed, very much like that.

We used to think our consciousness gave us agency over all of our thoughts and actions.

With each passing day, it becomes clear our consciousness simply allows us to observe consider our own behaviors and thoughts rather than fully control them.

And some of this has the look and feel of “navel gazing” to a lot of people, but it could have profound effects on things like our system of Justice which is predicated (in part) on the conscious intent of criminals, and the subsequent “responsibilities.”

 

[Galactic Spin]

And some of this has the look and feel of “navel gazing” to a lot of people, but it could have profound effects on things like our system of Justice which is predicated (in part) on the conscious intent of criminals, and the subsequent “responsibilities.”

Absolutely. That is a fascinating ethical discussion.