Philosophy: Do you believe in free will?

[complich8]

I'm gonna go back to a tweaked version of Leibniz's explanation on the whole God thing.

Every contingent thing has to have a cause. The cause has to be either another contengent thing, or a noncontingent thing. Matter, itself, seems to me to be a contingent thing -- it doesn't _have_ to be there in any capacity to cause something.

If a contingent thing caused something, then the contingent thing itself had to have a cause. So there's two possible chains of events. (arrows represent "caused by")

...<-contingent thing<-contingent thing<-contingent thing<-contingent thing

(an infinite chain of contingent things, or "turtles all the way down")

noncontingent thing<-contingent things<-...<-contingent thing

(an arbitrarily long chain of contingent things caused by a noncontingent thing).

The question, then, is "is it the case that the universe has simply always existed, or did it come into existence at some point". Thermodynamics seems to empirically point to the idea that the universe was created at some point, which means that at some point no noncontingent things existed. It's the question of a first cause.

If you can find a loophole and reverse the second law of thermodynamics (causing entropy to decrease), then it's possible for the universe's existence to be that noncontingent thing, and simply have always been.

As for what theists think about God and Free Will, there's so many possible explanations that make the concepts compatible. Like I said, you can just be a nondeterminist like Berkeley, or you can wave your hands about the Compatibilism doctrine of Leibniz and other determinists or employ another soft determinist technique.

The thing about free will is, if you view the mind as a pure machine, then there's no possible such thing. If you view the mind as something beyond machinery, and equate what thinks in us with a soul (removing it from the realm of determinism), you can still have it even in a deterministic universe with an omniscient god.

But if we're nothing but very complex deterministic machines, and that includes the mind, then the whole concept of free will is completely pointless.

[samsonlonghair]

Rule 1 of uncertainty states that you can determine location and direction but not speed. It is not randomness. This is your theory #3. This goes against determinism (theory #1) and random (theory #3) but not against free will (theory #2).

By knowing at least one variable of direction, speed, or position you are exercising free will.


http://atheism.about.com/library/glo...inty+principle

On uncertainty principle.

Actually no. The link you've given confuses observer effect with uncertainty principle. That's a common mistake (and proof that about.com doesn't check their sources).

Here's a fairly concise statement from wikipedia: (Admittedly they sometimes have incorrect information too, but they're right about this.)

"The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is frequently, but incorrectly, confused with the "observer effect", as it relates precision in measurements related to changes in velocity and position of certain particles relative to the perspective the observer takes on them."

[el_boss]

Just came back from my exam on free will. The main assignment was to write an article on free will. Done and done

[samsonlonghair]

So, did you use anything we talking about here in your paper? If so I tip my hat to you; you've used us know-it-alls as a resource.

[Deadfire]

So, did you use anything we talking about here in your paper? If so I tip my hat to you; you've used us know-it-alls as a resource.

I hope he reworded mine as my grammer appears to suck. make sure also to tell us your mark!

[masamuneehs]

i need to do a more thorough read through, but I'm liking this discussion quite a bit.

Free will? Free in what sense? Free to do whatever you please? I doubt that. Every person imposes limits and inhibitions on themselves, in sense restricting their own free will. Some restrictions are physical and others are mental/emotional
(Ex. Physical limit on free will: I could choose right now to drink 40 beers, but I wouldn't get past 20.)
(Ex. Mental limit on free will: I could choose to go out into the street and cat-call all the fine ass women I see walking past. But something inside of me just can't whistle when it comes down to it. I CAN physically whistle, but some part of me just won't allow me to.)

Do those restrictions/limits that you put on yourself count as against free will?

I like to think that free will is the idea that you can do whatever you actually can bring yourself to do in situations where you have the chance to do said 'thing'. (Yeah that sounds repetitive, but all 3 must be met, at least in my mind, to constitue an action done under free will.)