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Yes, this is a thread on TL that involves religion, but I hate to think that our policy should be to blindly close every such thread. Sam Harris is a writer whose books are both insightful and have sparked many good discussions in the past and as long as the thread doesn't derail I'd like to leave it open. This should be the basic premise for every such thread, no matter how high the odds of it derailing. In that light, these posts that just predict the downfall of this thread (whether it be pre-determined or not) are 1) Not contributing to the discussion 2) Backseat moderating 3) Annoying 4) Actually contributing towards derailing it. I'll keep 2 daying people for this. |
On March 05 2012 23:13 Felnarion wrote:
I'm not going to descend with you guys into the depths of physics to explain this.
To bring back something I read earlier in the thread...If we are destined to behave in pre-determined ways..What governs them?
Imagine a scenario where someone has a gun to my head and the evildoer demands I move my leg. What if I refuse? This is a possibility. Why would I refuse? If my actions are predetermined, how would I refuse? Surely evolution would show us that I should behave in my best interest, correct? I mean, if evolution is true, then things must, by and large, operate in such a way as to preserve themselves?
So, why can I refuse to move my leg and thus die? Unless we are governed on something else? Maybe we all simply live out of spite. All the things we do are to spite death, except in my scenario, where my "willingness" to spite death is lower than how much I want to spite the evildoer?
I've read the research that actions begin before the conscious brain realizes it. I understand that, but why is it, that once I do realize I am moving, I can stop it? Without free will, how is this possible? Is the argument that evolution and the universe has given us two, completely uncontrollable, competing, "wills" that we are prisoners inside?
For one, I don't believe it. I do recognize that instinct kicks in before the brain realizes it, as an evolutionary response, but the brain has veto power, it's obvious. My consciousness creates justifications for the reasons to not do something. I can operate against, or within, my own interests, on a whim, for any justification.
What purpose would that serve, in evolution? It makes far more sense for there to be an uncontrolled or less-controlled component (instincts, and auto responses) that protect us when we don't have time to consider, and then another, more evolved portion, that allows us to consider. Are you posturing that considering can't exist because of our current flimsy knowledge of physics? I don't accept that, when it goes against everything we all feel.
And even so, even if you are correct, it benefits us not at all to know it. To know that we in fact have no control would unravel our entire existence, and probably be the death of humanity.
To finish it up? I can definitely say, from all the things I have witnessed and all the things in the world that are known to us..If we don't have true free-will, we have the most free-will of any object, thing, or being. We're as close as one can get. We should leave it at that.
I like that ending statement. Very ambiguous, and probably the most true thing written yet, even though many people would consider free will to be a binary truth.
The problem I have with your interpretation is that it suggests we cannot be unaware (sorry double negative) of our forced actions. What I am imagining is that out actions are in a sphere, and our consciousness is engulfing that sphere. If there was to be no free will, then there would be another sphere around the consciousness one; it would control the mind, and that would control the actions. The way you are looking at it, if I am correct, is that the consciousness sphere is separate; it can observe the determination sphere controlling the action sphere, and watch in helplessness. If there was determination, I don't think it would work this way.
Sorry for the weird ass description, I have an incredibly visual mind, and that is hard as hell to convey in words. I can rephrase if you are interested.
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On March 05 2012 23:17 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 23:06 CyDe wrote:On March 05 2012 22:49 Geiko wrote:On March 05 2012 22:46 CyDe wrote:
Uh oh, this thread looks like it starting to descend into attacks and one liners.
To try and bring it back onto a discussion, I'm going to pose the question about randomness in quantum mechanics.
So I don't know anything about this, but let's just take an atom's electrons for example. One could say that the location of the electrons is random, but because it is within a certain field, doesn't that mean that they are in a 'controlled random'? The electrons cannot just fly out to any random point in the universe, they are bound by certain restrictions, which really doesn't make them random in a true (I use that word non-literally) sense.
Could someone explain this in the quantum mechanics perspective? Because from what I would imagine it is fairly similar. Random doesn't mean the distribution function has to be uniform over the whole universe. When you roll a dice, you'll have a random between 1 and 6, but you'll never get 7. Hmm. Food for thought. Still, in my ideas, random is really something based on infinity in a way; something that can have an infinite number of outcomes. Like, I suppose the chances of rolling a six repeatedly are reduced as you repeat tests; first roll, 1/6. Second roll 1/36. Third roll 1/216. etc. Eventually the denominator becomes so great that it is in a practical sense infinity. And in this way you can logically predict that the next number will not be six. And it won't be, after a certain point. The denominator will become infinity. Oh, and this is just something that came to me a while ago, and I could never lose the thought. Imagine a random universe which could result in anything happening... what if that universe suddenly had its "denominator of reason" tipped... Hard to explain. Let's say that this universe is completely random. Which is completely possible. It has been following a pattern and suddenly it decides to stop. Like, the universe is a die, and it's been rolling sixes for billions of years. Then, suddenly, at any time, it could roll a five, and everything as we know it would change and break. Woah. I don't know, something I like to contemplate. Your understanding of probability is fundamentally flawed. If you roll a dice, each outcome is independent of the last. Assuming a fair dice, if you roll 3 sixes in a roll, the chance that the next roll is six is still 1/6. The reason why in the long run the probability of rolling six or any number is 1/6, despite having rolled 3 sixes, is because in the long run, the 3 sixes of your first rolled is swarmed and marginalized by the 1/6 probabilities of a large number of later rolls. There are many probability distributions, some have a finite number of outcomes, e.g. rolling a dice has 6 outcomes, while others have a infinite number of outcomes, e.g the temperature at a particular point of earth or the logarithm of the change in price of Apple shares tomorrow.
I understand that. What I am saying is that in the bigger picture the chances of rolling 10 sixes in a row is 1/60,466,176. Of course the following roll is exactly the same in probability as the previous, but in connection to each other, the chances change as the tests continue.
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On March 05 2012 23:13 Zahir wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 21:37 paralleluniverse wrote:
...Therefore, free will does not exist because we cannot choose how the particles that constitute our body move This argument seems a bit silly. There is no 'we' outside the particles that constitute our body and their motions. In the same way, there is no choice, free will or consciousness outside of the interactions of those particles. Does that mean that consciousness doesn't exist? Obviously not. I don't see why free will has to be the punching bag here. Free will is every bit as real as other abstract concepts relating to the mind, no more, no less.
Your argument is confusing.
You claim that everything is merely the interaction of particles, and that there is no choice.
This shows that you do not believe in free will, or at least the free will which I've been talking about.
Yet you then claim that free will is a real as consciousness.
This seems to be my argument that free will appears to exist, and that we live as if we had free will. Our current understanding of consciousness, is that it is an experience that is related to the biochemical reactions in the brain. Like everything in the universe, it is merely caused by the motion of particles following certain physical laws.
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On March 05 2012 22:44 RoberP wrote:@hypercube - thanks, that Libet experiment was an interesting read. So when I cheese, my brain randomly decides to cheese (with environmental factors affecting the probabilities) and then makes up excuses for it? It's not my fault guys! :p
Sounds like an interesting book though, I'll have to read it.
Haha, not sure about that. If you decided to cheese well before the game than you had enough time to consciouly override the previous unconscious decision. Although you might not be inclined to as you probably falsely remember it to be a conscious choice.
Now whether that conscious override is really your decision or simply your mind's trick of rationalizing a decision that was made before you were consciously aware of it is another question. 
In any case even if conscious decisions exist and not all of them are a posteriori rationaliztions we still don't know if they are manifestation of free will (in the philosophical sense) or just the consequence of a physical process.
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On March 05 2012 22:21 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 21:58 solidbebe wrote:
I feel like there's something missing, your point is that we don't have free will and then your conclusion is religions abuse it. But that wasn't your original point at all. My point is that we don't have free will. But religions erroneously claim we do to explain away the existence of evil in the world.
Actually Abrahmic religions usually borrow from Ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy.
Free Will and determinism have a rich and complex philosophical history to which this debate is unlikely to bring anything of consequence.
In fact, it is quite interesting to see how a philosphical dialogue is completely obscured by a pseudo-politicical Religion vs Science debate
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Free will exist. Simple choice we have everyday within everything. Natures law apply for everything, but as for DNA and inherent DNA. It might be more likely that I become an alcoholic then you. But I still have the free will of stretching my hand and grab it or not.
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On March 05 2012 23:26 CyDe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 23:17 paralleluniverse wrote:On March 05 2012 23:06 CyDe wrote:On March 05 2012 22:49 Geiko wrote:On March 05 2012 22:46 CyDe wrote:
Uh oh, this thread looks like it starting to descend into attacks and one liners.
To try and bring it back onto a discussion, I'm going to pose the question about randomness in quantum mechanics.
So I don't know anything about this, but let's just take an atom's electrons for example. One could say that the location of the electrons is random, but because it is within a certain field, doesn't that mean that they are in a 'controlled random'? The electrons cannot just fly out to any random point in the universe, they are bound by certain restrictions, which really doesn't make them random in a true (I use that word non-literally) sense.
Could someone explain this in the quantum mechanics perspective? Because from what I would imagine it is fairly similar. Random doesn't mean the distribution function has to be uniform over the whole universe. When you roll a dice, you'll have a random between 1 and 6, but you'll never get 7. Hmm. Food for thought. Still, in my ideas, random is really something based on infinity in a way; something that can have an infinite number of outcomes. Like, I suppose the chances of rolling a six repeatedly are reduced as you repeat tests; first roll, 1/6. Second roll 1/36. Third roll 1/216. etc. Eventually the denominator becomes so great that it is in a practical sense infinity. And in this way you can logically predict that the next number will not be six. And it won't be, after a certain point. The denominator will become infinity. Oh, and this is just something that came to me a while ago, and I could never lose the thought. Imagine a random universe which could result in anything happening... what if that universe suddenly had its "denominator of reason" tipped... Hard to explain. Let's say that this universe is completely random. Which is completely possible. It has been following a pattern and suddenly it decides to stop. Like, the universe is a die, and it's been rolling sixes for billions of years. Then, suddenly, at any time, it could roll a five, and everything as we know it would change and break. Woah. I don't know, something I like to contemplate. Your understanding of probability is fundamentally flawed. If you roll a dice, each outcome is independent of the last. Assuming a fair dice, if you roll 3 sixes in a roll, the chance that the next roll is six is still 1/6. The reason why in the long run the probability of rolling six or any number is 1/6, despite having rolled 3 sixes, is because in the long run, the 3 sixes of your first rolled is swarmed and marginalized by the 1/6 probabilities of a large number of later rolls. There are many probability distributions, some have a finite number of outcomes, e.g. rolling a dice has 6 outcomes, while others have a infinite number of outcomes, e.g the temperature at a particular point of earth or the logarithm of the change in price of Apple shares tomorrow. I understand that. What I am saying is that in the bigger picture the chances of rolling 10 sixes in a row is 1/60,466,176. Of course the following roll is exactly the same in probability as the previous, but in connection to each other, the chances change as the tests continue.
I'm not sure what chance you're talking about changes.
The chance of rolling 6 in the next go is still 1/6. However, for example, the chance of rolling at least 1 six in n rolls changes as n changes.
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On March 05 2012 23:13 Felnarion wrote:
I'm not going to descend with you guys into the depths of physics to explain this.
To bring back something I read earlier in the thread...If we are destined to behave in pre-determined ways..What governs them?
Imagine a scenario where someone has a gun to my head and the evildoer demands I move my leg. What if I refuse? This is a possibility. Why would I refuse? If my actions are predetermined, how would I refuse? Surely evolution would show us that I should behave in my best interest, correct? I mean, if evolution is true, then things must, by and large, operate in such a way as to preserve themselves?
So, why can I refuse to move my leg and thus die? Unless we are governed on something else? Maybe we all simply live out of spite. All the things we do are to spite death, except in my scenario, where my "willingness" to spite death is lower than how much I want to spite the evildoer?
I've read the research that actions begin before the conscious brain realizes it. I understand that, but why is it, that once I do realize I am moving, I can stop it? Without free will, how is this possible? Is the argument that evolution and the universe has given us two, completely uncontrollable, competing, "wills" that we are prisoners inside?
For one, I don't believe it. I do recognize that instinct kicks in before the brain realizes it, as an evolutionary response, but the brain has veto power, it's obvious. My consciousness creates justifications for the reasons to not do something. I can operate against, or within, my own interests, on a whim, for any justification.
What purpose would that serve, in evolution? It makes far more sense for there to be an uncontrolled or less-controlled component (instincts, and auto responses) that protect us when we don't have time to consider, and then another, more evolved portion, that allows us to consider. Are you posturing that considering can't exist because of our current flimsy knowledge of physics? I don't accept that, when it goes against everything we all feel.
And even so, even if you are correct, it benefits us not at all to know it. To know that we in fact have no control would unravel our entire existence, and probably be the death of humanity.
To finish it up? I can definitely say, from all the things I have witnessed and all the things in the world that are known to us..If we don't have true free-will, we have the most free-will of any object, thing, or being. We're as close as one can get. We should leave it at that.
Your action to move or not is the culmination of every prior experience or thought you have had. In it's most basic form, it is the aggregate of the chain of causes and effects that had led the elementary particles that make up the situation you're in to be in that particular configuration at that particular time.
But as I've said, the world works "as if" you had free will.
I don't get any profound insight on how I should make "decisions" or live my life based on my disbelief in free will. But it's not like I had a choice...
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the op says that there's no free will and as he explained it it's totally agreeable. But I think as long as I have the free choice between e.g. standing up or staying seated right now and I think I can choose freely then I think I do have free will. Of course you can't find out if it is free will or it has to be like that but as long as I feel I can choose it's free will for me.
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On March 05 2012 23:30 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 23:26 CyDe wrote:On March 05 2012 23:17 paralleluniverse wrote:On March 05 2012 23:06 CyDe wrote:On March 05 2012 22:49 Geiko wrote:On March 05 2012 22:46 CyDe wrote:
Uh oh, this thread looks like it starting to descend into attacks and one liners.
To try and bring it back onto a discussion, I'm going to pose the question about randomness in quantum mechanics.
So I don't know anything about this, but let's just take an atom's electrons for example. One could say that the location of the electrons is random, but because it is within a certain field, doesn't that mean that they are in a 'controlled random'? The electrons cannot just fly out to any random point in the universe, they are bound by certain restrictions, which really doesn't make them random in a true (I use that word non-literally) sense.
Could someone explain this in the quantum mechanics perspective? Because from what I would imagine it is fairly similar. Random doesn't mean the distribution function has to be uniform over the whole universe. When you roll a dice, you'll have a random between 1 and 6, but you'll never get 7. Hmm. Food for thought. Still, in my ideas, random is really something based on infinity in a way; something that can have an infinite number of outcomes. Like, I suppose the chances of rolling a six repeatedly are reduced as you repeat tests; first roll, 1/6. Second roll 1/36. Third roll 1/216. etc. Eventually the denominator becomes so great that it is in a practical sense infinity. And in this way you can logically predict that the next number will not be six. And it won't be, after a certain point. The denominator will become infinity. Oh, and this is just something that came to me a while ago, and I could never lose the thought. Imagine a random universe which could result in anything happening... what if that universe suddenly had its "denominator of reason" tipped... Hard to explain. Let's say that this universe is completely random. Which is completely possible. It has been following a pattern and suddenly it decides to stop. Like, the universe is a die, and it's been rolling sixes for billions of years. Then, suddenly, at any time, it could roll a five, and everything as we know it would change and break. Woah. I don't know, something I like to contemplate. Your understanding of probability is fundamentally flawed. If you roll a dice, each outcome is independent of the last. Assuming a fair dice, if you roll 3 sixes in a roll, the chance that the next roll is six is still 1/6. The reason why in the long run the probability of rolling six or any number is 1/6, despite having rolled 3 sixes, is because in the long run, the 3 sixes of your first rolled is swarmed and marginalized by the 1/6 probabilities of a large number of later rolls. There are many probability distributions, some have a finite number of outcomes, e.g. rolling a dice has 6 outcomes, while others have a infinite number of outcomes, e.g the temperature at a particular point of earth or the logarithm of the change in price of Apple shares tomorrow. I understand that. What I am saying is that in the bigger picture the chances of rolling 10 sixes in a row is 1/60,466,176. Of course the following roll is exactly the same in probability as the previous, but in connection to each other, the chances change as the tests continue. I'm not sure what chance you're talking about changes. The chance of rolling 6 in the next go is still 1/6. However, for example, the chance of rolling at least 1 six in n rolls changes as n changes.
I mean that there is a difference in the chances of rolling a six five times in a row and eight times in a row.
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On March 05 2012 23:29 Deleuze wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 22:21 paralleluniverse wrote:On March 05 2012 21:58 solidbebe wrote:
I feel like there's something missing, your point is that we don't have free will and then your conclusion is religions abuse it. But that wasn't your original point at all. My point is that we don't have free will. But religions erroneously claim we do to explain away the existence of evil in the world. Actually Abrahmic religions usually borrow from Ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy. Free Will and determinism have a rich and complex philosophical history to which this debate is unlikely to bring anything of consequence. In fact, it is quite interesting to see how a philosphical dialogue is completely obscured by a pseudo-politicical Religion vs Science debate
Assume the existence of the Christian God. Explain the existence of evil in the world without referring to free will.
Free will is a scapegoat that is abused by religions to justify the existence of evil.
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There is no such thing as free will, only the illusion of it :3
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On March 05 2012 23:35 k3m4 wrote:
the op says that there's no free will and as he explained it it's totally agreeable. But I think as long as I have the free choice between e.g. standing up or staying seated right now and I think I can choose freely then I think I do have free will. Of course you can't find out if it is free will or it has to be like that but as long as I feel I can choose it's free will for me.
I like to adopt this philosophy for a lot of theoretical existential possibilities. Like people say, "Oh, what if the world is really a dream, woah, dude... this reality isn't real man." (yeah I dramatized them a lot)
My response tends to be, "Well, if it is, it is my reality. Until I found out for certain that this world I know is simply a dream, it doesn't really affect me in any way." It's like... tangible apathy. Or something.
Although I guess it doesn't stop it from being very interesting to discuss.
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On March 05 2012 23:21 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 23:10 Uncultured wrote:On March 05 2012 23:05 paralleluniverse wrote:On March 05 2012 22:58 Tanukki wrote:
There is the possibility of an "emergent property". Basically that the force of "descision" has always been one of the laws of the universe, along with stuff like magnetism and all that. But it's only exhibited by certain things such as a human brain. Just like classical, predictable mechanics emerge from the randomness of quantum mechanics, it is possible that nonpredictable things arise from classical mechanics. If this were true, we would have to rewrite all our physics textbooks. Fortunately, we don't have to rewrite our physics textbooks because there is no evidence to support this assertion. You've claimed a "heliocentric model" of consciousness, whereby the universe revolves around us. You keep saying there's no evidence to support other people ideas like it's relevant to the discussion. There's no evidence for your belief either. The only evidence we have at the moment is that the world operates under the principles of both free will, and determinism. Until we know more there's no way to extrapolate more than this. The evidence is that the existence of free will contradicts our understanding of the universe.
... You've officially gone past the point or ridiculous. Our understanding of the universe is not complete, therefore making an assertion that it supports your own beliefs of a lack of free will is nothing but theory.
This is all quite funny when our understand of the universe, as it is now, allows for both free will, and determinism.
You keep bringing up straw men like fairies, god, and religion to try and prove your ridiculous point, when I'm not trying to prove the existence of any of those. Free will is not SOLEY a product of religion. It also has many foundation is physics, biolody, neuroscience... and the list goes on. These are thing separate from philosophy. That is the point I'm trying to explain to you.
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Religion thread.
Ew.
User was temp banned for this post.
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On March 05 2012 22:45 ooni wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 22:39 ooni wrote:On March 05 2012 22:29 radscorpion9 wrote:On March 05 2012 22:25 ooni wrote:Here is how I see it... HERE WE GO Imagine a machine that can predict the future by 100% or very close to it it should be considered 100%, let us say this machine exists and figures out the outcome by "pre-determined" data. IF (<- note the big if) a such machine was possible to build and one does the opposite, that person would have acquired "free will" (if one defines free will as changing the course of the future by a choice). If you are going to argue, "you do not have all the data, the data of the last choice was not included..."; That does not matter since everything is supposely 'predetermined', the last choice should have been predicted by the data at that point. If it cannot be predicted by the machine 2 possible futures exist depending on the person's choice Well I believe humans or other animals with lessor intelligence is a crappier version of this machine. They can predict somewhat what will happen and act upon it, and has the free will to not to act upon it or act differently. What if that machine told the person what kind of sandwich they would have the next morning. If everything is determined, would it be fair to say that the person will always have that sandwich? If the machine told me which sandwich I was going to eat, do I believe that I would be physically incapable of choosing otherwise? I was thinking of that a while ago. Not sure if its 100% logical. (The reaction to hearing the data should have also been factored in, right?) No that's the thing, the person could choose otherwise, it is a possible scenario. Thus a machine that supposely determine the future (which is possible because everything is supposely "predetermined") is only one scenario, if it wants to be 100% correct it will need to produce 2, an alternative future depending on the choice the person makes. The reaction after hearing the data is not a data that is required, since everything is predetermined, it should be obvious for the machine to figure out what the decision will be (that decision should be predetermined). Oh btw, could someone debunk this idea? I always want to hear the people's thoughts on it.
Assuming a person would not follow the machine's predictions, I guess it'd go into an infinite loop
First it would calculate the first prediction, say: The person will eat in the next five minutes.
Then it would calculate the reaction of the person to said prediction: The person will not eat in the next five minutes.
Then it would either A) Calculate the reaction to the upper prediction, and the reaction to this prediction and so forth.
or B) Discard the first predictions altogether. Since the first prediction is now false and will not be sent out by the machine, the second one is false as well, as it relies on the person seeing the first result. After this, maybe it'd give an error or start over.
Or it could just predict that the nonsense above would happen and not bother with it at all. I'm kind of rambling about stuff I don't know much about, so there are probably errors in my train of thought, but whatever. You wanted thoughts, here you go!
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On March 05 2012 23:41 Uncultured wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 23:21 paralleluniverse wrote:On March 05 2012 23:10 Uncultured wrote:On March 05 2012 23:05 paralleluniverse wrote:On March 05 2012 22:58 Tanukki wrote:
There is the possibility of an "emergent property". Basically that the force of "descision" has always been one of the laws of the universe, along with stuff like magnetism and all that. But it's only exhibited by certain things such as a human brain. Just like classical, predictable mechanics emerge from the randomness of quantum mechanics, it is possible that nonpredictable things arise from classical mechanics. If this were true, we would have to rewrite all our physics textbooks. Fortunately, we don't have to rewrite our physics textbooks because there is no evidence to support this assertion. You've claimed a "heliocentric model" of consciousness, whereby the universe revolves around us. You keep saying there's no evidence to support other people ideas like it's relevant to the discussion. There's no evidence for your belief either. The only evidence we have at the moment is that the world operates under the principles of both free will, and determinism. Until we know more there's no way to extrapolate more than this. The evidence is that the existence of free will contradicts our understanding of the universe. ... You've officially gone past the point or ridiculous. Our understanding of the universe is not complete, therefore making an assertion that it supports your own beliefs of a lack of free will is nothing but theory. This is all quite funny when our understand of the universe, as it is now, allows for both free will, and determinism. You keep bringing up straw men like fairies, god, and religion to try and prove your ridiculous point, when I'm not trying to prove the existence of any of those.
To say that I've gone past the point of ridiculousness suggests to me that you didn't even read the OP, as I claimed in the OP that free will contradicts our understanding of the universe.
Appealing to our lack of understanding of the universe doesn't change anything. Indeed, one can retort that believing in fairies, while unlikely to exist, is not laughable because our current understanding of the universe is incomplete.
To assert the existence of free will would destroy a fundamental principle of physics that have never been falsified, i.e. that humans can, independent of the universe, exert influence on the motion of particles and the laws of nature. That would be absurd. While technically not impossible, I don't believe such a claim will ever be shown to be true.
If you can harmonize our understanding of the universe with free will, as you claimed, I'd like to hear it, as I'm sure would many physicists.
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On March 05 2012 23:36 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 23:29 Deleuze wrote:On March 05 2012 22:21 paralleluniverse wrote:On March 05 2012 21:58 solidbebe wrote:
I feel like there's something missing, your point is that we don't have free will and then your conclusion is religions abuse it. But that wasn't your original point at all. My point is that we don't have free will. But religions erroneously claim we do to explain away the existence of evil in the world. Actually Abrahmic religions usually borrow from Ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy. Free Will and determinism have a rich and complex philosophical history to which this debate is unlikely to bring anything of consequence. In fact, it is quite interesting to see how a philosphical dialogue is completely obscured by a pseudo-politicical Religion vs Science debate Assume the existence of the Christian God. Explain the existence of evil in the world without referring to free will. Free will is a scapegoat that is abused by religions to justify the existence of evil.
The existence of free will is way more basic than any question about the existence of God. Why would you criticise someone's beliefs if you think they have no free will? Why would you ask for logical arguments if you are, by your own assumptions, unbound by the rules of logic?
So, yeah, you might be right. But if you are then the whole question is utterly meaningless.
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A universe without free will might be inconsistent with some or even a majority of religious worldviews. It is without a doubt, however, inconsistent with any worldview that assumes rationality. The whole idea that we choose our beliefs based on a careful assessment of available evidence? That seems right out the window from the word "choose" onward.
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There is a very popular viewpoint on free will, one that argues that "I can make decisions on my own, therefore I have free will".
This is absolutely not the case. The very idea in your head that "Hey, I can move my left OR right hand in the air, it's my choice!" is dictated by processes in your brain. These processes SHOULD be obeying strict laws. Strict laws give no scope for free will.
To argue free will, you need to argue that the brain is magical and disobeys the strict laws that the rest of the whole universe follow.
Just because you feel that you can make choices doesn't mean the process behind the choice was governed by a spiritual 'you'.
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EPT
