h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It sounds so nice...I'll have to go on holiday there! [insanity benefit?]

Well, I call it that because it sounds more fun than income support with an illness premium or whatever.

That does sounds better

Hold up a tick,I may be an observer with niether a class nor a digree in either theology or metaphysics, but on page 1 of this little debate we shouldn't have overlooked the word omniscient. If we do indeed have free will, and in so our choices aren't made until we've made them, then how can God know all, even the outcomes of those choices that have not yet been made? Indeed, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the existance of free will disprove the existance of a great many prophecies that depend on people making certain choices? I have been debating this little doozy if a question internaly for some time, if you guys out there have an answer, it would sure be appreciated.

Well, whaddya know? Thread's been dormant for seven months, you post to it, and in half an hour you get a reply.

A lot depends on what you mean by free will.

And on whether God is supposed to be inside or outside of time.

Not to mention whether or not you believe in God in the first place.

If free will is taken to be some form of choice maker outside of the rules of cause and effect then God must be outside of time (whatever THAT means) if he's to know the outcomes.

If, on the other hand, like me, you DON'T take free will that way, but take it to be part of a social discourse on responsibility quite independent of any metaphysics then - who knows?

Mind you, I'm a bit dubious about God's existence anyway, so the problem doesn't have an edge for me.

What do you think?

Noggin

Free will is the ability to make a choice of your own volition and act upon it without the interference from an almighty God or some perversion of physics. I am not a believer in God, nor any religion, so that ethereal hurtle is out of the way.

<...some perversion of physics...>

That's slightly ambiguous. Do you mean that volition occurs in accordance with the laws of physics, or that bringing the laws of physics into the act of volition is a sort of perversion?

Noggin

Basically, I'm trying to say that ones free will cannot, or at least should not, be governed by the laws of physics. So any act of trying to apply them to it is rediculous and will probably give you no more than a headache.

So what laws should apply, then? I agree that the laws of physics can't be applied in a direct sense, but...

How much of the backlog did you read? Posts 12-26 are an earlier discussion I had with another researcher before the thread drifted offtopic.

Noggin

Personally, I've had to make a few desicions that have affected my life forever. The biggest one was whether or not to live with my mom after she divorced her husband. I chose to live with neither of my parents for my mental health's sake and instead live with my grandma. The point I'm trying to make here is that even at 16 a person has to choose what things will help/harm their life and in doing so, demonstates free will. If God existed, he wouldn't have let my mother get into the horrible scrape that she was in, even if she did have free will. Somebody very close to me insists that I cannot brong change into my own life, that I need somebody to set it into motion. Who's "free will" does that show? Is it my free will because I need to have somebody to help me? Or is it somebody else's free will because they have to choose whether or not to help me? All this stuff makes me dizzy.... I think I'm going to take a nap.....

Personally, I've had to make a few desicions that have affected my life forever. The biggest one was whether or not to live with my mom after she divorced her husband. I chose to live with neither of my parents for my mental health's sake and instead live with my grandma. The point I'm trying to make here is that even at 16 a person has to choose what things will help/harm their life and in doing so, demonstates free will. If God existed, he wouldn't have let my mother get into the horrible scrape that she was in, even if she did have free will. Somebody very close to me insists that I cannot bring change into my own life, that I need somebody to set it into motion. Who's "free will" does that show? Is it my free will because I need to have somebody to help me? Or is it somebody else's free will because they have to choose whether or not to help me? All this stuff makes me dizzy.... I think I'm going to take a nap.....

Hi Kleo.
Of course everybody has to make decisions or choices about what they do, (hope yours worked out for you ; parental divorces are usually a b*tch to deal with), and so long as it's your choice that's free will. How much you can change your own life depends a lot on circumstances. Other people can change the choices that are available, but what YOU do is important, too.

Noggin

heh! you can ask kiro yukai about how I feel about decisions...lol anyway things have kind of owkred out with my current living situation.. but my mom seems to think that God makes all her decision's for her. I just saw "Bruse Almighty" yesterday (how ironic!) and it had a lot to do with omnipotence versus free will.. according to that movie, God couldn't do anything that affected free will..

Sorry i repeated that last message >_< f*****g computers..lol

No, No, NOOOOO! She's been following me everywhere! all of my conversations. NOOOOO! I cannot escape.

Whats the matter Kiro? Do you feel that your privacy has been violated? You should have known from the instant you told me about this site that I'd be following you!! your free will combined with myne and now look at what ya get! lol..share some of your poetry on here.. it'll be cool!

Hey Nog!

First, excuse my poor English, I'm from SCG.
I would like to join this interesting conversation of subject of free will and how it is related to idea of god. I am studying Special Education in Belgrade, and psychology is my big interest, so I will see this problem from this aspect, for a change.
I am atheist. Well, I mean that I believe only in what I see, hear, sense in any other way, or come to by intelectual operations. I think that you too asume the word "atheist" very same.
Also, I believe that man has made up a god to meet his needs, like someone here already sayed. I have a bit of knowledge about history, physics, mathematics, psychology, sociology, ... well, I believe enough for that I am not familiar with idea of god.
But lets return to the matter.

I would like to ask this question - do you believe that everything have it's cause, or, there are things that can happen with no cause?
I think that answering this question has a lot to do with being predestined or not. If you think that nothing can happen without having it's cause, then you can make a conclusion that will lead you to predestination.
As I do not believe in dualism of body-soul, I see "will" as one of the psyhical functions, based on the activity of the brain. So, the question is what is happening in the brain. We will not understand the process of choosing (without it there is not something like free will), until we understand how brain functions, and what are REALY our resources we can choose any will from.
Now, you could say that I am saying nothing related to the free will, but would the concept of free will exist at all, if there were no entity who can choose? Of coure, not.
Free will is the cathegory which realy exists only where exists the entity that can choose, and it is MAN.
Now, again from the aspect of psychology, when do you think in the proces of ontogenesis the man is realy able to realise the concept of free will? This concept doesn't come with us when we are born. It comes little later as we become able to understand the concept of time, space, and relations of those with our self. What does the little baby know of free will?
Here is another question.
I asked one Christian this question:
What happens when little baby dies? Acording to the statement that god has gave us a free will to behave good or bad, why is that baby who died instantly after birth so happy to go to paradise without any temtations? Where is it's will then?
Ofcourse I didn't get a proper answer.
At the end I think that term FREE WILL at one side and LAWS OF PHYSICS at the other side, are very different cathegories, and it has no sense to compare them, althou it seem like they are at the same level.
Because, when you talk of physics, you call your self to the laws that actually work in physics. If you want to put in consideration free will, you will first have to translate it to language of physics, 'cos you can't do comparing inches and ohms, for example.
And, you will only be able to translate concept of free will if you know the complete physical laws that drives the brain and all that happens in it.
And, unfortunatelly, I think a lot of time will pass until we get to know it...

Pavlovic Srdjan, Belgrade.

Hi SP

I didn't expect to see this old thread show up in my conversation list again!

Broadly speaking I agree with what you say.

<>

Firstly, the truth or otherwise of the concept of determinism (that any state of the universe is connected to previous states by a definite rule) is not empirically testable. The universe may be as deterministic as you please and it would still not be possible to fully predict the future (Uncertainty Principle, three body problem, etc). Determinism is therefore a kind of intellectual principle that allows us to think about why things happen.

Free will and determinism certainly are different categories. If you try to explain free will in terms of some form of indeterminism you quickly find that it is impossible to establish a connection between what we do and the circumstances and goals that are supposed to be the reasons for doing them. The actual "use" of the term free will in language is as part of a discourse that establishes the limits of responsibility and choice.

Noggin

I would like to ask you if you have any books of phylosophy in electronic format (any format would suit), except those which can be faund on Project Gutenberg or other sites offering free books.

I saw you mantioned thinking of caming to Malta, that's cool.
Middle Europe is best place to find people thinking very variosly because of high mixture of culture in one place.

I didn't have a time to read all of the stuff on this forum considering phylosophy(ing)althou I'd like, cos I have to learn for exams (things here got worst because I'm now learning things that I am not quite interested in). Sociology of handicapped people is very much associated with social politics, so you have to know all of that soc. politic terms, entering the sphere of low, which is so boring to me. For example, types of social institutes ...

Well, anyway, we do not have here in Belgrade a very high quality of phylosophy teachers (maybe just a few), and I don't have a phylosophy as a subject in my Faculty of Spec. Education.
I still have more trust in teachers from "big ones", so I have only chance to use internet as chance to get to them or at least their opinions.

Is there any chance on this forum that I can be notified on my e-mail when I get reply here, and if there is, how can I turn that option on?

One day, last month, my friend and me have turned
"IN VINO VERITAS" in new truth which we realised after 10 beers,
"IN VINO VOMITUS"

Greeting from S.P.

Free Will...

If I play a game of chess against a computer, which of us is using free will to make our moves? The computer has a precise description of how it chooses its moves (chess program), but I don't. Perhaps I just don't recognize my unconscious program, and realize all the factors that go into it.

Of course, the fact that I usually lose doesn't affect my desire to keep trying to beat computers at chess (whether it is a deterministic decision or free will).

Someone mentioned Richard Rorty (in the discussion on gadflies--he is a philosophy gadfly) and gave a link to his home page: http://www.stanford.edu/~rrorty/index.html --he has some interesting philosophy.