Free will .......

One is 'denied' full knowledge of all available choices by one's lack of omniscience.

Yet we have free will.

Nearly our entire society is built on the notion that man has free will, and thus is responsible for his choices and actions.

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real life wrote:

One is 'denied' full knowledge of all available choices by one's lack of omniscience.

Yet we have free will.

Nearly our entire society is built on the notion that man has free will, and thus is responsible for his choices and actions.

I admit that I am not omniscient .... how can I exercise my free will if I don't know what to choose? Is my free will limited to 'choosing to choose'?

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Gelisgesti wrote:

real life wrote:
One is 'denied' full knowledge of all available choices by one's lack of omniscience.

Yet we have free will.

Nearly our entire society is built on the notion that man has free will, and thus is responsible for his choices and actions.

I admit that I am not omniscient .... how can I exercise my free will if I don't know what to choose? Is my free will limited to 'choosing to choose'?

Why can't you choose between known options? Of course you can.

You wish you knew ALL available options. Sure everybody does. They also wish they knew what choosing each of those options would produce. But we don't know that either.

Still you have free will and are responsible for your choices.

It's like saying you have the freedom to associate with whomever you choose, and you saying, 'But I can't associate with Lincoln, Patrick Henry and Mozart.' Yeah no kidding. Tough breaks eh?

It's as free as it's gonna get, so make good choices based on what you DO know.

Educate yourself by turning off American Idol and learning about the world, so that more choices will be available to you as you know more.

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Given that the variances of potential choice are infinite, "turning off American Idol" and "trying to learn about the world" would an effort equivalent to collecting one grain of sand claiming you have a beach.

The fact of the matter is, without foreknowledge you can not have free will, oh but I forgot, RL claims to have foreknowledge!

real life wrote:

I knew (foreknew) Hillary would run for President.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=90688&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=700

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This again?

Oh well. If there is a god that preordains everything there can be no free will.

But there is only existence, the world, creation, nature, or whatever you want to call it. Within this world everything has energy or mass, and can exert it's influence according to it's presence. Humans are no different, and our ability to exert our influence is what is percieved as free will.

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We have free will if we can make a decision and act on it without being coerced or brainwashed into obeying someone else's dictates.

Free will can be limited by social conditioning/training, mental deficiencies (such as psychosis or obsessive/compulsive disorders), threat of punishment, need to please someone else, fear (phobias can prevent someone from making a speech, changing careers, standing up to the boss, leaving an abusive relationship, flying, or petting a dog), or physical restraint.

Free will is not the same thing as informed choice. If we had known then what we know now, I suspect that all of us would have made a different choice at some point in our lives.

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Then by the confluence of posts, 'free will' becomes a matter of choosing. If that is true, then there must have been an initial or 'first', free choice.

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Nobody is interested in debating the ability to make trivial "choices" like tea versus coffee. I therefore put to all here, that outside religious debate "free will" only meaningfully arises after the event. It is a pseudo legal concept which is used in conjunction with those of culpability/social responsibility. A clever lawyer mitigates such culpability by attempting to reduce the freedom parameter. If we now take litigation as the primary semantic context it implies that religious debate about "free will" is merely concerned with the concepts of "sin" and "salvation".

There is a potential extension of the debate to involve the philosophical examination of "causality" or the "status of the self" but these are usually remain axiomatic.

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hay fresco, thx for the post.

I was headed more in the 'deterministic' arena. This would lead to the granting of free will by the creator and the question of the integrity of free will under that circumstance.

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Gelisgesti

Both "determinism" and "creation" require "causality" to be axiomatic, but philosophically and scientifically causality falls apart. This is why academic theologists (like Polkinghorne) have retreated to the position of advocating "a non-interventionist deity" as opposed to an omnicient prime-mover. It follows that "will" is not a disembodied attribute of cognition "in the gift of the deity" but merely an expression of the belief that we have a limited capacity to "control" our interactions under certain circumstances. The limit is more the result of the probabalistic nature of existence rather than an expression of reductionist determinism.

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How is it that causality falls apart philosophically?

Isn't causality merely the naive-realistic observation that every event is caused by something, and in turn causes something?

Free will and determinism are also naive-realistic concepts, and in delving further into the metaphysical realm that is our perception, we see that they are no longer sufficient to paint a coherent picture.

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Quote:

the metaphysical realm that is our perception

Human perception is metaphysical?

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Free will is constrained by our genes and environment, but as Terry explained, we have free will with limits.

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fresco wrote:

Gelisgesti

Both "determinism" and "creation" require "causality" to be axiomatic, but philosophically and scientifically causality falls apart. This is why academic theologists (like Polkinghorne) have retreated to the position of advocating "a non-interventionist deity" as opposed to an omnicient prime-mover. It follows that "will" is not a disembodied attribute of cognition "in the gift of the deity" but merely an expression of the belief that we have a limited capacity to "control" our interactions under certain circumstances. The limit is more the result of the probabalistic nature of existence rather than an expression of reductionist determinism.

My thought was more along the line that each choice made opens an infinite number of ensuing choices. .... but only one of these choices is the correct choice necessary to fulfill the initial choice. Free will .... yes, but impossible to realize without full knowledge of all choices .....

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Free will is constrained by our genes........

Free will is less constrained if she removes her jeans.

Gelisgesti wrote:

Free will .... yes, but impossible to realize without full knowledge of all choices .....

Oh.......baby...........yes!

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Cyracuz,

I concur. I can't remember who started the philosophical demolituon of "causality" (it was either Locke or Hume) and I think this was followed by Kants attack on naive realism.

Quote:

Whereas David Hume argued that causes are inferred from non-causal observations, Immanuel Kant claimed that people have innate assumptions about causes.Wikipedia

Gelisgesti,

My problem with your line of thought is that you use the word "knowledge"
uncritically. For me "knowledge" is about dynamic "successful prediction" not static "facts". There is no pre-existing decision tree of "choices" hidden from a static "self". Both "observer" and "observed" undergo mutual state changes as an event unfolds.

"Free will" is a bit like having a small wooden paddle whilst flowing with a river. Its fine in quiet stretches but of little use when we hit the rapids.

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gelisgesti wrote:

Human perception is metaphysical?

Yes. Our meanings and concepts are not of the physical world they describe. The separateness of a stone from the earth it lies on is formed in our minds, not on the field. So our percieved world is a realm of its own, overlaying the physical world, but only indirectly related to it, through our perception.

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Quote:

Gelisgesti,

My problem with your line of thought is that you use the word "knowledge"
uncritically. For me "knowledge" is about dynamic "successful prediction" not static "facts". There is no pre-existing decision tree of "choices" hidden from a static "self". Both "observer" and "observed" undergo mutual state changes as an event unfolds.

"Free will" is a bit like having a small wooden paddle whilst flowing with a river. Its fine in quiet stretches but of little use when we hit the rapids.

Following up on your analogy:
regardless of your use of a paddle you will eventually, come hell or high water Smile

.... reach your destination, the ocean. (the destination of all rivers)

[As an aside... the acidity or Ph of the ocean(s) on our planet happens to fall within the normal human range of 7.35 to 7.45 with a normal of 7.40. May be germane may be not]

If you have ever been white water canoeing you would know that it's not so much the size of the paddle in use, it is very much how you use it. That and, your knowledge of the river. This knowledge might come with familiarity of the particular river you are navigating or a knowledge of water flow patterns gained from prior rivers negotiated.
Every river is made up of tributaries which are either navigable or not and to travel upon them requires that a choice be made, either knowledgeable or blind, still a choice with ensuing choices to be made.

Cyracuz wrote:

gelisgesti wrote:
Human perception is metaphysical?

Yes. Our meanings and concepts are not of the physical world they describe. The separateness of a stone from the earth it lies on is formed in our minds, not on the field. So our percieved world is a realm of its own, overlaying the physical world, but only indirectly related to it, through our perception.

Okedoke

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Re: Free will .......

Gelisgesti wrote:

How can 'free will' be anything but an oxymoron if one is denied full knowledge of all available choices?

I suppose it could be said that we have free-will only amongst the choices known to us. That said, to know a choice is to be aware of the outcome of choosing it through the progession of time. In otherwords, one must be able to forecast with absolute certainty the effect and subsequent knock on effects of each choice to properly choose it... not easy. I believe we can only do that to a certain extent; too many variables and unkowns in the universe. Therefore human freedom to choose, if it exists, is very limited indeed. Ultimate free-will, in my opinion, would involve having infinite foresight and a perfect understanding of causality at every level.

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Free will .......

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