Theism & Free Wil:l Same, Similar, or Different

I think indeterminism requires the same type of metaphysical presupposition necessary to believe in a diety. Namely, the belief in some sort of non-physical thing that impacts the causation of the natural 'physical' world.

I'd go so far as to say that anyone proclaiming themselves an athiest, but still believes in "free will" is a cop-out. I see no scientific/logical reason to believe in "free will", and only it's appeal as a comforting idea (like that of a "loving heavenly father"). Of course, if you do have a scientific theory promoting free will, I'm all ears.

You thoughts?

 

What you say seems obviously correct to me, but I was surprised when I went to an "Objectivism" forum. Objectivism is a philosophy which is supposedly guided by rational thought. Most of them are atheists. I was in this forum and stated that I thought that free will couldn't exist because of determinism. I was attacked by 80% of the people who joined in. This was blasphemy to them, apparently because if their minds operated deterministically, how could they be rational individuals?

They did indeed feel that even though the whole universe operates deterministically (other than quantum effects), that somehow something supernatural happens inside people's heads. They even said other animals think deterministically. So, I asked, how did non-deterministic thought evolve from our deterministic evolutionary predecessors? What caused this first non-deterministic action? God??? But then they don't believe in god. Very confusing people.

I say it's all deterministic. I believe that if every bit of information is known, in all physical dimensions, and all physical laws are known, that all future events can be predicted precisely - even the quantum mechanical stuff, and peoples thoughts and actions. And that we appear to have free will because we are not conscious of the workings of our brains. The brain cannot sense itself. So it appears to us that these thoughts just happen by our own will. And the mind is such a complex system that it is very hard to predict with certainty what it will do. Like the balls tumbling around in a lottery machine (which is simple compared to the mind). There are so many variables that we cannot easily predict what will happen, so the deterministic system can appear to work non-deterministically.

 

It's all how you define "free will" (most formulations I disagree with, a few I agree with).

BTW, determinism doesn't negate free will in some formulations. It merely means things occur according to some natural law--determinism--or they happen randomly--something besides determinism. This paragraph is poorly worded, but I don't have time to refine it.

 

Either way, I don't see what this would have to do with Atheism. The question is if the laws of the universe can truly create random events or not. This has nothing to do with God and everything to do with speculating about natural laws that science has not yet or possibly ever beEN able to formulate.

Look at it this way. If there is nothing truly random about the universe AND if the universe does cycle between states of energy and pure singularity then I could very well be typing this exact paragraph every 500 Trillion years or so for all eternity.

I know in electronic logic it is very difficult to create pure random variables. Random as perceived by the human mind is anything to fast or complex to be tracked and predicted. A simple logic program that counts from 1 to 6 every millisecond is sufficient enough to act as digital dice as there is no way a human can track and predict a counter going that fast.

So either random is an illusion or there exists a complex interaction where the virtually infinite number of variables in our natural universe creates truly random effects. As far as the humans experience goes, random is as real as dirt or the color green and therefore free will is also as real as dirt or the color green.

I'd go so far as to say that anyone proclaiming that God is as real as "free will" is a cop-out.

 

Fate vs chance?

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