so we can only suggest what free will wouldn't be, and then see if anything is left. — PoeticUniverse

Free will is not a fixed will voting as it must, nor is it 'random', which is the worst unfree, nor is it even having all known block universe futures to pick from, nor is it consciousness having the same information as the brain and using its own mechanism, without the brain, nor is it to be free of the will, nor …?

So, there's not anything left, which means that 'free will' as a stand-alone something cannot be, much like an oxymoron, and also that it cannot even be meant, such as the case we have with other words with no context, almost like 'Nothing' or 'Infinite', and although the latter have definitions, the definitions serve to undo the ability of the stand-alone words in themselves to be something extant.

So, we have will, its constancy reflecting us and also benefiting us—toward having a future via its predictions.

The real story:

از کجا نمادهای فلور

With flora mystical and magical,
Eden’s botanical garden was blest,
So Eve, taking more than just the Apple,
Plucked off the loveliest of the best.

Thus it’s to Eve that we must give our thanks,
For Earth’s variety of fruits and plants,
For when she was out of Paradise thrown,
She stole all the flowers we’ve ever known.

Therewith, through sensuous beauty and grace,
Eve with Adam brought forth the human race,
But our world would never have come to be,
Had not God allowed them His mystery.

When they were banished from His bosom,
Eve saw more than just the Apple Blossom,
And took, on her way through Eden’s bowers,
Many wondrous plants and fruitful flowers.

Mighty God, upon seeing this great theft,
At first was angered, but soon smiled and wept,
For human nature was made in His name—
So He had no one but Himself to blame!

Yet still He made ready His thunderbolt,
As His Old Testament wrath cast its vote
To end this experiment gone so wrong—
But then He felt the joy of life’s new song.

Eve had all the plants that she could carry;
God in His wisdom grew uncontrary.
Out of Eden she waved the flowered wands,
The seeds spilling upon the barren lands.

God held the lightning bolt already lit,
No longer knowing what to do with it,
So He threw it into the heart of Hell,
Forming of it a place where all was well.

Thus the world from molten fire had birth,
As Hell faded and was turned into Earth.
This He gave to Adam and Eve, with love,
For them and theirs to make a Heaven of.

From His bolt grew the Hawthorn and Bluebell,
And He be damned, for Eve stole these as well!
So He laughed and pretended not to see,
Retreating into eternity.

‘So be it,’ He said, when time was young,
‘That such is the life My design has wrung,
For in their souls some part of Me has sprung—
So let them enjoy all the songs I’ve sung.

‘Life was much too easy in Paradise,
And lacked therefore of any real meaning,
For without the lows there can be no highs—
All that remains is a dull flat feeling!

‘There’s no Devil to blame for their great zest—
This mix of good and bad makes them best!
The human nature that makes them survive,
Also lets them feel very much alive.

‘That same beastful soul that makes them glad
Does also make them seem a little bad.
If only I could strip the wrong from right,
But I cannot have the day without the night!’

It appears that the problem comes about from the notion that the will is "freed" from the rules of a physical world and therefore exists as a personal supernatural means of determining one's course. — Pathogen

I could posit that the will has more inputs than we know, such as indications from the 5th dimension of the block universe about all of our possible futures via a survey of all our possible world-lines, but though would just be more inputs, although making the will work better; however, this wouldn't free the will from cause and effect, plus, who knows what 'free' really entails.

The problem at the end of my last sentence above begs for a definition of a deeper 'free' beyond no coercion and random. None have been forthcoming, so we can only suggest what free will wouldn't be, and then see if anything is left.

OK, here goes:

Probability for no ‘God’

0. Note: It is not a factor herein that the Biblical and thus necessarily fundamentalist ‘God’ has been demolished by evolutionary science and self-contradiction, for it still remains to size up what’s left.

1. All that we see goes from the simplest to the composite to the complex to the more complex, where we exist, which will continue into the future, where we can expect being higher than ourselves to become. The unlikely polar opposite of this is an ultra complex system of mind of a Designer being First as Fundamental, but systems have parts, this totally going against the fundamental arts.

2. (1) gets worse, given that there can be no input for any specific direction going into the Fundamental Eterne—the basis of all, this bedrock having to be causeless, having random effects, like those of quantum mechanics.

3. So, (2) indicates that there is no ultimate meaning, not that a built-in meaning would be great, for it would be restrictive, but at least, as ‘liberating’, there’s anything and everything possible that could become from the basic state of not anything in particular—our present Earthly life path being one that is being lived now after 13.57 billion years, much of which can be accounted for.

4. On top of the preceding unlikelihoods, and given that obviously that no Designer made everything instantly, it is unlikely that all eventualities could have been foreseen by a Deity in starting a universe suitable for life. It more seems like we were fine-tuned to the Earth.

5. It’s more OK if the ‘God’ Deity is like a scientist who throws a bunch of stuff together that is balanced and energetically reactive enough but not too much so that it races along too fast, etc., but, again, really, what is a fully formed person-like being doing sitting around beforehand, this also being all the more of a quandary that enlarges the question rather than answering it. If life has to come from a Larger Life, then a regress ensues, making this not to be a good template. As for a Deity trying to put workable stuff together, this is much like the idea of a multiverse.

6. Even worse, existence has no alternative, given that nonexistence has no being as a source and that there is indeed something, and so existence is mandatory, there not being any choice to it.

7. We see that the One of Totality continually transitions, never being able to remain as anything particular, which matches its nature supposed, due to no information being able to come into it in the first place that never was, for the One Fundamental Eterne has to be ungenerated and deathless.

8. Aside from the trivial definition of free will being that without coercion, that the will is free to operate, and the useless definition of the harmful random will equaling ‘freedom’, the deeper notion of ‘free’ as being original and free of the brain will is of a currency never being able to be stated and cashed in on, leaving ‘determined’ to continue to be the opposite of ‘undetermined’.

While eternalism can’t yet be told apart from presentism, the message from both is of a transient ‘now’, whether pre-determined or determined as it goes along. All hope is crushed, both for us and the Great Wheel having any potency. This is the great humility; hubris is gone.

It is enough, then, that we have the benefit of experiencing and living life well, sometimes, more so given this modern age, although still with sweat, tears, and aversive substrates of emotions that those of the future might consider to be barbaric.

Doesn’t seem like a smart God’s world, and so fundamentalist literalist Biblical ‘reasons’ cannot apply here, for those went away already. The pride of being special and deserving of reward and avoiding punishment is a nice wish, though, for us electro-chemical-bio organisms who appear be be as organic as anything else that grows in nature.

9. God’s operations, curiously restricted to be the same as nature’s has us not being able to tell them apart, but which is more likely, the natural or the supernatural? Earth is where it ought to be, in the Goldilocks zone, not out near Neptune. And why must there be a distinct transcendent, immaterial, intangible, super realm when it would still have to give and take energy in the physical material language?

10. Sit on a fence and go to church half the time or estimate the probability either way; there can be no blame for not knowing what can’t be shown for sure.

I do believe the scientific method gives us more reliable information about "reality." — rlclauer

By Rovelli:

“Science is not reliable because it provides certainty. It is reliable because it provides us with the best answers we have at present. Science is the most we know so far about the problems confronting us. It is precisely its openness, its constant putting of current knowledge in question, that guarantees that the answers it offers are the best so far available: if you find better answers, these new answers become science. When Einstein found better answers than Newton, he didn’t question the capacity of science to give the best possible answers—on the contrary, he confirmed it.

The answers given by science, then, are not reliable because they are definitive. They are reliable because they are not definitive. They are reliable because they are the best available today. And they are the best we have because we don’t consider them to be definitive, but see them as open to improvement. It’s the awareness of our ignorance that gives science its reliability.

And it is reliability that we need, not certainty. We don’t have absolute certainty, and never will have it unless we accept blind belief. The most credible answers are the ones given by science, because science is the search for the most credible answers available, not for answers pretending to certainty.

Though rooted in previous knowledge, science is an adventure based on continuous change. The story I have told reaches back over millennia, tracing a narrative of science that has treasured good ideas, but hasn’t hesitated to throw ideas away when something was found that worked better. The nature of scientific thinking is critical, rebellious, and dissatisfied with a priori conceptions, reverence, and sacred or untouchable truth. The search for knowledge is not nourished by certainty: it is nourished by a radical distrust in certainty.”

“This means not giving credence to those who say they are in possession of the truth. For this reason, science and religion frequently find themselves on a collision course. Not because science pretends to know ultimate answers, but precisely for the opposite reason: because the scientific spirit distrusts whoever claims to be the one having ultimate answers or privileged access to Truth. This distrust is found to be disturbing in some religious quarters. It is not science that is disturbed by religion: there are certain religions that are disturbed by scientific thinking.”

Excerpt From: Carlo Rovelli, Simon Carnell & Erica Segre. “Reality Is Not What It Seems.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/reality-is-not-what-it-seems/id1112589038”

Difficult Rhymes

Orange

Healthful orange is the common man’s color;
So, to make the expensive look cheaper,
Such as with a hotel, they paint it orange,
And put some shiny polish on the door hinge.

Earth

I notice here a great pittance and dearth
Of words that rhyme with the beloved Earth;
So aside from mirth, how can poems give birth
To all that life on this planet is worth?

Life

I note that just a few words rhyme with ‘life’,
For just how often can you kiss your wife?
Is this why poems are so rife with strife?
It’s better to fife than to stick a knife!

Love

Only a few words rhyme with ‘love’ above,
Like the overflown dove, the heartless shove,
And the ill-fitting glove. Alas, love’s rhymes
Remain unheard of, or aren’t well thought of.

Yes, unfortunately I've noticed a lot of nastiness and definsiveness on this forum; this makes me very sad. I was looking for a place to have a lively exchange of ideas with generous, curious intellectuals. — uncanni

I am normal; you can talk to me.

The Bible might be your holy book, but it isn't mine. :up: :smile: — Pattern-chaser

You can't get out of Bible Study that easily. I see from here that you also have 'The Egyptian Book of the Dead on you bookshelf.

First, 'God' threw out some debris that became our universe, since He really couldn’t make any original stuff instantly, and being limited to that, had to wait for 13.75 billions years for protohomo sapiens to appear, then tampered with our DNA to put the final perfect touches upon our human nature, making “Adam and Eve” in a Garden.

Well, old God, not really knowing didly-squat, was mighty darn surprised when his human nature design immediately flubbed when they ate an apple forbidden to them. “Jeeese”, thought God, “you tell them not to touch something and that’s the first thing they do.” So He threw them out of the Garden to see if that would help. It didn’t, and God was surprised, but we all were mostly fruitful and so multiplied into the millions. He recalled, too, that his Angel creations had failed.

God waited around, thinking that surely some more evolution of His new DNA masterpiece would do the trick. It didn’t, surprise, surprise, so God found the best man on earth, Noah, and his family, saved him and killed all the rest of humankind. Things would surely improve now, for this was like breeding cats, dogs, or horses. Nothing improved whatsoever, and even more folly and wars were going on, so the much more surprised God sent Moses down with the Ten Commandments. This would help change the masses.

Well, things did change; they got worse, and so God, shocked at this turn of events, sent many plagues of locusts to scare them into shaping up. This did not much work and God was utterly astounded, so God sent some prophets, but nothing much changed. “Darn,” said God. Or "damn!"

God then sent Jesus to preach goodness, but they crucified him. Wars, stealing, murdering, plundering, and name calling continued unabated, the different religions even warring against each other. This was all really getting out of hand.

God sent even more prophets, such as “Bab”. No effect. Shock and surprise. Earth’s problems got worse; the Nazis almost conquered the world. 11 million died in death camps. God, of course, was limited, apparently, and could do nothing to help. Finally, God, realizing that his experiment was hopeless, turned in His lab report and soon flunked the course.

(This is a true story handed down from some ancient historians who knew everything.)

The phenomenon of reliably consistent creation by causal intelligence lying behind it is philosophically and logically impossible without more causal intelligence lying behind it, etc., that is, a system of intelligent mind is a system, having parts beneath that are more fundamental than the resultant system. Where does it end (begin)? It cannot be with mind, for mind is composite. The regress must end at the simplest and the tiniest, where the buck stops. QED

That would be the best bootstrapping trick I've ever seen or heard of. — Pattern-chaser

Such are the ridiculous lengths believers go to in order to let 'God' shirk responsibility for human nature being such as it is.

Glad you could make it to Bible Study Class today.

Evolution via natural selection endowed human mammals with the notion of looking for intent in nature, and that helped us out a lot with our real environment. That it became somewhat innate is The Problem, as in what people still make up about the Intent.

It’s still that once one uses a specific word, one has to declare the word in all its specifics. I know we all have a vague idea of what ‘God’ means, but ask ten people ten questions about God, and one will find that there are ten ideas about god out there, not one. If one uses a word, one must fully explain that word, and in light of the Theory of Everything, one must also do that on scientifically satisfying grounds.

Many have said semantically impossible things in which the words sound good, but make no sense, like, say, “God is the Universe”, but, like a rose, it’s still the universe by any other name. Many even said what God is not, such as being undefinable, but that only supported the claim that to say that this notion of “God” says nothing, for it indeed defines nothing.

Everyone thinks that God knows everything, can do anything, and is everywhere, but really, actually, for sure and with no doubt, poor old God was just an advanced alien bumbling along through some carbon-based experiments as a student of biology… For real?

In retrospect we can see that any higher composite Mind had to have been upwards of our evolution, comparatively speaking, not something tiny, simple, and non-compositely fundamental way back when. He’s not really God, but we’ll still call Him that since He created us in a lab experiment. Not likely.

no-one has raised the least doubt about - that all imply the same thing, namely that our minds are immaterial souls. — Bartricks

Well, they did, and so the bubble is bursting.

In short, for starters, some like you have suggested that consciousness itself is causal, due to common sense impressions, but consciousness is not a thing, as either a material or immaterial entity. It is rather that consciousness accompanies particular brain events—it is a process that is entailed by these material brain events. Only matter/energy can be causal, and so those events are part of the physical world, and that world is thus causally closed.

We need not conclude that consciousness/qualia is useless, for its states are informational, as indicated earlier, even if not causal, as they are the discriminations entailed by causal transactions among neural activity states in a fine and useful symbol language.

Because qualia states and neural activity states are coherent, in certain contexts it is still useful to talk of qualia as standing for neural activity , and at higher levels of description, it is all the more convenient to talk as if consciousness/qualia is causal as long as no confusion results about the true causes that arise in the neural system.

an asserter — Bartricks

OK, you assert that the mind instantly manages every thought and decision in real time, replete with memories looked up and all such figuring of relation between. So now you can show it for sure, due to appearances.

I'm going to sleep soon; be well and enjoy. You are a good responder.

No, you really don't have a clue. — Bartricks

That's right, no clues, no detective work, but only a mind appearance notion.

er, yes it is. Explain how it isn't. — Bartricks

Analogous would be that we don't have any other evidence than somehow the notion only appears to us, and that's it, no blood, no fingerprints, no camera, not anything.

no matter how much evidence someone provides you — Bartricks

evidence = it appears to us that…

If there is a lot of good evidence that James did the crime, — Bartricks

No, not analogous.

unless, that is, we have done something to deserve her contempt. — Bartricks

Well, contempt, yes, if 'God' didn't really design our human nature, but that instead each one of us personally defined our human nature from scratch.

assuming — Bartricks

Assumptions either way are out, as not being for sure, we thus having to remain agnostic to the free or not of the will.

Probabilities and self-contradictions can still be applied if they are good ones, for estimation.

But if God were to exist, God's goodness would surely be commensurate with His infinite intelligence and wisdom. — petrichor

Who's up for us here estimating the good probability of a quite normal Person-like system of mind as 'God' or the estimating that there is no 'God'? Can't really use any of the Biblical inspirations/contradictions for either stance unless they would still apply as a universal principle.

appear — Bartricks

Yes, much 'appears to us' in our second story as formed from the non-apparent neurological boiler room on the first storey, but luckily science and its instruments have long since informed us.

No, your approach is wrong. — Bartricks

Let us then leave free will to be undefined. Perhaps other responders might either clarify or note that it's neither known what it is or what it is not and so it has no basis for discussion.

At some point here, I'll go on my own to at least narrow it down, if there's anything left.

Our taste buds are roughly a 4-way matrix.

if you think you can make someone blameworthy by blaming them, you're nuts. — Bartricks

I give neither blame nor credit for the will doing what it means to do.

2 + 3 = 5 — Bartricks

Then you should put that in since it is surely true.

It is self-evident to virtually everyone that premise 2 is true. — Bartricks

No, it is more that you will be held morally responsible because you're the one who did it.

If I am not a material object, then I must be an immaterial one, for that's the only alternative. — Bartricks

Should the mind be immaterial, what are the implications, if any? A spirit of life evolved? Does that make some difference?

"my evidence is that our minds are material objects and so everything that they are and that goes on in them is determined by prior causes" for that is question begging. — Bartricks

All I have to do is assert it in the same question begging way that you do, to match your style, but ungrounded assertions will be challenged.

That is, 3 is necessarily true if 1 and 2 are. — Bartricks

Yes, but to apply as a real life exercise it as true you need to show it. I could violate that too and just assert that (2) is false using the same liberty as you asserting it's true.

All of this in radical distinction to the solipsism of the fucking will, which bursts out of nowhere from some inner who-knows-what, engineered to be deliberately and radically distinct from any environment or world, meant solely to lash us ever more tightly to God least we burn in hell for not following his dictates. — StreetlightX

That's great wordage.

(They've been like six or seven threads on free will in the past week or so on the forum alone, each consecutive one more miserable than the other). — StreetlightX

I'm in one of them lately. We're at the point you hinted at, as a revelation even from a free willer that 'free will' has no definition beyond the trivial ones of no coercion and random.

Be sure not to go against God's will, or else…

Here's a fourth piece of evidence that my mind is an immaterial soul. — Bartricks

1. If everything I think, desire and do is the causal product of prior causes and/or indeterministic chance, then I am not morally responsible for anything I think, desire and do.

True, and then, further, you were never responsible at any time for what you became, this being regardless of any religious, moral, court rules deeming you as responsible.

2. I am morally responsible for some of what I think, desire and do.

Not shown; you would have to undo (1) to the complete satisfaction to all.

3. Therefore (from 1 and 2), not everything I think, desire and do is the causal product of prior causes and/or indeterministic chance.

No more 'therefore'. Again, the means need to be provided, not just that it is felt.

4. If I am a material object, then everything I think, desire and do is the causal product of prior causes and/or indeterministic chance

True..

5. Therefore (from 3 and 4), I am not a material object

'Therefore' didn't follow.

If I am not a material object, then I must be an immaterial one, for that's the only alternative.

True, as kind of a ghost, soul mind in a realm distinct from the material that still talks the talk and walks the walk of the immaterial at every instant to communicate with it.

Should the mind be immaterial, what are the implications, if any?

I don't know what you're on about. I don't have a definition of free will. But I know I have it. — Bartricks

Well, then, could you freely state its opposite so we might get a hint of what it could be by some kind of contrast?

I don't offer a definition — Bartricks

I knew that.

The point, though, is that we can be sure we have it, even if we don't know exactly what it involves. — Bartricks

Compilation error… 'it': undefined reference.

You're not alone; no one has been able to define what else is outside of fixed will and random will.

'Free will', taken only as a stand alone, as something, independent of a definition, much like some do with 'Infinity' as being a completed amount or with 'Nothing' actually being, reduces to merely being something that sounds good to have, even over a fixed will that grants consistency and survival.

Our next step, then, should be to define it, so then we can know what we have and then what it implies. Shall we try?

('Infinite' and 'Nothing' can't even be meant, much less be.)

Bible Lessons Continue

(the previous was in another, similar thread.)

Were the Homo series of near-men and proto-humans merely a lucky result of the extinction of the dinosaurs and 95% of all species by asteroids or some such? Or did God send the asteroids? If He could send plagues of locusts then… why not! This is intelligent design at work.

For those who feel that evil sprits still tempt us into sin, we could say that the Devil’s method is to unbalance one’s brain chemicals. Not fair? Well, don’t expect ‘fair’ from a Devil. Religion can always adapt to new information, as it did with evolution and the asteroids above.

So, the infant species of Homo Sapiens continues forward, some ahead of their time and some way behind. It is not totally unexpected that many will arrive at evil, and that saying they shouldn’t won’t change this. Some will obsess on winning the Olympics or being great at something, doing little else along the way; some will go into depressions and do bad things; some will get so anxious that they will hit their children and spouses, and many will slip into the sit-com life of being selfish. This is human nature as it really is, fully intended, with no surprise. Casting out Angels, making Adam, sending Moses, restarting with Noah, and sending Jesus all did nothing because…?

Science, of course, continues inventing helpful things, schools continue new programs like Good For the Sake of Good (GSG), and putting drunk driver’s wrecked cars on the school lawn by the entrance, asking for compassion, and so forth, as in “Rachel’s challenge” and exposing bullying.

I suggest even more focus for the young and impressionable. There could be a class in which students daily log how their thinking out of consequences helped lessen their problems, or, when they merely reacted without thinking, how problems arose and bloomed out of control. Such thinking ahead might then become as routine as doing math calculations. Why not focus a lot on the actual living of life?

We have, perhaps, zillions of years to improve, which, at the current rate, may be necessary, for human nature is what it has become. It could very well go the other direction as well.

Overall to date, is the human race progressing? If not, why does the same evil stuff keep befalling it? Is the gene pool degrading? Why are the prisons full? Will drug-users, abusers, gamblers, sports nuts, gang members, workaholics, and all such (the list is too long) reproduce so much more of the same until goodness becomes a rarity?

Still, what an adventure it is to be alive at this time on this pale blue dot in the middle of nowhere between the eternities of forever was and will be…

no, not necessarily. — Bartricks

What would you say is the meaning of 'free' then?

For example, if I am free of information is my will freer as a result? — Bartricks

No. The less information the narrower and less useful the will.

But it does not tell us what free will involves. — Bartricks

I take it to mean that the will is free of something, maybe of some restriction, beyond the usual no coercion meaning.

So the argument is that the objective science - neuroscience being one - will always be deficient in respect of providing an account of the nature of experience. — Wayfarer

Yes, for the public account can't show the private experience, this ability appearing to be impossible.

We might work toward a consolation prize by trying to surround and coral experience to be in the brain, or at least get closer to this.

And you should read Descartes. Then you'd understand him better and wouldn't think he thought your neurology has nothing to do with your decision to go and have a meal. — Bartricks

I can smell the pork cooking, that I set out to have for dinner from the decision and its inputs that only my mind came up with by conscious figuring from a mind that is all one with no parts.

Oh, no, I see that yet another Ralph had his entire brain and brain stem removed. I rushed over. I thought he might say, "I've lost my mind!" but he was quiet.

As for your wonderings about helping, it's all there in my initial statement, which I'm leaving as is. Maybe some other responders can turn it into better form or condense it to a simpler 1-2-3.

Descartes has got my back. — Bartricks

You should have read Horace before Descartes, but that's not their order in the encyclopedia.

I'm going to eat dinner, because my mind came up with it all by itself with no help from neurology or my central nervous system or the older neurons in my gut. Then I can pull the cart better.

just go in for the attack — Bartricks

I have assisted your arguments concerning the indivisibility of the elementals and the unity of consciousness.

Now which premise in his oh so dated argument are you disputing? — Bartricks

The same as he always get disputed about, that distinct realm can't interpenetrate, plus the energy transfer not conserving energy, plus the way I plainly put it earlier. I should have written it in French, I guess.

reasonable doubt — Bartricks

It's just that systems of any kind require parts, and that those parts came beforehand.

I mean, you've been unable to raise a reasonable doubt about either premise. — Bartricks

Generally, I'm helping. although in that attempt some reasonable doubt came in.

You sooo haven't read him. — Bartricks

Res extensa and res cogitans as his way of saying it.