This does and doesn't make sense. Sure, you can predict with enough information, just as a God would know what I'm about to choose because he would know me well enough. But just because you can predict, doesn't mean I didn't choose.

It just means that you were a malfunctioning purposefully-responsive device.

For some reason known only to you, the desire (purpose) to say that you have free-will was more important, predominated over, your preference for your favorite snack. So you bought shrimp in order to prove that you have free-will.

Governed by your philosophical goal/purpose, in preference to your favorite snack, you followed your stronger purpose/preference, by buying something that you like less. Malfunction.

Of course nutritional variety is desirable, and we surely have an instinct for nutritional variety that can be subconscious "I feel like ______ today.", or "I think I'll get ________ today".

But, in your case, you bought the shrimp because of a philosophical goal that was more important--the goal of proving (or so you believed) that you have free-will, by buying something that you like less.

Michael Ossipoff

"Like all animals, you're a biologically-originated purposefully-responsive device. ...a purposefully-responsive device like a Roomba, a refrigerator lightswitch, a thermostat, or a mousetrap. You don't have any more free-will than they do."

Material causality tells us that objects and forces have inherent, stable and thus calculable attributes. This allows for a procedure of prediction if we know initial conditions of environment and the design of the purposive device. Nothing new is supposedly being created when we predict the future history of the device, just a schematic algorithm being run through its paces. This is the way we have learned to think about human beings as material entities. We have Galileo and Descartes to thank for our basic notion of objective causation.
This kind of causation doesnt really begin to be challenged till Hegel's dialectic, wherein attributes of objects no longer are assumed to be ascertainable outside of their relation not only to other objects in a space, but in relation to a total dialectical history.

The notion that we have free will is, in essence, an idea that willful act can ultimately originate within us. — Henri

And if people disagree whatever you wrote after this is probably quite redundant. The question is can you see another possible perspective or use of the term “free will” that is reasonable to use yet in opposition to your own? If not look harder.

Things interact, and have properties related to those interactions. That doesn't sound like something new. Density and albedo are determined by interactions, for example.

What I said about us as purposefully-respsonsive devices is nothing new either. It's what was correctly taught to us in pre-secondary school (In the U.S., pre-secondary school was previously called "junior-high school", and now "middle-school").

Some things (like that) that they taught us then were right.

Some things (like Materialism) that they taught us were unsupported and not well-defined. ...but nonetheless remarkably tightly held-onto by Western philosophers.

Michael Ossipoff

"Things interact, and have properties related to those interactions. That doesn't sound like something new."

It doesn't sound like something new if you are understanding it via an old metaphysics. In order to understand which metaphysics is informing your view of something like a purposefully-responsive device we would need to ask what a 'thing' is.

"What I said about us as purposefully-respsonsive devices is nothing new either."

I'm assuming not. It probably dates aback aboot 200 years to at least Kant.

Lets say instead of thing as physical object we are talking about thing as memory. Some still believe that memory is organized as a stored trailing spectrum of pasts, which we are able to search through. What we retrieve as a particular memory can then be compared with a present meaning.
When we then say that the present is determined by our past, we mean that the past as encoded on memory sits there, acting as a constraint on the present.

A recent, alternative view of memory is that it doesn't sit there as a stored meaning, but only exists as a reinterpretation of the past when it functions as a constraint upon our present. In other words, our remembvered past is changed by our present and there is no veridical memory of the past to locate.
What does this account mean for the functioning of cognition as a purposefully driven device?
It changes the meaning of determinism as regards the effect of our remembered past on our present functioning. If our past only exists as already changed by our present, then it is no longer a constraint in the way the first account understands it to be. The cognitive device is at every moment redefining the meaning of its past such that its purpose is also at every moment subtly being transformed
.
Thus, in this model, the past is being determined by the future as much as the future is determined by the past

It happens that I have a little test that show irrefutably that we do have a free will.

If you or Henri would like to take it, I am here for you.

Regards
DL

I believe it is highly possible whether we are christians or even if there is no god that everything is predestined or in other words we dont have free will. If particles reactions to each other are governed by physics and other fields of science then how can we who are made of particles actually decide our fate.

That being said assuming my christian values are true i do believe God could forget the cosmic chess game that is reality (in terms of game piece combinations and game rules and tactics) and purposely allow him the possibility to lose some cosmic chess matches. I would hope he wouldn't lose any cosmic chess matches that would cause someone to go to hell.

we dont have free will — James Statter

Your thinking is right but so shallow that you do not see your errors in thinking.

You did not take my little irrefutable test that would prove you wrong.

Care to?

Regards
DL

i never said we dont have free will i said its possible that we dont have free will as far as i remember what i said. i have to figure out how to quickly move through this site and let me go look for that test you said.

i searched all 3 pages of the forum on that topic about free will and i didn't find the test. Could you repost the test?

"I believe it is highly possible whether we are christians or even if there is no god that everything is predestined or in other words we dont have free will."

Thats what i said, right wrong or indifferent i associate predestination with a lack of free will and i thought i would be understood.

it seems that we are heavily influenced by past experiences, biological predispositions and indeed "Gods will". However we, as creatures who can abstract out of that past a potential future, use our free will to try and bring that future about(for better or worse). the question for me is what extent do we have free will and to what extent can you manifest more control over it. It seems self defeating to assume that someone had no choice to commit suicide because they may have just been subjected to more suffering than their neighbor. I believe we have free will to place value on our experiences and choose what kind of future we will bring about. I imagine free will to be something like steering a motorcycle by leaning to one side or another and the unconscious predisposed choices we make like steering with the handlebar. although that simile may be reaching..

The interesting part of free will discussions happens when the one who denies his free will, has to tell just whose will he is doing if not his own.

Who is the ghost in the machine?

Regards
DL

Your points are as follows:
1. If free will exists, there is willful act that can ultimately originate within us.
2. If we are not eternal beings, there is nothing can ultimately originate within us.
3. Determinism is true.
4. The idea that we have free will is an irrational idea.
For 2, it equals if there is something that can ultimately originate within us, we are eternal beings. And what you want to argue is that:
1. If there is something that can ultimately originate within us, we are eternal beings.
2. We are not eternal beings.
3. There is nothing that can ultimately originate with us.
If what you are saying is that free will entails eternality, it seems that you presuppose determinism when you think this way since you are assigning an outcome as the property that we can’t have to rule out the existence of free will. For 3, it’s not necessarily true since free will can be compatible with determinism. An easy way to question determinism is that when someone punches your face, you should not blame him because he is not the ultimate source of his actions or he does not have the ability to do otherwise. Free will, the ability to do otherwise, is necessary for moral responsibility.

There are only two options that are, ultimately, source of decisions we execute.
It is either God's decision, or it is God-induced randomness. — Henri

Follow your line of determinism, the ultimate source is God. God determines all we did, do, and will do or God allow randomness of human actions. Given the first, one can say the world with free will agent is better than a world with all human machines controlled by God. If God only creates the world in line of determinism, one can create a world better than God by allowing free will. Therefore, in other for God to be omnipotent, he should have created a world with free will agent.

In conclusion, determinism is not necessarily true when there is alternative like compatibilism which allows free will and hence moral responsibility. If determinism is true, one can create a better world with creatures who can act with free will. Hence, the idea that we have free will is not that irrational as you think it is.

I think for this argument I would try to push back on the idea that God and Free will can not exist together. You claim that freewill and God's existence coexisting do not make sense because God would have created something that he can't know, and because God is all knowing, it wouldn't make sense that he would make something he doesn't know. I would posit the claim that it is absolutely possible for an all knowing God to exist and for us humans to still have and practice freewill. I think I would also push back on your definition of freewill being completely God induced randomness.

I'm not quite sure how sound this argument is so please let me know if it needs work, but I believe randomness is unpredictability but that doesn't mean that I don't know what the outcome is. If I put two numbers (1 and 2) into a random number generator that will randomly spit out the numbers that got put into it, isn't it safe to say that I know im either going to get 1 or 2? I think that even though this is random and i don't know which number ill get its safe to say that i know its either going to be one or the other.

Another way to look at it; could it be possible that we have options and free will to choose between any number of choices and god still is aware of what the outcome is? If I present a child with a banana split hot fudge sundae covered in sprinkles and also present to them a bowl of steamed radishes and mushrooms i think it's fair to say that i know which bowl the child is going to choose even though the child has the free will and choice to choose either. Couldn't the God and human relationship work in this same way? We are presented with any number of options and even though we have the freewill to choose any, God can know which one we choose just like how we know which bowl the child is going to choose.