It might rain tomorrow. Tomorrow's rain is potential. The possibility - the potentiality - is actual. — tim wood

No. As you said and I agreed potential isn't actual.

Do you agree that there is such a thing as change? — tim wood

Yes.

And do you believe that change is in any meaningful with respect to God - can God change or cause change? (If you do, how?) — tim wood

God cannot change but it can cause change. He can only perform one eternal act.

I did before asking question. People just say different things. In fact, this is a hypothesis that cannot be tested because of the existence of the horizon which limits our observable universe.

Could you please provide any reference for quantum entanglement of everything?

Better than fair! Let's start here: potentiality is, in respect of what is potential. But whatever is potential isn't (in itself) actual. — tim wood

Good. I agree.

"God is pure actuality." This is a proposition. Usually propositions are either true or not-true. God is here undefined. Either "pure" is an adjective, or "pure actuality is a noun substantive. Because God is usually characterized as unknowable, we can only take propositions about God as hypothetical. The usual reason for positing a hypothetical is to see what the consequences might be. — tim wood

Yes. Pure actuality is a noun. I use pure to stress that God is actual in all His attributes.

Let's suppose and assume true that [1] God is pure actuality. We can't convert this: [2] pure actuality is God is not a valid conclusion from [1]. If God and pure actuality are not names for exactly the same thing, then God and pure actuality are different, and it follows that because God cannot be less than pure actuality, then he must be more. The more can only be impure actuality and non-actuality. — tim wood

Yes, you can say that pure actuality is God.

The only sense I can make of impure actuality is as an admixture of actuality and non-actuality. Non-actuality can only comprise a) that which isn't (actual) and will never be actual, and b) that which isn't actual but that could be actual, i.e., potential. — tim wood

Yes, I agree.

The bridges between actual and potential usually traverse time and possibility. In as much as God is eternal (either that or there is/will be pure actuality that God is not); that in eternity everything that can be will be (if not, why not?); and that God exists outside of/transcends/is not subject to time, then the potential just is the actual for God. As a corollary, the impossibility of the impossible is also actuality, so the impossible in its non-actuality is also actual for God. — tim wood

This is contrary. Potential cannot be actual.

What is a decision? A decision is an actual that actualizes a potential. From above it follows not that God can make a decision - a decision is a function of time and possibility, best understood as something that people do - but rather that God is decision, is all possible decisions, and of impossible decisions, the impossibility of them. — tim wood

I don't agree with the proposition "God is decision" given the definition of decision.

If you don't agree, then I must ask you continue with your excellent practice of offering definitions by defining "God".

I leave to you working out what follows if God exactly is pure actuality. — tim wood

I think that is your turn to answer to my objections.

Two questions: 1) what are your grounds for this assertion? — tim wood

Potentiality generally refers to any "possibility" that a thing can be said to have.
Actuality, in contrast to potentiality, is the motion, change or activity that represents an exercise or fulfillment of a possibility (the definition of potentiality and actuality are derived from Wikipedia).
Pure actual means that there is no potentiality in God or in another word God is fully fulfilled.

2) What do you imagine the consequences of your assertion are? (Beyond the ridiculous notion that god cannot decide.) — tim wood

Only this one, God cannot decide. Do you have something else in your mind?

And let me save you some trouble by suggesting how you might start: First, by defining your terms. Next by making clear the connections between the terms. Finally, by extracting conclusions from the parts of your thinking that you can make reasonably clear. Absent these, you're not really making sense. — tim wood

I provided the definitions. The rest should follow simply. Let me know where do you have problem and we can start from there.

That was different argument.

Huh?

Choice is prior to rationality.

Step 1: We want x
Step 2: We use rationality to acquire/achieve x — TheMadFool

Yes. We don't need free will up to here. So we can make rational decision in a situation.

Rationality isn't against choice/free will. — TheMadFool

Free decision could be in favor or against rational decision.

Yes, that's the point. The dilemma you're outlining arises because there is no such thing as free will by the definition you are using. No-one could ever possibly choose the 'worst' option because simply by doing so they have shown that it is, by some metric, the 'best' option. — Pseudonym

No, worst option of course exist. The point is the worst option is not worst one if a thought, showing that we have free will for example, intervenes in our decision. A free decision is not biased or initiated by anything. It is a causal chain that we create. Needless to say that I am not here taking a position that free will exist. I am just pointing to a problem related to free will when we are dealing with rational agent. In simple world, a rational agent can function well without free will so what is the point of it if there is any.

We cannot do other than act according to our will. The only remaining free-will question is from where do we get our will? - from some non-physical realm, or from our previous thoughts/senses. — Pseudonym

That, the source of our will, I believe we can never be sure about it.

Worse or better is a judgment performed after the consequences are revealed. And then it is made in comparison to some idealized possible consequence which never happened. There are no better or worse options. There are only possible choices of action which we feel may achieve some desired results, but results are always unpredictable. There is no control over outcomes. Only desires to achieve one. In Life, almost nothing turns out as expected. — Rich

We are talking about immediate consequence rather than long term one.

I don't understand what you are trying to say. Do you agree with my example and the fact that free decision leads to absurdity when we can make ration decision?

I didn't think the idea of free will consisted of having a point, but rather consisted in there being no external fact-of-the-matter that precisely determines one's choices, either because of under-determination of choices relative to external matters of fact, or because the 'externality' of the determining matters of fact in relation to one's mental state is disputed under an extended-mind thesis which renders talk of determined choices as meaningless.

The way you framed your original question implies that knowledge of one's personal preferences can play the role of such external matters-of-fact in the sense of weakly determining one's choices, whereby one still has a final say in which option to choose. Yet if I remember correctly, in another thread you disputed whether conscious choice was in fact possible on the grounds that in appraising the value of one choice, one is no longer aware of the value of the other choices. But if conscious appraisal of actions is not possible , then one doesn't have knowledge of one's personal preferences, and hence personal preferences cannot play the role of determining external matters of fact here, which as a consequence implies that one cannot conclude that one's choices are determined with respect to knowledge of one's preferences. — sime

These two problems are unresolved for me: (1) What is the use of free will? and (2) Conscious decision is impossible. For example, when I talk with people about conscious choice, they deliberately say that they can do it. That is something that I cannot comprehend since I cannot consciously give weights to two subjects.

Am I addressing your post properly?

Yes, but they'd still have to have some reason to do so wouldn't they? Maybe they think it would be beneficial to choose the 'worst' option just to prove a point about free will, in which case they've identified some benefit in 'proving a point about free will' and so acting to bring about that benefit is not the 'worst' choice any more is it? — Pseudonym

Well that then is a rational choice rather than free one.

Think of the following example. You like vanilla ice cream more than chocolate one. Of course choosing vanilla ice cream is a rational choice. You buy the ice cream and decide to put it in garbage bag which is irrational. Of course you use your freedom to do this. The question is what is the point of free will when it could lead to absurdity in our decision.

I think discussion of the uncertainty about what represents the 'best' choice is missing the point of the OP. The point was not to say that free-will becomes useless because we know what is best for us, it's saying that it becomes useless because we think we know what's best for us and as rational beings we would always select that option, therefore something constrains our choices. As Schopenhauer says, we can do what we will, but we cannot will what we will. — Pseudonym

You get the point. One of course can argue that one can choose worse option when he practice his freedom.

I am 49 and I am bored with everything. Life is empty without meaning as it is for me now.

If you are asking what is the use of Free Will, then I would respond that we see humans are constrained in our choices, but the choices we make are the essence of Life. From these choices we learn and evolve. This is Life. — Rich

I am asking what is the using free will considering the fact that it always allows us to choose the worst.

That is a metaphysical claim that can at least be doubted with current evidence. At what is currently thought as the "most basic level", quantum mechanics, there are events which appear to not have a cause. Some reading on quantum mechanics and causation should at least be able to shake the foundation of faith in the stated quote. — Uneducated Pleb

Yes. we can start a chain of causality if a particle can do it. We know it internally.

n a subjective way, you have preferences in taste. However, in a practical manner, you might choose a vanilla in some ice cream store that has an absolutely horrible taste to you, which you don't know until you actually taste it. Possibly the chocolate might have tasted better. Consequences of any choice is always unpredictable, but we do choose and then learn. This is the process of human evolution. — Rich

What is your opinion about OP?

There is not better or worse. There is only a choice to move in a particular direction. Consequences are always unpredictable and changing as things evolve.

What Choice allows is evolution of Mind. We create, experiment, learn, and evolve. It is fundamental to existence. — Rich

There are of course better or worse options. I like vanilla ice cream more than chocolate one.

I see. But lets back to our discussion. Do you believe that we could live the best if we always choose rationally, pick up the best, rather than choosing freely, pick up the worst?
— bahman

This rather amounts to asking if our being less rationally or morally fallible would make us more or less free. I don't think there is a categorical answer to this question. There is an interesting conundrum that arises from comparing Aristotle's to Kant's idea of moral praiseworthiness. According to Aristotle's conception of a virtuous agent, someone who refrains effortlessly from acting selfishly, say, is more praiseworthy than someone who must make an effort since the first one is manifesting a more virtuous character. Kant, on the other hand, holds that the person who must overcome the most strongly felt temptation in order to refrain from acting selfishly is more praiseworthy since she displays a superior ability to have her reason control her passions. So, your question is rather similar to the question whether someone is freer accordingly whether she displays moral praiseworthiness in accordance to Aristotle's or to Kant's account of moral praiseworthiness.

I think there is a way to reconcile Aristotle's and Kant's intuitions, and this consists in construing moral praiseworthiness not as a metaphysical (intrinsic) attribute of an agent but rather as the normative dimension of a social reactive attitude the function of which is to scaffold moral growth. We praise the person who act virtuously (and/or rationally) effortlessly because she is an exemplar model of virtue (or wisdom or intelligence). And we also praise someone who effortfully emulates acts of virtue because such efforts promote moral (or intellectual) growth. In both case, the aim is the same -- virtuous action and dispositions -- and the achievement of this aim also is what constitutes the ability to act freely and responsibly. — Pierre-Normand

The issue that I am raising is that free will is the only ability that allows us to do the worst, so what is point of having it. I like this more than that. This is rational decision. I throw this away because I want. This is free decision.

We can without doubt agree that we are rational agents.
— bahman
That claim can be doubted...with evidence to turn doubt into actual negation. Psychological evidence, neurological evidence, evidence from behavioural economics...

By rational I mean we act or decide based on reason in a situation.
— bahman
Reason is not the way we have been shown to make decisions, either in practice or in experiment. Decisions are emotional in their origins, which are typically considered to not be a source of the "rational". Reason is the vehicle to express emotion. — Uneducated Pleb

No, there are only two sorts of decision making: rational and free decision. We always follow our emotions in any situation. Without emotions we depressed and are not willing to do an. In case of rational decision we choose an options after prioritizing them. We also have free decision. I am arguing that free decision comes to play when we want to choose worst so what is use of it.

Rationality is important when it comes to decision in a situation which is defined as a set of prioritized options.
— bahman
What exactly "prioritizes" the options? Reason can provide options...but emotion is what prioritzes them. — Uneducated Pleb

Emotion and reason are used to give weight to options. I like this one more, this one is more important for me because of future consideration, other example.

Free will however is ability to choose an option regardless of any constraint.
— bahman
I once thought I understood what "free will" was, but have long since given up thinking it has an actual definition from anyone, professional or layperson. In my view, the idea of free will can't even be wrong since it is a conceptual reification created in Iron Age philosophy to describe phenomena which were unknown and inscrutable at the time. The term should be consigned to the dustbin of philosophical history as, in my opinion, it is a conceptual dud that derails and suppresses progess in philosophical thought. — Uneducated Pleb

Interesting.

By rational I mean we act or decide based on reason in a situation.
— bahman

I have no idea what it means to act rationally. People act in many ways motivated by experiences and possibilities. — Rich

Rational decision is picking up the best options after prioritizing them. The process of prioritizing is done using weighting. I like this one me, this one is more important, etc.

A rational decision is defined as a decision which the agent always choose the best option.
— bahman

I can someone know the best option? There are just possible actions with unknown effects (hence the well known Daoist story of the father and his son). — Rich

Yes, there are situation that the best option is not available, for example when you like two things similarly.

Free will however is ability to choose an option regardless of any constraint.
— bahman

Actions are subject to constraints but we choose to try to move in a certain direction. Humans have Choice in the direction we wish to try to take action. This is Will or Intention.

Humans have the ability to make Choices in Direction. We are Navigators in Life where nothing is certain or determined.

Choice permits novelty, creation, and evolution. — Rich

I agree.

I think I should expand on rational decision. We don't need freedom for rational decision. Free decision and rational decision are in fact different. What is the exactly rational decision: You look at options and prioritize them, I like this one more or that one is more important for me, etc. Prioritizing is done using weighting. We pick up the best option when available options are prioritized.

It's not about infinite steps. You can't make the first step. To move a distance of 1 meter you must first move .5 meters. To move .5 meters you have to first move .25 meters and so on ad infinitum. Can you tell me the exact size of the first step you'll make to travel 1 meter? You can't because distance can be divided infinitely. — TheMadFool

Movement is not discrete but continuous.

Apologies if this has been covered already, but which paradox are you referring to? There are many. — JustSomeGuy

You are right. There are many paradoxes. But I think we are discussing about the paradox related to the runner.

Please explain how Zeno's paradox is solved. — TheMadFool

t=x/v where x is distance, v is speed and t is duration. Does it take shorter duration if the distance is shortened and speed is constant? Yes. Therefore you spend less time while you divide a distance into two and that allows you to move from the beginning to end during a specific time duration. That is true that number of interval is infinite but the sum of infinite interval is finite.

This is a rather contentious definition of free will. It certainly doesn't fit the conceptions of compatibilists. I don't think even most libertarian incompatibilists would be happy with such a definition. Most philosophers agree to distinguish between broadly external and internal constraints on agency and practical deliberation. External constraints limit the options that are open to you in any particular deliberative context while internal 'constraints', including the constraints of rationality and character, enable you to take ownership of the deliberative process. — Pierre-Normand

To me constraint just limit options whether they are external or internal. You cannot do that because of shame then one option is gone. You cannot do that because of shortage of money then one option is gone.

Compatibilists, unlike libertarians, believe even the internal constraints are deterministic. It is true that some libertarians believe that whatever someone actually does freely, he or she ought to have been able to refrain from doing it (or to do something else) in the exact same circumstances regardless of the antecedent constraints on the action being internal or external to the process of deliberation and decision. This is the strongest possible version of the so called 'principle of alternative possibilities' (PAP). But that is a rather minority positions against defenders of the possibility of free will. — Pierre-Normand

I see. But lets back to our discussion. Do you believe that we could live the best if we always choose rationally, pick up the best, rather than choosing freely, pick up the worst?

The paradox hasn't be resolved. — TheMadFool

So you didn't get my point?

We are not talking about fighting but a paradox which is the result of foreknowledge, our knowledge of foreknowledge and free will.

So God wouldn't tell us about our future act because He is all loving. I don't understand.

Brain is a chunk of matter. So whatever rule apply to matter apply to brain too. Brain is just very sophisticated.

I already mentioned: "But the information contained within a brain cannot be more than all stimuli it has had."

Could you please tell me what a brain process when it is isolated?
— bahman

The information contained within itself. — JustSomeGuy

But the information contained within itself cannot be more than all stimuli it has had.

Can you program a brain without external stimuli?
— bahman

I don't know what you mean by "program a brain". — JustSomeGuy

Brain consists neurons. Neurons are connected with each other. Programming a brain is about wiring or rewiring neurons.