How about taking away a piece of you material brain? It takes away a piece of mind too. — GraveItty

No it doesn't. When you had your lobotomy, part of your brain was removed. So you went from having 100% of a brain to having 95%. But you yourself were not reduced by 5%. That's why the bank still thinks you owe it all the money you borrowed, and not just 95% of it. Your scheme failed.

So, minds do not have sexes on your view then, rather bodies do and all you really mean by a 'female' mind is a mind that is inhabiting a body that is female? Yes?

Not necessarily. An alternative is that minds are certain configurations of matter (brains). In that case the statement: — khaled

Brute possibilities are not evidence. Another alternative is that minds are bits of cheese, in which case minds would go nicely with crackers. But there is no evidence that mind are bits of cheese and a lot that they are not.

Likewise, there is no evidence that minds are made of matter and plenty that they are not.

One such piece of evidence is their possession of free will (if I may once more drag this back to the OP). Possession of free will appears incompatible with being a brain, for brains are arrangements of matter and thus the matter has come to be arranged in that way. That is, there was a time when one's brain did not exist and then a time when it does and some causal story to be told about how the matter constitutive of one's brain came to constitute it. If our minds are our brains, then that story will also be a story about how they lack free will, for if my mind is the creation of forces external to my mind, then my mind is not free. And that goes for God's mind too. Yet God's mind is free (so too is mine, but God is our focus here). Thus God's mind is not a brain. More formally:

1. If God's mind is a brain, then God's mind is not free
2. God's mind is free
3. Therefore, God's mind is not a brain.

I am not my body. I am a mind. I have a body. I am not my body.

I have a car. I am not my car. I have some shoes. I am not my shoes. I have a house. I am not my house.

So, I am a mind, not a body. That I have a body does not alter that.

God is a mind. Does God have a body? I see no reason whatsoever for supposing him to. Indeed, bodies seem to restrict the minds that inhabit them and so I see some reason to think that God, being omnipotent, would lack a body. But there is nothing incoherent in the notion of God having a body. And so, if you think God does have a body, then I am happy to go along with that. And that body could be male, or female, or neither. But the point would remain that God himself would be sexless, just as I am sexless despite having a male body.

So, what makes a mind 'female' is simply the sex of the body it first inhabited? Is that your view? I am just seeking clarity: want to get my bazooka of reason nicely focused on it.

Everything that thinks has nonlinear components, we know from experience. — SolarWind

Er, what? What we know from experience, boyo, is that brains have such components, not that minds do. To get from the former conclusion to the latter you would have to assume that brains are minds. Yet they're not.

What you are now going to do is point out that doing things to the brain causes changes in the mind, yes? And you think that's good evidence that the brain 'is' the mind - am I right? (It isn't).

I have just shown that God has free will. Now, a brain does not have free will. For brains are created by forces alien to themselves and thus are victims of their circumstance. My brain is the brain it is due to factors that my brain itself had no hand in. Thus, if God was a brain, God would lack free will. God has free will. Therefore God is not a brain. See how I have tried, once more, to drag this back to the relevant topic?

You are asking me different questions, not the same question.

God is a mind. Just as you are and I am.

God thinks with her mind. Just as I do and you do.

And no, neurons and nonlinear circuits are features of brains, not minds.

Note, we are straying somewhat from the OP, which is about whether God has free will.

To which the answer is that yes, God does have free will.

There is no reason to think God lacks free will (the OP provides none). And good reason to think God does have free will. Why? Well, God is morally perfect. Yet if one lacks free will, then one is not praiseworthy for being as one is. Thus, if God lacked free will he would not be maximally good, as though he could still possess the virtues, he would not be praiseworthy for possessing and exercising them. And clearly it is better to be praiseworthy for being virtuous than not to be. Thus God, being morally perfect, would be praiseworthy for his virtuous character and thus would possess free will.

You haven't answered my question. If your wife had a male body, would her mind still be female in your view? And if so, why?

I refer to God as he and she arbitrarily, for such terms serve to underline that this is a person we are talking about. But she is not actually a he or a she. She's a person - a mind. In a like manner, I refer to myself as 'male', even though I am not in fact male, but a sexless mind inhabiting a male body (or what I take to be a male body, for as I have already mentioned, I have no settled view on exactly what features of a body make it male or female or neither).

Our reason - our faculty of reason - is the means by which God communicates with us. And it is manifest to the reason of most that sexism is a vice. That's her - God - telling us not to be sexists.

She doesn't intervene beyond that, admittedly. And the world is a very sexist place. From which I conclude that she hates us and that we deserve each other's company.

And what about her mind makes it female? Imagine, for instance, that her body is, in fact, a cleverly disguised male one. Is your wife's mind still female? If so, in virtue of what?

She does. But sexists don't listen to Reason much, do they?

Imaginary people do not have minds.

What do you mean by a 'female' mind? Explain.

Brains are body parts. Christ. You people! Mind. Brain. They're not synonyms.

Dunning Kruger.

It's what any intelligent person thinks. Lots of things lack sexes. Numbers, locations, and so on. The question 'what sex is the number 3?" is confused. And so too is the question 'what sex is a mind?'

Look, for as long as I can remember, I have assumed I have a male body. It has all the hallmarks of one. And so I describe myself as male. But it seems entirely possible that I could one day discover that I in fact have the body of a female, either because I have been hallucinating this whole time or perhaps because sex is constitutively determined by features that are not visible such as DNA (I take no stand on that matter). Anyway, the point is, I could well discover that my body is not the sex i have been assuming it was. But that discovery would not be a discovery about my mind. It would be a discovery about my body.

Because God is a mind and minds do not have sexes.

Let me summarize: People (men and women) see God as male because they are sexists. But they know that God has no gender. Does that sound reasonable? — SolarWind

That's not a summary of anything I have said. God is not a man or a woman, okay? God could occupy a male or female body, just as we do. But she's not a man or a woman anymore than you or I are.

Human beings. A lot of them are sexists. Haven't you noticed?

Sexism is also a vice, yes? And God is morally perfect. So, is God going to be a sexist? No, obviously not. For being morally perfect means 'not' having any vices.

Note too just what the vice of sexism involves: it involves thinking that a person matters because of the type of body they occupy. Whereas, of course, we are morally valuable irrespective of what kind of body we occupy. That's true, right? And why would that be? Because we are not our bodies, but souls resident within them. And it is our souls - us - that possess moral value, not our bodies.

Sexism.

God doesn't have a gender. Genders are what bodies have, not what minds have. And God is a mind. Of course, so too are we. And thus we are all genderless. It is our bodies that have sexes. Not us.

Stop being tedious. An omnipotent being can do anything and thus can divest herself of her omnipotence if she so pleases.

You can't answer a question with a question, can you?

And what does that mean when it's at home?

Like I say, a philistine.

There's no problem. An omnipotent being has the power to give up their omnipotence. Yes?

Ah, well there you go. I have. And there aren't words to describe it.

Velasquez's portrait of pope innocent X is another in the same league.

If you see them and are unmoved, then you're just dead inside.

Like I say, you're very confused. An omnipotent being can do anything. Thus an omnipotent being has the power to dispose of their omnipotence if they so wish.

What's happening here is that you think the whole "can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift?" question must raise a serious problem for the coherence of theism, because why else do smart alecks everywhere ask that question? That's your thought, right? But I've shown that there doesn't even begin to be a problem here. It's like asking "can God make some toast?". The answer is just a straightforward 'yes'. God can make some toast. And God can make a stone too heavy for him to lift. There's no problem. If you think there is one, articulate it. And I'll then show you that you have confused being able to do something with actually doing it.

You're a philistine. Or you haven't actually seen it.

The professor, obviously. The mona lisa is just fine

The trick with the bachelor is that he makes no such claim of omnipotence a fortiori that he makes no claim that he can be a married bachelor. All means all. Categorical claims can and do lead to contradiction. Can God contradict himself? — tim wood

Well, I consider that gibberish apart from the last question.

And yes, God can do that. He can do anything. I mean, even I can contradict myself. So it would be manifestly absurd to think that little old me can do something God can't do.

That means that either he will not/cannot do that thing. — tim wood

No it doesn't. It means he is not doing it. Once more, you are as confused as someone who thinks that as bachelors do not have wives, there is a curious forcefield preventing them from marrying.

My former professor in art failed to perceive the beauty of the Mona Lisa painting when she saw it in person. She wasn't impressed. — Caldwell

Yes, there is clearly something wrong with her.

Can God make a shoe he can't fit in?

In that case it is possible - remotely possible - that you are God. Although all of God's jokes would be hilarious. So there's that.

The art market doesn't really hold coherent ideas (In the 1980's I worked for a dealer who traded with Christies and Sotheby's). Things come in and out of fashion without good reason. And ironically those who purchase the works (Warhol or Van Gogh doesn't matter) often have no aesthetic interest in them. They are investment pieces which also drives the market up. — Tom Storm

Yes, I am sure that's correct about some collectors. There are, I am sure, all manner of financial schemes behind a lot of what goes on in the art market, just as in the stock and currency markets. Indeed, a Van Gogh may no doubt be viewed by some as just a conveniently big banknote.

But my point is that whether a Van Gogh is beautiful or not is not in the gift of the art market or any particular one of us. There's the value that we place on a Van Gogh, and then there's the aesthetic value that it actually possesses. And what determines the latter is not the former.

I am in fact, God... — Tom Storm

That's good evidence you're not God: God doesn't know he's God.

That's a contradiction: if the art market critical consensus is what constitutively determines what is or isn't good or bad art-wise, then Van Gogh's were rubbish when he painted them and are stupendously good now. Which is clearly false: they were stupendously good when he painted them and they are stupendously good now, it is just that now they are being recognized to be.

You're not making any sense.

An omnipotent being can do anything. Wouldn't be omnipotent otherwise.

That means an omnipotent being has the power to cease to be omnipotent.

That's all the stone case illustrates. There isn't the beginning of a problem here.

Here's an analogy to illustrate the very confused way you think. Bachelors don't have wives. Does that mean that bachelors are unable to have wives? That, if you are a bachelor, there is a strange cosmic force preventing you from marrying?

No, clearly a bachelor 'can' marry. It is just that upon marrying, the person of the bachelor will cease to qualify as a bachelor.

So, bachelors do not have wives, but they have the ability to have them.

Similarly, an omnipotent being has the ability to create a rock she cannot lift. Were she to do so, she would cease to be omnipotent - indeed, she'd be making herself less than omnipotent as the means by which to create the rock, for until she makes herself less than omnipotent, there will be no rock she cannot lift.

Anyway, the moral of all this is that you're very confused.

These are not criticisms of anything I've said, but just expressions of scorn. Try engaging with the arguments I have made.

Were Van Gogh's paintings shit when he painted them and good now? Or were they good - indeed, quite brilliant - the whole time?