The reason for it's emmergence is a group of people feeling like mainstream establisment parties wasn't working for them. — ChatteringMonkey

This and your whole post make a lot of sense to me.

The other option (and my apologies if already mentioned) is that free will is just a post hoc justification for why we do things. Support for that theory:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001094521730062X — Hanover

Other empirical studies have been performed similar to the one you linked that purport to cast doubt on free will. This is from Wikipedia.

One significant finding of modern studies is that a person's brain seems to commit to certain decisions before the person becomes aware of having made them. Researchers have found a delay of about half a second or more (discussed in sections below). With contemporary brain scanning technology, scientists in 2008 were able to predict with 60% accuracy whether subjects would press a button with their left or right hand up to 10 seconds before the subject became aware of having made that choice.[6] These and other findings have led some scientists, like Patrick Haggard, to reject some definitions of "free will". — Wikipedia - Neuroscience of free will

I find this kind of argument unconvincing. It seems that people assume that an act can't be considered free unless conscious awareness of the decision takes place before the act itself - as if the consciousness somehow pushes a button that makes the muscles move. It's that little man inside our heads again. That doesn't make sense to me. The neurological process described in the Wikipedia excerpt, some of which is conscious and some of which isn't, is the freely made choice. We're responsible for the action. It is clear that our minds do significant mental processing at a pre-conscious level.

I've said it before and I'll say it again (and again and again). The free will vs. determinism issue is one of metaphysics. There is no fact of the matter, only a perspective.

4. Neither dream X nor event Y can be said to cause the other. The relation between X and Y is not a causal one, but one in which they supervene on or are grounded in some further Z. — fdrake

I think this is plausible, but I don't think it's relevant to the situation @Hanover was describing. What you've described is relevant to any two events that may or may not have a causal relationship.

I wouldn't say it's quite out of the realm of possibility javi was merely entranced by words and stories that were, shall we say, a tad less than factual. — Outlander

A condescending and insulting way of putting it. It makes you look like a pompous prig.

Do you think the entire mental/physical causation problem may be similarly resolved? I could imagine that happening if it is indeed causation that we're dealing with, because we could demonstrate a temporal gap between cause and effect. But if we discovered no such gap, we'd be left with the problem of how to understand the supervenience of the mental on the physical, or vice versa. — J

I don't think there is any mental/physical causation problem that needs to be resolved. Let's not dive into a "hard problem of consciousness" discussion.

A deterministic world is not necessarily reverse deterministic. Classically, our physics seems to be, but it is weird watching entropy go the wrong way. A world like Conway's game of Life is hard deterministic, and yet history cannot be deduced since multiple prior states can result in the same subsequent state...

...Actually simulating our physics (even the most trivial closed classical system with say 3 particles) cannot be done without infinite precision variables, which puts it in the 'not possible even in theory' category. — noAxioms

Good points, and important, but when I start getting into computation theory and chaos theory, I usually say something stupid. I'm not even sure what I'm saying here isn't stupid.

why is it meaningless? The word has a literal meaning. It might be untestable, but I don't think it's meaningless. — flannel jesus

In normal usage, "meaningless" means without significance. Synonyms include empty, pointless, and senseless. As Shakespeare said - Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I'm sorry @Arcane Sandwich was banned, but I'm glad you gave him a chance to work things out before he was.

Strikes me that the mechanisms and processes of dreaming are not a suitable subject for philosophical speculation. As you have hinted, the answers to your questions can be examined empirically - there are facts of the matter.

Having said that, I have always been intrigued and amused when I watch sleeping dogs moving their legs in their sleep. I have always speculated they are dreaming of running across a field.

Don't confuse determinism with predictiability. Lack of predictability is the source of mystery, and it has been nicely proven that the world is not predictable, even in principle. — noAxioms

I have argued in the past and I still think can be considered true that if something cannot be predicted, even in theory, it is meaningless to say it is determined. This is from a previous discussion:

It feels intuitively to me that in some, many, most? cases unraveling cause is not possible even in theory. It's not just a case of being ignorant. Part of that feeling is a conviction that sufficiently complex systems, even those that are theoretically "caused," could not be unraveled with the fastest supercomputer operating for the life of the universe. There is a point, isn't there, where "completely outside the scope of human possibility" turns into "not possible even in theory." Seems to me there is. — T Clark

man is but a "cloud of particles" — Count Timothy von Icarus

And yet, "man is but a 'cloud of particles'" is a valid and sometimes useful perspective once you remove the offending adjective (or is it an adverb?).

totalitarian "bigism" (e.g., the universe is just one universal process) — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't understand the meaning of "totalitarian" in this context. Also, "the universe is just one universal process" is a valid and sometimes useful perspective once you remove "just."

consciousness can be nothing more than an accidental and causally inefficacious representation of being — Count Timothy von Icarus

"...Consciousness can be nothing more than an accidental and causally inefficacious representation of being" is... yada, yada, yada.

Perhaps that means that "to drain the 'life' out of the cosmos" is a sometimes useful practice.

Welcome to the forum.

We have the determinism discussion here often, and it can get tiresome. That being said, I like the way you've laid this out.

The idea of determinism, for me, isn’t a simple domino effect; it’s more like a web of interconnected factors—each one influencing the other. Our choices, in this context, aren’t isolated events but are deeply embedded in this complex system. And while we may not fully understand it, I think determinism accounts for all of this complexity and interconnectedness. — Matripsa

This is what I like - your recognition that the world is not chains of cause and effect but a vortex of immensely complex interacting phenomena. To take this point of view to it's extreme, there is only one thing - that vortex. The universe is just a swirling miasma. That perspective is the starting point for many philosophies. That includes eastern philosophies such as Taoism, but the viewpoint is also examined in many western philosophies and religions. From Genesis in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles - "Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters."

My criticism is that you haven't taken your analysis far enough and to it's logical conclusion. From that perspective, saying "our actions are indeed predetermined" is pretty much meaningless.

I would brand this way of seeing the world and perception as Ideal Realism. It sounds a contradictory name in its meaning, but it is what it is.

I am not sure if there were any other folks who thought about this aspect of worldview before. — Corvus

I would call that way of seeing the world "metaphysics." All the isms in philosophy have the same characteristic you identify - they all "depend on how the perceiver and the world are interacting." You use different approaches, different metaphysical perspectives, depending on what you're doing. This way of seeing things comes under the general heading of pragmatism.

I'm not sure I understand. Is "the true vision life gave to" us a reflection of our own true nature or something that comes from outside such as religion or God?

This is a thoughtful response and it helped me clarify for myself some things I've been thinking about. I think the first three paragraphs are a good description of how I think about intuition. The last paragraph set me thinking.

Faith to me has a religious context. It's the belief there is a higher power in charge of the world not supported necessarily by empirical or rational grounds, but it might entirely be a choice. My intuition doesn't tell me there is a higher power. It's not that I believe in God but I'm just having trouble putting my finger on why (as with intuition), but it's something wholly different. It's a foundational element required for making sense of the world. — Hanover

The claim that faith is not a valid way of knowing the world and is somehow outside the normal bounds of reasonable argument is used as a knee-jerk argument against religion. The reason for my post was to make a counterclaim that faith is actually a normal, common way of understanding the world and can be a valid motivation for action. I realize that intuition also causes eye-rolling among the illuminati here on the forum and elsewhere, but I don't think it's as virulent. It's now up to me to make the case for intuition, and thus faith, are mainstream and reasonable ways of thinking.

It was the last line that really struck me - "It's a foundational element required for making sense of the world." Reading that, I realized that it describes my personal experience of intuition. It's not just knowledge that "arises from ingrained experience and probably some genetic survival instincts," although I agree it is that. I also think it reflects our broad understanding of how the world works and how it fits together, what you call a "foundational element."

Also, I don't understand why substituting mini marshmallows for chick peas would be considered ridiculous.

Orthodoxy frowns on intuition more often than reason because it is seen as esoteric — Gregory

I think this is right, I also think they see it as mystical.

While responding to a comment in the "Logical Arguments for God Show a Lack of Faith" thread, it struck me that what is called "faith" is the same thing as what I call "intuition." It is not a fundamentally religious mental process - it's applied to everything we do and everything we know every day. That doesn't address the question of whether it is a valid way of knowing, — T Clark

I got similar responses to this from @Tom Storm and @Fire Ologist. I also had an exchange with @Janus on the Logical Arguments thread that also addressed similar issues. I previously promised him a better response but haven't gotten back to him yet. I'm going to respond to all of you here. Here's what you said:

Faith or intuition are valid ways of knowing—simply because inhabiting a faith or intution is a knowing. It is a knowing of a certain kind of experience. It is not, however, a propositional knowing—although it might lead to propositional beliefs, those beliefs cannot be verified by the faith or intuition. And note, this is not to say that the faith or intution cannot be convincing to the one inhabiting it, it is just to say that it cannot provide sufficient grounds for an argument intended to convince others. — Janus

Intuition is like a parallel process to reasoning, to gathering the knowledge. Intuition is like when you can’t explain your reasoning, but you know it is reasonable. Believing is more of an act of consenting to whatever you know, be it known from reasoning or from intuition.

That said, I can see why you place intuition more closely to believing. Both are distinct from knowing and reasoning (qua knowing and reasoning).

It’s like anything we do - we get all the knowledge, we train, we check our equipment and then it comes time to act. If we didn’t believe we were ready, we wouldn’t act. Believing gathers what we know, what is reasonable, where the holes in the reasoning are, where the questions still exist, and then, we decide, we consent, we either believe or not - so belief is the springboard for action. — Fire Ologist

It will be interesting to explore this. I think the connecting between faith and intuition is only partially successful. The intuitions which work tend to be those which are derived from experience of similar scenarios. We accumulate wisdom in this way. That said, a lot of people's intuitions are based on erroneous feelings and biases. We might need to determine just when an intuition is justified and when it is not. Which returns us to reasoning. I trust my intuitions about some things based on evidence I have acquired over time. In some areas I don't trust my intuitions since I have no experience or expertise. Not sure where gods fit in all this. — Tom Storm

And now here is my completely unsatisfactory response. After the exchange I had with Janus in the previous thread I planned to start a new thread discussing the two major issues I raised with him, i.e. 1) Are faith and intuition the same mental process and 2) Are they valid ways of knowing. I tried to write the OP for that proposed thread. I wrote it and rewrote it three times but I couldn't get it to come together. That's because my own thinking on the subject is muddled. I have lots of ideas but I can't get them to come together.

I agree with much of what all three of you have said, although I disagree with you on the relative importance of intuition and reason in knowing. I think intuition is the foundation of knowledge - it does about 80% of the work - and reason comes along to take the credit. I acknowledge I need to provide arguments to support that position, but, as I noted, I've been struggling to put it into words. This is an important issue for me, so I plan to continue working on it. I'll come back when I have something more coherent to offer.

is faith an emotion or a thought? — Gregory

While responding to a comment in the "Logical Arguments for God Show a Lack of Faith" thread, it struck me that what is called "faith" is the same thing as what I call "intuition." It is not a fundamentally religious mental process - it's applied to everything we do and everything we know every day. That doesn't address the question of whether it is a valid way of knowing, but I think it puts a different perspective on it. Failing to recognize the fact that they are the same allows the religious bigotry endemic here on the forum to draw mislead conclusions.

I'm working on a response. I'm trying to put together a new thread to discuss the intuition/faith issue. I may answer it there. Otherwise I will come back here and respond directly.

Intuition is past experience and knowledge being checked by the unconscious... — DifferentiatingEgg

I think that's a good way of looking at it. I'd like to discuss this issue further, but I think it will distract from this discussion. I plan on starting a new one to go into more detail.

Yes - it's all hard to say so maybe I'm making sense and maybe I understand you. But yes, knowing anything involves believing something, and it involves reason. It's one package. Faith allows us to know things our sense experiences may resist, or faith may allow us to assign meaning to things that may mean other things to others as well, but we are still using reason, and concepts, in minds, like any act of knowing does. — Fire Ologist

I've been thinking about this (faith = intuition) a lot since we started discussing it - I realize that may not be exactly the way you see it. It caught me by surprise. I think it's such an obvious connection that I wonder why I haven't realized it before. In this discussion we see people who don't believe that faith is a valid way to know anything. I've been in many discussions here on the forum where people say the same thing about intuition. I feel like a door has been opened with your help.

I consider myself a pragmatist, but I don't steal from my neighbors. Your justifications are nauseating.

I'm all done here, I'll give you a chance for a final sickening self-justification.

Pitiful.

Im sitting here chilling to Quine, — DifferentiatingEgg

I’m chillin — Fire Ologist

Note - My comment was about fdrake, not you two.

What your proposing is basically anarchy. It has been discussed here numerous times. Without going into criticisms of specific details, it just won’t work. It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature - it’s just not how people and governments work. People like @DifferentiatingEgg will take advantage and ripoff the system whenever they can.

I'm not, because I use it towards MY benefit. I don't pay taxes and I work for myself. In a capitalist system, if you want to get ahead, buy the rights to the surpluss of a company's value. Or create something of consumer value. — DifferentiatingEgg

To summarize, you like democracy as it currently stands in the US because you can get all the services without paying for them and leave it for other people to pay for. So you’re stealing from me.

It’s not that big a deal I guess, but bragging about it makes you seem like kind of an [explative deleted].

In the good old days, fdrake would come in now and tell you boys to behave. This is what happens when we pester him till he can’t take it anymore. Alas.

The answer to this is not that Anselm’s proof is a logical perfection of God as syllogism - it is that we need faith no matter which object we pick up to fashion proofs about. Faith (will) is essential not only to finding God, but to following a reasonable argument, whatever objects that argument is about. We don’t prove things exist; we prove things about existing things we already chose to believe in, or as the more empirically bent put it, we already posit as an object of knowledge. — Fire Ologist

First off, I'm sorry it took me so long to respond. Your post slipped between the cracks.

If I understand what you've written correctly, it makes a lot of sense and I find it very helpful in dealing with this kind of issue. I hadn't thought of it this way before. I think you're saying that what we call faith when it comes to religion is a way of knowing we use in all aspects of our lives. You call it "will." I would probably call it "intuition."

Let me know if I've missed your point.

People invariably have reasons for their faith in a particular version of a particular god. When I’ve spoken to Catholics, evangelicals, or other faith-focused Christians about this, their reasons for believing are often articulated as: “It’s the religion of my family, friends and community.” or “It’s the religion of my culture.” In these cases, faith is more of a post hoc justification rather than the primary driving force. If a person’s religion is the only expression of meaning and the numinous they have known since birth, their belief is shaped more by enculturation than by an independent leap of faith. — Tom Storm

But you can say that about just about everything, in particular language. Indonesian children don't generally speak English as their first language because they are encultured to speak Indonesian. Is it surprising that most religious Indonesians worship Allah? If what you call an expression of meaning and the numinous is a common human experience, which I think it is, I would expect it to vary from culture to culture just like everything else.

My grandmother, a fundamentalist from the Dutch Reformed Church, put it this way: “I came from a Godly house and cherish the belief of my ancestors. I have faith.” To me, this translates to: “I was taught to believe something, and I have faith that the beliefs I’ve held since birth are correct because I was taught they are correct.” — Tom Storm

As I noted, that's true of everything. Does that undermine the value and validity of the cultural expression of a common human experience?

Which "Christians" have been "arguing about" which "this"? — 180 Proof

Here are some early Christian examples. First - anti-reason, from the Bible:

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, — From 1 Corinthians 1:20

Then pro-reason, from 415 ad:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.” — St. Augustine, Vol. 1: The Literal Meaning of Genesis

Let's not take this any farther. I'm clearly not a Biblical scholar. Just as clearly, you aren't either.

Thanks for the explanation. I asked my question because I don't see how the positions you describe are relevant to the issue at hand - to quote the OP, "...using reason-based thought for God is necessarily a showing of a lack of faith in God."

If I say slavery is right because I have it on faith and you say, no, I have it on faith it’s wrong - we arrive at space where we uncover the shortcomings of using faith as a justification. Faith isn’t a reliable justification. — Tom Storm

This is not the issue at hand. The OP claims that making religious arguments based on reason is inconsistent with making them based on faith - as he wrote "...all of you who do require reason-based thought, have a severe lack of faith in God." In my response I suggested that if he understands relevant Christian positions on the subject, he should provide more detail. If he can't do that, he should keep his trap shut.

As for it not being my job. It sometimes is.

If I’m in a country where people are voting on positions that are socially awful based on faith as a justification, then I believe I have a modest role, where possible, to explore how reliable this approach is. In fact I have done just this with a couple of Christians at work and to their credit, they gradually came around to a different view. — Tom Storm

Your approach seems like a useful one. Do you think your coworker's willingness to have reasonable discussions about their religious beliefs is a sign of lack of faith? When I said it's not your job, I meant you don't have to judge their actions and beliefs by their standards, you can hold them responsible for what they do based on your own understanding. To your credit, you've chosen to go beyond that.

How do we determine the validity of one faith against another? — Tom Storm

You don’t. It’s not your job. Many Christians don’t consider it their job either.

That's (maybe) a definition but not a "religious doctrine". — 180 Proof

Christians have been arguing about this among themselves for 2000 years. I doubt you and @DifferentiatingEgg Have much to offer.

What he expressed was Pauline doctrine. — frank

My brief look into what Pauline doctrine is doesn’t indicate it is primarily related to reason versus faith. Clearly, my understanding of this entire issue is not substantive, but to be fair to myself, I don’t think @DifferentiatingEgg’s is either. He should be able to clarify whether or not I am correct in that understanding.

... you asked me to overcome Aquinas, not you. That was towards Aquinas. Hence why I responded to your quote "prove you're smarter than Aquinas" with that... — DifferentiatingEgg

Now that we’ve clarified that, let’s go back to your original response.

Prove you’re smarter than Thomas Aquinas.
— T Clark

You mean prove myself smarter than Aristotle's Prime Mover?
Do you want me to point out why arguments from presupposition that begs question are bad? I mean, at least make it a presupposition that doesn't beg any questions... — DifferentiatingEgg

That’s not the question on the table. The issue being discussed is whether or not use of reason in arguments for God undermines the credibility of faith.

This isn’t a very fruitful discussion. I’ll give you the last word.

Which "religious doctrine" is mentioned in the OP or is being discussed in this thread? — 180 Proof

This one:

Faith in God requires belief without reason-based thought. — DifferentiatingEgg

, at least make it a presupposition that doesn't beg any questions... — DifferentiatingEgg

The only presupposition I’ve made is that you don’t know enough about religious doctrine to make a meaningful statement about it.

Continued defense of illogical arguments because "people don't get it [because OPs poor logic]" is basically a bump, and a way of just re-preaching the same illogic. — DifferentiatingEgg

I didn’t defend any arguments, I only attacked yours. As I wrote…

you claim to understand religious doctrine you don't know anything about. — T Clark

Here is your chance to show us I’m wrong. Provide a summary of specific relevant religious doctrine. Prove you’re smarter than Thomas Aquinas.

See above. — DifferentiatingEgg

I know what "proselytizing" means. My comment was on your "runs rampant" claim.

Arguments are for others to join your outlook on life.
— Philosophim

Pretty sure that's the exact definition of proselytizing... — DifferentiatingEgg

Based on this definition, it's you who are proselytizing here.

This makes a lot of sense.