How does God's omniscience negate an individual's agency / free will?

[Calm]

6 hours ago, Navidad said:

am not sure how all this fits into an LDS worldview.

I agree with Mfb, that train of thought would not be followed much by Saints as we are taught to continually seek out God’s Will, submitted to him and most important to work on making his Will our own, aligning our hearts with his.

This is an example of how we view what we need to do in regards to God’s Will:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ya-weekly/2021/12/4-steps-to-help-you-align-your-will-with-heavenly-fathers-will?lang=eng

Another about submitting ourselves to God’s Will:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2005/10/knowing-the-lords-will-for-you?lang=eng

Aligning our will with God’s:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2016/09/according-to-our-will?lang=eng

Another….

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/lanae-valentine/discerning-will-lord/

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

6 hours ago, Navidad said:

very freeing for many who felt bound by the chains of having to live in the center of God's will in order to please, honor, and glorify God.

I find this hard to understand, but perhaps that is because I trust that God’s Will for me has been truly what the best of me wants for myself from the beginning of whenever I was able to imagine a better existence for myself.  For me, this belief of God’s Will for me makes me feel safe most of the time, though occasionally I fight it as I am in a mood where I want to coast through life.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Calm

[Stargazer]

On 7/12/2023 at 10:21 PM, smac97 said:

Several times over the years I have encountered folks who have asserted that the Church's doctrines about God's omniscience and our free will / agency are incompatible.  That is, the former negates the latter.

See, e.g., this formulation:

The first general position above makes sense, except that I don't understand the "horns of the dilemma" reference.  What is the "dilemma?"

From ChatGPT:

I responded:

The response:

Me:

ChatGPT:

Still not helpful.

I'm reminded of this clip from Minority Report:

John Anderton : Why'd you catch that?

Danny Witwer : Because it was going to fall.

John Anderton : You're certain?

Danny Witwer : Yeah.

John Anderton : But it didn't fall. You caught it. The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn't change the fact that it was *going* to happen.

Thanks,

-Smac

I've gone 'round and 'round with people who simply cannot fathom that God already knows how it ALL will turn out, because He lives outside of our space-time, and sees the end from the beginning. We cannot surprise Him because He sees and knows it all. 

This scares people into thinking they have no free will. Which is absurd. What they lack is infinite foreknowledge within their space-time. The choices they will have made during their time in this space are not made until they make them, and within their space-time they have absolute agency. Just because God knows what they did doesn't change that.

Steven Hawking clarified this for me in his last book, "Brief Answers to the Big Questions," in which he wrote about the existence of God:

"As we travel back in time towards the moment of the Big Bang, the universe gets smaller and smaller and smaller, until it finally comes to a point where the whole universe is a space so small that it is in effect a single infinitesimally small, infinitesimally dense black hole. And just as with modern-day black holes, floating around in space, the laws of nature dictate something quite extraordinary. They tell us that here too time itself must come to a stop. You can’t get to a time before the Big Bang because there was no time before the Big Bang. We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in."

I suppose Hawking was thinking triumphantly "Game. Set. Match." when he wrote that. And Hawking was absolutely correct in his formulation, as far as it goes. For Hawking's Creator to create the universe, that creator must create himself at the same time he creates his universe -- simply because he couldn't have existed just a femtosecond before the universe was created. And that's an absurdity. And it places the Creator firmly in our space-time and subject to it just as much as we are.

But what if the Creator was outside of the space-time he was creating? Then he need not create himself, because he already existed. And he has all the time in the multiverse to exist in.

And not only that, being outside of our universe's space-time, he would be able to see it all from inception to final ending. Presumably all the way to heat-death, however many sextillion years that might take. Assuming that a heat-death is how it all ends. 
 

 

[Amulek]

On 7/14/2023 at 3:22 PM, bluebell said:

Quote

Why would God even bother with commanding us to ask Him what we should do in our lives (ex-ante) if nothing he says to us in reply will ever affect any change (ex-post)?

Because sometimes what He says to us does have an affect?

I agree. That's why I said earlier that petitionary prayer seems like evidence against God being omniscient in the classical sense. 

 

On 7/14/2023 at 3:22 PM, bluebell said:

But what if you weren't predestined to eat the banana?  

Predestined...determined...whatever. 

If God designed the entire universe in such a way so as to ensure you would eat a banana tomorrow, are you really free to eat it just because nobody ended up holding a gun to your head and demanding you consume a banana? A compatabilist would say sure; a libertarian would argue that you weren't really free unless you really could have done differently. 

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by Amulek

[Amulek]

On 7/14/2023 at 4:42 PM, Navidad said:

Quote

But, as I [Amulek] said before, attempting to "figure Him out using [our] not-quite-yet-glorified (exalted) reasoning ability" is exactly what every other Christian on the planet has been doing for the last 2000 years. So your LDS friends are no different than your Catholic, Baptist, or Mennonite friends on that front.

Ok. I have no problem with agreeing with that.

Sounds good. I'll leave it at that.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

 

[Navidad]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

as we are taught to continually seek out God’s Will, submitted to him and most important to work on making his Will our own, aligning our hearts with his.

We are also taught to continually seek out God's will. My question is how and when do you have assurance and peace in your heart that you have gotten it right? We talk a lot about being in the center of God's will. What a wonderful aspiration . . . but how do my LDS Christian friends know when they have arrived there? My non-LDS friends fret a lot about it and don't seem very sure about their position relative to that center point. Or maybe and for example, is going to BYU always God's will for an LDS teen, so there is no stress about whether going there is His will when there are at least 5,000 other universities with the same major and career path to choose from? Is marrying a member of the LDS church always the center of God's will so it doesn't matter to God whether it is Sue or Sally just as long as she is a faithful LDS church member?

Maybe we non-LDS Christians have a lot more choices that we believe could align our hearts with His? Just trying to understand. I understand that our doctrine is different, but what I don't understand is how those differences impact the Christian life we each try and live to have our hearts aligned with His. I see some things that seem more restrictive in the LDS world and some that are more restrictive in my world. I don't think we ever talk much about how the ways we seek to align ourselves with God may be different. We never seem to get beyond doctrine and stuff like the Godhead. I would prefer to talk about how they ways we live the Christian life in a way that is pleasing to Him, but we just don't seem to ever get around to that. Thanks for the always kind nature of your replies. Best wishes.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Navidad

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

You can’t get to a time before the Big Bang because there was no time before the Big Bang. We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in."

No bueno.

The very notion that there was "no time" implies that there was START to time. That is a temporal period and event in itself, it is in essence an event when Negative Time became Positive Time

Not possible to think of a time before time, because to do so still implies before and after.

IT'S LOGICAL PROBLEM, YOU CAN'T EVEN SPEAK OF A NEGATIVE WITHOUT IMPLYING A POSITIVE. 

Even saying "there was no time before time" is a contradiction - circular/ question begging- because " no time" IMPLIES the existence OF TIME!

It's a negative number implying there must be positives as well 

Imagine someone told you that we are now in a period of NO SHLUTZ.

Doesn't that imply that there will at some time be a period of SHLUTZ whatever that means?

 

 

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by mfbukowski

[webbles]

22 minutes ago, Navidad said:

Or maybe and for example, is going to BYU always God's will for an LDS teen, so there is no stress about whether going there is His will when there are at least 5,000 other universities with the same major and career path to choose from? Is marrying a member of the LDS church always the center of God's will so it doesn't matter to God whether it is Sue or Sally just as long as she is a faithful LDS church member?

I don't know how to answer the rest of your questions, but in these, I do know.  Going to BYU isn't always God's will and marrying a member of the LDS church isn't always God's will.  We don't believe in "soul mates", so there isn't a single person in the world that we are destined to marry or that we should marry to fulfill God's will.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Navidad said:

ll. My question is how and when do you have assurance and peace in your heart that you have gotten it right?

Well, I never believe I have gotten it perfect because it’s a process and no doubt I will miss something the first time I get presented with the opportunity and likely somethings could require a multitude of opportunities before I get it right, but God always in my belief provides another way for me to be able to fill that gap eventually.  As far as assurance and peace in my heart, it is the same way as everything else and that is the Spirit.

My perspective is also I am heading towards an alignment of my will with his.  Once I get there, I will be able to stay there because to truly align means to me I must comprehend and do things for the same reasons he would have me do them….and that ability comes when I am ready for exaltation.  Until then, just hope I am pointing in the right direction and trust the Spirit will provide any needed nudges.

I also don’t see God as a micromanager in most cases, maybe if he needs a really unique kind of person for a particular mission.  I think he is okay with our muddling along at our own pace.

Edited July 16, 2023 by Calm

[Navidad]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

Well, I never believe I have gotten it perfect because it’s a process and no doubt I will miss something the first time I get presented with the opportunity and likely somethings could require a multitude of opportunities before I get it right, but God always in my belief provides another way for me to be able to fill that gap eventually.  As far as assurance and peace in my heart, it is the same way as everything else and that is the Spirit.

My perspective is also I am heading towards an alignment of my will with his.  Once I get there, I will be able to stay there because to truly align means to me I must comprehend and do things for the same reasons he would have me do them….and that ability comes when I am ready for exaltation.  Until then, just hope I am pointing in the right direction and trust the Spirit will provide any needed nudges.

I also don’t see God as a micromanager in most cases, maybe if he needs a really unique kind of person for a particular mission.  I think he is okay with our muddling along at our own pace.

Ok. Thanks. It doesn't seem then that there are many/any differences in our perspectives! 😃 I would simply define your second paragraph as the process of sanctification.

Many Evangelicals and perhaps some Saints as well do indeed see God as a micromanager. That can be a position of great stress, internal self-doubt, and worry - always trying to do and be in order to please Him. Our young people have a great burden (in my opinion) to "find the exact right person" to marry. The exact right vocation, college, place to live, etc etc. It is easy for some in my world to see God as a benevolent tyrant, especially those in Fundamentalism. Correct decision-making is an important component of Evangelicalism. Thanks as always for your conversation.

[Stargazer]

22 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

No bueno.

The very notion that there was "no time" implies that there was START to time. That is a temporal period and event in itself, it is in essence an event when Negative Time became Positive Time

Not possible to think of a time before time, because to do so still implies before and after.

IT'S LOGICAL PROBLEM, YOU CAN'T EVEN SPEAK OF A NEGATIVE WITHOUT IMPLYING A POSITIVE. 

Even saying "there was no time before time" is a contradiction - circular/ question begging- because " no time" IMPLIES the existence OF TIME!

It's a negative number implying there must be positives as well 

Imagine someone told you that we are now in a period of NO SHLUTZ.

Doesn't that imply that there will at some time be a period of SHLUTZ whatever that means?

 

No, you don't get it. Our universe's space-time began at the moment of the Big Bang. In the context of our universe's space-time there is no negative time. There is no "before the beginning". Whatever is outside of our space-time is inaccessible to us, and you can't call it negative space or negative time. This "there was no time before time" is meaningless. Because our time is only in context within our space-time. If God sees the end from the beginning, then he is outside time. 

God doesn't exist in our universe's space-time. He is outside it. Which is the only way he could have created our universe. Because in order to be a part of our space-time, he has to be part of it, be limited to our space-time, and in fact has to have created himself at the moment of the Big Bang. Which is absurd, as I pointed out. If we ignore the absurdity, and allow God to create himself within the Big Bang, as part of our universe's space-time he must then obey the rules of the space-time. Which means he can't travel faster than the speed of light, and has to travel in time at the speed of time, just like us. In other words, he must be trapped within mortal space-time just as we are. Even if he is immortal within it. So he can't get ahead of time to guide events within the space-time. For him to do this requires that the whole of our space-time be laid out to him so that he can see all of it from beginning to end. And he can only do this from outside of our space-time. 

We don't have the mathematics for this, as Hawking clearly recognized, even if he didn't "get" the implications.

Check out the concept of Flatland. 

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, Stargazer said:

No, you don't get it. Our universe's space-time began at the moment of the Big Bang. In the context of our universe's space-time there is no negative time. There is no "before the beginning". Whatever is outside of our space-time is inaccessible to us, and you can't call it negative space or negative time. This "there was no time before time" is meaningless. Because our time is only in context within our space-time. If God sees the end from the beginning, then he is outside time. 

Thanks for your reply, but I believe you are in error.  It was probably 50 years ago when I first read ""Flatland".  That is about dimensions, not time.

Time is about experience, it is the memory of the succession of our experiences, one "after" another which we collectively call "time"

I think your comments above are self-contradictory.

Saying there was "no before the beginning" contradicts "seeing the end from the beginning", because that wording IMPLIES that there must have been a "before the beginning" if God can "see " it as a succession of experiences! 

If the "beginning" is experienced "before" the "end" there is a succession of experiences, and therefore "time"

Any SUCCESSION of events implies "time"

It's just semantic confusion, imo.

 All we have are human words describing human experience, and God IS human and has voluntarily taken upon himself immanence so that the atonement could happen.  I said that perhaps a little fast, but if you really want to get into it.

But I think we have been here before, to no avail.

 

[Navidad]

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

But I think we have been here before, to no avail.

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Navidad
Changed my mind

[Benjamin McGuire]

Quote

Oh Lord God, deliver us in thy due time from the little narrow prison almost as it were total darkness of paper pen and ink and a crooked broken scattered and imperfect language.

Joseph Smith to William W. Phelps, Nov. 27, 1832

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Joseph Smith to William W. Phelps, Nov. 27, 1832

Oh

My

Gosh

Thanks!  The gospel for today. The only thing standing between us and actually being the stone cut without hands is ourselves, and our out-moded language.

Edited July 17, 2023 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Navidad said:

 

No, I am not reading the writings of flat-earthers.

[the narrator]

On 7/14/2023 at 6:29 PM, Ryan Dahle said:

I don't think I'm missing your point. I just disagree with your premises. I stated why, but you haven't responded with specificity. 

Which premises do you disagree with? I have only seen you asserting a premise of free will without responding to my argument about why the very notion of libertarian free will is incoherent nonsense. Again, my argument doesn't arise from neuroscience but is very much confirmed through it.

 

On 7/14/2023 at 6:29 PM, Ryan Dahle said:

So it isn't a fantasy that the widespread adoption of determinism could, and almost certainly would, lead to extremely deleterious social effects. 

Given the fact that our brains cannot experience the world as determined but instead can only experience the world as if we had a free will, it is quite the fantasy. (And if that fantasy somehow became reality, it would be a determined inevitability anyways.) To the contrary, we already observe and can easily see the deleterious social effects of the embrace of libertarian free will.

On 7/14/2023 at 6:29 PM, Ryan Dahle said:

It is so much better to abstractly and confessionally believe in strong determinism, thereby eliminating all moral choice and meaning, but then to adopt libertarian free will as a moral framework because it is simply necessary to do so and impossible to do otherwise, but then to criticize libertarian free will because it potentially leads to evil and unfair judgments, but then to know abstractly that this criticism itself is meaningless because you don't actually believe in good or evil or the ability to choose between them, and at the same time to recognize the irony that comes from criticizing others for being too judgy, as it takes a certain degree of moral self-righteousness to make such judgments. 

You're going to have to break down this massive sentence if you want me to be able to make any sense of it.

Speaking of neuroscience, this showed up in my Youtube recommendations a few days ago. While she doesn't directly address the neural-illusion of free will. I think it's very easy to see how, just as the brain creates a story to make sense of the signals it is receiving, it also creates a story of the self and free will to make sense of the actions it and the body is engaged in:

 

[the narrator]

On 7/14/2023 at 11:12 PM, mfbukowski said:

I find it simpler to postulate that if all we can know is what we experience, let's just call that "reality as we know it" and forget about any impractical question like determinism.

 

I agree there. This is why my argument does not hinge on science (or even traditional philosophy, per se), but rather in the very notion of what it means to make a choice (or what it means when we say we make a choice) and how the very way we talk about and understand choosing renders libertarian free will incoherent.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, the narrator said:

I agree there. This is why my argument does not hinge on science (or even traditional philosophy, per se), but rather in the very notion of what it means to make a choice (or what it means when we say we make a choice) and how the very way we talk about and understand choosing renders libertarian free will incoherent.

Yes, these views are assumed to be the case in both American Pragmatism and on the continent in Phenomenology.

Amazing these views begin with Kant, and were evolving the same time Joseph Smith was restoring the church, and do appear in the BOM and the Bible.

Our individual experiences create our individual worlds as we know them, and seeing truth from a postmodern perspective actually justifies the logical relevance of "testimonies" and spiritual experiences, as being as "real" as anything else we experience.

Philosophically this even dates back to the Greeks, in the writing of Heraclitus

 

 

[Ryan Dahle]

8 hours ago, the narrator said:

On 7/14/2023 at 6:29 PM, Ryan Dahle said:

I don't think I'm missing your point. I just disagree with your premises. I stated why, but you haven't responded with specificity. 

Which premises do you disagree with?

Here is a previous quote from you that I disagree with:

Quote

"The problem is that if my exact same will can be applied to the exact same set of circumstances and result in different choices, then I (my will) is not making a choice. Rather, it's either an outside factor affecting my will differently, or some sort of metaphysical randomness (or let's say some aspect of indeterminate quantum physics)--but again outside myself--is determining that choice.

You proposed a hypothetical where a single agent is given the exact same set of circumstances over and over again. If the agent were to make the same choice over and over again in the same set of circumstances, you seem to think it must be due to something like biological determinism (i.e., something about the agent must be compelling him or her to make this specific choice, otherwise we would see variation). Conversely, if the agent were to ever make a different choice when situated in precisely the same circumstances, you conclude that it must be due to some sort of metaphysical randomness (as bolded in your quote above). Thus, as you apparently see it, the hypothetical provides a sort of a "heads I win, tails you lose" approach to libertarian free will. 

But I think that your premises are far from proven. These include the premise that a free agent's consistent choice in a given set of circumstances couldn't be due to free will rather than biological determinism. Is there some definition of free will that necessarily precludes consistently preferred choices in precisely similar contexts? Likewise, is there some definition of free will that necessarily precludes variant choices in precisely similar contexts? Even if you could create such a hypothetical situation, how could you determine that the cause of the variation was due to metaphysical randomness rather than to free will itself. And why would such a variation in one circumstance necessarily prove that all choices in all circumstances are completely random. What if an agent were to make a different choice (in the same circumstances) when it comes to something trivial but the same choice when it comes to something deeply important to that agent? Would that additional hypothetical prove that the agent is both determined and random? Or would it just show that the agent's previous choices (the development of their character and identity) will propel them to manifest uniformity of choice in some areas and yet a possible range of variation in others? 

To be clear, I don't presume to know whether placing the same agent in precisely the same circumstances would result in the same, different, or (in the case of testing this on multiple types of choices) mixed outcomes. My point is that you still have a long way to go to demonstrate that these potential hypothetical outcomes disprove free will or make the notion of free will non-sensical. 

8 hours ago, the narrator said:

On 7/14/2023 at 6:29 PM, Ryan Dahle said:

So it isn't a fantasy that the widespread adoption of determinism could, and almost certainly would, lead to extremely deleterious social effects. 

Given the fact that our brains cannot experience the world as determined but instead can only experience the world as if we had a free will, it is quite the fantasy. (And if that fantasy somehow became reality, it would be a determined inevitability anyways.) To the contrary, we already observe and can easily see the deleterious social effects of the embrace of libertarian free will.

I've already responded to this, twice. But I'll try again with further explanation. You seem to think that in order for a worldview to have deleterious personal or social effects, the worldview must conform to one's intuitive perceptions of reality. This seems to be mistaken, as it is easy to demonstrate in many areas that humans are able to incorporate non-intuitive information into their worldview and thereby make decisions that don't entirely depend on their raw intuitive perceptions of reality. For instance, when attending a magic show, most audience members expect that their perceptual reality of the show isn't going to be accurate. Thus, their interpretations of the experience transcends their immediate perceptions. It may seem like the magician turned a stone into a pigeon, but that isn't the explanation that one has to adopt. I have had this experience myself, and I have never felt compelled to believe or act as if the magic that seemed so real in the moment actually was real. 

Likewise, I don't see any reason to assume that humans aren't capable of reinterpreting their perceptions of free will, and then of acting in ways that accord with their new interpretations. If someone reaches the conclusion, based on neuroscience or philosophy, that all choice is determined, how can you be so sure that this belief won't have an overriding influence in an individual's life, leading to depression, nihilism, sadism, or a host of other negative outcomes, especially if the person is already struggling with such issues? Simply saying people "cannot experience the world as determined" is hardly adequate, as our interpretations of our experiences (in addition to our raw perceptions themselves) clearly play a crucial role in our thinking and behavior. Even if an individual can't always remember that his or her choices are determined, it doesn't follow that one's belief in determinism will never be a crucial factor in their poor choices. 

Here are a few sources that may offer at least preliminary evidence of this proposition: 

• K. Vohs and J. Schooler,  "The Value of Believing in Free Will: Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating," Psychological Science 19 (2008), 49-54.
• R. Baumeister, E. Masicampo, and C. Dewall, "Prosocial benefits of feeling free: disbelief in free will increases aggression and reduces helpfulness," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (2009): 260-268.

These studies obviously have a range of limitations, as would pretty much any data in this area, pro or con. I think it is simply not yet known what would happen if an entire population were to conclude, promote, and reinforce through education and media that free will is an illusion. Perhaps the results would be mixed, with some benefits and some drawbacks. Or perhaps the society would remain essentially the same as before the psychological shift. Or perhaps it would be an absolute disaster! I'm banking on the latter. 

Whether one agrees with my assessment or not, I think your line of reasoning (that it is somehow impossible for the adoption of determinism to have negative personal or social effects) is just fundamentally flawed. It is based on the false premise that non-intuitive conclusions about the world aren't able to meaningfully influence our thoughts and behavior, for better or worse. 

8 hours ago, the narrator said:

On 7/14/2023 at 6:29 PM, Ryan Dahle said:

It is so much better to abstractly and confessionally believe in strong determinism, thereby eliminating all moral choice and meaning, but then to adopt libertarian free will as a moral framework because it is simply necessary to do so and impossible to do otherwise, but then to criticize libertarian free will because it potentially leads to evil and unfair judgments, but then to know abstractly that this criticism itself is meaningless because you don't actually believe in good or evil or the ability to choose between them, and at the same time to recognize the irony that comes from criticizing others for being too judgy, as it takes a certain degree of moral self-righteousness to make such judgments. 

You're going to have to break down this massive sentence if you want me to be able to make any sense of it.

Here you go:

It is so much better to

·         abstractly and confessionally believe in strong determinism, thereby eliminating all moral choice and meaning,

·         but then to adopt libertarian free will as a moral framework because it is simply necessary to do so and impossible to do otherwise,

·         but then to criticize libertarian free will because it potentially leads to evil and unfair judgments,

·         but then to know abstractly that this criticism itself is meaningless because you don't actually believe in good or evil or the ability to choose between them,

·         and at the same time to recognize the irony that comes from criticizing others for being too judgy, as it takes a certain degree of moral self-righteousness to make such judgments.

 

Of course, I'm being ironic. The sentence is meant to demonstrate the convoluted disjunctions that are almost ever present when one confessionally adopts determinism in the abstract while still pragmatically viewing the world through a lens of libertarian free will (which you seem to have done). 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Ryan Dahle

[the narrator]

15 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

You proposed a hypothetical where a single agent is given the exact same set of circumstances over and over again. If the agent were to make the same choice over and over again in the same set of circumstances, you seem to think it must be due to something like biological determinism (i.e., something about the agent must be compelling him or her to make this specific choice, otherwise we would see variation).

I am not necessarily claiming either bolded phrases. As I have said repeatedly, my argument isn't necessarily one of material determinism (though it would certainly align with it.). My argument is simply on the very sense of what it means to make a choice and from that how libertarian free will lacks sense (as is thus non-sense.) When we talk of someone making a choice, we are talking about someone encountering a particular set of circumstances and then (using their reason, emotions, physiological status, spirituality, etc. that make up their will) selecting (or determining) a particular option. Libertarian free will claims that given the same set of circumstances, the same will could possibly choose differently. In doing so, they must then imagine a entirely different notion of "choice" stripped of one's will and thus existing solely as a philosophical premise without any real-world application. (If you think my definition of how we mean we talk about choice in ordinary language is incorrect, please let me know how.)

Your language of "compelling" is also incorrect, as it implies some sort of outside or extraordinary factor affecting what we might otherwise choose. (Sure, I guess we could say that I hugged my son this morning because I was compelled by my love for him, but I consider that love as part of my will and not distinct from it.) For my argument, the role that compelling might play is a distinct factor within a given set of circumstances that might alter the choice my will makes that I would not if that factor were not in play. (For example, the urgent need to pee may have compelled me away from hugging my son when I did.)

16 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

But I think that your premises are far from proven. These include the premise that a free agent's consistent choice in a given set of circumstances couldn't be due to free will rather than biological determinism. Is there some definition of free will that necessarily precludes consistently preferred choices in precisely similar contexts? Likewise, is there some definition of free will that necessarily precludes variant choices in precisely similar contexts? Even if you could create such a hypothetical situation, how could you determine that the cause of the variation was due to metaphysical randomness rather than to free will itself. And why would such a variation in one circumstance necessarily prove that all choices in all circumstances are completely random. What if an agent were to make a different choice (in the same circumstances) when it comes to something trivial but the same choice when it comes to something deeply important to that agent? Would that additional hypothetical prove that the agent is both determined and random? Or would it just show that the agent's previous choices (the development of their character and identity) will propel them to manifest uniformity of choice in some areas and yet a possible range of variation in others? . . . . 

To be clear, I don't presume to know whether placing the same agent in precisely the same circumstances would result in the same, different, or (in the case of testing this on multiple types of choices) mixed outcomes. My point is that you still have a long way to go to demonstrate that these potential hypothetical outcomes disprove free will or make the notion of free will non-sensical. 

 

Again, you are getting lost in means of determination rather than addressing conceptual non-sense of libertarian free will.

16 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Whether one agrees with my assessment or not, I think your line of reasoning (that it is somehow impossible for the adoption of determinism to have negative personal or social effects) is just fundamentally flawed. It is based on the false premise that non-intuitive conclusions about the world aren't able to meaningfully influence our thoughts and behavior, for better or worse. 

You sure do love your straw men. I never said that a belief in determinism could not meaningfully influence one's behavior. I said that the illusory experience of free will is such a hard-wired part of human experience and existence that your hypothetical postulation is not just virtually impossible but also entirely implausible.

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, the narrator said:

Libertarian free will claims that given the same set of circumstances, the same will could possibly choose differently. In doing so, they must then imagine a entirely different notion of "choice" stripped of one's will and thus existing solely as a philosophical premise without any real-world application. (If you think my definition of how we mean we talk about choice in ordinary language is incorrect, please let me know how.)

There must be some hidden assumptions or definitional divergences in our perspectives somewhere. I still don't see, at all, how your hypothetical requires your conclusions. You explained it in several ways, but to me the outcome always results in a non-sequitur. Not sure where the misunderstanding is coming from. 

2 hours ago, the narrator said:

Your language of "compelling" is also incorrect, as it implies some sort of outside or extraordinary factor affecting what we might otherwise choose.

In this case, I simply meant "compelled" by biological determinism (inevitable outcomes due to bio-mechanical processes controlled by apparently immutable natural laws). But apparently that is not actually part of your argument (although it seems to align with your philosophy-based conclusions). Maybe you will have to explain, in greater detail, specifically why consistencies or variations in choice (when an agent is placed in precisely similar circumstances) renders free will as non-sensical. You just keep saying that it does, but I don't see how. 

2 hours ago, the narrator said:

You sure do love your straw men. I never said that a belief in determinism could not meaningfully influence one's behavior. I said that the illusory experience of free will is such a hard-wired part of human experience and existence that your hypothetical postulation is not just virtually impossible but also entirely implausible.

I think maybe you haven't tracked this part of the conversation well. Here is a recap:

You said:

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That our brains are hard-wired to experience the world like this has really struck me over the last year as both my wife and son were diagnosed with ADHD (and my daughter soon to be diagnosed with autism.) This was revelation for me, as I had to really come to grasp the reality that my wife experiences the world very differently than me, radically so. In particular, the way it affects/limits her executive function makes it so that she simply can't choose to do things in the that I can. (And let me tell you, really coming to terms and embracing this reality has significantly reduced the number of emotional arguments we get into.) In addition, witnessing out emotional disorders, pathologies, and other things affect people around me makes it further clear how much our perceived "choices" are very much determined by our biology and environment.

In other words, you are expressing how your adopting a belief in biological and environmental determinism has had positive results in your personal life (as you tend to be less judgmental of others). Then I said:

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I don't think that one has to adopt strict determinism to be more empathetic. Those who believe in a healthy degree of libertarian free will can still recognize that many human choices are far less "free" than we might expect based on our own limited subjective experiences. I actually think that strict determinism, when fully embraced, is more likely to cause social harm than result in love and empathy. This is because determinism doesn't just soften our value judgments of others, it completely eliminates them. 

Then you took issue with this claim:

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But since we cannot experience the world as determined your hypothetical elimination is a fantasy. On other hand, I see libertarian free will repeatedly used over and over and over again as a cudgel to unempathetically judge others with the premise that they are in their situation because of choices they made that others did not. Libertarian free will is primary fuel for self-righteousness, judgment, pride, oppression, racism, and so many other evils. It's the opposite of grace.

Then I clarified: 

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In many cases, humans have proven able to assimilate into their paradigms information that is beyond immediate perceptions, or which seems counter-intuitive to them. So it isn't a fantasy that the widespread adoption of determinism could, and almost certainly would, lead to extremely deleterious social effects. 

Notice that I am not arguing--and I have never argued--that humans can completely avoid or eliminate our intuitive perceptions of agency. Despite my clarification, you simply doubled down: 

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Given the fact that our brains cannot experience the world as determined but instead can only experience the world as if we had a free will, it is quite the fantasy. (And if that fantasy somehow became reality, it would be a determined inevitability anyways.) To the contrary, we already observe and can easily see the deleterious social effects of the embrace of libertarian free will.

Then I offered further explanation and clarification (my analogy with magic shows and some cited studies in the ill-effects of determinism), and concluded: 

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Whether one agrees with my assessment or not, I think your line of reasoning (that it is somehow impossible for the adoption of determinism to have negative personal or social effects) is just fundamentally flawed.

To which you finally responded: 

Quote

You sure do love your straw men. I never said that a belief in determinism could not meaningfully influence one's behavior. I said that the illusory experience of free will is such a hard-wired part of human experience and existence that your hypothetical postulation is not just virtually impossible but also entirely implausible.

If you follow the conversation, it seems that the straw man assertion goes the other way around. I repeatedly clarified my position, but you ignored it and kept bringing up the irrelevant point about how we cannot experience the world as determined. What was I supposed to think, other than that you somehow disagreed with my fundamental and repeated line of reasoning (which is that belief in determinism has the real potential to negatively influence human behavior)? 

In any case, perhaps the problem was that early on you misunderstood my claim that when "strict determinism" is "fully embraced" it logically "eliminates" our value judgments. In stating this, I wasn't suggesting that anyone can fully rid themselves of their intuitions about agency (as I repeatedly clarified). Rather, I was getting at the fact that your positive perception of determinism seems to selectively ignore its full implications. You seem favorable towards determinism because it apparently allows you to be more empathetic and less judgmental of others (due to the belief that they actually aren't responsible for their negative or harmful behavior). Yet to me, it seems like this position intentionally avoids the other side of the coin, which is that determinism also renders perceived agents as not being responsible for their positive or good behavior. 

Thus, my point was that determinism, when its logical implications are fully realized, doesn't just absolve people of guilt. It also removes any reason for praise, admiration, or love (thereby eliminating all value judgments). Determinism entails that people actually aren't choosing good or evil. There are no villains or heroes. There are just complicated biological machines carrying out sequences of inevitable actions that are neither abhorrent nor praiseworthy. One might as well get angry at a toaster oven as get mad at a person. Likewise, there is no more reason to love your wife than you love rain drops or sunshine. Things just are. Humans become dehumanized.

In response to this line of reasoning, you can't just respond (yet again) with the irrelevant claim that "we cannot experience determinism." As soon as one's belief in determinism is strong enough that it can influence him or her to be less judgmental of others for their misconduct (as you claimed it did for you), it seems the same degree of belief could just as easily remove or reduce one's praise and love for others. Simply repeating over and over that we can't fully experience determinism would push back just as strongly against your original claim as it would against the position that I have held from the beginning. 

In short, determinism doesn't necessarily promote empathy, love or forgiveness. It could just as easily be resorted to as a justification for cheating, violence, abuse, the dehumanization of others, and many other intuitively perceived wrongs. In order for the adoption of determinism to be beneficial, one has to arbitrarily view it through a very one-sided lens, one which ignores its potentially deleterious effects. 

[the narrator]

31 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

There must be some hidden assumptions or definitional divergences in our perspectives somewhere. I still don't see, at all, how your hypothetical requires your conclusions. You explained it in several ways, but to me the outcome always results in a non-sequitur. Not sure where the misunderstanding is coming from. 

Let me try to be more clear.

1. Choice: A person applying their will (combination of reason, emotions, physiological and spiritual state) to a given set of circumstances to determine a particle decision.

Do you agree or disagree with this understanding of choice. If you disagree, how?

37 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

In any case, perhaps the problem was that early on you misunderstood my claim that when "strict determinism" is "fully embraced" it logically "eliminates" our value judgments.

The problem I see is that determinism cannot be embraced (and especially cannot be fully embraced) in a similar way to how someone might fully (or nearly-so) embrace free will, because the latter is an inescapable aspect of our existential selves. We cannot but experience the world as if we have free will. On the other hand, the former can only be embraced a theoretical concept. (For the same reason, I cannot experience the world as vibrations in the air, photomagnetic waves, odorants in the air, and space through the relative perspective of time. Instead I experience the world through qualia and chronological time.) Because free will is the de facto and inescapable way we experience our actions in the world, it is all and can only be tempered through the conscious recognition that our decisions (and the consequences of those decisions) are in fact something that we are no in control of in the libertarian free will sense. I know a lot of people like to hate on Calvinism because of its determinism, but for these reasons I find it quite humbling and gracious to accept that my situation isn't because I (as an existential self) am some special person who made better choices than others because I'm just that awesome, but that instead I'm just really darn lucky.

Again, going back to Saul/Paul and Alma the Younger. They didn't become righteous because they chose better than others. They were on quite the opposite path. They were just damn lucky to be divinely smacked across the face and set on a different course. This is evident throughout Paul's writings.

Anyways, we clearly simply differ on the value of acknowledging our determined selves, and I don't care to belabor it any further. I am interested, though, in your understanding on what it means to make a choice.

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, the narrator said:

The problem I see is that determinism cannot be embraced (and especially cannot be fully embraced) in a similar way to how someone might fully (or nearly-so) embrace free will, because the latter is an inescapable aspect of our existential selves. We cannot but experience the world as if we have free will. On the other hand, the former can only be embraced a theoretical concept. (For the same reason, I cannot experience the world as vibrations in the air, photomagnetic waves, odorants in the air, and space through the relative perspective of time. Instead I experience the world through qualia and chronological time.) Because free will is the de facto and inescapable way we experience our actions in the world, it is all and can only be tempered through the conscious recognition that our decisions (and the consequences of those decisions) are in fact something that we are no in control of in the libertarian free will sense. I know a lot of people like to hate on Calvinism because of its determinism, but for these reasons I find it quite humbling and gracious to accept that my situation isn't because I (as an existential self) am some special person who made better choices than others because I'm just that awesome, but that instead I'm just really darn lucky.

Again, going back to Saul/Paul and Alma the Younger. They didn't become righteous because they chose better than others. They were on quite the opposite path. They were just damn lucky to be divinely smacked across the face and set on a different course. This is evident throughout Paul's writings.

Anyways, we clearly simply differ on the value of acknowledging our determined selves, and I don't care to belabor it any further. I am interested, though, in your understanding on what it means to make a choice.

Dude. Seriously? Why not just reply to my actual points on this topic?

No worries though. I'm guessing further efforts on this and related issues will just result in the same regurgitation of points that (1) misunderstand my position and (2) are irrelevant to it. Probably a good place to end it. 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Ryan Dahle

[the narrator]

21 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Dude. Seriously? Why not just reply to my actual points on this topic?

Because it was a tangent that we were clearly talking past each other on, and one that I really didn't care to continue or engage, as it was a distraction from the primary argument I was making. But if you just want to ignore the discussion on the non-sense of libertarian free will in the context of what it means to make a choice, that's totally fine as well.

Peace out.