Lack of free will as an objective disproof of Mormonism

[DrStakhanovite]

ChatGPT and its' successors are likely going to do a lot of the heavy lifting in showing practically that a materialistic neural network is sufficient to explain the appearance of consciousness. No spooky outside influence like an ethereal soul is required.

I think we are as far away from achieving that as we were in 1905.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

It’s not that the kid has a preference, but rather he was always destined to choose the pizza through deterministic factors beyond even his own comprehension. I don’t see how God is different simply because he can see the inevitable play-out of events.

If the kid was predestined to choose pizza for reasons the kid can't conceive, then so what? The kid gets what the kid wants. How is this not being free?

But even if you don't want to count predestined choices as free ones, God shouldn't suffer that problem. God is not supposed to be determined by any external factors. If God foreknows something, it can only because God has decided that that's what will happen. If God chose something else, then it would happen instead—and God would be foreknowing that.

If God chooses something else he ceases to be omniscient. I suppose a workaround is that we could view God as a sort of Quantumania God, and that he exists in all possible states until a reality appears to the observer that collapses into a moment by moment reality, but that doesn’t necessarily mean God isn’t Quantumania God.

Ref the kid, just because one prefers the leash doesn’t mean he’s free to run around.

- Doc

[Physics Guy]

How is getting what you want like being on a leash? What would be more free than getting what you want?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

How is getting what you want like being on a leash? What would be more free than getting what you want?

I suppose I could say man is condemned to be free (existentialism), but freedom, as you know, doesn’t guarantee that man gets what he wants. A lot of people get what they want and a lot of people don’t get what they want. None of that changes the factors that led up to that point of obtaining or not obtaining. Whatever factors were present that set the conditions for the kid’s desire for pizza, and whatever factors were present that led to the kid getting the pizza, and whatever resulting feelings of elation result from him eating the pizza, don’t change the fact that those factors had to be present, otherwise the kid’s desire for pizza might’ve been a desire for noodles, or ice cream, or may have resulted in no appetite at all. The kid wasn’t free to choose pizza any more than he’s free to pee or poop or sleep. He’s a series of situational, biological, and environmental factors that lead to the present and give the illusion of a future filled with choice.

Or I’m wrong. Either way, it doesn’t matter.

- Doc

[drumdude]

In order for our choices to be free, they have to be motivated by something like an external soul.

This is where I, and I think Dennett and others as well, disagree. Determinism is perfectly consistent with the only kind of freedom that matters. And having an external soul wouldn't actually change anything significant, anyway.

Freedom isn't randomness. Having all my choices determined by nothing but a big rolling die in my heart, that would come up different each time if the same choice were posed, would be the worst kind of slavery. Nothing I did would ever mean anything. Freedom isn't having my choices determined by nothing. Freedom is having my choices determined by me.

Who I am, and what I want, may be determined by other things, certainly. Perhaps I want a carrot instead of an apple because I glimpsed an orange leaf while walking to work at the same moment some pheromone wafted into my nose. But so what? I want a carrot now, and I can haz carrot. That's freedom.

Suppose that the decisive factor in my preference for carrot actually is my immaterial soul. My immaterial soul wants a carrot. That's still just a factor which determines my choice, just like the leaf and the pheromone: somewhere out in the astral plane is a divine spark of soul that wants carrot. As long as that spark wants carrot, I have no power to choose apple. I could choose apple instead—but only if that spark were different. How is this different from the possibility that I could have chosen apple over carrot if the leaf had been redder and the pheromone more or less volatile?

Either way, I could have chosen differently, if and only if I had wanted to choose differently. In the materialistic model, there's a story about how and why I might want to choose differently, a story about leaves and pheromones. The only difference in the immaterial soul model is that the story is shorter: I'd want to choose an apple if I, meaning my soul, wanted an apple—no more questions, mike drop. That's not a difference between free and not free. It's just a difference in story length.

This is a strong argument that we have the sense that our choices are free, but I don't see how it explains the bigger issue that our choices are actually free.

An essential idea of free will is that we could have chosen otherwise. If there is nothing there which could have chosen otherwise, then it's as free as a character in a movie.

The movie character wants an apple, mike drop. But does that mean the movie character has free will?

[Rivendale]

This is where I, and I think Dennett and others as well, disagree. Determinism is perfectly consistent with the only kind of freedom that matters. And having an external soul wouldn't actually change anything significant, anyway.

Freedom isn't randomness. Having all my choices determined by nothing but a big rolling die in my heart, that would come up different each time if the same choice were posed, would be the worst kind of slavery. Nothing I did would ever mean anything. Freedom isn't having my choices determined by nothing. Freedom is having my choices determined by me.

Who I am, and what I want, may be determined by other things, certainly. Perhaps I want a carrot instead of an apple because I glimpsed an orange leaf while walking to work at the same moment some pheromone wafted into my nose. But so what? I want a carrot now, and I can haz carrot. That's freedom.

Suppose that the decisive factor in my preference for carrot actually is my immaterial soul. My immaterial soul wants a carrot. That's still just a factor which determines my choice, just like the leaf and the pheromone: somewhere out in the astral plane is a divine spark of soul that wants carrot. As long as that spark wants carrot, I have no power to choose apple. I could choose apple instead—but only if that spark were different. How is this different from the possibility that I could have chosen apple over carrot if the leaf had been redder and the pheromone more or less volatile?

Either way, I could have chosen differently, if and only if I had wanted to choose differently. In the materialistic model, there's a story about how and why I might want to choose differently, a story about leaves and pheromones. The only difference in the immaterial soul model is that the story is shorter: I'd want to choose an apple if I, meaning my soul, wanted an apple—no more questions, mike drop. That's not a difference between free and not free. It's just a difference in story length.

This is a strong argument that we have the sense that our choices are free, but I don't see how it explains the bigger issue that our choices are actually free.

An essential idea of free will is that we could have chosen otherwise. If there is nothing there which could have chosen otherwise, then it's as free as a character in a movie.

The movie character wants an apple, mike drop. But does that mean the movie character has free will?

I don't think the issue revolves around the choice. More importantly is the source of the choices. The parade of choices placed in front of you is entirely out of your control. Think of trying to remember a person's name you forgot and suddenly it pops into your mind. Did you orchestrate the search for that? Subterranean thoughts obviously but there was no roving conscious eye that you were in control of. You were not free to choose the selection of choices but you were free to select from the list.

[drumdude]

Sam Harris claims that if you really pay attention to how you choose from the list of choices that pop into your head, you notice that it's the exact same mechanism that leads you to make a choice.

When you're fighting with your partner to decide where to eat, and you're going back and forth between pizza and hamburgers, with no preference for either - you make the choice as arbitrarily as when hamburgers and pizza popped into your mind in the first place. When you pay attention to a choice like that, you realize that you're not the one pushing it over the edge into a decision. Just like you weren't in control of which memories popped into your head.

You didn't make a choice when to decide your mind was made up and you had stopped thinking about which one to choose either. It's turtles all the way down once you start paying close attention through things like meditation and self introspection.

That's Sam's argument, anyway, and I find it convincing right now even though I may not later when I think about it more or keep discussing it with you fine people.

[dastardly stem]

That's Sam's argument, anyway, and I find it convincing right now even though I may not later when I think about it more or keep discussing it with you fine people.

I'm in a similar boat. I don't know that its all about Sam Harris to me, but whenever I look into compatibilism all I see are weird attempts to reaffirm we should be held responsible for our choices therefore determinism and free will are compatible and not much more. But happy to learn.

Gad mentioned Open Theism which is also a tune created to address the concern of determinism. I don't think it makes much sense though. Even if God can't see the future that doesn't seem all that convincing that we have a choice outside all the factors that play into our choices. But granted, choice all feels so real I'm happy enough to live as if I'm the one doing all my choosing.

[Moksha]

Is our obsession with Dr. Peterson an example of lacking free will? Does that prove or disprove Mormonism?

[Physics Guy]

Whatever it is that you think is controlling you, decide that it's part of you. Now you're free.