Seeing Things Differently -DanP the apologist excuse.

[MG 2.0]

Morley and others are at least questioning the idea of free will. Some are saying it doesn’t exist. Others seem to be riding the fence. I’ve been asking myself again, why?

Considering the fact that there are a goodly share of folks that to some degree or another have doubts in regards to the existence of God and place greater faith in the workings of the mind/intellect to arrive at ‘truth’, and allowing for gradations on that theme, I used A.I. to produce a list of reasons that some folks struggle with the idea of free will.

CoPilot:

Naturalistic Worldview:

Secular humanists often adopt a naturalistic worldview, which emphasizes empirical evidence and rationality. They may view free will as a metaphysical concept lacking empirical support. Since free will implies the ability to make choices independent of external influences, it clashes with a deterministic understanding of the universe based on natural laws and cause-and-effect relationships.

Existential Mystery:

Secular humanists accept existential mystery as part of life. They recognize that certain questions, such as why we exist or where everything comes from, may remain insoluble. The idea of free will might fall into this category of existential mystery, and secular humanists may not feel compelled to assert its existence without concrete evidence.

Ethical Responsibility:

Secular humanists emphasize personal responsibility and ethical behavior. However, they ground morality in reason, empathy, and societal well-being rather than divine commandments. Some may argue that the concept of free will complicates moral responsibility. If our choices are predetermined or influenced by external factors, the notion of personal accountability becomes less straightforward.

Determinism and Neuroscience:

Advances in neuroscience have led to discussions about brain processes and decision-making. Some studies suggest that our choices may be influenced by subconscious factors, neural patterns, and environmental cues. Secular humanists who follow scientific developments may find it challenging to reconcile these findings with the traditional notion of free will.

This list may not be all inclusive and it may not apply to the reasons that some folks here are hesitant to admit that we have free will and are able to exercise agency.

But it seems like it might get close enough to the heart of the matter to help us, or me anyway, understand why there may be such a stark line between the simple idea of free will and the complex arguments used against it.

I think I’ve already posted on this earlier in the thread…but here we are again.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

It seems MG’s definition of free will is just “I know it when I see it, and I see it.”

I am speaking from my own experience and observations, yes.

Regards,
MG

[drumdude]

It seems MG’s definition of free will is just “I know it when I see it, and I see it.”

I am speaking from my own experience and observations, yes.

Regards,
MG

Our personal experience and intuitions are fraught with examples where we are wrong. Per ChatGPT:

Intuition can sometimes lead us astray. For instance:

Gambler's Fallacy: Believing that past events affect future outcomes, like thinking a coin is more likely to land on heads after a series of tails.

Availability Heuristic: Overestimating the likelihood of events based on their immediate recall, like thinking shark attacks are common because they're frequently in the news.

Confirmation Bias: Seeking out information that confirms our existing beliefs and ignoring evidence to the contrary, leading to distorted perceptions of reality.

Our observations are so untrustworthy that they can lead to people believing falsehoods, to great negative effect:

Instances of multiple people testifying to events that didn't occur are known as false memories or collective false memories. Here are a few examples:

Salem Witch Trials: Many individuals testified to seeing others practicing witchcraft, leading to numerous wrongful convictions based on false accusations and shared hysteria.

McMartin preschool trial: In the 1980s, multiple children made accusations of Satanic ritual abuse against the staff of the McMartin preschool in California. Despite extensive investigations and trials, no evidence of such abuse was found, and it's believed that suggestive interviewing techniques led to false memories being implanted in the children's minds.

The Mad Gasser of Mattoon (1944): In Mattoon, Illinois, there were reports of a mysterious assailant who allegedly sprayed toxic gas into people's homes, causing symptoms such as nausea and paralysis. Despite extensive investigations, no evidence of such attacks was found, leading some to believe that the incidents were the result of mass hysteria or panic.

These examples illustrate the susceptibility of human memory to suggestion, leading to the creation and reinforcement of false narratives, even when multiple people corroborate each other's accounts.

I would put Mormonism into the same category, since Occam’s razor suggests that the simplest explanation of the Golden Plates is that they were a ruse, rather than an ancient relic delivered by an angel and teleported back to heaven.

All of this to say, personal experience and observation are very, very flawed. Humans created science partly to combat these problems, and try to navigate reality in a more rational manner. If we were stuck relying on “I feel like this exists, so it must be true” we would not be where we are today.

[huckelberry]

I really don’t need someone telling me that I don’t have free will when I know that I do.

Prior to writing this sentence, could you have chosen not to write it? Specifically, if your brain was in the exact same state it was just as you began to type, could you have chosen not to type it?

Gadianton, come come, why would he do that? He chose what he wanted to choose. To do that is free will. To want to chose ice cream but suddenly decide sand is not free will but confusion.

I think there is a tendency to create images of free will which are internally contradictory and then claim that free will does not exist. Semantic argument signifying nothing.

[Morley]

I'm still not sure what you're talking about.

I’m a simple man. I see things as I see them.

Free will exists. We have the agency to choose.

And we are accountable.

If I may be permitted: Again you're confusing concepts. Accountability and free will are not the same.

There are plenty of religious traditions that believe in predestination, the idea that God already knows or has chosen those who will ultimately be saved. These traditions also suggest that we will all be accountable for our actions, whether they were predetermined or not.

[Morley]

Morley and others are at least questioning the idea of free will. Some are saying it doesn’t exist. Others seem to be riding the fence. I’ve been asking myself again, why?

Considering the fact that there are a goodly share of folks that to some degree or another have doubts in regards to the existence of God and place greater faith in the workings of the mind/intellect to arrive at ‘truth’, and allowing for gradations on that theme, I used A.I. to produce a list of reasons that some folks struggle with the idea of free will.

CoPilot:

Naturalistic Worldview:

Secular humanists often adopt a naturalistic worldview, which emphasizes empirical evidence and rationality. They may view free will as a metaphysical concept lacking empirical support. Since free will implies the ability to make choices independent of external influences, it clashes with a deterministic understanding of the universe based on natural laws and cause-and-effect relationships.

Existential Mystery:

Secular humanists accept existential mystery as part of life. They recognize that certain questions, such as why we exist or where everything comes from, may remain insoluble. The idea of free will might fall into this category of existential mystery, and secular humanists may not feel compelled to assert its existence without concrete evidence.

Ethical Responsibility:

Secular humanists emphasize personal responsibility and ethical behavior. However, they ground morality in reason, empathy, and societal well-being rather than divine commandments. Some may argue that the concept of free will complicates moral responsibility. If our choices are predetermined or influenced by external factors, the notion of personal accountability becomes less straightforward.

Determinism and Neuroscience:

Advances in neuroscience have led to discussions about brain processes and decision-making. Some studies suggest that our choices may be influenced by subconscious factors, neural patterns, and environmental cues. Secular humanists who follow scientific developments may find it challenging to reconcile these findings with the traditional notion of free will.

This list may not be all inclusive and it may not apply to the reasons that some folks here are hesitant to admit that we have free will and are able to exercise agency.

But it seems like it might get close enough to the heart of the matter to help us, or me anyway, understand why there may be such a stark line between the simple idea of free will and the complex arguments used against it.

I think I’ve already posted on this earlier in the thread…but here we are again.

Regards,
MG

You already know my complaints about quoting A.I. as an authority in discussion or academics. That said, if you are going to use it, it's unethical to not include the exact question that you employed to harvest your response.

In your copy, you make it seem like you asked why "some folks struggle with the idea of free will." In fact, I'm guessing that you asked why secular humanists struggle with the idea of free will. There's a significant difference in what one can expect in the reply. But you already know that. The most charitable view I can take is that you couldn't help yourself.

[Gadianton]

There are plenty of religious traditions that believe in predestination, the idea that God already knows or has chosen those who will ultimately be saved. These traditions also suggest that we will all be accountable for our actions, whether they were predetermined or not.

Very true. It's also worth mentioning that Mormon theology contradicts itself. The belief in libertarian free-will is not compatible with the Mormon belief that God knows the future. God knowing the future requires determinism. Mormons try to get around the problem of predestination by the doctrine of "foreordination"; a person may be "foreordained" to do a great thing, but fail to rise to the occasion. This is its own incoherent rat's nest -- how many successor prophets did God have for the restoration, maybe 30 others failed and Joseph stepped up? Now multiply that problem by hundreds of trillions of trillions for all other work God has planned -- yet it also doesn't solve the problem of God knowing the future. God knowing that 29 would fail until Joseph succeeded still requires determinism for God to be able to know it.

[Gadianton]

Prior to writing this sentence, could you have chosen not to write it? Specifically, if your brain was in the exact same state it was just as you began to type, could you have chosen not to type it?

Of course I could have chosen not to type it. I can do otherwise no matter what state my brain is in because the body, including the brain, is a tabernacle for the spirit. When we die, our spirits leave our bodies and continue to live and think and make decisions. When demons possessed people in the New Testament, the evil spirits instilled totally different brain configurations. The brain configuration just follows what the spirit governing the body decides. The brain can be a limiting factor. Spencer with. Kimball taught that children have so much energy due to an adult spirit being crammed into such a little body. Likewise, the brain may not be developed enough for the adult spirit to form all the thoughts it could otherwise think, and that also goes for brain dysfunctions in adults.

thank you for the response.

[Res Ipsa]

MG repeatedly misrepresents the positions taken by others in the thread, then wonders aloud what all the fuss is about.


He’s perfectly happy to tell everyone that they have free will and that they are accountable to God for their choices. Yet, he takes offense at the thought that anyone has the temerity to question his claim that everyone has free will. It’s Mormonism 101 — only he has access to objective truth.

There is only one person in this discussion who has asserted that they know whether we all have free will or not: MG. While he is happy to apply constructionism to everyone else, he balks at applying it to himself. No one else’s lived experience counts as real other than his. His lets him “know” that he has free will.

As long as he claims to have a source of superhuman knowledge, his talk of reducing divisions and being more accepting of others is empty words.

[Gadianton]

You already know my complaints about quoting A.I. as an authority in discussion or academics. That said, if you are going to use it, it's unethical to not include the exact question that you employed to harvest your response.

Indeed, his struggle to ask the question fallaciously in hopes the answer will affirm the view that free will is real, and that objections are merely problems the unbeliever has in accepting reality. However, while incomplete, I'd be happy with the answers his A.I. provided him, if he also took the time to respond to his A.I. humanist positions. It's not even clear he has taken the time to understand what his A.I. says.

But hold up -- his method seems to be to ask the A.I. a question, produce the result, and now the matter is settled. This would make sense if to your point, he's employing the fallacy of the complex question and thus, assumes the response isn't so much a position of humanists, but views humanists have that are on their face fallacious, which keep them from accepting the reality of free-will, hence there is nothing to respond to. Interesting.