Is free will an illusion?

[olavisjo]

I find that under a naturalistic philosophy it is impossible for free will to exist, for the simple reason that when we make decisions about things we are performing electrical and chemical reactions in our brains, very much like our computers process data under the control of natural laws, so the outcome of any such process must be strictly determined by past events.
A theist can say that free will is a daily miracle given to us by God, but how can an atheist explain the concept?

[bernee51]

There is certainly the appearance of cause and effect as a result of our concept of time.

What we call cause becomes effect and effect becomes a cause - cause and effect are essentially the same.

If we look at 'now' rather than a period of time we do not see cause and effect - we see an emerging and emergent state of existence.

"Now" has always been and will always be. The idea, the concept, of a creation and a creator exists for the same reason the sensse of individual self exists - and like the individual self it is illusory.

This is clearly an argumentum ad nonsense.

Because you say so?

If I am missing something then please try and explain what you said in some rational terms and we may continue, but as far as I can tell you are just throwing words out with no real meaning behind them.

Let me take it sentence by sentence....
“There is certainly the appearance of cause and effect as a result of our concept of time. “
The reason we have a sense of self is because of this concept we call time. Our sense of self is built on our relationships with the manifest universe. These relationships are constructs built on past memories and future anticipations. Because we are caught up in this time concept – our very sense of self is dependent on it – we perceive action/reaction as cause and effect. Have you read Hume on causality?

“What we call cause becomes effect and effect becomes a cause - cause and effect are essentially the same.�
Not sure what problem you would have with this...it is self evident that with perception of cause and effect what was perceived as an effect becomes a cause in the apparent chain of events.

“If we look at ‘now’ rather than a period of time we do not see cause and effect - we see an emerging and emergent state of existence.�

‘Now’ is outside of time...how long is a ‘now’? When existence is viewed as a series of ‘nows’ – outside of time, the concept of cause and effect becomes an emergent existence as opposed to a ‘caused’ one.

“"Now" has always been and will always be. “

Can you describe a ‘time’ when now did not exist?

“ The idea, the concept, of a creation and a creator exists for the same reason the sense of individual self exists - and like the individual self it is illusory.�

Because we are caught up in the apparent temporal – our very sense of self is dependent on it - the idea of an eternally existing existence is difficult to grasp – that difficulty is overcome by inventing a creator and a creation in order of kickoff this apparent, but illusory, chain.

So, if you accept my first premise (cause and effect) then you must accept that information can not be created, it can only come from the past.

Clearly I do not accept it.

Then refute it.

I have done so. Cause and effect is an illusion on which our sense of individual self depends. In reality we are biological creatures who have evolved a self reflective consciousness. First comes consciousness then comes mind (which is nothing more than thoughts).

Erwin Schrodinger questioned as to why consciousness is only ever referred to in the singular.

Is my consciousness, and by that I am not referring to the our respective mental manifestations of it but consiousness itself, any different to yours?

[olavisjo]

From Post 231:

The information in the DNA of a bacteria exists, even if there is no "apprehending mind"...

Not quite. DNA acts according to its physical properties. It is really nothing more than a molecule that behaves like all other molecules - based on its constituent parts.

In using the term information, we are extrapolating this information from this complex molecule when we consider its properties. DNA doesn't so much react to its own "information" as it does react according to its constituent parts.

Notice the phrase...

...Information is just data that is useful in some way. Knowledge is the application of information, and answers questions that begin with "how". Understanding answers the "why" questions. And wisdom is the proper application of understanding.

Except here we're conflating information with DNA containing its own "knowledge". DNA has yet to be shown to think, and thus considering it to hold this knowledge can't be supported. Again, it is merely a complex molecule that reacts according to various chemical/physical laws.

So, information is the best word to describe the content of the post that you wrote. So tell me, where did the information you wrote ultimately come from?

You seem to be making an analogy to DNA, so I'll rephrase it thus:

"Where did the information in DNA come from?"

It comes from its own properties. As it is a complex chemical it will react according to its makeup, and its environment.

That we perceive information in DNA is only because we classify it as such. Anything that has substance can be considered to hold information. This doesn't show that this information is anything beyond what that substance itself is composed of, or how that substance may react to its environment by way of physical laws.

So are you trying to argue that genetic information is not passed from generation to generation by way of DNA?

[olavisjo]

There is certainly the appearance of cause and effect as a result of our concept of time.

What we call cause becomes effect and effect becomes a cause - cause and effect are essentially the same.

If we look at 'now' rather than a period of time we do not see cause and effect - we see an emerging and emergent state of existence.

"Now" has always been and will always be. The idea, the concept, of a creation and a creator exists for the same reason the sensse of individual self exists - and like the individual self it is illusory.

This is clearly an argumentum ad nonsense.

Because you say so?

If I am missing something then please try and explain what you said in some rational terms and we may continue, but as far as I can tell you are just throwing words out with no real meaning behind them.

Let me take it sentence by sentence....
“There is certainly the appearance of cause and effect as a result of our concept of time. “
The reason we have a sense of self is because of this concept we call time. Our sense of self is built on our relationships with the manifest universe. These relationships are constructs built on past memories and future anticipations. Because we are caught up in this time concept – our very sense of self is dependent on it – we perceive action/reaction as cause and effect. Have you read Hume on causality?

“What we call cause becomes effect and effect becomes a cause - cause and effect are essentially the same.�
Not sure what problem you would have with this...it is self evident that with perception of cause and effect what was perceived as an effect becomes a cause in the apparent chain of events.

“If we look at ‘now’ rather than a period of time we do not see cause and effect - we see an emerging and emergent state of existence.�

‘Now’ is outside of time...how long is a ‘now’? When existence is viewed as a series of ‘nows’ – outside of time, the concept of cause and effect becomes an emergent existence as opposed to a ‘caused’ one.

“"Now" has always been and will always be. “

Can you describe a ‘time’ when now did not exist?

“ The idea, the concept, of a creation and a creator exists for the same reason the sense of individual self exists - and like the individual self it is illusory.�

Because we are caught up in the apparent temporal – our very sense of self is dependent on it - the idea of an eternally existing existence is difficult to grasp – that difficulty is overcome by inventing a creator and a creation in order of kickoff this apparent, but illusory, chain.

So, if you accept my first premise (cause and effect) then you must accept that information can not be created, it can only come from the past.

Clearly I do not accept it.

Then refute it.

I have done so. Cause and effect is an illusion on which our sense of individual self depends. In reality we are biological creatures who have evolved a self reflective consciousness. First comes consciousness then comes mind (which is nothing more than thoughts).

Erwin Schrodinger questioned as to why consciousness is only ever referred to in the singular.

Is my consciousness, and by that I am not referring to the our respective mental manifestations of it but consiousness itself, any different to yours?

I still do not have a clue as to what you are trying to say.

Just try and explain to me why cause and effect is an illusion. Is that to say if I cause an accident by running a red light, the effect is just an illusion?

[T-mash]

That is all the evidence that we need.

Which part of my reasoning do you dispute?

A. The law of cause and effect. Everything that happens was caused by something(s) that happened prior.

B. Information is the result of cause and effect. The information you are reading was caused by my thoughts which was caused by my past which was caused by evolution which was caused by debris from a supernova which was caused by a hydrogen cloud which was caused by the big bang...

C. Conclusion. All the information that exists was created by chance or on purpose, when the universe began, only it was archived in the position and momentum of the first matter and energy to be revealed over billions of years of cause and effect.

So, if you accept my first premise (cause and effect) then you must accept that information can not be created, it can only come from the past. Yet new information is created fresh everyday so all the information you see around you was either caused, at the beginning of the universe, by random chance or the will of a very powerful being that we can call God.
The odds of it happening by chance is infinitesimally small so goddidit.

That is about as simple as it gets.

You call God. Mr perfect? The most perfect known being we could ever possibly imagine, all-powerful, all-knowing is the start? That somehow makes absolutely > 0 < sense. If everything needs a cause, so does god. If you think god was the first cause.. why on earth would the first cause be the most complex thing? It's like human beings inventing a calculator before we were able to solve what 1+1 is ....
The "law of cause and effect" isn't a "law". It's just a logical thing. You see that everything around you has a cause, therefore you conclude that everything there is MUST have a cause as well. True? Maybe. However this form of logic leads us to assume that the most complex thing that has ever existed couldn't possibly be the start of it.

How is new information proof of the existence of god? I write a book, therefore god exists? Yes, pure logic.
About the chance thing. The odds of it happening by chance is close to 1. The chance of X* happening over an infinite amount of time is close to 1. The chance that some random perfect being just happens to exist and created all of this is close to 0 and the chance does not get bigger over an infinite amount of time. Unless you are proposing that their is a chance of a God spawning?

The chance of an all-perfect being at the start of everything is close to 0. The chance of a universe forming by chance over an infinite amount of time is close to 1.

That's about as simple as it gets.

* as long as X has a chance

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 235:

So are you trying to argue that genetic information is not passed from generation to generation by way of DNA?

I was trying to dispel the notion that DNA acts according to its "knowledge" (application of information). Where DNA acts according to its physical properties, there's no inherent "knowledge" as is so often implied when some use the term information. I fear some will conflate the term knowledge here as a conscious act.

[olavisjo]

You call God. Mr perfect? The most perfect known being we could ever possibly imagine, all-powerful, all-knowing is the start? That somehow makes absolutely > 0 < sense. If everything needs a cause, so does god. If you think god was the first cause.. why on earth would the first cause be the most complex thing? It's like human beings inventing a calculator before we were able to solve what 1+1 is ....
The "law of cause and effect" isn't a "law". It's just a logical thing. You see that everything around you has a cause, therefore you conclude that everything there is MUST have a cause as well. True? Maybe. However this form of logic leads us to assume that the most complex thing that has ever existed couldn't possibly be the start of it.

How is new information proof of the existence of god? I write a book, therefore god exists? Yes, pure logic.
About the chance thing. The odds of it happening by chance is close to 1. The chance of X* happening over an infinite amount of time is close to 1. The chance that some random perfect being just happens to exist and created all of this is close to 0 and the chance does not get bigger over an infinite amount of time. Unless you are proposing that their is a chance of a God spawning?

The chance of an all-perfect being at the start of everything is close to 0. The chance of a universe forming by chance over an infinite amount of time is close to 1.

That's about as simple as it gets.

* as long as X has a chance

I like the way you reason.
You mention "infinite". It is impossible for the natural world to exist for an infinite amount of time for several reasons, one of which is entropy. Science has shown that energy flows from useful to useless forms. So if the universe had existed for an infinite amount of time in any form it would have arrived at a state of "heat death" a long time ago. So there must exist some supernatural law that allows entropy to be reversed, a free lunch.
So we can conclude that something supernatural does exist.
There are only three possible conditions of existence. If we were to take an inventory of all that exists in all dimensions we would find.
A. Nothing exist.
B. A finite amount of stuff exists.
C. An infinite amount of stuff exist.
We can rule out A because we are having this conversation.
B is a little harder to rule out, but we can do so intuitively by just saying why would our inventory of all that exist be X and not Y. There is just no reason why an arbitrary amount of stuff would just happen to exist.
So we are left with C.
It is very hard to wrap ones mind around the infinite. Just imagine if you and I get into space ships that can move a lot faster than the speed of light and we move in opposite directions for an infinite amount of time, how far away from each other could we get before we arrive at the edge of the universe and what would be beyond that?
So if the infinite can exist, why would this infinite not be aware of us, why would he not be able to manipulate our universe the way we manipulate the computer in front of us? Why would he not be able to give us the ability to write a novel?

But I do agree with you, that an infinite God makes no sense, and I am fairly confident that I will never truly understand that concept, but it is the only possibility. So I just accept it.

[olavisjo]

I was trying to dispel the notion that DNA acts according to its "knowledge" (application of information). Where DNA acts according to its physical properties, there's no inherent "knowledge" as is so often implied when some use the term information. I fear some will conflate the term knowledge here as a conscious act.

Okay, let us assume that there was a first strand of DNA that reproduced, and this DNA evolved to become a human that performs conscious acts everyday.
Then somewhere along this long journey, there must have been a first conscious act. Or would you say that the first conscious act was just a partial conscious act that also evolved to become a fully conscious act? Or are our conscious acts still only partially conscious, and we will never be 100% conscious?

[McCulloch]

Okay, let us assume that there was a first strand of DNA that reproduced, and this DNA evolved to become a human that performs conscious acts everyday.
Then somewhere along this long journey, there must have been a first conscious act. Or would you say that the first conscious act was just a partial conscious act that also evolved to become a fully conscious act? Or are our conscious acts still only partially conscious, and we will never be 100% conscious?

Can you measure consciousness? Can you even define it? I cannot. We all have some kind of fuzzy notion of what consciousness is. Humans commit conscious acts, trees do not. Where do you draw the line? Sea squirts? Ants? Dogs? Chimpanzees?

As in most cases where a definitive line cannot be drawn, I strongly suspect that it is a matter of degree not a yes/no on/off kind of thing.

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[T-mash]

You mention "infinite". It is impossible for the natural world to exist for an infinite amount of time for several reasons, one of which is entropy. So if the universe had existed for an infinite amount of time in any form it would have arrived at a state of "heat death" a long time ago. So there must exist some supernatural law that allows entropy to be reversed, a free lunch.

No you don't get the point I was making. If I get a dice with 1000 surfaces, what is the chance that I roll 666? The chance is 1/1000 = 0.1%. So does this mean that if you give me such a dice there is only a 0.1% chance that I roll 666? Only on the first roll. I can however roll the dice my entire life. What are the odds of me rolling 666 if I roll this dice for an entire year? 100% and probably multiple times. Now roll this dice for a billion years and it's still a 100% even if it would have a billion more sides (that means a probability of 1/1,000,000,000,000 = 0.000000000001% of happening). Probabilities mean nothing when stretched to enough time. The universe has given us enough time so far.

There is also another thing here. You give me a dice with 1000 sides and I roll 756. What are the odds of me rolling 756? 0.1%. That means there is a 99.9% chance that I would have rolled any other number. Does this therefore mean that the chance of me rolling 756 is so small that there is no way that I could ever have possibly rolled this number? No. Because I did. Regardless of the odds of us being here, we are here. What the chances are is not relevant, because showing the chances are incredibly low won't make us suddenly go *poof* and disappear.

Science has shown that energy flows from useful to useless forms. So if the universe had existed for an infinite amount of time in any form it would have arrived at a state of "heat death" a long time ago. So there must exist some supernatural law that allows entropy to be reversed, a free lunch. So we can conclude that something supernatural does exist.

Who says the universe has? And if it did, who says it would? These are just assumptions you base on a misinterpretation of entropy. You assume that all systems are decaying eventually, so the universe would too. You apply thermodynamics without paying attention to one of the most important laws in that field: The first law of Thermodynamics, which states the conservation of energy.

Also, if you would be right in your assumption.... how would a decaying universe proof that the supernatural exists? And is God decaying too?

It is very hard to wrap ones mind around the infinite. Just imagine if you and I get into space ships that can move a lot faster than the speed of light and we move in opposite directions for an infinite amount of time, how far away from each other could we get before we arrive at the edge of the universe and what would be beyond that?
So if the infinite can exist, why would this infinite not be aware of us, why would he not be able to manipulate our universe the way we manipulate the computer in front of us? Why would he not be able to give us the ability to write a novel?

What? Infinity is god now? That boggles the mind.. I don't understand what you are pointing out here...
How does the fact that in mathematics we have functions where x comes close to 1 to the infinite but never reaches 1 prove the existence of it being aware that we are calculating with it? How does the fact that 1 divided by 3 is 0,333~ prove that your god exists? This makes no sense.

But I do agree with you, that an infinite God makes no sense, and I am fairly confident that I will never truly understand that concept, but it is the only possibility. So I just accept it.

I've never had a theist say so directly that they accept nonsense

[Tharpa]

Hi

The is no absolute self, then free will has no owner. And therefore it is free.

How can a free thing be possessed? Therefore it is a thing that maks the self not important, it is the free will that takes precidence over the self. There can be free will if there is not person who possesses it. You can have free will if you make yourself complete with it's essence. What I mean by this is your possession must transform, so that it no longer matters to the free will if you possess it or not. Just like a horse that is happy to pull a cart, does the horse feel free?

If the horse is not happy, he will not pull.

Most whiped horses do not pull like a happy horse does, the horse is free. The horse is free becuse it can refuse to pull, you cannot force the horse to pull. Thus it is the horses free will that pulls the cart.

Just be being

Berty