Free will?

[Cioran]

Yalash, do you have any evidence that your make-believe Allah exists? the Koran cannot serve as evidence of its own veracity. So sorry.

[PeterL]

Good point. I also thought the Quran accepted free will. Your post seems to confirm that.

I wonder how the various religions differ regarding it. At the moment it seems they are very similar.

I thought that Islam was acceptance of the will of Allah in all things.

[YesNo]

All of the theistic religions I'm familiar with, which aren't many, value submission to the will of God no matter how that God is culturally represented. That submission, however, requires free will. It cannot be coerced. That would be no fun for either the human or the God. From a theistic perspective, we should have enough free will to make a choice to love, aka submit to, God. That is what ultimately gives life meaning for the theist.

As I was going through Harris' "Free Will", it occurred to me that Dennett is right. Regardless of whether the brain activity can be detected earlier than the person is aware of the choice, still the person acknowledges this as his or her choice. All the experiment shows is that there is more to consciousness than awareness. Also feedback mechanisms relying on personal awareness and chemical reward systems, which rely on awareness, imply that even the part of our consciousness that is aware plays some part in our choices. Our being able to make a choice is what free will is about.

[YesNo]

Freewill is a false philosophical proposition in a vortext of things since things happen and things account fo things or one event has to do with another event in the chain and what we call freewill is only a christian brainchild and in fact external factors play play significant roles.

Why do you say this is peculiarly Christian? I suspect Hinduism values it equally as much, unless I'm mistaken.

[YALASH]

Yalash, do you have any evidence that your make-believe Allah exists? the Koran cannot serve as evidence of its own veracity. So sorry.

Peace be on you.
It is interesting to note that in ‘Religious Text’ part of forum, I have to present evidence that Allah/God exists. Anyway, you are welcome.


Signature of God are everywhere, in a leaf -- in you, everywhere. If a simple book has a writer, then please be assured universe has a Maker.


In evolution, one find continous march toward a making human. Honest search about realities of life leads to the idea of Conscious Creator. It is evident from pupose, design and complexity. There are many examples of Conscious Creator’s existance; e.g, at the right time, a massive meteorite hit and brought about the end of the age of dinosaurs. The Director was behind. It was done to give chance to other forms of life to reach maximum evolution. The All-Knowing God let those big animal buried so that they gradually convert to oil for use in much latter times.


Please observe the systems of honey-bees, their colonies and making of honey which is a marvelous food. Without a Maker, such intricate systems are not possible to develop.


There are all sorts of rules; rules of physical sciences, chemical sciences etc. But mere presence of these rules donot produces anything. The User (of rules) is required to make something.


Conscious and subconscious of everyone knows God exists, but there are some curtains which force one not to proclaim. In times that spark ignites. Confess it or not, it does. Because this confession in written in our basic building blocks. Allah / God is the Light of all universe.

[YALASH]

I thought that Islam was acceptance of the will of Allah in all things.

Peace be on you. Pondering about natural phenomenon is among the Will of God:

In the creation of the heavens and earth and in the alternation of the night and the day there are indeed Signs for people of understanding. -- Those who remember Allah while standing, sitting and (lying) on their sides, and ponder over the creation of the heavens and the earth: "Our Lord, Thou hast not created this in vain; (nay), Holy art Thou; save us, then, from the punishment of the Fire."

Will of God is to grow and glow and pay rights of God and rights of people, as taught by God.

[PeterL]

Peace be on you. Pondering about natural phenomenon is among the Will of God:

In the creation of the heavens and earth and in the alternation of the night and the day there are indeed Signs for people of understanding. -- Those who remember Allah while standing, sitting and (lying) on their sides, and ponder over the creation of the heavens and the earth: "Our Lord, Thou hast not created this in vain; (nay), Holy art Thou; save us, then, from the punishment of the Fire."

Will of God is to grow and glow and pay rights of God and rights of people, as taught by God.

May the peace of the Gods and Goddesses be on you.

It was my understanding that everything that happened was the will of Allah.
from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

[YesNo]

I'm getting puzzled by what theists actually believe about free will. Here's a link to an opinion claiming that "free will" is also a "christian term" reminding me of osho's comment. http://muttaqun.com/freewill.html

It seems the problem is that free will means not being controlled by prior causes or divine intervention. Here is the Quran verse sited in the link:

And had Allâh willed, He could have made you (all) one nation, but He sends astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. But you shall certainly be called to account for what you used to do. [Qur'an 16:93]

What is the point of calling someone to account if they have no free will?

[YALASH]

Peace be on you.
There are two possible translations of this verse:

Possibility 1- And if Allah had (enforced) His Will, He would surely have made you (all) one people; but He lets go astray him who wishes (it), and guides him who wishes (it) and you shall surely be questioned concerning that which you have been doing.
[alislam.org/quran]

== >> Since Allah has granted choice, responsibility is on person, whatever person wishes.


Possibility 2 - And had Allâh willed, He could have made you (all) one nation, but He sends astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. But you shall certainly be called to account for what you used to do. [Qur'an 16:93]

In this case better translation is:

And had Allâh willed, He could have made you (all) one nation, but He ( DECLARES) astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. But you shall certainly be called to account for what you used to do. [Qur'an 16:93]

== >> In this case, His Will is learned from elsewhere: e.g. “Then whoso does an atom’s weight of good will see it.—And whoso does an atom’s weight of evil will (also) see it.” (ch 99:v 8-9)



WE CAN CONFIRM THE MEANING OF 'WILL' FROM EARLIER (TO VERSE UNDER DISCUSSION) VERSES TOO THEY ARE:

= Verily, Allah enjoins justice, and the doing of good to others; and giving (like) kindred; and forbids indecency and manifest evil and transgression. He admonishes you that you make heed.

= And fullfil the covenant of Allah when you have made (one), and break not your oaths after making them firm, while you have made Allah your surety. Certainly, Allah knows what you do.

= And be not like unto her who cuts up her yarn into pieces after having spun it strong by making your oaths a means of deciet between you, (for fear) lest one people become more powerful than another people. Surely Allah tries you therewith, and on the Day of Resurrection He will make clear to you that wherein you differed.

ALL THESE VERSES PRIOR TO VERSE UNDER DISCUSSION ARE MENTIONING THAT GOD IS ADVISING AND ENCOURAGING, NOT ENFORCING.

[Cioran]

Peace be on you.

You, too.

It is interesting to note that in ‘Religious Text’ part of forum, I have to present evidence that Allah/God exists. Anyway, you are welcome.

You don't have to present anything. I just asked.

Signature of God are everywhere, in a leaf -- in you, everywhere. If a simple book has a writer, then please be assured universe has a Maker.

I'm sorry, no. This is the Paley's Watch fallacy. Are you familiar with Paley and pocketwatch example? And have you read the book the Blind Watchmaker?

If you do a search online, you will find a remarkable video that shows how to evolve a watch out of simple parts in rather simple and quick iterations. All that is needed to evolve a watch are two things: watch parts that reproduce with variation, and natural selection, with what might be called a fitness gradient that makes watches more able to survive and continue to reproduce. This is called descent with modification, or evolution via natural selection. The reason a book needs a writer is that books do not reproduce with variation, and hence are not subject to natural selection. Darwin demonstrated this fact of life: animals are designed without a designer

In evolution, one find continous march toward a making human.

Wholly incorrect. Human's are just a another twig on the vast tree of life. We are no more special than a frog or a worm, except in our boundless capacity for vanity and self-delusion. Our intelligence is merely our particular adaptation. I suggest reading Ernst Mayr's "What Evolution Is." The upshot is that when out ancestors came down from the trees that were vanishing during a period of climate change, they were "pre-adapted" to evolve greater brain complexity, since they were bad at everything else, and we, their descendants, are even worse: We are slow, weak, can't run very fast, can't fly, have lousy teeth, poor eyesight, etc., compared to other animals. Fortunately natural selection worked on brainpower that became our own critical adaptation.

Honest search about realities of life leads to the idea of Conscious Creator.

Honest search about the realities of life show that there is no creator or designer, and that all living things share a common ancestor and that we evolved via descent with modification. Evolution, by the way, is not a random process -- just the opposite, in fact. But a non-random process does not imply a creator or designer.

It is evident from pupose, design and complexity.

If you did a little study, you'd find that many of these so-called "designs" in biology are quite lousy, but good enough to get by, which is what you would expect from a blind evolutionary process. Do a Google on the mammalian "blind spot" and find out why we and other mammals have it. Then ask yourself: What kind of lousy designer would design an eye with a blind spot?

There are many examples of Conscious Creator’s existance; e.g, at the right time, a massive meteorite hit and brought about the end of the age of dinosaurs. The Director was behind. It was done to give chance to other forms of life to reach maximum evolution. The All-Knowing God let those big animal buried so that they gradually convert to oil for use in much latter times.

And just the other day a giant asteroid missed Earth by 15 minutes while a few hours earlier a meteorite hit Russia and caused 1,000 injuries. So? The whole universe is filled with space junk and every now and then a big rock hits earth and other planets. About a decade ago a gigantic meteor hit Jupiter and carved out a hole in its cloudtops bigger than earth itself. And? Also, if the "director" was interested in humans, why go through all the pointless rigmarole of having endless eons without humans and having to kill off dinosaurs? Why not just make humans from the start, the way that fundamentalist Christians believe he did?

Please observe the systems of honey-bees, their colonies and making of honey which is a marvelous food. Without a Maker, such intricate systems are not possible to develop.

Pure nonsense. Go read The Blind Watchmaker.

There are all sorts of rules; rules of physical sciences, chemical sciences etc. But mere presence of these rules donot produces anything. The User (of rules) is required to make something.

Codswallop and balderdash.

Conscious and subconscious of everyone knows God exists, but there are some curtains which force one not to proclaim. In times that spark ignites. Confess it or not, it does. Because this confession in written in our basic building blocks. Allah / God is the Light of all universe.

Allah is one of about nine thousand made-up Gods. BTW, out of curiosity, what do you think of the Islamists in Mali who veiled women, destroyed cultural artifacts and chopped off hands while howling praises to Allah? Are they "true Muslims," or not? If not, why not, and how does one decide who a "true Muslim" is?

[Cioran]

What is the point of calling someone to account if they have no free will?

In an earlier post, I tried to show why God's perfect foreknowledge of human acts cannot logically preclude human free will.

However, things are not that simple. God/Allah is also held to be the creator of the universe.

God/Allah, in the Christian, Islamic and Judaic traditions, all descended from, one might say evolved from, a common ancestor. They are the Abrahamic religions.

Typically, God/Allah is held to be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving.

Modal logic shows why the claim that God's perfect foreknowledge of human acts cannot preclude human free will. Unfortunately for the Abrahamic theists, modal logic also shows why God's omni traits taken together -- omniscience along with omnipotence and omnibenevolence -- are inconsistent with human free will AND indict God as the direct source of all evil.

Modal logic employs a heuristic called possible worlds. For example, there are possible worlds that are actual and non-actual possible worlds. The latter are counterfactual worlds. In a possible world JFK was not assassinated, but that possible world is non-actual. On other hand, there is no possible world at which a square has three sides or a triangle four sides.

Let "Adam at the apple" stand for the introduction of evil into our world.

Using the "possible worlds" heuristic lets us understand human free will as follows: Humans can choose, of their own free will, to actualize a possible world, and make a competing possible world non-actual. If Adam was free to eat the apple or not, and chose to ate it, then by choosing to eat it he actualized a possible world of evil, and made the alternate world of "no evil" possible but non-actual.

1. God is all-knowing, all powerful and all-loving.

2. At the creation, because God is all-knowing, he would have known the entire future history of the world that he was about to create. More: he would have known, to the smallest detail, the entire potential future histories of all possible but non-actual worlds that he could have chosen to create, but did not.

3. Adam eating the apple is a contingent, not necessary, act. If it had been a necessary act, Adam would have had no choice, and could not be morally culpable for the introduction of evil.

4. God, being all powerful, can create exactly the world he wants to, without error of any kind.

5. There is a possible world at which Adam eats the apple. There is also a possible world at which he does not eat it. God can choose, with perfect knowledge and precision, to create either of those worlds.

6. God chose to create the world in which Adam ate the apple.

7. Because God chose to create the world at which Adam ate the apple, it was he, and not Adam, who actualized the world in which evil exists.

8. Conclusion: God is indicted as the author of all iniquity, and man is morally blameless. For God to punish man for evil acts when really God is the source of all evil is about the most perverse (and nonsensical) thing one could imagine.

Q. E. D.

Of course, God doesn't exist, so the worries are moot.

[YesNo]

Possibility 1- And if Allah had (enforced) His Will, He would surely have made you (all) one people; but He lets go astray him who wishes (it), and guides him who wishes (it) and you shall surely be questioned concerning that which you have been doing.
[alislam.org/quran]

== >> Since Allah has granted choice, responsibility is on person, whatever person wishes.
...
ALL THESE VERSES PRIOR TO VERSE UNDER DISCUSSION ARE MENTIONING THAT GOD IS ADVISING AND ENCOURAGING, NOT ENFORCING.

The first translation makes more sense to me. Thanks for the explanation.

[YesNo]

In an earlier post, I tried to show why God's perfect foreknowledge of human acts cannot logically preclude human free will.

However, things are not that simple. God/Allah is also held to be the creator of the universe.

God/Allah, in the Christian, Islamic and Judaic traditions, all descended from, one might say evolved from, a common ancestor. They are the Abrahamic religions.

Typically, God/Allah is held to be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving.

Modal logic shows why the claim that God's perfect foreknowledge of human acts cannot preclude human free will. Unfortunately for the Abrahamic theists, modal logic also shows why God's omni traits taken together -- omniscience along with omnipotence and omnibenevolence -- are inconsistent with human free will AND indict God as the direct source of all evil.

Modal logic employs a heuristic called possible worlds. For example, there are possible worlds that are actual and non-actual possible worlds. The latter are counterfactual worlds. In a possible world JFK was not assassinated, but that possible world is non-actual. On other hand, there is no possible world at which a square has three sides or a triangle four sides.

Let "Adam at the apple" stand for the introduction of evil into our world.

Using the "possible worlds" heuristic lets us understand human free will as follows: Humans can choose, of their own free will, to actualize a possible world, and make a competing possible world non-actual. If Adam was free to eat the apple or not, and chose to ate it, then by choosing to eat it he actualized a possible world of evil, and made the alternate world of "no evil" possible but non-actual.

1. God is all-knowing, all powerful and all-loving.

2. At the creation, because God is all-knowing, he would have known the entire future history of the world that he was about to create. More: he would have known, to the smallest detail, the entire potential future histories of all possible but non-actual worlds that he could have chosen to create, but did not.

If quantum physics is correct, he can't know that. This is where the argument breaks down.

3. Adam eating the apple is a contingent, not necessary, act. If it had been a necessary act, Adam would have had no choice, and could not be morally culpable for the introduction of evil.

4. God, being all powerful, can create exactly the world he wants to, without error of any kind.

5. There is a possible world at which Adam eats the apple. There is also a possible world at which he does not eat it. God can choose, with perfect knowledge and precision, to create either of those worlds.

6. God chose to create the world in which Adam ate the apple.

7. Because God chose to create the world at which Adam ate the apple, it was he, and not Adam, who actualized the world in which evil exists.

8. Conclusion: God is indicted as the author of all iniquity, and man is morally blameless. For God to punish man for evil acts when really God is the source of all evil is about the most perverse (and nonsensical) thing one could imagine.

Q. E. D.

Of course, God doesn't exist, so the worries are moot.

Because of the big bang the likelihood that some conscious agent triggered our universe to exist is greater than the belief that it happened without a conscious agent, at least as I choose to assign the likelihoods. Call that conscious agent God. So the problem of theological determinism is quite real.

[Cioran]

If quantum physics is correct, he can't know that. This is where the argument breaks down.

Unfortunately you choose again to overlook the Many Worlds Interpretation of QM, which is fully deterministic. But regardless of whether MWI is the right interpretation of QM or not, this is of no help to the theist. If the world is random, and even God cannot know what will happen, then there is no free will because free will is inconsistent with randomness as much as it is with hard determinism. Therefore no one can be blamed for anything.

Because of the big bang the likelihood that some conscious agent triggered our universe to exist is greater than the belief that it happened without a conscious agent, at least as I choose to assign the likelihoods. Call that conscious agent God. So the problem of theological determinism is quite real.

Now you are contradicting yourself. Given the Big Bang, how is theological determinism a problem if according to you, the world is quantum random and even God cannot know what will happen?

Anyway, the Big Bang provides no support at all for a supernatural creator. There are many reasons for this, but I am not inclined to list them at the present time. Maybe later.

[YesNo]

Unfortunately you choose again to overlook the Many Worlds Interpretation of QM, which is fully deterministic. But regardless of whether MWI is the right interpretation of QM or not, this is of no help to the theist. If the world is random, and even God cannot know what will happen, then there is no free will because free will is inconsistent with randomness as much as it is with hard determinism. Therefore no one can be blamed for anything.

We've discussed the Many Worlds Interpretation elsewhere. I prefer the Copenhagen Interpretation which is non-deterministic. Since QM contains the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, QM is non-deterministic. That means the Many Worlds Interpretation, since it is deterministic, is not a valid interpretation of QM. I think that is a reasonable position to take from a scientific perspective.

I don't understand what you mean by free will being inconsistent with randomness as much as determinism. I agree with you that free will is inconsistent with determinism. Taking that position makes me an "incompatibilist". I don't understand the "compatibilist" position that claims somehow we can have both free will and determinism at the same time. It doesn't make sense to me. Also I think there is more to the "random" behavior of quantum events since they also appear rather well behaved, but the randomness does allow a ground for free will to operate. Determinism does not.

Now you are contradicting yourself. Given the Big Bang, how is theological determinism a problem if according to you, the world is quantum random and even God cannot know what will happen?

Anyway, the Big Bang provides no support at all for a supernatural creator. There are many reasons for this, but I am not inclined to list them at the present time. Maybe later.

I don't see how I am contradicting myself.

Actually, the Big Bang does provide support for a cause that started the universe. What is the likelihood that cause was a conscious agent? I set that likelihood at 100% and the likelihood that unconscious chance caused the universe to exist at 0%.

However, QM does imply that God cannot know any state of the universe from which a deterministic prediction of future or past states can be made. Why? It is not because God is not omniscient or omnipotent or omni-whatever. It is because such a state, based on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, does not exist in the universe.