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Originally posted by Moonduck
CSflim, I'm not sure I follow you. Admittedly, I've not read closely, but I keep seeing you bring up random things like radioactive decay and dice rolling and asking if this is free will. What is the point of auch a line of questioning? Perhaps it is best if you set about your definition of free will, that way we can see what objective criteria you are using to either accept or deny its' existence.
I am not asking this as a challenge, but as a legitimate question. We've argued free will quite a bit, but I am not certain anyone has taken the time to define what it is we are speaking of.
To counter the questions that I saw you ask:
1) Computer program - Yes, it 'makes choices', but those choices are based on pre-set instructions. Given the same set of inputs, a computer program will make the same precise choice again and again. It must do so because it is ruled by a set of algorithms that determine its' choices. It is also not sentient. I think I am fairly safe in positing that sentience is necessary for free will.
2) Rolling the dice - Certainly not free will. The die does not make any decision whatsoever. While it may not act the same in every given situation, there is neither reasoning behind its' acts nor sentience with which to decide what act to take.
3) Radioactive decay - see #2 for refutations of insensate objects lacking the facilities for free will.
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My arguments were merely a sort of
reductio ad absurdum type argument. I was showing that:
a) Just because we make
choices does not give us free will
b) Just because our decions are unpredictible (like a dice) does not give us free will.
c) Just because quantum effects come into play in our brains does not give us free will.
As these were all arguments put forward to show that we have free will.
I guess I would say that we do have a free will of a sort, but then we are getting into the horredeous lingustic arguments that Art warned about.
I don't believe in some
mystical force or some metaphysical mind. Rather our "free will" comes from the action of our brains.
In the same way that a computer could be programmed to learn and make choices, I believe that we too make choices in a similar manner.
(However, I DO NOT believe that our brains are algorithmic in nature. I believe that our minds are much more powerful than that. I am using a computer as a metaphor, rather than a direct analogy)
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Taking the argument in a slightly different direction, let's assume that our hypothetical being sees THE future. Not A future, not one of many possible futures, but THE future. What is to say that there are not many paths to reach said future? If our being sees a world devastated by war, are there not multiple ways to which we could reach that point? Again, just because a future is perceived it does not mean that the choices taken to reach said future are necessarily predetermined.
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Well, that is called Fate, and it's somehting that I most definately do not believe in.
However, despite there being multiple routes to that predicted future, the being is still restricting the actual future to move along these particular timelines.
This I don't believe to be funadamentally different to restricing our actual future to moe along ONE particular timeline. (At least from the point of view of the argument at hand.)
To put it another way:
If a war was predicted, is it not possible (in theory) for all the world to then act so as to prevent any war in the future? If it is not, then surely our free will has been restricted. Forget momentarily about arguments about human nature etc. as they are not really relevant to this argument.
If a prediction is made that A, and it would be possible for A to be avoided if men acted in a particular way, B. Would that prediction invalidate mens free will?
If men really had free will they could prevent A by B, but the prediction disallows B, so it cannot be claimed that men are acting out of their own free will when they do not act out B.