Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil; Free Will

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Diogenes,

”Maybe, but it would still be non-volitional. The will is still a dependent variable and cannot chosen or changed without another will to do so. If the decider is a willful decider, then something has to determine THAT will, and another decider is required and that decider needs to have a will and something has to cause THAT will and on it goes and it's turtles all the way down.

Love the turtles all the way down reference.

Ok, so in your model how does this bundle of nerves and muscle wrapped in an epidermis learn things? When I’m a child I may touch a hot stove being ignorant of such things, but the pain tells me that’s a “bad” thing to do. The experience teaches me something that I probably won’t forget until I get dementia. Under your model wouldn’t I randomly touch hot stoves if a flying mass of “other wills” happened to be in my radar range? But yet this doesn’t seem to happen. Why not?
Regards,
Rich

No, saying free will is an illusion does not mean you don't have will, it just means you logically can't use will to decide will without an infinite regression of deciders. It's like trying to think of what your next thought will be. That doesn't mean you don't have thoughts, but only that you don't (and logically can't) decide what each thought is going to be. To think of a thought is already thought. There's no way to get ahead of them.

I don't really understand your hypothetical. One of the things that determines will IS past experience. Your body tells you not to do stuff like that again. To say that will is not really free is not to say that it's random. It is always being influenced and sometimes changed by external factors. To be clear, "will" is not decisions or actions, will is the desire to make those decisions. I'm saying you can't really decide what you will DESIRE because then you need a desire to desire something and so on.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

I don't believe in free will, so you're barking up the wrong tree.

Your test is invalid anyway, Will can only be surrendered by will and that surrender can only be sustained by will.

Your judgement and choice to not take the test shows you have free will. Thanks for making my point. You chose not to give up your free will. As I stated; the test is irrefutable.

It doesn't show anything at all. I don't even understand what you THINK you just demonstrated. Just to be really clear, I had no ability to want anything else.

[beowulf]

To Gnostic Bishop .
Free will


In criminal , civil and commercial law the legal competence of the participants is decided by a court of law. For example ,in the last will of a person the witnesses will be expected to state if the person is of sound mind and not acting under duress ,menace or undue influence...:
Free will in human affairs is understood as " free from being hindered by opposition," as Hobbes so lucidly wrote in Leviathan.

And words whereby we conceive nothing but the sound, are those we call absurd, insignificant, and nonsense. And therefore if a man should talk to me of a round quadrangle; or, accidents of bread in cheese; or, immaterial substances; or of a free subject; a free will; or any free, but free from being hindered by opposition, I should not say he were in an error, but that his words were without meaning, that is to say, absurd.

Equally good is this modern version:

Our criteria for praising blaming rewarding and punishing tend to assume some notion of free will.

Andrew Criddle

So, What's the importance of the term 'free will' in godly dealings?

[Gnostic Bishop]

I don't believe in free will, so you're barking up the wrong tree.

Your test is invalid anyway, Will can only be surrendered by will and that surrender can only be sustained by will.

Your judgement and choice to not take the test shows you have free will. Thanks for making my point. You chose not to give up your free will. As I stated; the test is irrefutable.

It doesn't show anything at all. I don't even understand what you THINK you just demonstrated. Just to be really clear, I had no ability to want anything else.

You obviously did because you did not do as bid.

What we proved was that you chose not to give up your will to begin your reply your way.

That is irrefutably free will.

Not intelligent use of freedom of choice but clearly a demonstration of it.

Regards
DL

[Gnostic Bishop]

To Gnostic Bishop .
Free will


In criminal , civil and commercial law the legal competence of the participants is decided by a court of law. For example ,in the last will of a person the witnesses will be expected to state if the person is of sound mind and not acting under duress ,menace or undue influence...:
Free will in human affairs is understood as " free from being hindered by opposition," as Hobbes so lucidly wrote in Leviathan.

And words whereby we conceive nothing but the sound, are those we call absurd, insignificant, and nonsense. And therefore if a man should talk to me of a round quadrangle; or, accidents of bread in cheese; or, immaterial substances; or of a free subject; a free will; or any free, but free from being hindered by opposition, I should not say he were in an error, but that his words were without meaning, that is to say, absurd.

Equally good is this modern version:

Our criteria for praising blaming rewarding and punishing tend to assume some notion of free will.

Andrew Criddle

So, What's the importance of the term 'free will' in godly dealings?

"hindered".

In terms of Godly dealings, God is never hindered. All powerful and all that.

Regards
DL

[Diogenes the Cynic]

You obviously did because you did not do as bid.

I had no ability to want to do as bid. Your request was logically impossible anyway. No one can give you anything that doesn't exist.

What we proved was that you chose not to give up your will to begin your reply your way.

I didn't choose what to want.

[Mental flatliner]

You obviously did because you did not do as bid.

I had no ability to want to do as bid. Your request was logically impossible anyway. No one can give you anything that doesn't exist.

What we proved was that you chose not to give up your will to begin your reply your way.

I didn't choose what to want.

The only way a human being can be freed from the bonds of free will is to be brain dead.

A single impulse creates a new and unique experience in new context and implies a new set of infinite choices. You always have to pick one, and to do nothing, to hesitate, is a choice since it involves the act of further consideration.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

There is a distinction between will and FREE will. You can't choose your impulses.

[beowulf]

To Gnostic Bishop .
Free will


In criminal , civil and commercial law the legal competence of the participants is decided by a court of law. For example ,in the last will of a person the witnesses will be expected to state if the person is of sound mind and not acting under duress ,menace or undue influence...:
Free will in human affairs is understood as " free from being hindered by opposition," as Hobbes so lucidly wrote in Leviathan.

And words whereby we conceive nothing but the sound, are those we call absurd, insignificant, and nonsense. And therefore if a man should talk to me of a round quadrangle; or, accidents of bread in cheese; or, immaterial substances; or of a free subject; a free will; or any free, but free from being hindered by opposition, I should not say he were in an error, but that his words were without meaning, that is to say, absurd.

Equally good is this modern version:

Our criteria for praising blaming rewarding and punishing tend to assume some notion of free will.

Andrew Criddle

So, What's the importance of the term 'free will' in godly dealings?

"hindered".

In terms of Godly dealings, God is never hindered. All powerful and all that.

Regards
DL

If god does not exist the question of free will is to be decided by human judges without any interference, and only in cases brought to the consideration of the court by lawyers or prosecutors.

If people believe in god then the supremacy of god must be accepted by the believers. There is no superior court which could judge the merits of the case and there is no power which could enforce any arbitration in a disputed judgment. God is the Super, Super Supreme Court.
The religious person may say he/she is going through a test to establish goodness and that this test is lawfully willed by god. It is a one sided relation, but god will not " hinder" man/woman while he/she is alive.

In this model there is no hindrance and free will appear to be meaningful .
What would you say?

[Tonto Goldstein]

There is a distinction between will and FREE will. You can't choose your impulses.

Maybe we’re talking past each other. I’m not sure I see a difference in the distinction. The way I understand the neuroscience of the brain is that, yes there are impulses that occur within the body that are unchosen. However, that data is fed into an executive function of the brain that filters through the many and varied pieces of information and selects a choice from the available options. I call the exercise by that executive function “freewill”. What am I missing or what do I have wrong here? Thanks.