If a system where actions are performed can either be programmed, or not programmed. I believe it absolutely matters whether or not it was. The existence of a programmer certainly becomes incredibly relevant to that end.
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“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
So God doesn't like robots. He wants people to make their own choices freely and not control what anyone decides. This is important enough to Him that He does not intervene in human decisions.
(^ let's just take that as a given for the sake of this thread)
I attended my cousin's wedding this past weekend and something the pastor said during the ceremony got me thinking on the subject. The pastor was speaking about how God helps people out and guides them, and specifically mentioned how my cousin and her now-husband had been looking for a house and praying about finding one, and then they found a good one just like a month before the wedding. That was somehow being attributed to the assistance of God.
Now, this thread is not about the specific example of my cousin finding a house. I'm just using it here as an example of a broader issue I see. The issue (using my cousin's house as an example) is that there are humans all over the place in the process of making this prayer be granted. In order for God to make this prayer request be granted, wouldn't He have to meddle with someone's Free Will somewhere along the way (or more likely the free will of multiple "someones") or alternatively have nothing to do with the process?
The previous homeowner chose to sell the house at some point by their own free will, right? Did God/can God affect that person's decision to sell their house? There are tons of free will choices made along the way that ultimately led to my cousin and her now-husband to wind up getting the house: what price the seller wished to sell the house for, which Realtor to use, when to sell, how the Realtor would advertise the house, when my cousin would look at listings, which Realtor(s) they would work with, which listings my cousin would look at, the similar decisions of like 100 other people in the area looking for a home that ultimately led them to not get the home, and so on... In other words, God didn't have a house just pop into existence on the market and with the Realtor my cousin was using, there were many free will decisions that culminated in that scenario.
So my issue is, if all of these decisions were made with free will, what role does that leave for God in the process? Like, in what way did God help my cousin find that house?
And again, this is not specifically about my cousin and her house. In what way does God help answer prayers if everyone has Free Will? People pray for help finding a job, finding true love, doing good on an important test, dealing with the loss of a loved one, controlling bad habits, finding a lost set of keys, etc. The question for debate here is: Can God actually provide assistance towards reaching a goal in these sorts of things without interfering with people's free will? If so, how?
(Also, I know that prayer is not simply asking for stuff. It's also about expressing gratitude, admiration, fealty, etc. It's also about just talking with God. However, people often ask for stuff too and this is what the thread is about.)
Here's an interesting thing to think about.
If God was inconsistent, then God wouldn't be God, correct? Therefore, we have to assume that God in his current, Christian form is fully consistent and that humans have free will.
However, what if God was a human? What if, through some bizarre coincidences and advancement of technology, humans could become gods? Humans are definitely inconsistent. According to Scripture, God has often meddled in human affairs. Personally, if I was a god and I ran a world for fun, I'd probably tell everyone that they had free will but I would interfere with their lives anyway. Does that make me an omnipotent, good, all powerful being? Perhaps not. Perhaps that makes me human.
1. God has infallible omniscient foreknowledge
2. A universe does not yet exist
3. God envisions a universe (U#581) in which Jim performs Q.
4. God creates precisely U#581
5. Because Jim performing Q is now necessary, otherwise it would not be U#581, Jim's choice was externally determined and is constrained by fate or divine will.
That does not necessarily follow.
If #3, "Jim performs Q," happens because Jim chose to perform Q of his own volition, then Jim has free will.
That's not what you said about Determinism. You said, in Determinism, a "choice" is not free will because there were no other options. In ICM's scenario, Jim does not have the ability to not do Q, so according to what you have already said about Determinism, Jim does not have free will.
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"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
In determinism, the place where that selection gets determined is in you. If you were not who you are, the outcome would be different. If, hypothetically, your mental processes were changed to the mental processes of another person, you'd make a different choice. The fact of determinism (or not) is a non sequitor to whether you have agency - at the very least, you need to provide a good argument for it.
If nothing else, you're mistaken about the definition of the words you're using. It cannot turn out that we're wrong every time we use the word 'choice' outside of this particular abstract context where we're talking about the word itself, yet your arguments have the consequence that almost every time we ever use the word 'choice' in every day life, we are misusing it - not merely wrong, but actually making a linguistic mistake ("Choose one of these three..." doesn't mean anything at all when said to a being that by definition can't choose). Language doesn't work that way.
I bring this up because so far the only argument you've actually leveraged against me is the assertion that I'm wrong by definition.
Because you are wrong by definition. A choice can only be made when you have two or more possible options.
noun \ˈchȯis\ : the act of choosing : the act of picking or deciding between two or more possibilities
: the opportunity or power to choose between two or more possibilities : the opportunity or power to make a decision
Which is exactly contrary to determinism! In determinism, there never were any other possibilities. There was only one possible outcome. There never were any others.
Your actions in determinism are not the result of you selecting between different options because there are no other options. That's what makes determinism determinism: that there is only one possible course, only one possible outcome.
You understand that the colloquial term 'possibility' doesn't mean what your argument-by-definition requires it to mean to be sound, right? You're resting your case on an ambiguity, conflating the colloquial term 'possibility' with the technical term 'possibility'.
Actually, I'm sure by now that you don't understand that.
There are some very smart, very famous philosophers, ranging from David Hume a few hundred years ago to Daniel Dennett - and believe me, both of them were fully aware of the 'problem of determinism' and the arguments you've advanced here - working today who advance some variation of the arguments I've presented here and which you've been so glibly dismissive of. It's not the kind of position that can be dismissed by definition the way you're attempting to do it - you're failing utterly at persuasively arguing your point, if such was your goal. That doesn't mean they're right, of course. But you should be at least suspicious of obvious arguments that you take as absolute refutations of positions actually held by famous philosophers who were demonstrably aware of the arguments in question. It's much more likely that you've missed something than that they committed a mistake that's obvious to the point of silly, and it bears at least some sympathetic thought.
If I say, "I might eat a taco tomorrow", I am not making the metaphysical claim that there are (at least) two possible worlds, including worlds in which I do eat a taco and worlds in which I don't eat a taco. I am expressing my ignorance of what will actually happen. If I say "I choose to X", I am not making the metaphysical claim that the future was open before I collapsed it. I am claiming that my mental process of deciding is a proximate cause of X happening. And before you cut in on the word 'deciding', consider that even computers are generally held to decide things, and nobody hesitates to call them deterministic.
You, yourself are wrong by definition - you've held to definitions that do not accurately capture how people use their language. You're arguing from a position that 'choice' means something which virtually no person actually uses the word 'choice' to mean.
1. God has infallible omniscient foreknowledge
2. A universe does not yet exist
3. God envisions a universe (U#581) in which Jim performs Q.
4. God creates precisely U#581
5. Because Jim performing Q is now necessary, otherwise it would not be U#581, Jim's choice was externally determined and is constrained by fate or divine will.
That does not necessarily follow.
If #3, "Jim performs Q," happens because Jim chose to perform Q of his own volition, then Jim has free will.
Jim doesn't exist in #3. He can't do anything, at all.
In #3, Jim is like a dream.
I have a dream that a hot chick has sex with me in a hotel. The girl doesn't exist, heck, neither does the hotel.
Now, if after I wake, through my immense magical powers, I create the world, the hotel, the chick, and she has sex with me exactly like in my dream.
Did she do it of her own free will?
I'd argue hell no.
(Philosophy)
a. the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determined.
This is precisely the definition I've offered.
You'll note the presence of the very important word "apparent" that you are glossing over. Even if God did preselect Universe #474, surely you still feel that you have the apparent ability to make choices, even if that ability would under your analysis ultimately turn out to be less genuine than, say, Highroller wants it to be.
The connection between this apparent ability to make choice that we all agree we have and any actual attribute of the universe or logic or philosophy requires argumentation, not semantic handwaving. And that is the point of a definition that uses a word like "apparent." It forces actual claims rather than constant attempts to redefine the basic term.
Oh, well yes, I might agree that I "apparently" have free will.
In fact, I believe that I do have free will.
However, aren't we talking about the Truth, and not appearances? The Truth would be that I never had free will. That seems a rather important distinction to me. The "apparent" then, would be untrue.
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“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
However, aren't we talking about the Truth, and not appearances? The Trust would be that I never had free will. That seems a rather important distinction to me.
Yes, the truth is important -- and the truth you are looking for, in this case, is whatever property of the universe ultimately gives rise to this apparent feeling of control.
For instance, if you're Highroller, maybe that thing is a genuine metaphysical branch-point in the universe, and each freely-willed thing really does have the ability to select from genuinely different possible futures.
If you're Drawmeomg, maybe it's a certain neural state that represents a layer of abstraction in your thought process, and it doesn't really matter what the causal structure of the future is, as long as this neural state obtains.
These are two possible explanations for the apparent sensation of control, both wanting for proof -- but note that on these terms, the debate is about actual falsifiable claims now, instead of semantic nonsense.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Oh, well yes, I might agree that I "apparently" have free will.
In fact, I believe that I do have free will.
However, aren't we talking about the Truth, and not appearances? The Truth would be that I never had free will. That seems a rather important distinction to me. The "apparent" then, would be untrue.
The question being asked is whether we have free will. The truth of that depends on what, exactly, free will is.
If we accept Crashing00's definition, then no part of the truth of free will depends on indeterminism being true.
Jim doesn't exist in #3. He can't do anything, at all.
Why does that matter?
God's envisioning how the universe will play out, right? So God sees envisioned Jim performing envisioned Action Q with his envisioned free will.
What envisioned free will? Once the universe is created, Jim must do Q. There are no other options for Jim. Any "choice" he has is no different from an apple choosing to fall from a tree or salt choosing to dissolve into water.
As you said about Determinism, the lack of other options means free will doesn't exist.
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"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
Oh, well yes, I might agree that I "apparently" have free will.
In fact, I believe that I do have free will.
However, aren't we talking about the Truth, and not appearances? The Truth would be that I never had free will. That seems a rather important distinction to me. The "apparent" then, would be untrue.
The question being asked is whether we have free will. The truth of that depends on what, exactly, free will is.
Correct, and under the definition I posted twice now, if God made U#581, Jim doesn't have free will.
If we accept Crashing00's definition, then no part of the truth of free will depends on indeterminism being true.
I do not accept any definition of free will that ignores the Truth.
I do not enjoy playing games in the excluded middle. We either have free will or we don't.
I have argued, reasonably, why we wouldn't have free will given an omniscient, creator with infallible foreknowledge.
I posted discussions from Stanford on the very problem of free will.
*Note: In NO conceivable way am I saying that I have solved an age old debate which greater minds than mine have fought over for centuries.
All I am saying is that I believe that according to my reasoning, I am correct.
The arguments being used against me, are failing miserably at being either persuasive, or reasoned. They are hand-waves.
"pfft, that doesn't matter neener-neener" is a hand-wave. There is no reasoning behind it.
HR can hand-wave all he wants, it's actually quite fun to watch him repeat the same unsupported excuse page in page out.
I dream that a sexy girl named Gina (who doesn't actually exist) has sex with me in a hotel room.
After I wake up, I use my magical powers to create the universe of my dream. I create the hotel, I create Gina. I create her to have sex with me exactly as I saw it in my dream.
Does Gina choose to have sex with me? Does she have free will?
I argue, no. She is doing what I created her to do.
I do not accept any definition of free will that ignores the Truth.
Oof. That's heavy-handed, and pretty... wrong.
There's not some metaphysical essence of free will that we have or don't have. It's a concept and a word. If people generally use the word to mean what Crashing00 says it means in the context in which Crashing00 is discussing, then that's what the word means.
I'm by no means saying that it's the final word, but asserted definitions have no power at all in philosophy.
I do not enjoy playing games in the excluded middle. We either have free will or we don't.
I have argued, reasonably, why we wouldn't have free will given an omniscient, creator with infallible foreknowledge.
I posted discussions from Stanford on the very problem of free will.
*Note: In NO conceivable way am I saying that I have solved an age old debate which greater minds than mine have fought over for centuries.
All I am saying is that I believe that according to my reasoning, I am correct.
The arguments being used against me, are failing miserably at being either persuasive, or reasoned. They are hand-waves.
Here's where you stand.
You assert, if God created a particular universe, no free will.
Highroller asserts some other stuff, most of which is self-contradictory and virtually all of which can easily be brushed aside.
Crashing00 offers an alternate definition (I don't say that he asserts it, because he is aware that it is one possible definition in a discussion that is fundamentally about the definition).
This discussion is not stalled. It's a semantic argument, and there are well-known ways through a semantic argument; they're not automatically intractable (incidentally, 'semantic argument' isn't the pejorative in philosophy that it is in daily life, either).
The next steps, assuming the discussion continues, would be in accepting that there are multiple reasonable definitions on the table and looking for a way to decide which one should be used. The deciding razor will almost certainly come down to what it is about free will that we find valuable - acceptable definitions will be the ones that preserve that, whatever it is.
Then, I guess crashing and I need to compromise between our two definitions and find a common middle ground, because I really don't like HR's extremely loose and almost useless definition.
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“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
In determinism, the place where that selection gets determined is in you. If you were not who you are, the outcome would be different. If, hypothetically, your mental processes were changed to the mental processes of another person, you'd make a different choice. The fact of determinism (or not) is a non sequitor to whether you have agency - at the very least, you need to provide a good argument for it.
If nothing else, you're mistaken about the definition of the words you're using. It cannot turn out that we're wrong every time we use the word 'choice' outside of this particular abstract context where we're talking about the word itself, yet your arguments have the consequence that almost every time we ever use the word 'choice' in every day life, we are misusing it - not merely wrong, but actually making a linguistic mistake ("Choose one of these three..." doesn't mean anything at all when said to a being that by definition can't choose). Language doesn't work that way.
I bring this up because so far the only argument you've actually leveraged against me is the assertion that I'm wrong by definition.
Because you are wrong by definition. A choice can only be made when you have two or more possible options.
noun \ˈchȯis\ : the act of choosing : the act of picking or deciding between two or more possibilities
: the opportunity or power to choose between two or more possibilities : the opportunity or power to make a decision
Which is exactly contrary to determinism! In determinism, there never were any other possibilities. There was only one possible outcome. There never were any others.
Your actions in determinism are not the result of you selecting between different options because there are no other options. That's what makes determinism determinism: that there is only one possible course, only one possible outcome.
You understand that the colloquial term 'possibility' doesn't mean what your argument-by-definition requires it to mean to be sound, right? You're resting your case on an ambiguity, conflating the colloquial term 'possibility' with the technical term 'possibility'.
Actually, I'm sure by now that you don't understand that.
There are some very smart, very famous philosophers, ranging from David Hume a few hundred years ago to Daniel Dennett - and believe me, both of them were fully aware of the 'problem of determinism' and the arguments you've advanced here - working today who advance some variation of the arguments I've presented here and which you've been so glibly dismissive of. It's not the kind of position that can be dismissed by definition the way you're attempting to do it - you're failing utterly at persuasively arguing your point, if such was your goal. That doesn't mean they're right, of course. But you should be at least suspicious of obvious arguments that you take as absolute refutations of positions actually held by famous philosophers who were demonstrably aware of the arguments in question. It's much more likely that you've missed something than that they committed a mistake that's obvious to the point of silly, and it bears at least some sympathetic thought.
If I say, "I might eat a taco tomorrow", I am not making the metaphysical claim that there are (at least) two possible worlds, including worlds in which I do eat a taco and worlds in which I don't eat a taco. I am expressing my ignorance of what will actually happen. If I say "I choose to X", I am not making the metaphysical claim that the future was open before I collapsed it. I am claiming that my mental process of deciding is a proximate cause of X happening. And before you cut in on the word 'deciding', consider that even computers are generally held to decide things, and nobody hesitates to call them deterministic.
You, yourself are wrong by definition - you've held to definitions that do not accurately capture how people use their language. You're arguing from a position that 'choice' means something which virtually no person actually uses the word 'choice' to mean.
Amusing, considering that you are using the word "choice" to mean, "There's only one option available, you have to take that one," which is the exact opposite of what choice means.
The whole point of choice is that there is more than one option to choose from. Otherwise, you cannot be said to choose from anything.
By your logic, a comatose patient is breathing because he chooses to. Except, no, a comatose patient isn't breathing because he chooses to, he's breathing because he has no control over his bodily functions. He's comatose.
Unless you grasp the basic definition of what a choice is, there's really no point in continuing this discussion. Your fight is with the dictionary, and I wish you luck on that, because it has a tendency to win.
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IcecreamMan80: Actually, you handwaved my last post. So let's not be hypocritical now.
Hear me out: You said God, by virtue of being omniscient and sees the world before it happens, sees the world how it would unfold if he made a guy named Jim, if Jim had free will, and if Jim performs Q. These are your words. God sees Jim perform Q.
This was the situation you set up. Right? I'm making sure this is the scenario you set.
Ok, so follow this with me now.
I'm saying that in that scenario, Jim has free will. God is seeing what would happen if he created Jim, the guy with free will.
You seem to be countering with saying Jim does not exist. Except that's not a valid counter. True, Jim doesn't yet exist, what God is seeing is what would happen if Jim did exist, and the answer is if Jim did exist and had free will and was in situation S-Q, he'd do Q.
See, saying, "Jim doesn't exist, therefore cannot choose" doesn't make sense. You said "Jim performs Q" right? So how does Jim perform Q if he doesn't yet exist? See the problem you're making? The idea of Jim's nonexistence being a counter to "Jim chooses to perform Q" is invalid, because we're talking about God seeing what will happen if Jim exists and is placed into the situation.
In other words, we can say "Jim chooses to perform Q" for the same reason you can say, "Jim performs Q." God is seeing Jim by virtue of omniscience telling him what would happen if Jim were to in situation S-Q at time T-Q when he performs action Q, right? Ok, so then Jim's capable of choosing to perform Q just as he is performing Q in the first place.
Then, I guess crashing and I need to compromise between our two definitions and find a common middle ground, because I really don't like HR's extremely loose and almost useless definition.
This is going to end badly, but okay. Here's my offer of compromise: you can make up whatever definition you want as long as it's coherent. let's look at the two definitions you yourself posted:
Quote from IcecreamMan80 »
(Philosophy) a. the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determined
I've already agreed to accept this definition (that you offered!) because it's substantially the same as the one I offered.
Quote from IcecreamMan80 »
The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will.
On the other hand, this definition is incomplete. Under what conditions does one have the power of making a free choice? If we factor out fate and divine will by presupposing that neither of those things exists, this definition fails to say anything about what a choice is or what makes a choice free.
Drawmeomg says choice is a particular type of mental gear-spinning -- is that confirmatory under this definition or not? Highroller says it's a metaphysical branch point with genuine options on either side -- is that confirmatory under this definition or not?
Well, it doesn't say. There's no way to tell. It's a philosophically useless definition.
So of the two definitions you yourself offered, I'm willing to compromise on the only one of the two that's coherent or useful, namely mine. Will that do?
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
It will do, I certainly don't want to grind this debate to a halt.
Still, I would consider <God created U#581> to be "external determination" for the purposes of that definition.
So my reasoning would still hold that due to the external determination, Jim doesn't have free will.
*Please note*
Even with my definitions, I believe it's still possible for the universe to be created by a God.
A God, that doesn't have infallible omniscient foreknowledge of everything that would happen, could have simply caused the Universe, but lets whatever happens happen.
I'm saying that in that scenario, Jim has free will. God is seeing what would happen if he created Jim, the guy with free will.
You seem to be countering with saying Jim does not exist. Except that's not a valid counter. True, Jim doesn't yet exist, what God is seeing is what would happen if Jim did exist, and the answer is if Jim did exist and had free will and was in situation S-Q, he'd do Q.
See, saying, "Jim doesn't exist, therefore cannot choose" doesn't make sense. You said "Jim performs Q" right? So how does Jim perform Q if he doesn't yet exist? See the problem you're making? The idea of Jim's nonexistence being a counter to "Jim chooses to perform Q" is invalid, because we're talking about God seeing what will happen if Jim exists and is placed into the situation.
In other words, we can say "Jim chooses to perform Q" for the same reason you can say, "Jim performs Q." God is seeing Jim by virtue of omniscience telling him what would happen if Jim were to in situation S-Q at time T-Q when he performs action Q, right? Ok, so then Jim's capable of choosing to perform Q just as he is performing Q in the first place.
There is no contradiction here.
This is pretty much how free will coexists with determinism too. From your arguments, I get the idea that you think determinism somehow takes away choice. That's not the case. It 'sees' what will happen in the same way God does; it observes what will be chosen.
To me, it seems like you're complaining that a weather forecaster (assuming weather forecasters had perfect predictive capabilities, which, you know) controls the weather, when instead they're making a prediction about coming weather based on the current state.
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Quote from MD »
I am willing to bet my collection that Frozen and Solid are not on the same card. For example, Frozen Tomb and Solid Wall.
If Frozen Solid is not reprinted, you are aware that I'm quoting you in my sig for eternity?
Highroller, what has been confusing me about your posts concerns the scenario of U#581 and Jim choosing Q.
Suppose that God creates U#581 in which Jim chooses Q. Do you think it is possible for Jim to choose "not Q"?
This seems definitionally impossible. Jim seems to literally have as much choice as a robot in whether or to do Q. What's the important distinction between God creating U#581 in which Jim cannot choose "not Q", and IcecreamMan installing program #581 on a robot named Jim-bot in which Jim-bot cannot choose "not Q".
Is the difference that Jim's "will" determines Q, but Jim-bot's doesn't? You told me on page 3 that "will" is something along the lines of "processes of decision-making internal to the individual in question". I have difficulty seeing how the two scenarios are significantly different. Either both decision-making processes are inside the individuals (Jim's brain, Jim-bot's cpu), or they are external to the individuals (God crafted the universe in such a way that Jim will choose Q, IcecreamMan writes the programming in such a way that Jim-bot will choose Q).
I take it you feel these situations are different? Could you explain what the significant difference is between them?
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"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love." --Carl Sagan
Still, I would consider <God created U#581> to be "external determination" for the purposes of that definition.
So my reasoning would still hold that due to the external determination, Jim doesn't have free will.
I, too, would classify God's creation of a unique universe as external determination. But again, you are skipping over the word "apparent." Even if Jim's metaphysical world-line is externally determined, the question under this model is about Jim's apparent power of choice. Let's say we in fact live in U#581 right now and we are stuck with a single metaphysical future. Assume that Jim is unaware of this even though it is true. What would be the difference from Jim's point of view as he goes about his life? Would his apparent power of choice disappear as a result of the uniqueness of his actual world-line?
The naive human mental model of choice is exactly Highroller's model: we think we can pick between several options and we think that any of those options could genuinely come to pass if only we would pick that option. We behave as though we have exactly that kind of agency. This is why it's so easy to falsely intuition-pump this idea from naive human model up into metaphysical truth.
But the notion as we have now agreed to define it does not depend on whether that agency has actual metaphysical force or not.
The question is no longer "do we have free will?" -- we clearly do. The question is "why do we have free will?" or "what facts about the universe ultimately result in our free will?"
IcecreamMan80: Actually, you handwaved my last post. So let's not be hypocritical now.
Pretty sure I didn't hand wave. I demonstrated with an entire post why I believe "it matters" - you saying "it doesn't matter" without good reason why it doesn't, is a hand-wave.
Hear me out: You said God, by virtue of being omniscient and sees the world before it happens, sees the world how it would unfold if he made a guy named Jim, if Jim had free will, and if Jim performs Q. These are your words. God sees Jim perform Q.
I did NOT say that God created a Jim with free will.
Please, whatever you do, do NOT put words in my mouth.
I have been extremely careful choosing my words here.
In NO instance of me describing God's creation of U#581 have I said Jim had free will.
My entire argument is that Jim does NOT have free will if God made U#581.
This was the situation you set up. Right? I'm making sure this is the scenario you set.
No it is not. I set up a situation where Jim performs Q becauseGod made him to perform Q.
Just like I made Gina to have sex with me.
I'm saying that in that scenario, Jim has free will. God is seeing what would happen if he created Jim, the guy with free will.
That's YOUR side of the argument, not mine.
My side is that God made U#581. Jim has no choice, there is no free will. He performs Q just like any other programmed system would perform the tasks it was programmed to perform.
You seem to be countering with saying Jim does not exist. Except that's not a valid counter. True, Jim doesn't yet exist, what God is seeing is what would happen if Jim did exist, and the answer is if Jim did exist and had free will and was in situation S-Q, he'd do Q.
I have a dream, in it Gina (who doesn't actually exist) has sex with me in a hotel.
After I wake up, I create the universe of my dream, I create the Hotel, I create Gina, Gina has sex with me exactly like in my dream.
Did Gina have a choice? Did Gina have sex with me of her own free will?
My answer is No. Gina did what I created her to do.
Just like Jim.
See, saying, "Jim doesn't exist, therefore cannot choose" doesn't make sense. You said "Jim performs Q" right? So how does Jim perform Q if he doesn't yet exist? See the problem you're making? The idea of Jim's nonexistence being a counter to "Jim chooses to perform Q" is invalid, because we're talking about God seeing what will happen if Jim exists and is placed into the situation.
See above.
I am not making a problem at all.
If you cannot understand how to separate the "dream" from the "created" it's on you. I made it rather simple with Gina.
In other words, we can say "Jim chooses to perform Q" for the same reason you can say, "Jim performs Q." God is seeing Jim by virtue of omniscience telling him what would happen if Jim were to in situation S-Q at time T-Q when he performs action Q, right? Ok, so then Jim's capable of choosing to perform Q just as he is performing Q in the first place.
There is no contradiction here.
Once again. I disagree 100%.
There is no choice. It is precisely IMPOSSIBLE for Jim to not do Q.
Jim doesn't choose to do Q.
Jim does Q because God created U#581. His actions are externally determined, and constrained by fate or divine will. Jim doesn't have free will.
@Crashing -
I am willing to accept that we have "apparent" free will.
I already conceded that point, and how could I not. I believe we have free will, it seems obviously apparent to me.
However, as I said before, it may not be the Truth. Which seems very important to me whether or not we are believing in a falsehood.
So God doesn't like robots. He wants people to make their own choices freely and not control what anyone decides. This is important enough to Him that He does not intervene in human decisions.
(^ let's just take that as a given for the sake of this thread)
Seriously, do we have to reiterate the countless tired threads about God and free will when the OP concedes the concept of God and free will?
He is asking people that believe in free will AND God to explain how they reconcile this. I have no idea why a poster who has no belief in God or free would even be posting irrelevant objections in such a thread. Why not shake the dirt off your feet and move on?
I am willing to accept that we have "apparent" free will.
I already conceded that point, and how could I not. I believe we have free will, it seems obviously apparent to me. However, as I said before, it may not be the Truth.
I don't understand how you can acknowledge something is true, and then say it may not be the truth. It's true that we have apparent choice, full stop. There's no chance of that not being the truth.
I think that what you're getting at is that you would like that apparent feeling of choice to arise from some actual property of the universe, and you are using the phrase "not the truth" to describe the state of affairs where it may not correspond to this actual property that you haven't named. Well, that's an impossibly vague sentence that misuses the word "truth."
In order to flesh out your argument here and make it coherent, you're going to have to make some actual claims. What property of the universe do you think this is? You have to state it, you can't just leave people to guess it. And that's exactly the beauty of this template. It forces free will debates to avoid being vague or semantic.
Which seems very important to me whether or not we are believing in a falsehood.
What is the thing you think we believe which might be a falsehood? Certainly "we have apparent choice" is not a falsehood, so we don't go wrong believing that. What is the claim about the universe that you're questioning here?
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I am willing to accept that we have "apparent" free will.
I already conceded that point, and how could I not. I believe we have free will, it seems obviously apparent to me. However, as I said before, it may not be the Truth.
I don't understand how you can acknowledge something is true, and then say it may not be the truth. It's true that we have apparent choice, full stop. There's no chance of that not being the truth.
I am not acknowledging the "apparent" as true, but not the truth.
I am acknowledging that it's apparent. But appearances can be deceiving.
What might be apparent, might also be false. That we do not currently know the Truth, is important, and I have not tried to say that it isn't important.
Ignorance is bliss - might be the most important part of our situation, if what I described were actually the truth.
Would we want to know that our free will was an illusion?
I think that what you're getting at is that you would like that apparent feeling of choice to arise from some actual property of the universe, and you are using the phrase "not the truth" to describe the state of affairs where it may not correspond to this actual property that you haven't named. Well, that's an impossibly vague sentence that misuses the word "truth."
Yes. You are understanding me.
However, I do not believe that I'm being vague.
I do not understand what is vague about "Either everything was prewritten, or it wasn't".
In order to flesh out your argument here and make it coherent, you're going to have to make some actual claims. What property of the universe do you think this is? You have to state it, you can't just leave people to guess it. And that's exactly the beauty of this template. It forces free will debates to avoid being vague or semantic.
Which seems very important to me whether or not we are believing in a falsehood.
What is the thing you think we believe which might be a falsehood? Certainly "we have apparent choice" is not a falsehood, so we don't go wrong believing that. What is the claim about the universe that you're questioning here?
"We have apparent choice" =/= "We have free will"
"We have free will" could be false.
I believe we have free will, and not just the appearance of it. I'd hate to be wrong.
When ships sailed away, it appeared to the ignorant as if they fell off the edge of earth. This lead to the belief that we had an apparent flat Earth.
This was untrue as we latter discovered.
What property of the universe you ask: The property of being designed-in-completeness. That's the best way I can put it. From beginning to end it's already made. Possibilities, choices, the do not exist. Everything is going as planned.
"We have apparent choice" =/= "We have free will"
"We have free will" could be false.
No it can't. You agreed to (and in fact, posted) the definition of free will as: "the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determined."
"We have apparent choice" is precisely "we have free will" by that definition.
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"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Here's an interesting thing to think about.
If God was inconsistent, then God wouldn't be God, correct? Therefore, we have to assume that God in his current, Christian form is fully consistent and that humans have free will.
However, what if God was a human? What if, through some bizarre coincidences and advancement of technology, humans could become gods? Humans are definitely inconsistent. According to Scripture, God has often meddled in human affairs. Personally, if I was a god and I ran a world for fun, I'd probably tell everyone that they had free will but I would interfere with their lives anyway. Does that make me an omnipotent, good, all powerful being? Perhaps not. Perhaps that makes me human.
That's not what you said about Determinism. You said, in Determinism, a "choice" is not free will because there were no other options. In ICM's scenario, Jim does not have the ability to not do Q, so according to what you have already said about Determinism, Jim does not have free will.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
You understand that the colloquial term 'possibility' doesn't mean what your argument-by-definition requires it to mean to be sound, right? You're resting your case on an ambiguity, conflating the colloquial term 'possibility' with the technical term 'possibility'.
Actually, I'm sure by now that you don't understand that.
There are some very smart, very famous philosophers, ranging from David Hume a few hundred years ago to Daniel Dennett - and believe me, both of them were fully aware of the 'problem of determinism' and the arguments you've advanced here - working today who advance some variation of the arguments I've presented here and which you've been so glibly dismissive of. It's not the kind of position that can be dismissed by definition the way you're attempting to do it - you're failing utterly at persuasively arguing your point, if such was your goal. That doesn't mean they're right, of course. But you should be at least suspicious of obvious arguments that you take as absolute refutations of positions actually held by famous philosophers who were demonstrably aware of the arguments in question. It's much more likely that you've missed something than that they committed a mistake that's obvious to the point of silly, and it bears at least some sympathetic thought.
If I say, "I might eat a taco tomorrow", I am not making the metaphysical claim that there are (at least) two possible worlds, including worlds in which I do eat a taco and worlds in which I don't eat a taco. I am expressing my ignorance of what will actually happen. If I say "I choose to X", I am not making the metaphysical claim that the future was open before I collapsed it. I am claiming that my mental process of deciding is a proximate cause of X happening. And before you cut in on the word 'deciding', consider that even computers are generally held to decide things, and nobody hesitates to call them deterministic.
You, yourself are wrong by definition - you've held to definitions that do not accurately capture how people use their language. You're arguing from a position that 'choice' means something which virtually no person actually uses the word 'choice' to mean.
Jim doesn't exist in #3. He can't do anything, at all.
In #3, Jim is like a dream.
I have a dream that a hot chick has sex with me in a hotel. The girl doesn't exist, heck, neither does the hotel.
Now, if after I wake, through my immense magical powers, I create the world, the hotel, the chick, and she has sex with me exactly like in my dream.
Did she do it of her own free will?
I'd argue hell no.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
This is precisely the definition I've offered.
You'll note the presence of the very important word "apparent" that you are glossing over. Even if God did preselect Universe #474, surely you still feel that you have the apparent ability to make choices, even if that ability would under your analysis ultimately turn out to be less genuine than, say, Highroller wants it to be.
The connection between this apparent ability to make choice that we all agree we have and any actual attribute of the universe or logic or philosophy requires argumentation, not semantic handwaving. And that is the point of a definition that uses a word like "apparent." It forces actual claims rather than constant attempts to redefine the basic term.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
In fact, I believe that I do have free will.
However, aren't we talking about the Truth, and not appearances? The Truth would be that I never had free will. That seems a rather important distinction to me. The "apparent" then, would be untrue.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Why does that matter?
God's envisioning how the universe will play out, right? So God sees envisioned Jim performing envisioned Action Q with his envisioned free will.
Yes, the truth is important -- and the truth you are looking for, in this case, is whatever property of the universe ultimately gives rise to this apparent feeling of control.
For instance, if you're Highroller, maybe that thing is a genuine metaphysical branch-point in the universe, and each freely-willed thing really does have the ability to select from genuinely different possible futures.
If you're Drawmeomg, maybe it's a certain neural state that represents a layer of abstraction in your thought process, and it doesn't really matter what the causal structure of the future is, as long as this neural state obtains.
These are two possible explanations for the apparent sensation of control, both wanting for proof -- but note that on these terms, the debate is about actual falsifiable claims now, instead of semantic nonsense.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
The question being asked is whether we have free will. The truth of that depends on what, exactly, free will is.
If we accept Crashing00's definition, then no part of the truth of free will depends on indeterminism being true.
What envisioned free will? Once the universe is created, Jim must do Q. There are no other options for Jim. Any "choice" he has is no different from an apple choosing to fall from a tree or salt choosing to dissolve into water.
As you said about Determinism, the lack of other options means free will doesn't exist.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
Correct, and under the definition I posted twice now, if God made U#581, Jim doesn't have free will.
I do not accept any definition of free will that ignores the Truth.
I do not enjoy playing games in the excluded middle. We either have free will or we don't.
I have argued, reasonably, why we wouldn't have free will given an omniscient, creator with infallible foreknowledge.
I posted discussions from Stanford on the very problem of free will.
*Note: In NO conceivable way am I saying that I have solved an age old debate which greater minds than mine have fought over for centuries.
All I am saying is that I believe that according to my reasoning, I am correct.
The arguments being used against me, are failing miserably at being either persuasive, or reasoned. They are hand-waves.
"pfft, that doesn't matter neener-neener" is a hand-wave. There is no reasoning behind it.
HR can hand-wave all he wants, it's actually quite fun to watch him repeat the same unsupported excuse page in page out.
I dream that a sexy girl named Gina (who doesn't actually exist) has sex with me in a hotel room.
After I wake up, I use my magical powers to create the universe of my dream. I create the hotel, I create Gina. I create her to have sex with me exactly as I saw it in my dream.
Does Gina choose to have sex with me? Does she have free will?
I argue, no. She is doing what I created her to do.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Oof. That's heavy-handed, and pretty... wrong.
There's not some metaphysical essence of free will that we have or don't have. It's a concept and a word. If people generally use the word to mean what Crashing00 says it means in the context in which Crashing00 is discussing, then that's what the word means.
I'm by no means saying that it's the final word, but asserted definitions have no power at all in philosophy.
Here's where you stand.
You assert, if God created a particular universe, no free will.
Highroller asserts some other stuff, most of which is self-contradictory and virtually all of which can easily be brushed aside.
Crashing00 offers an alternate definition (I don't say that he asserts it, because he is aware that it is one possible definition in a discussion that is fundamentally about the definition).
This discussion is not stalled. It's a semantic argument, and there are well-known ways through a semantic argument; they're not automatically intractable (incidentally, 'semantic argument' isn't the pejorative in philosophy that it is in daily life, either).
The next steps, assuming the discussion continues, would be in accepting that there are multiple reasonable definitions on the table and looking for a way to decide which one should be used. The deciding razor will almost certainly come down to what it is about free will that we find valuable - acceptable definitions will be the ones that preserve that, whatever it is.
.shrug
Then, I guess crashing and I need to compromise between our two definitions and find a common middle ground, because I really don't like HR's extremely loose and almost useless definition.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Amusing, considering that you are using the word "choice" to mean, "There's only one option available, you have to take that one," which is the exact opposite of what choice means.
The whole point of choice is that there is more than one option to choose from. Otherwise, you cannot be said to choose from anything.
By your logic, a comatose patient is breathing because he chooses to. Except, no, a comatose patient isn't breathing because he chooses to, he's breathing because he has no control over his bodily functions. He's comatose.
Unless you grasp the basic definition of what a choice is, there's really no point in continuing this discussion. Your fight is with the dictionary, and I wish you luck on that, because it has a tendency to win.
-----------
IcecreamMan80: Actually, you handwaved my last post. So let's not be hypocritical now.
Hear me out: You said God, by virtue of being omniscient and sees the world before it happens, sees the world how it would unfold if he made a guy named Jim, if Jim had free will, and if Jim performs Q. These are your words. God sees Jim perform Q.
This was the situation you set up. Right? I'm making sure this is the scenario you set.
Ok, so follow this with me now.
I'm saying that in that scenario, Jim has free will. God is seeing what would happen if he created Jim, the guy with free will.
You seem to be countering with saying Jim does not exist. Except that's not a valid counter. True, Jim doesn't yet exist, what God is seeing is what would happen if Jim did exist, and the answer is if Jim did exist and had free will and was in situation S-Q, he'd do Q.
See, saying, "Jim doesn't exist, therefore cannot choose" doesn't make sense. You said "Jim performs Q" right? So how does Jim perform Q if he doesn't yet exist? See the problem you're making? The idea of Jim's nonexistence being a counter to "Jim chooses to perform Q" is invalid, because we're talking about God seeing what will happen if Jim exists and is placed into the situation.
In other words, we can say "Jim chooses to perform Q" for the same reason you can say, "Jim performs Q." God is seeing Jim by virtue of omniscience telling him what would happen if Jim were to in situation S-Q at time T-Q when he performs action Q, right? Ok, so then Jim's capable of choosing to perform Q just as he is performing Q in the first place.
There is no contradiction here.
This is going to end badly, but okay. Here's my offer of compromise: you can make up whatever definition you want as long as it's coherent. let's look at the two definitions you yourself posted:
I've already agreed to accept this definition (that you offered!) because it's substantially the same as the one I offered.
On the other hand, this definition is incomplete. Under what conditions does one have the power of making a free choice? If we factor out fate and divine will by presupposing that neither of those things exists, this definition fails to say anything about what a choice is or what makes a choice free.
Drawmeomg says choice is a particular type of mental gear-spinning -- is that confirmatory under this definition or not? Highroller says it's a metaphysical branch point with genuine options on either side -- is that confirmatory under this definition or not?
Well, it doesn't say. There's no way to tell. It's a philosophically useless definition.
So of the two definitions you yourself offered, I'm willing to compromise on the only one of the two that's coherent or useful, namely mine. Will that do?
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Still, I would consider <God created U#581> to be "external determination" for the purposes of that definition.
So my reasoning would still hold that due to the external determination, Jim doesn't have free will.
*Please note*
Even with my definitions, I believe it's still possible for the universe to be created by a God.
A God, that doesn't have infallible omniscient foreknowledge of everything that would happen, could have simply caused the Universe, but lets whatever happens happen.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
This is pretty much how free will coexists with determinism too. From your arguments, I get the idea that you think determinism somehow takes away choice. That's not the case. It 'sees' what will happen in the same way God does; it observes what will be chosen.
To me, it seems like you're complaining that a weather forecaster (assuming weather forecasters had perfect predictive capabilities, which, you know) controls the weather, when instead they're making a prediction about coming weather based on the current state.
Highroller, what has been confusing me about your posts concerns the scenario of U#581 and Jim choosing Q.
Suppose that God creates U#581 in which Jim chooses Q. Do you think it is possible for Jim to choose "not Q"?
This seems definitionally impossible. Jim seems to literally have as much choice as a robot in whether or to do Q. What's the important distinction between God creating U#581 in which Jim cannot choose "not Q", and IcecreamMan installing program #581 on a robot named Jim-bot in which Jim-bot cannot choose "not Q".
Is the difference that Jim's "will" determines Q, but Jim-bot's doesn't? You told me on page 3 that "will" is something along the lines of "processes of decision-making internal to the individual in question". I have difficulty seeing how the two scenarios are significantly different. Either both decision-making processes are inside the individuals (Jim's brain, Jim-bot's cpu), or they are external to the individuals (God crafted the universe in such a way that Jim will choose Q, IcecreamMan writes the programming in such a way that Jim-bot will choose Q).
I take it you feel these situations are different? Could you explain what the significant difference is between them?
I, too, would classify God's creation of a unique universe as external determination. But again, you are skipping over the word "apparent." Even if Jim's metaphysical world-line is externally determined, the question under this model is about Jim's apparent power of choice. Let's say we in fact live in U#581 right now and we are stuck with a single metaphysical future. Assume that Jim is unaware of this even though it is true. What would be the difference from Jim's point of view as he goes about his life? Would his apparent power of choice disappear as a result of the uniqueness of his actual world-line?
The naive human mental model of choice is exactly Highroller's model: we think we can pick between several options and we think that any of those options could genuinely come to pass if only we would pick that option. We behave as though we have exactly that kind of agency. This is why it's so easy to falsely intuition-pump this idea from naive human model up into metaphysical truth.
But the notion as we have now agreed to define it does not depend on whether that agency has actual metaphysical force or not.
The question is no longer "do we have free will?" -- we clearly do. The question is "why do we have free will?" or "what facts about the universe ultimately result in our free will?"
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Pretty sure I didn't hand wave. I demonstrated with an entire post why I believe "it matters" - you saying "it doesn't matter" without good reason why it doesn't, is a hand-wave.
I did NOT say that God created a Jim with free will.
Please, whatever you do, do NOT put words in my mouth.
I have been extremely careful choosing my words here.
In NO instance of me describing God's creation of U#581 have I said Jim had free will.
My entire argument is that Jim does NOT have free will if God made U#581.
No it is not. I set up a situation where Jim performs Q because God made him to perform Q.
Just like I made Gina to have sex with me.
That's YOUR side of the argument, not mine.
My side is that God made U#581. Jim has no choice, there is no free will. He performs Q just like any other programmed system would perform the tasks it was programmed to perform.
I have a dream, in it Gina (who doesn't actually exist) has sex with me in a hotel.
After I wake up, I create the universe of my dream, I create the Hotel, I create Gina, Gina has sex with me exactly like in my dream.
Did Gina have a choice? Did Gina have sex with me of her own free will?
My answer is No. Gina did what I created her to do.
Just like Jim.
See above.
I am not making a problem at all.
If you cannot understand how to separate the "dream" from the "created" it's on you. I made it rather simple with Gina.
Once again. I disagree 100%.
There is no choice. It is precisely IMPOSSIBLE for Jim to not do Q.
Jim doesn't choose to do Q.
Jim does Q because God created U#581. His actions are externally determined, and constrained by fate or divine will. Jim doesn't have free will.
@Crashing -
I am willing to accept that we have "apparent" free will.
I already conceded that point, and how could I not. I believe we have free will, it seems obviously apparent to me.
However, as I said before, it may not be the Truth. Which seems very important to me whether or not we are believing in a falsehood.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Seriously, do we have to reiterate the countless tired threads about God and free will when the OP concedes the concept of God and free will?
He is asking people that believe in free will AND God to explain how they reconcile this. I have no idea why a poster who has no belief in God or free would even be posting irrelevant objections in such a thread. Why not shake the dirt off your feet and move on?
I don't understand how you can acknowledge something is true, and then say it may not be the truth. It's true that we have apparent choice, full stop. There's no chance of that not being the truth.
I think that what you're getting at is that you would like that apparent feeling of choice to arise from some actual property of the universe, and you are using the phrase "not the truth" to describe the state of affairs where it may not correspond to this actual property that you haven't named. Well, that's an impossibly vague sentence that misuses the word "truth."
In order to flesh out your argument here and make it coherent, you're going to have to make some actual claims. What property of the universe do you think this is? You have to state it, you can't just leave people to guess it. And that's exactly the beauty of this template. It forces free will debates to avoid being vague or semantic.
What is the thing you think we believe which might be a falsehood? Certainly "we have apparent choice" is not a falsehood, so we don't go wrong believing that. What is the claim about the universe that you're questioning here?
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I am not acknowledging the "apparent" as true, but not the truth.
I am acknowledging that it's apparent. But appearances can be deceiving.
What might be apparent, might also be false. That we do not currently know the Truth, is important, and I have not tried to say that it isn't important.
Ignorance is bliss - might be the most important part of our situation, if what I described were actually the truth.
Would we want to know that our free will was an illusion?
Yes. You are understanding me.
However, I do not believe that I'm being vague.
I do not understand what is vague about "Either everything was prewritten, or it wasn't".
"We have apparent choice" =/= "We have free will"
"We have free will" could be false.
I believe we have free will, and not just the appearance of it. I'd hate to be wrong.
When ships sailed away, it appeared to the ignorant as if they fell off the edge of earth. This lead to the belief that we had an apparent flat Earth.
This was untrue as we latter discovered.
What property of the universe you ask: The property of being designed-in-completeness. That's the best way I can put it. From beginning to end it's already made. Possibilities, choices, the do not exist. Everything is going as planned.
It's "in-the-can" so to speak.
"a term for an entire film or a subset of shots that are all finished shooting; also denotes when a director has the take that he wanted"
http://www.filmsite.org/filmterms11.html
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/british/in-the-can
I would argue God has the universe that he wanted. It's in the can.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
No it can't. You agreed to (and in fact, posted) the definition of free will as: "the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determined."
"We have apparent choice" is precisely "we have free will" by that definition.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!