Question: Free Will vs. Determinism

[tracy_d74]

This weekend I watched The Adjustment Bureau (I really liked) and read Across the Universe by Beth Revis  (I really liked). Both stories dealt with the idea of free will. This is a topic I LOVE to think about. (Diyari Chronicles deals with this idea of free will).

I subscribe to the capatibilism viewpoint (see chart below). I think that each of us

Comments

[rowanda380]

I am a fatalist...I love thinking about determination...but I hate talking about it, I always get in argument because people violently disagree with my opinions so much that it makes them angry and hostile.

[tracy_d74]

Yes, people can be VERY ... argumentative about this topic. I think it is one of those things you, me, WE can never know the answer. But what we believe shapes our actions. Just like what we believe about afterlife, shapes our actions.

[rowanda380]

yeah it is difficult, but just because I believe that because of everything before nothing but what will happen can happen doesn't really change the way I live my life...that is what I can't seem to get across to them, because I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN...no one can...

[paulwoodlin]

Free will is a very important and often unspoken premise of not only our earthly judicial system but also Christian justice. The reward of Heaven and punishment of Hell make very little sense without free will (not a whole lot of sense with free will either, but that's another question). Thus, when you talk about determinism, you are upsetting very important assumptions they depend upon to think that the world is fair and just and all that other stuff.

[rowanda380]

But the thing I try to explain to them is that believing in free will and believing in Omnipotent god are mutually exclusive...if god knows everything that has happened and will happen...there everyone must have a predetermined destiny...it only makes rational sense.

[tracy_d74]

well, i think people get tripped up on thinking that the determined end is person specific. sure, i think people have a purpose. but i think we think of "purpose" in a egocentric way. sure, i have a purpose...but there is an outcome that is beyond me. beyond my children, and their children and their children. that outcome is the sum of all the free will choices. i kinda think of it like a monet. up close you can see the chaos of the brush strokes. it's hard to imagine the strokes creating an image...but it does. there is a design. you can only see it from a distance

[tracy_d74]

okay, wait. i gave my earlier comment more thought. in a way we do have a determined purpose. if my purpose is to influence a person to do something..i can either make a bunch of self-destructive choices and die young or make healthier choices and live longer. either way, i will influence someone or something. so...i guess that is a determined purpose....but i think people see purpose as "I'm supposed to be a doctor. I'm supposed to save lives. It's my destiny." But I could save lives and NEVER be a doctor. I could just talk to someone and alter how they feel...save their life. So ...hmmm...i guess that is fulfilling a destiny....but ....*scratches head* I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel. :o) How can anyone EVER say they KNOW the answer to this question?

[rowanda380]

No one can know, but I am come to it from a logic stand point...one that makes sense for me. I don't believe in God, so that takes out a lot of the mess. It is really a mathematical look at it....we are all the sum of everything that has occured in the past...every thing that has influenced everyone who influences ourselves. The only way one could know what would happen in the future would be to calculate with everything that has ever happened. They would have to know EVERYTHING...which isn't possible unless you believe in an all knowing god. The sum of what has occurred...makes it impossible for anything else to occur, down to the smallest detail...I wore my black flats today...I might feel like I made that decision on my own, but really...if you looked at the entirety of history and the influences on me and the influence on my influences and so on and so forth...I had no option other than to choose to wear my black flats today. Am I making sense? This is a complicated issue.

[paulwoodlin]

Oh, I know. They get mad at me for pointing that out, too. But God's Plan is usually the idea they desperately need to justify some other irrational belief they want to believe, like women should stay in the kitchen because that's God's Plan for them.

[rowanda380]

yeah, I guess logical thought like that hurts their heads.

[tracy_d74]

yes, i think free will is essential when you talk about God. i mean, how can there be faith, if people can't CHOOSE?

[rowanda380]

philosophically and logically speaking...and I mean...this is a philosophical issue...it is impossible for there to be a god and free will.
You should check out this book:
Freedom, Determinism, and Responsibility: Readings in Metaphysics by Neil Campbell
I read it for my philosophy class in college and it really gets into all kinds of different ideas on free will and determinism in a way that is relatively easy to understand.

[paulwoodlin]

CS Lewis argued that the only important decision people really get to make is to be a believer or not, that history will roll along God's Plan regardless of your actions. I think he considered earthly life to be some sort of school and you can be a good student or a bad student, and when you graduate...