How Can We Have Free Will and be Scripted at the Same Time?

[Moses25]

Doesn't make any sense. Can somebody please explain this to me. Quantum physics?!

All replies are greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[TropicThunder]

Oh boy. You sure like to ask alot of thought provoking questions.

So now I will ask one.

Why do you want to know?

 

[Capnmad]

Imagine the universe as a deck of playing cards of infinite suits and ranks, all laid out before you. Progressing ranks represent the passage of time. Different suits represent different branches in a multiverse.

As you progress through time, you leap from card to card according to rank.

As circumstances change, or decisions are made, or any of countless minute chaotic actions slightly change the universe you perceive to something different from others, you not only progress in time according to rank, but you change suit as well.

To oversimplify: You flip a coin and it lands "heads", you're in the "Kings" universe. "Tails", you're in the "Jacks" universe, and so forth.

In this framework, there are infinite outcomes, but they are known quantities to The One Who Is Infinite. They all exist and are all equally valid. It is only our perception that limits us to sensing and operating within the constraints of one suit at a time.

In this way, all possibilities are available to the degree that our "decisions" alter these things or change which suit our consciousness exists in or perceives, all outcomes are possible, and only one path is perceived by a human, but all are known to God.

Your concepts are not mutually exclusive, only misunderstood.

A story isn't written. They're ALL written. It's only that the rules of the particular "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel that is our lives hold that we can only read one story at a go.



Or, this could be total bullshit written by an atheist and determinist who's given these matters far too much thought.

 

[Bohemianne]

How Can We Have Free Will and be Scripted at the Same Time?

Free will happens when a person wants to take charge of a gambit. Then he starts to believe his move is "scripted" when he gets screwed.

 

[venray]

It's really simple Mate....we have been given the stage and all of the props and we use free will to write the play ourselves....

Nothing scripted for us..we have to do the work ourselves and nothing happens by coincidence..

 

[Ticklish9's]

The perception of free will may very well be an illusion we get from having too many variables to understand the cause of every action.

Nonetheless, to our limited minds, that is free will enough.

 

[Moses25]

Thank you all for your replies. Much appreciated. And enlightening.

Cheers. :microsmiley:

 

[Chaneda]

Is this a philosophical question pertaining to the debate of whether free will and an omnipotent being known as God can coexist? If so you're opening a can of worms that philosophy students explore in intro to philosophy classes and a thought experiment that atheists such as myself quite enjoy.

Imagine there is something known as free will. What is free will? Well, one way of defining it is to say that nothing that occurs and will occur is predetermined and that history is not scripted--that is if presented with two choices you can make one choice over the other and no one and no thing in the universe knows with certainty what you will do.

Flip a two sided coin: if the coin is not weighted in such a way that it is more likely to land on one side over the other, and we ignore the possibility of it landing on its thin ridge, then there's an equal chance of 50% that it lands heads or tails. No one knows exactly whether the coin will land heads or tails, only that there is a 50% chance it lands one way or 50% chance it lands the other.

Now lets talk about rational beings--human beings. You have choices in life and studies of major populations can give the probabilities of members of these populations doing certain actions with the time they have. These probabilities are jut that though, they are probabilities; unlike a coin you are free to do something other than what the probabilities say. This ability to go against what probability says you should or can do is what gives us free will--we are not scripted by anything and we write history as it happens, not as it has been written for us.

This presents a problem with conventional religion though. There are many definitions for who God is and what God is, but a conservative Judaeo-Christian definition of God is that he is an omniscient, omnipotent, and all good being. Ignoring for the purposes of this discussion the major problems with the latter two qualities of God, we shall discuss the issue with him being omniscient.

God is omniscient. Think about what that means. An omniscient being knows something without it having to be taught--it is innate. Mortals are confined by time and space--God is not. If we say God is everywhere and everyWHEN then God knows everything that has happened, is happening and WILL happen. God knows when you will eat that burrito, when you will have your first kid, when you will retire, and when you will die.

What does this mean? Consider the following situation: it's Sunday and you have a choice to make--watch Football or mow the lawn. Now, God knows what you're going to choose before you do. If God is omniscient then it MUST be true he knows which of the two you WILL do, NOT what you MIGHT do but WILL do. Unfortunately for you this means that if God exists then you have NO FREE WILL because God can NEVER be wrong. God is a perfect entity and can never make a mistake or be wrong. Why? Because he's omniscient, omnipotent, and all good, so he'd know in advance if he ever were to do anything wrong and would have the infinite power to make sure that never happens. If God knows you will mow the lawn then while you think you can watch football or mow the lawn you really are going to mow the lawn; if you end up watching football then either he knew you would watch football or God is wrong and God can NEVER be wrong, therefore he knew you were going to watch football.

What does this mean? It means you cannot have free will and have life be scripted at the same time. It's one or the other. If you believe in the conventional Judaeo-Christian God then you forfeit the idea of free will (of course, if you believe in an alternate form of God then this argument is a bit long winded and does not really apply to you).

Therefore you have three choices: Believe in the conventional God and thus have NO FREE WILL, believe in an alternative form of God (or Gods) where free will is possible and thus God is NOT omniscient, or you don't believe in God (welcome to the freedom of mind known as atheism).

If this had NOTHING to do with your question I apologize a little late. I just felt like this tiny bit of philosophy can be applied even to quantum physics where statistics and questions of scripting and free will can be observed on the tiniest of levels.



(No flame wars please.)

 

[venray]

The one flaw in your premise is that God may know what you are going to do but he does not interfere in that choice in any way. The outcome of our decisions is ours.....

Therefor an all knowing God and free will can indeed coexist.

 

[MrMacphisto]

For all practical purposes, we have free will. Our limited perceptions allow us the illusion to see actions within a limited enough context to view them as free will

Technically, every action is tied to neurochemical reactions in the brain and responses to external stimuli.

 

[MrMacphisto]

The one flaw in your premise is that God may know what you are going to do but he does not interfere in that choice in any way. The outcome of our decisions is ours.....

Therefor an all knowing God and free will can indeed coexist.

Well, the issue with God is that most conceptions of him/her/it involve both omnipotence and omniscience simultaneously.

If God knows everything, then he already can see what will happen long before it does.

If God is all powerful, then anything that occurs is essentially done with his permission, because he has the power to stop it, and... because of his omniscience, he already saw it coming.

In effect, everything is in "God's plan", if we are to believe that he has both of these traits.

So this means that Calvinists and other believers in predestination are actually more consistent in their beliefs than the average modern day Christian.

For free will to truly exist under God, he must either be lacking in omniscience or lacking in omnipotence.

 

[Ticklish9's]

The one flaw in your premise is that God may know what you are going to do but he does not interfere in that choice in any way. The outcome of our decisions is ours.....

Therefor an all knowing God and free will can indeed coexist.

If God knows what we are going to do, then we have but one option, for it is already known. Consequently it is not free will, but the ILLUSION of free will, which we would possess, if there were in fact an "all-knowing" God.

 

[venray]

Well, the issue with God is that most conceptions of him/her/it involve both omnipotence and omniscience simultaneously.

If God knows everything, then he already can see what will happen long before it does.

If God is all powerful, then anything that occurs is essentially done with his permission, because he has the power to stop it, and... because of his omniscience, he already saw it coming.

In effect, everything is in "God's plan", if we are to believe that he has both of these traits.

So this means that Calvinists and other believers in predestination are actually more consistent in their beliefs than the average modern day Christian.

For free will to truly exist under God, he must either be lacking in omniscience or lacking in omnipotence.

Just because he is omnipotent does not mean that he need take action. Indeed we are allowed to do what we will without that inteference. As far as him knowing the outcome, it doesnt lessen the fact that we made the choice to get there without being told what would happen in advance...

Think of it as sort of God's non interference "Prime Directive" so to speak. One which he chooses to keep himself.

 

[MrMacphisto]

Just because he is omnipotent does not mean that he need take action. Indeed we are allowed to do what we will without that inteference. As far as him knowing the outcome, it doesnt lessen the fact that we made the choice to get there without being told what would happen in advance...

Think of it as sort of God's non interference "Prime Directive" so to speak. One which he chooses to keep himself.

I understand where you're coming from, but logically, there is a flaw in this argument.

Another commonly held belief about God is that he created everything and put things in motion, so to speak.

Whether you believe in the Big Bang or that the world was made in 6 days, God can be interpreted as having started the process. If we assume this, then his omniscience means that he started it knowing exactly how every single action afterwards would pan out.

Every manipulation of every atom leading up to whatever end times scenario you believe in can be traced back to God's initial action. So, with this in mind, he essentially created every one of us knowing beforehand what actions we make.

This means our actions are nothing more than a consequence of his making. He gave us our genetic tendencies, our environmental factors (which heavily influence our personality), and anything else that can occur in life to manipulate our behavior.

So, free will under this context is only an illusion -- similar to how the same is true under determinism.

Again, for all practical purposes, we have free will, but this is only a matter of having a limited perspective.

 

[venray]

personally I believe that God was the anomally that exploded to start the big bang spreading the energy that he is composed of across space and thus "creating" all in its path. The energy that lies within us and sends electrical impulses to the brain is what makes up our "soul" .....


I have oft threatened to post about the rest of my beliefs on how science and creationism run hand in hand.....

Soon...

 

[MrMacphisto]

personally I believe that God was the anomally that exploded to start the big bang spreading the energy that he is composed of across space and thus "creating" all in its path. The energy that lies within us and sends electrical impulses to the brain is what makes up our "soul" .....


I have oft threatened to post about the rest of my beliefs on how science and creationism run hand in hand.....

Soon...

This sounds similar to what some Buddhists believe. There is also a belief that this ties us all into a collective consciousness of some sort.

I personally am just a determinist. I believe we all share the same source of energy, but I don't believe it has any supernatural significance.

 

[Ticklish9's]

personally I believe that God was the anomally that exploded to start the big bang spreading the energy that he is composed of across space and thus "creating" all in its path. The energy that lies within us and sends electrical impulses to the brain is what makes up our "soul" .....


I have oft threatened to post about the rest of my beliefs on how science and creationism run hand in hand.....

Soon...

That's fair... but if that's the case, then why call it God?

 

[venray]

That's fair... but if that's the case, then why call it God?

Why not. Why call an apple an apple or a quark a quark? A rose by any other name.....

When man first began contemplating the meaning of life and where we came from he named God.."God"...it stuck....

Mac...Imagine the energy inside you (which cannot be destroyed) leaves your body and returns across space to rejoin its source....

Food for thought...

 

[MrMacphisto]

Mac...Imagine the energy inside you (which cannot be destroyed) leaves your body and returns across space to rejoin its source....

Food for thought...

It is pretty interesting. All matter is a form of energy. However, my main beefs with religion are that it assumes the existence of an afterlife and that a divine being somehow is there to judge our actions at the end of our lives.

I believe neither possibility is true, because there is no evidence to back up either one. The recycling of our energy into the cosmos has no empirical connection to consciousness, and the sum of this energy has no sentient quality.

 

[Ticklish9's]

Why not. Why call an apple an apple or a quark a quark? A rose by any other name.....

When man first began contemplating the meaning of life and where we came from he named God.."God"...it stuck....

Mac...Imagine the energy inside you (which cannot be destroyed) leaves your body and returns across space to rejoin its source....

Food for thought...

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet - but it would still be a natural phenomenon. If you call a rose a "spirit flower," it's not going to have any supernatural powers - it's just going to be a particularly beautiful, natural wonder.

In much the same way, calling all of existence "the universe" simply describes the beautiful, natural reality we live in. Giving it the name "God" doesn't change the fact that it is just that - a beautiful, natural reality.

Which doesn't mean you can't call it God, but God is word loaded with many meanings, and so is not very precise. If we each gave roses their own name, it would rapidly become very difficult to communicate. So I call the universe "the universe," and I leave the word God for describing Zeus, Odin, and all the other mythical supreme beings humanity has concocted.

 

[venray]

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet - but it would still be a natural phenomenon. If you call a rose a "spirit flower," it's not going to have any supernatural powers - it's just going to be a particularly beautiful, natural wonder.

In much the same way, calling all of existence "the universe" simply describes the beautiful, natural reality we live in. Giving it the name "God" doesn't change the fact that it is just that - a beautiful, natural reality.

Which doesn't mean you can't call it God, but God is word loaded with many meanings, and so is not very precise. If we each gave roses their own name, it would rapidly become very difficult to communicate. So I call the universe "the universe," and I leave the word God for describing Zeus, Odin, and all the other mythical supreme beings humanity has concocted.

But you dont know what properties the energy that caused the big bang had or have...science has not yet discovered that or perhaps we would discover "God"....one of life's mysteries and quite interesting to ponder...

Mac...what if the way we act has an affect on the energy that resides within us and if we go against things that are good we have a negative effect.....maybe when the energy leaves us upon death it is "charged" in a way that will not be acepted by the "source" and will be destined to float aimlessly about the cosmos.... a form of "hell" so to speak....

 

[Ticklish9's]

But you dont know what properties the energy that caused the big bang had or have...science has not yet discovered that or perhaps we would discover "God"....one of life's mysteries and quite interesting to ponder...

You're absolutely right. And neither do you. Hence, to call it God, you're ascribing this energy abilities and motives that you would LIKE it to have, but that you have no way of knowing it has.

I was a deist for a long time after I de-converted from Christianity, until I finally realized that I "believed" in some sort of mystical energy that I could call God not because it made sense but because it made me feel better to think that there was some sort of energy out there with God-like powers and compassion.


But that didn't make it true.

 

[MrMacphisto]

Mac...what if the way we act has an affect on the energy that resides within us and if we go against things that are good we have a negative effect.....maybe when the energy leaves us upon death it is "charged" in a way that will not be acepted by the "source" and will be destined to float aimlessly about the cosmos.... a form of "hell" so to speak....

That's an interesting thought, but even if we assume this to be true, I don't see how a consciousness can be maintained outside of a physical body.