Bri said:
I was under the impression that no non-causational even has ever been reliably observed, which would mean that quantum theory is nifty in that it explains a lot of things, but then so would God just as easily explain a lot of things (although admittedly not as usefully).
As I mentioned above, radioactive decay is considered to be "random as in quantum mechanics randomness". If you have a clock with hands glowing in the dark and look at it, you are observing some non-causational events. In fact, quite many of them.
Upon further reading though, it appears as though the Many Worlds Interpretation might imply that it's not actually random after all, and may even be compatible with causation (someone will have to enlighten me on that).
The idea is this: whenever an event has several outcomes, the universe doesn't have to take a random pick, it just takes all possible outcomes and splits into several worlds, one for each possible outcome (which means that each worlds splits into myriads of worlds each moment).
Indeed, it's completely deterministic and not a bit random. It just appears to be random for an inhabitant of one of those resulting worlds (that is, us), since we observe only one out of all the possible outcomes.
OK, let's use your terms then which are undoubtedly more precise than mine. My point was simply that there are several possibilities, and that they are mutually exclusive. I simply found it odd that the one that is most compatible with the generally-believed notion of God (liberatarian free will) isn't the one that Iacchus chooses to use as "proof" of the existance of God.
Unfortunately, I am unable to tell you why Iacchus believes what he believes. Maybe you should note that he thinks that he is some kind of god (the god Dionysus, that is).
Really? I can see a third choice, which is that we actually have free will to make our own choices independent of our external circumstances.
Independent of the external circumstances? What kind of choice would that be? I mean, whenever I make a choice, it has something to do with external circumstances. I assume what you mean is "not completely determined by external circumstances" (just some nitpicking, I guess).
Why is it impossible to have the freedom to make choices
and be a completely deterministic system?
Assume you had free will until yesterday, but last night, during your sleep, you lost your free will. You continue to make decisions, but purely mechanical. Would you notice the difference? How? If there isn't any, why would you prefer to have free will?
So...if you could prove that we have free will, then given current scientific knowledge, you would probably have to assume the existance of something that could be called "God" (even if "God" is simply considered by science to be a previously unknown force) that allows it to happen.
I guess we can postpone this discussion until we have evidence for the existence of free will.
No, you're missing the third possibility. It's not deterministic, and it's not random. It's actually intelligent decision-making (the common definition of free will). In other words, the third possibility is actually making an intelligent choice of your action independent of physical causes (neither determinism nor random indeterminism).
Why can't intelligent decision making be deterministic?
If it is deterministic, it can still be quite unpredictable.
Yes, you could be a theist without believing in free will, but I don't think your example is very valid because although ancient people might have believed in God without contemplating free will, they almost certainly believed in free will by default.
I disagree. Greek mythology knows many instances where gods make decisions on behalf of humans and move their hearts to act this or that way. Later times didn't understand this: Euripides ( a rather modern thinker, he sounds pretty contemporarian) has Helena arguing that she didn't left Menelaos free: Aphrodite made her do it. Menelaos, according to Euripides, answers that Aphrodite is just a word for Helena's own desires. So Euripides rejected Homer's gods because he —and not Homer— believed in free will.
Also, I seem to remember that Luther had some theory called "predeterminism", that means, it is known in advance whether you will be saved or damned, that is, it is determined how you will decide (accept or reject Jesus). Sounds pretty deterministic to me, but I'm not an expert in Luther's theology, so I might have got it wrong.
At any rate, I wasn't arguing that you cannot be a theist without belief in free will (I agree that you can). But it could be argued that you cannot believe in free will without being a theist. Why? Because it can be argued that the very thing that gives you free will (whatever that thing is) is God (or at least comes from God).
Since I still have problems to grasp how free will could be
possible, I can't say much about that. But maybe it's just a lack of imagination on your part?
Not necessarily. Once we get outside of the physical world, we wouldn't really know what it is, and it may follow completely different rules (or none at all).
But we still have this dilemma: this other world either entirely follow rules, or it doesn't. So it's either deterministic, or random. As I said: it doesn't matter whether you argue within the physical world or within some other kind of world, the problem stays the same.
The common understanding of free will (by the way, the one that our very judicial system depends upon) is that we are free to make our own decisions, that we are responsible for our decisions, and that we can therefore be held accountable for those decisions.
I think that is one possible interpretation. Another could be that the judicial system just tries to sort out which cases are better dealt with jail and which are better dealt with an asylum, and all this talk about "guilt" is just some kind of verbal decoration.
If I could show you that all human decisions boil down to some kind of very, very complicated mechanic that is completely deterministic, would you suggest to give up law and order? Why?
