Thursday, July 19, 2007
Free Will, Fate, and Metaphysical Determinism
One of the key difficulties when approaching the existence/nonexistence of God is the paradox of free will in the face of an omnipotent, omniscient being.
If God knows everything that will ever happen, including every decision we have yet to make, then there is no freedom. We are fated to do everything we will ever do and even the act of trying to avoid fate is itself a fated act.
Free will must therefore be an illusion, as our course was set by God and anything bad that happens is actually His fault by reason of poor planning. Or is it?
An atheist might state that this paradox which adds to the list of reasons that God can't exist. But eliminating God doesn't completely eliminate the problem of free will.
That is, when you strip God from the question, the question still remains: do we have free will or is the future inevitable?
We are products of our genetics, our upbringing, and our personally accumulated experiences and training. Our decisions, which are the product of the moment we make them in and the people we are when deciding, could probably be predicted should an observer just have enough information.
Once I get to this point free will becomes a matter of definition. I define my 'will' as being the evident desires espoused by the creature that I am--the end product of my genetic inheritance, my accumulated experiences and the influence of the information I am acting upon (regardless of that information's veracity). I have free will because the creature that I am then exercises that will. Any decision at that point is an act of free will because I've properly defined 'will' to match the result. A tautology? Perhaps.
But really, can you impose an idealized idea of what "will" or "soul" is without taking into account what is practically possible and self-evident about the creatures we are? That is, I can state that we can't be true free actors because the universe dictates and shackles my soul. But then I've defined soul and will as an unattainable ideal that simply doesn't match the available evidence. Might as well be talking about animism. 'Soul' is merely a religious construct if it seeks to define one by excluding the definable.
So, within the confines of what it is possible to say about will and freedom, we have it. For what that's worth!
But here's where metaphysics comes in:
Everything will have already happened, and therefore would always have been happening.
The 'movement' of time, hurtling from the past towards the future on the razor thin edge of present, is not an illusion per se, but is a forced perspective informed by entropy. All instants and happenstances that have happened still exist there in the past. It’s a direction we can't travel (as of yet), but it is a coordinate of orientation as sure as x, y, and z. The future is no different, and while it seems as if we haven't done that s*** yet, it will have always been done. In that, our actions aren't so much as determined as they are merely determinable.
Metaphysical determinist, I.
I find free will to be alive and well from a practical standpoint. There's no relief from that responsibility to be had by pointing at a metaphysical determinability of reality. Just because the decisions will always have been made doesn't mean that we weren't always in the process of having decided.
Some would say this is like saying, "play along with the game." It is more subtle than that, I think.
By the definition of will that I use, and with what I believe about the nature of existence, then we have freedom. It isn't that we are determined, it is that we are determinable. Our choices are revealed as they seem to pass from the future toward the past.
It may seem paradoxical, that I am stating we have both free will and that the free will we have is an illusion. But it doesn't seem that way to me, as I can conceive of a scenario where both are true at the same time.
And while this is no guarantor of God's veracity, it certainly eliminates the paradox of free-will from becoming a factor in my decision to believe/not-believe in Him. ¶ 1:28 PM
If God knows everything that will ever happen, including every decision we have yet to make, then there is no freedom. We are fated to do everything we will ever do and even the act of trying to avoid fate is itself a fated act.
Free will must therefore be an illusion, as our course was set by God and anything bad that happens is actually His fault by reason of poor planning. Or is it?
An atheist might state that this paradox which adds to the list of reasons that God can't exist. But eliminating God doesn't completely eliminate the problem of free will.
That is, when you strip God from the question, the question still remains: do we have free will or is the future inevitable?
We are products of our genetics, our upbringing, and our personally accumulated experiences and training. Our decisions, which are the product of the moment we make them in and the people we are when deciding, could probably be predicted should an observer just have enough information.
Once I get to this point free will becomes a matter of definition. I define my 'will' as being the evident desires espoused by the creature that I am--the end product of my genetic inheritance, my accumulated experiences and the influence of the information I am acting upon (regardless of that information's veracity). I have free will because the creature that I am then exercises that will. Any decision at that point is an act of free will because I've properly defined 'will' to match the result. A tautology? Perhaps.
But really, can you impose an idealized idea of what "will" or "soul" is without taking into account what is practically possible and self-evident about the creatures we are? That is, I can state that we can't be true free actors because the universe dictates and shackles my soul. But then I've defined soul and will as an unattainable ideal that simply doesn't match the available evidence. Might as well be talking about animism. 'Soul' is merely a religious construct if it seeks to define one by excluding the definable.
So, within the confines of what it is possible to say about will and freedom, we have it. For what that's worth!
But here's where metaphysics comes in:
Everything will have already happened, and therefore would always have been happening.
The 'movement' of time, hurtling from the past towards the future on the razor thin edge of present, is not an illusion per se, but is a forced perspective informed by entropy. All instants and happenstances that have happened still exist there in the past. It’s a direction we can't travel (as of yet), but it is a coordinate of orientation as sure as x, y, and z. The future is no different, and while it seems as if we haven't done that s*** yet, it will have always been done. In that, our actions aren't so much as determined as they are merely determinable.
Metaphysical determinist, I.
I find free will to be alive and well from a practical standpoint. There's no relief from that responsibility to be had by pointing at a metaphysical determinability of reality. Just because the decisions will always have been made doesn't mean that we weren't always in the process of having decided.
Some would say this is like saying, "play along with the game." It is more subtle than that, I think.
By the definition of will that I use, and with what I believe about the nature of existence, then we have freedom. It isn't that we are determined, it is that we are determinable. Our choices are revealed as they seem to pass from the future toward the past.
It may seem paradoxical, that I am stating we have both free will and that the free will we have is an illusion. But it doesn't seem that way to me, as I can conceive of a scenario where both are true at the same time.
And while this is no guarantor of God's veracity, it certainly eliminates the paradox of free-will from becoming a factor in my decision to believe/not-believe in Him. ¶ 1:28 PM
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Our moral freedom, like other mental powers, is strengthened by exercise. The practice of yielding to impulse results in enfeebling self-control. The faculty of inhibiting pressing desires, of concentrating attention on more remote goods, of reinforcing the higher but less urgent motives, undergoes a kind of atrophy by disuse.
PEACE BE WITH YOU
MICKY
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PEACE BE WITH YOU
MICKY
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