Why would a god revealing himself impose on our free will?

[Nightime]

I still have a problem with the assumptions behind this question. God is not keeping himself hidden. If he was, he would have destroyed all evidence (such as the bible) that might lead people to suspect that he exists. God is just not making himself so obvious that everyone believes in him.

So if you want to ask why God doesn’t make himself so obvious that everyone believes in him now, you have to first explain why God would make himself so obvious that everyone would believe in him now. If there is no reason, then the question has already been answered.

[cmkeller]

Vorlon Ambassador’s Aide:

To be honest, I still don’t see why adherence to a principle necessarily requires “free will”. That’s a side issue, however: I’m focusing on the “simple animal instinct” bit, here. Presumably animal instinct can be thought of as a system of rules, but why can’t complex behaviors arise from rule systems that are much more complicated?

They can. I didn’t mean to exclude complex instinct. Simple or complex, when one is deciding between two options purely on the basis of which of the two is of greater immediate comfort to him, he is not making a morality-based decision. He is merely following the dictates of his body.

Isn’t morality itself in our best interests?

I certainly think it is. But that’s only an intangible idea, which may never translate into a physical sensation that the mind will recall as being pleasurable. When a person is trying to decide between the physical sensations his mind is familiar with and the intangible ideas which his mind can “know” but not “feel”. It takes a free will that is not completely ruled by immediate self-interest to exercise the intangible over the experienced sensation.

If you assign any properties at all to something, this is equivalent to placing a restriction on it, and placing a restriction is equivalent to assigning a property (“okay, humanity is given property A, and is denied Not A…”). A will is a thing that makes a selection, has a preference, generates a choice, etc., and as such, it must have an underlying set of principles (it must possess properties) that cause it to function, which means that its nature is defined as something. Definition is necessarily “restriction”: the undefined state has no restrictions and no properties (or all properties).

I’m not doing a very good job of explaining the point, but it is correct nonetheless.

No, you did a fine job - now I understand where you’re coming from on that matter.

Now, you’re correct - certain choices are denied us by definition. As (mechanically unaided) humans, we can’t fly. We can’t bodily use energy from nuclear reactions. We can’t survive a fall of 1000 feet onto solid concrete. But how does that make the choices that are within our grasp any less free?

To give an example, if I walk into a Pizza Hut, and I want to order a filet mignon, they’ll tell me I can’t. So yes, I don’t have totally random free will. But amongst the available choices, no one is forcing me in any one direction. No one can make me order onions on my pizza instead of anchovies, or vice versa. That’s still free will.

Just because our soul is constrained by the physical limits of the body that contains it doesn’t mean its ability to choose amongst the available options is in any way impeded.

But by giving them a nature of a certain kind, by defining what they are, God determines how they will act.

Not true. By giving the soul the same properties he himself has (vis a vis free will), he is introducing a non-determined agent.

Things aren’t forced to act in a certain way by their inherent nature, they are their nature. That nature nevertheless determines what decisions will be made.

Not if that nature itself is freedom.

To put the issue another way: What does Orthodox Judaism think about AI? I’m guessing it’s considered to be fundamentally impossible.

Well…don’t confuse intelligence with free will. Intelligence is ability to process information or draw inferences. Certainly such a property is possible for human beings to create artificially. But anything that must be programmed cannot by definition be exhibiting free will.

Chaim Mattis Keller

[TVAA]

*Originally posted by cmkeller *
They can. I didn’t mean to exclude complex instinct. Simple or complex, when one is deciding between two options purely on the basis of which of the two is of greater immediate comfort to him, he is not making a morality-based decision. He is merely following the dictates of his body.

Is higher-level thought (morality, temporal awareness, etc.) somehow different from reflexes? I take it you’re suggesting that they’re fundamentally distinct.

I certainly think it is. But that’s only an intangible idea, which may never translate into a physical sensation that the mind will recall as being pleasurable. When a person is trying to decide between the physical sensations his mind is familiar with and the intangible ideas which his mind can “know” but not “feel”. It takes a free will that is not completely ruled by immediate self-interest to exercise the intangible over the experienced sensation.

But we can find ideas pleasurable or painful. Why don’t we naturally enjoy/appreciate/seek out “moral” behavior?

**Now, you’re correct - certain choices are denied us by definition. As (mechanically unaided) humans, we can’t fly. We can’t bodily use energy from nuclear reactions. We can’t survive a fall of 1000 feet onto solid concrete. But how does that make the choices that are within our grasp any less free?

To give an example, if I walk into a Pizza Hut, and I want to order a filet mignon, they’ll tell me I can’t. So yes, I don’t have totally random free will. But amongst the available choices, no one is forcing me in any one direction. No one can make me order onions on my pizza instead of anchovies, or vice versa. That’s still free will.**

So your desires, thoughts, and ideas aren’t caused by something (neurons firing, electrons acting, spiritual ectoplasm concentrating, etc.)?

Just because our soul is constrained by the physical limits of the body that contains it doesn’t mean its ability to choose amongst the available options is in any way impeded.

But if the soul exists, it has some form, some nature, some substance (not necessarily “physical” in the standard sense). To “be” something, it must be limited.

**Not true. By giving the soul the same properties he himself has (vis a vis free will), he is introducing a non-determined agent.

Not if that nature itself is freedom.**

That’s like saying “What if souls are defined as being undefined?”; it doesn’t work.

You’re essentially suggesting that souls are utterly non-deterministic, which would require that they be undefined. Even more disturbingly, if we accept the premise that souls aren’t bound by any rules (and yet can somehow exist), there’d be no continuity. Every choice and decision somehow made by the soul would be random. There’d be no ‘us’, no ‘self’, just pure randomness.

**Well…don’t confuse intelligence with free will. Intelligence is ability to process information or draw inferences. Certainly such a property is possible for human beings to create artificially. But anything that must be programmed cannot by definition be exhibiting free will. **

But I don’t understand or perceive the criteria you use to determine that humans actually do have free will. What behavior patterns cause you to conclude that a particular decision or choice was made outside the bounds of physics and mathematics?

You don’t believe that computers can have free will (I’m deducing), so whatever the criteria is, you must personally feel that no computer could meet it. But what if, someday, they do?

[TVAA]

Actually, that’s just a good, all-around question:

To all you Straightdopers: If you think human beings have “free will”, why do you think so, and how did you reach this conclusion?

[Apos]

—It can’t. I simply made the moral decision to trust Him.—

But you’ve simply ignored the problem I asked: how do you know what you are deciding to trust? Or, indeed, rate the decision as moral (unless trusting absolutely anything at all could be considered moral)?