Free will
lol.
Paradoxes ?
Free will to touch the fire or not is up to you. But I told you
that the fire is hot and u will get hurt and get burnt.
Now u have the free will to choose to listen to me, or you can
touch the fire. Its up to you. THAT is called free will. The free
will for you to choose and do what u think you must. But like all
actions there will be consequences. Just dont come bitching back to
me saying that the fire is hot and I didnt tell you so.
If by thinking that my advice to u is restricting your autonomy
then you can do exactly the opposite by touching the fire. Before
even attempting to talk about free will and paradoxes, maybe one
should understand what exactly is free will.
This implies that man is a responsible being, possessing freedom
of choice to obey or disobey. Man's actions, emanating from his
will, are his own, for which he is, therefore, accountable.
But then what is free will ? Below will just be
cut n paste.
Judaism -
God tells Cain that although he is subject to powerful emotions
and sin "couches at the door; its urge is toward you, yet you can
be its master" (Gen. 4:7). After reviewing their history, Moses tells the people of
Israel that the key to their national destiny is ultimately in
their own hands: "I have set before you life and death, the
blessing and the curse, therefore choose life" (Deut. 30:19).
This principle of man's freedom of will has been described as "a
great principle and pillar of the Torah and the Mitsvot (Maim.,
Yad, Teshuvah 5:3). The entire concept of
repentance, Teshuvah, which is taught in the Pentateuch (Deut.
4:30, 31, 30:11-14), emphasized by the prophets (e.g. Hos. 14:2-3),
and is the heart of the Day of Atonement
service, presumes freedom of the will. This constant call to man to
return to God with the promise of Divine forgiveness assumes that
man has the power to free himself from his past, from his set ways,
and change completely. Indeed, God wishes man to come to Him
voluntarily, out of free choice. God does not overwhelm but waits
for man's response (Ex. 19:8)
Biblical law clearly distinguishes between intentional and
unintentional acts (Num. 35:1-34). Jewish law treats at length the
limits of legal and moral responsibility and the effects of various
degrees of compulsion upon the individual (BK 8:4).
Not all Jews accepted human free will. The Essenes
believed in predestination and held that everything was
predetermined by the Divine will, while the Sadducees
denied Divine Providence and felt that everything occurred by
chance. The rabbis reiterate the biblical concept of man's freedom:
"All is in the hands of heaven except the fear of heaven"
(Ber. 33b). "The angel appointed over conception takes a
seminal drop, sets it before the Holy One, Blessed be He, and asks,
'Sovereign of the universe, what is to become of this drop? Is it
to develop into a person strong or weak, wise or foolish, rich or
poor?' But no mention is made of its becoming wicked or righteous."
This is left to the person himself (Nid. 16b).
The first challenge to the concept of free will came from the
sphere of theology itself, from the concept of God's omniscience or
foreknowledge. If God knows everything in advance, how could man
have freedom of choice? The talmudic rabbis simply affirmed both
principles without attempting any solution: "Everything is foreseen
yet permission (freedom) is given" (Avot 3:15). Maimonides
(Yad, ibid. 5:5) discusses the problem and
suggests that God's "knowledge" is completely different from man's
knowledge. This has been interpreted to mean that since God is
above time, His is not strictly "foreknowledge." God knows the
future intuitively in that He sees the future as part of an eternal
present. Hence His knowledge does not conflict with man's freedom
of choice. Even when God providentially intervenes in history, He
does not interfere with the inner workings of man's volition and
the integrity of man's selfhood (Maim. ibid. 5:4). The
"hardening of the heart of Pharaoh" (Ex. 4:21) is construed as a
restoration of Pharaoh's own free will in face of the coercive
effects of the plagues (Naḥmanides).
Judaism's insistence upon the existence of human freedom would
seem to conflict with the implications of much of contemporary
psychology, which sees the mind of man, like the rest of nature,
locked into a tight causal nexus. This implies that were enough
known about the character, background, and circumstances of any
individual, all of his decisions could be predicted. The
biblical-rabbinic concept of moral responsibility, on the other
hand, seems to be compatible only with a libertarian concept of
contra-causal freedom and incompatible with any sort of
deterministic theory.
Modern Jewish thinkers have suggested, in reply to this
challenge, that if man, alone of all creatures, possesses
categorical freedom in which the self can originate changes, then
this provides a dramatic manifestation of man's having been created
"in the image of God" (Gen. 1:26). Even as God, the Prime Mover,
created the world "out of nothing," so does man, each time he makes
a moral decision, act as a self-originating creative power.
These thinkers hold that with each moral decision man
experiences his selfhood, his ability to feel and act as an "I."
Furthermore, with each such decision, he builds and extends his own
character and personality. In short, in making moral choices in
freedom, man works his tselem ("image of God") into
demut (likeness of God) (ibid.) and thus fulfills
his humanity (see also Ethics).
Philosophical Dictionary - Free Will
The problem is to reconcile our everyday consciousness of
ourselves as agents, with the best view of what science tells us
that we are. Determinism
is one part of the problem. It may be defined as the doctrine that
every event has a cause. More precisely, for any event e,
there will be some antecedent state of nature, N, and a
law of nature, L, such that given L, N
will be followed by e. But if this is true of every event,
it is true of events such as my doing something or choosing to do
something. So my choosing or doing something is fixed by some
antecedent state N and the laws. Since determinism is
universal these in turn are fixed, and so backwards to events for
which I am clearly not responsible (events before my birth, for
example). So no events can be voluntary or free, where that means
that they come about purely because of my willing them when I could
have done otherwise. If determinism is true, then there will be
antecedent states and laws already determining such events; how
then can I truly be said to be their author, or be responsible for
them? Reactions to this problem are commonly classified as:
(i) hard determinism. This accepts the conflict and denies that
you have real freedom or responsibility.
(ii) Soft determinism or compatibilism. Reactions in this family
assert that everything you should want from a notion of freedom is
quite compatible with determinism. In particular, even if your
action is caused, it can often be true of you that you could have
done otherwise if you had chosen, and this may be enough
to render you liable to be held responsible or to be blamed if what
you did was unacceptable (the fact that previous events will have
caused you to choose as you did is deemed irrelevant on this
option).
(iii) Libertarianism.
This is the view that, while compatibilism is only an evasion,
there is a more substantive, real notion of freedom that can yet be
preserved in the face of determinism (or of indeterminism).
In Kant, while the
empirical or phenomenal self is determined and not free, the
noumenal or rational self is capable of rational, free action. But
since the noumenal self exists outside the categories of space and
time, this freedom seems to be of doubtful value. Other libertarian
avenues include suggesting that the problem is badly framed, for
instance because the definition of determinism breaks down; or
postulating a special category of uncaused acts of volition; or
suggesting that there are two independent but consistent ways of
looking at an agent, the scientific and the humanistic, and it is
only through confusing them that the problem seems urgent. None of
these avenues has gained general popularity. It is an error to
confuse determinism and fatalism. See also
dilemma of
determinism.
Columbia Encyclopedia - Free Will
Free will, in philosophy, the doctrine
that an individual, regardless of forces external to him, can and
does choose at least some of his actions. The existence of free
will is challenged by determinism. A
denial of free will was implicit in Plato's
argument that, because no one would deliberately choose a worse
over a better course of action, people's decisions are determined
by their understanding (or ignorance) of what constitutes the good.
Aristotle disagreed;
he distinguished between reason and desire, pointing out that
people sometimes do what they desire even when they know it will
harm themselves or others. Some Stoics sought to adapt the idea of
free will to their rigorous form of determinism; Chrysippus emphasized
that action could be produced by choice which itself had antecedent
causes.
In the Christian philosophical tradition a central question
regarding freedom of the will was this: is virtue within the power
of the individual or completely dependent on the power of God? St.
Augustine,
although he argued that God's foreknowledge of human actions (a
consequence of his omniscience) did not cause them, did hold that
God's omnipotent providence implied predestination:
man was wholly dependent on divine grace. St. Thomas
Aquinas maintained the freedom of man's will in spite of divine
omnipotence, holding that God's omnipotence meant he could do all
things possible or consistent with his goodness and reason, which
did not include the predetermination of human will. William of
Occam affirmed free will but claimed it impossible for any
human to comprehend how it is compatible with God's foreknowledge
and omniscience, which cannot be distinguished from his role as
prime mover and original cause. Martin Luther and
John Calvin both followed
Augustine's doctrine of predestination, but later Protestant
writers disputed their position. Advocates of free will have
usually begun with the overwhelming testimony of common practice
and common sense: people do believe they in some way determine
their actions, and hold each other accountable for them.
Therefore advocates of free will have argued that the human
will, unlike inanimate things, can initiate its own activity. This
position has been called into question by experiments, first
undertaken by American neuroscientist Benjamin Libet in the 1970s,
that have shown that brain signals associated with decisions
concerning actions occur before a human being is conscious of
making a decision.
Free will is the purported ability of agents to make
choices free from
constraints. Historically, the constraint of dominant concern has
been the metaphysical
constraint of determinism. The
opposing positions within that debate are metaphysical
libertarianism, the claim that determinism is false and
thus that free will exists; and hard determinism, the
claim that determinism is true and thus that free will does not
exist.
Both of these positions, which agree that causal determination
is the relevant factor in the question of free will, are classed as
incompatibilists.
Those who deny that determinism is relevant are classified as
compatibilists,
and offer various alternative explanations of what constraints are
relevant, such as physical constraints (e.g. chains or
imprisonment), social constraints (e.g. threat of punishment or
censure), or psychological constraints (e.g. compulsions or
phobias).
The principle of free will has religious,
ethical, and
scientific
implications. For example, in the religious realm, free
will implies that an omnipotent divinity does not
assert its power over individual will and choices. In
ethics, it may hold implications regarding whether individuals can
be held morally accountable for their actions. The question of free will has been a
central issue since the beginning of
philosophical thought.
Pointless biased assertions without any thought and only able to
see one side of the coin just shows how simple minded one is.
Even if you are not simple minded, it just proves how
intolerant you are. Simple.
Just like how u have to free will to choose to shut the fuck up,
and sit the fuck down before even knowing your subject matter well,
or choose to be tolerant and opinionate accordingly instead of
making sweeping statements with no purpose because you know you can
due to the absence of a mod to assert control of your posts.
By this point alone it already shows what kind of person you
are.
