Mike
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The new definition of free will that I am proposing introduces a new idea: deterministic freedom. Deterministic freedom can be very exotic. A sailboat enjoys a deterministically driven freedom from wind DIRECTION. The sailboat, and all of its atoms, and all of the water atoms, and all of the air atoms OBEY the Law of Physics; no freedom there whatsoever, but the directional freedom is very significant, though counterintuitive. Deterministic freedom can also be very dull and simple. How dull is a simple lever? Yet, a lever also provides us with a super simple kind of deterministic freedom. All of technology, from levers to sailboats to moon rockets, use this same pattern swapping scheme: One undesirable pattern of determinism is swapped out of the system by cleverly using another, less intrusive pattern of determinism. */*/*/*/* A simple mechanical lever moving a heavy weight demonstrates this principle of determinism pattern swapping. Imagine rock that it way too heavy to move by simply tugging with your arms. This is a limitation, or a prison of sorts. The weight, compared to our muscle strength, denies us the freedom to move the rock. With a crowbar or lever the pattern of determinism used against this weight is the lever’s long arm’s “distance of travel,” compared to the short stubby arm's smaller distance of travel. The pattern of determinism we gain freedom from is the inability to move the weight. Without the lever we are not free to move it. With a relatively easy long motion, we become FREE from the overwhelmingly difficult motion of budging the heavy weight. Selecting the “just right” pattern of determinism to be the freeing agent can be tricky, and sometimes impossible.
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Now this cool. After all your clumsy criticisms of minFW and juggling of the general concepts, you end up in total agreement with me. Your last line was: “The concepts of determinism and cause-and-effect are basically incompatible with the definition of free will.” I totally agree. Summary: Determinism incompatible with free will. Please allow me to massage that sentence a little without changing its meaning: The DETERMINISM that emerged from Physics and Chemistry in modern times is incompatible with the ancient definition of FREE WILL. The determinism of Physics and Chemistry is exactly what is used in Neuroscience, and Neuroscience is closing in on the anciently defined free will and will someday delete it from all consideration, labeling it as “folk psychology.” That is why I am saying we should amend the definition of free will to make it compatible with determinism, which is the bread and butter of Physics, Chemistry, and Neuroscience. With a better definition of free will, Neuroscience could possibly discover it in the brain’s biology, and can then talk about it, and measure its strength.
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But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Cool. So a natural man, without spirit, must be able to believe those two things. I envision that happening over the course of many months or years with minFW. That would be many, many times minFW would steer the man in small amounts, toward the direction of hearing more of this invisible, rewarding God. Finally, he hears enough and believes. Then, when he finally gets spirit (in this administration) I am unable to envision any more scientifically. Then I have to switch methods if I want to follow the story farther.
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I hope you don't think I am disparaging my fellow man by limiting my theory to natural man. I am not disparaging at all in that decision. It's just that the situation with the natural man looks more simple to me, as a place to begin an attempt to treat free will scientifically, for a scientific audience. I am very interested in what happens when spirit is added to the mix, but that cannot be investigated using scientific methods. That will have to be a separate book, for a different audience, using different methods.... Biblical that is. */*/*/* I'm still thinking of a response to your previous heart-felt post. I want to be serious and address your points. */*/*/* Please don't confuse me with the case that I debate here. In the heat of the debate I am sure that I never intend to disparage fellow humans, but it may sound that way at times. I try to follow the attitude I see Paul has toward natural men in practice, in his travels. He loved them. You can see it in his Corinth adventures and letters. Yet Paul also describes the needy condition they are in. In real life, away from this digital world, I know the attitude to have is agape toward all I meet. I seriously doubt if I'll ever encounter a seed-boy at the grocery store, so I look at everyone as already a Christian, or could become one tomorrow. I don't consider myself as better. In the heat of debate battle I may sound that way because I am sure of what I write. In real life, away from my keyboard, I focus on people and ideas outside of me that are better than me, SO THAT I can better myself. BTW, since minFW is just learning in disguise, that means minFW is all about self-betterment.
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That is a good question. There is no question about the great ability A.I. has for learning. If my model of minFW is correct, or even somewhat correct, then A.I. can have the same form of weak free will that we have. But that is assuming some great advances in how A.I. can take information that resembles the real world. It is the case already that A.I. can do some things well, but the machinery it is on is so complex that no one knows HOW it is doing it. This is already a big problem in the ethics decisions self-driving cars have to make. It is getting very difficult for the makers of these successful machines to predict how they will perform under strained and extreme circumstances. I expect a large cultural backlash over this soon, with lots of fears, some unfounded, some very real.
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I’m forgetting what thread we are on. But by the power of my Free Will I am going to remember it! Oh! Another thing I forgot was chapter 6 on a general theory of deterministic freedoms. Usually determinism is associated with a lack of freedom, and that is a very justified association. Determinism is like the cosmic agency that “enforces” the Laws of Physics. I explain this in chapter 5. As the universe’s Physics Enforcer, determinism means the universe is NOT free to do anything it wants, except for what is determined by the Laws and the initial conditions. So the common association of a lack of freedom with determinism is justified. But what I have designed into minFW goes against this association. I deliberately designed minFW to USE determinism to “crank out” its freedoms. (this is a Daniel Dennett idea) So, minFW is a special case of the general notion of a “deterministic freedom.” A deterministic freedom is almost an oxymoron, due to the strong association of determinism with LACK of freedom. I believe one of the many wonders of Biology is it contains mechanisms that can generate some special freedoms, such as minFW. But deterministic freedoms can be seen in simple inanimate objects also. I have already discussed one: the sailboat’s direction being free from wind direction. But sailboats are still complicated, so I found a MUCH more simple mechanism that demonstrates a deterministic freedom: a mechanical lever. Holy Archimedes, Batman! */*/*/* Here is the heart of this general theory: Partial freedom from undesirable patterns of determinism can sometimes be enjoyed by the clever use of OTHER, more acceptable PATTERNS of determinism. Partial freedoms can be CAUSED by determinism, just as partial prisons are caused by determinism. One undesirable pattern of determinism is swapped out of the system by cleverly using another pattern, a less intrusive pattern of determinism.
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~ ~ ~ ~ M: Here is a good example of things taught in the class that were forgotten or that were never fully absorbed. T: “were never fully absorbed” – but YOU did! That’s part of YOUR problem. You should have analyzed rather than absorbed. I’m surprised you admit to that by recommending absorbing info. Analyzing is how real scientists think and work. You seem to have a tremendous absorption rate – which makes the task of brainwashing much easier for the cult-leader…Sadly your posts always indicate your cognitive skills are abysmal. M: When learning we come as little children and absorb meekly. Later, the analyzing comes in. That is the order of things. I did not take the class as a scientist, but as a seeking student. ~ ~ ~ ~ M: (4) knowing which parts that are God's responsibility (giving the utterance), versus our responsibility (mechanics of speech). T: God is not responsible for gibberish and fake tongues; take the wierwille-colored glasses off then read I Corinthians 14 noting the distinction of tongues in the singular and plural in I Cor. 14 it is obvious Paul was instructing the church on the difference between genuine speaking in tongues and what some pagan groups have been observed to practice… M: You are wrong here. Paul scolds them for doing genuine tongues, but not the best in love for others. 1 Cor 14:4,5 He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church. I would that ye all spake with tongues but rather that ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying. 1 Cor 14:12-18 12 Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church. 13 Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. 14 For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. 15 What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. 16 Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest? 17 For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified. 18 I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all:
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The word manifestation is not needed because stone, serpent, and scorpion are manifestations of the wrong spirit. Why did you think the word manifestation is needed?
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Jesus is teaching them in Luke 11 HOW to receive holy spirit, and that part of the HOW is to not fear a worthless counterfeit manifestation, and to not fear a diabolical counterfeit manifestation of said gift, but to trust the loving wise Father who knows how to get the right thing through.
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I gave you a hint TWICE on one of Jesus' pre-Pentecost preps for the apostles SIT. Luke 11 11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
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He wrote 3 chapters on it. One item that pops up is "The spirits of the prophets are subject unto the prophets." That shows who has control of the when to do it: the prophets have the control. Same with SIT, and how we have control over the on/off switch and the silent/out-loud switch.
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The human body is like a most intricate machine. That is the whole attitude of modern medicine. I understand that word to be pistis.
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Actually, I was leaning on Romans chapter 10 for this believing machine terminology. 13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. 14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? 17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
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I don't commandeer anything. I am just one voice here, and I get buried in other posts within minutes.
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Actually, I have expanded my horizons here in recent months. I have beta tested 2 theories of mine here, and learned MUCH in the process. Plus I hadn't had much experience with the Absent Christ topic, and learned how to handle that one. I'm not budging on PFAL, but that is by design. I used my free will to do that in 1998.
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This is what I was thinking (from the "PFAL sucks" thread) of and why you'd like Sam Harris:
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sorry. My mistake.
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It cannot be plainly said because it is not plainly written that way. Did you forget that it is sort of scattered around in the gospels and acts? We all forgot lots of PFAL and drifted from it. I did that too. I did that in some dramatic ways in the late 80s and early 90s. I was amazed at how far I drifted from a few key PFAL items, and was totally unaware of it. The way God brought my drifting to my attention was nothing short of miraculous, and totally marvelous. (long story) I gave 2 hints above for places where Jesus taught on this, mixed in a list of 4 items. (1) the eleven benefits for doing it, and (2) that the Father seeks those to do it, and (3) freedom from the fear of getting it wrong, and (4) knowing which parts that are God's responsibility (giving the utterance), versus our responsibility (mechanics of speech).
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You fed your mind other things as well that competed with the PFAL story. PLUS, the story was distorted by several factors in our past. That's why I say coming back to PFAL, written form, and absorbing it unsupervised by TWI trappings will yield the right results. I did that. I came back in 1998. I went through a lot of the same drama of things not working that you all went through. Though not in the Corps I was a twig leader twice, WoW once, and HQ staff for 2 years. I know what the trappings were.
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Hey, did you say liked determinism over free will at the very early beginning of this discussion? ... probably on another thread? If so, you'd like Sam Harris, his book and his videos.
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Oh, I remember. I'm just wondering how many other posters here remember any of those places in the class where Jesus prepared his apostles for S.I.T. Maybe the the posters here that studied the class better than you will rescue your memory. Don't you have a copy of RHST? There have been bootleg PDFs on line since 2002, as first reported here in GSC late in that year. Someone sent out, so the legend goes, a thousand CDs in the snail mail that had all the PFAL books in .PDF format. They are out there in the proPFAL community if you still have any such contacts.
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Recently Sam Harris has become very popular on college campi. He is fiercely against the concept of free will, and his book against free will is used in many Philosophy classes. I address a bunch quotes on pages in this book in my Chapter 4. Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett have been famously debating free will for years, with videos all over the net. Dennett is old and defending free will; Harris is young and looks like movie star Ben Stiller. It is a dramatic debate that many grad students in Neuroscience are being saturated in. The old Dennett free will is LOSING to the young Harris' NO FREE WILL stand. The next round of professors will all deny free will, the way things are going. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Will_(book)
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Peek in RHST. It's all there and in the class.
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Does science disprove free will? Physics in the early 1800s seemed to deny free will, as it had been defined for centuries prior. But Neuroscience then was non-existent. Only Philosophy had ever talked about free will till then. Some philosophers gave up on free will and some tried to rescue it. This went on for 200 years, and then came along Neuroscience, where more hard scientists started thinking about the science of the brain. Still, Neuroscience has a long way to go in getting any real handle on how decisions are made in the brain, but at least it is getting lots of thought by hard core scientists. Like the philosophers, some have abandoned free will, and some have stood up for it. So far it looks like the old classical definition for free will be destroyed by Neuroscience as it develops. Unless a new angle on free will is developed, or a new WORKABLE definition is given, I feel scientists will more and more come out with announcements that they no longer hole any free will beliefs. */*/*/*/*/* While there are many reasons to believe that a person’s will is not completely free of influence, there is not a scientific consensus against free will. Some use the term “free will” in a looser sense to reflect that conscious decisions play a role in the outcomes of a person’s life—even if those are shaped by innate dispositions or randomness. (Critics of the concept of free will might simply call this kind of decision-making “will,” or volition.) Even when unconscious processes help determine a person’s conscious behavior, some argue, such processes can still be thought of as part of an individual’s will. … Right. Most see that free will is not complete freedom, but don’t know what to do about it. A smaller number are actively pursuing ways to preserve some sort of free will, and another smaller (but growing) number feel that free will needs to be completely jettisoned from thought. */*/*/*/*/* …Is belief in free will necessary for moral behavior? That is being hotly debated by scientists and philosophers and political activists. Many are outraged that justice systems are not keeping up with advances in science and are fundamentally unfair. Both sides have strong arguments. My bet is that God did give us humans, even natural man, the ability (or freedom) to both learn and make better decisions. In my theory, minFW is really just complicated learning. */*/*/*/*/* One idea proposed in philosophy is that systems of morality would collapse without a common belief that each person is responsible for his actions—and thus deserves reward or punishment for them. In this view, there is value in maintaining belief in free will, even if free will is in fact an illusion. Others argue that morality can exist in the absence of free-will belief, or that belief in free will actually promotes harmful outcomes such as intolerance and revenge-seeking. Some psychology research has been cited as suggesting that disbelief in free will increases dishonest behavior, but subsequent experiments have called this finding into question… Right. */*/*/*/*/* Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.[1][2] Add to the end of this “, and un-forced.” Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actions that are freely chosen. It is also connected with the concepts of advice, persuasion, deliberation, and prohibition. Traditionally, only actions that are freely willed are seen as deserving credit or blame. Whether free will exists, what it is and the implications of whether it exists or not are some of the longest running debates of philosophy and religion. Some conceive of free will as the right to act outside of external influences or wishes. The whole issue of credit and blame comes up in free will debates, especially when political activists are participating. Some conceive free will to be the capacity to make choices undetermined by past events. Determinism suggests that only one course of events is possible, which is inconsistent with a libertarian model of free will.[3] Ancient Greek philosophy identified this issue,[4] which remains a major focus of philosophical debate. The view that conceives free will as incompatible with determinism is called incompatibilism and encompasses both metaphysical libertarianism (the claim that determinism is false and thus free will is at least possible) and hard determinism (the claim that determinism is true and thus free will is not possible). Incompatibilism also encompasses hard incompatibilism, which holds not only determinism but also indeterminism to be incompatible with free will and thus free will to be impossible whatever the case may be regarding determinism. The big tug of war here is between determinism and the OLD DEFINITION of free will. Determinism is winning in the minds of scientists.
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The brain is essentially a believing machine. It believes any story you feed it. This works for feeding it bad stuff, and it works for feeding it good stuff.
