Did god give us free will?

Full of pride and piety signaling. Demonic best describes the influence you're under.

Culturally Westerns have the perception of free will, because of Christianity, mostly, but this is in no way a universal perception, other cultures dispute even that perception.

Today you got a green coffee cup. The story you tell yourself that you chose it and the reason you chose it is just a story. So the fact that you got a green coffee cup alone doesn't prove free will.

About your question, if you harmed my loved ones I'd shrug and say you have no free will and wouldn't have any moral right to be angry at you. Well, if a wolf or a rock or a tsunami killed my mother, or your mother, how would you feel? People feel angry at things, we are humans, we are reactive. I think your action would be the consequence of everything that has happened before, yes, but this probably wouldn't be enough to feel reactive and angry. After all, I am conditioned, as a human, to get angry at such things, and fight back, want revange. Or maybe I am conditioned that I want to be serene and let go. Either way, my reaction is determined by everything that has happened before, just like yours.

In my opinion, the "no free will" belief is just a psychological symptom of people who feel helpless and depressed. Nowadays lots of people are feeling a loss of control over there own lives. Some feel a loss of purpose or meaning. They have a feeling that they are pre-destined to follow in some life path that they can't avoid. They feel in a rut. That is a harmful illusion. The truth is that each person has the agency to form intentions and to prepare formal plans in their life to achieve their desires. That is free will.

If you have free will what do you need coffee for? Just will yourself to feel the effects of coffee without drinking it.

First of all each person does not have such agency. Some people are slaves, still in this day and age. Others are severely mentally handicapped and can't form such intentions. Secondly, you're describing limited will, not free will. Again, if god chose to limit our will in such a way, why not limit in when it comes to doing evil?

You THINK you chose your green cup over your white one based on your will, but is that actually the reality? WHY did you have the desire to pick the green cup? Mental states are the result of patterns of neurons firing or not. If a particular neuron pattern fires that might correspond to “I prefer the green cup”. A different pattern of neurons firing might correspond to “I like the white cup”. What caused the first pattern of firings instead of the second? Maybe you walked under a power line 20 years ago and it damages some of the “I like the white cup” neurons. Maybe it was an infection you had as a kid. Who knows?

It is impossible to say, however that NOTHING in your physical environment could have had an effect on the neurons in your brain. To say that “I picked the green cup, so obviously I have free will” is just begging the question. We aren’t discussing whether you think you have free will or whether it appears to you that you do. We are arguing whether the decisions you attribute to free will are actually determined by outside forces or not. Your coffee cup example is simply question begging. The argument is simply “I have free will because, well of course I have free will”. Sorry, but that isn’t a convincing argument. Your actions could be determined without you actually being aware of it.

To be fair, while I don’t necessarily buy pokerologist’s premise, we must distinguish between free will and unlimited will. We can have free will even if that will is limited. Free will simply means that the choices we make are not determined by anything outside of ourselves. We can have free will but still be unable to will ourselves to fly like a bird, breathe underwater, or clairvoyantly see what cards are coming on the flop when trying to decide whether to call an aggressive opponent’s preflop 3 bet. The lack of ability to do these things does not imply that we lack free will.

Of course none of that implies that free will actually exists either. Human mental states are the result of physical brain states. We choose to wear a red shirt because specific networks of neurons fire in our brain that lead us to that decision. If other sets of neurons fire, we might choose to wear a blue shirt. We, of course, are unaware of this fact at a conscious level, so we think we wore the red shirt because we wanted to — obviously free will. But why did that particular set of neurons fire at that time? Was it because of a stray electrical signal? Were the “I like blue shirts” neurons damaged when we drank too much wine last month? Who knows? But to conclude from the apparent free choice of shirts that we obviously have free will is begging the question. It is just assuming that the answer is that we can make free choices and that factors outside ourselves had no role at all in it. We have zero evidence that outside factors are not controlling the decisions that result from our brain processes.

Well I don't believe in things without a reasonable argument or demonstration, such as "free will", an idea that has no evidence, and I am not joyless or depress, in fact I think I live my life pretty much as you do or most people, I have thoughts like "what will I eat today?", just that I know everything in this Universe follows cause and effect, at least everything known so far.

That line of argument ignores the full consequences of determinism. If you don’t have free will, then you couldn’t help yourself when you killed my mother. Equally, though, I couldn’t help myself when I get pissed off at you and seek revenge. On a broader scale, the idea that we hold people responsible for their actions doesn’t disappear if determinism is true. The person being held responsible couldn’t help but do whatever is was, but the rest of society - also human beings who lack free will — cannot help but impose whatever consequences they did on the wrongdoer.

But the things you're describing are all determined by factors outside of yourself. You can't fly like a bird because of aerodynamics and because you don't have wings. Factors you had no control over. But if you truly had free will why can't you just will yourself to grow a set of wings? You can't breathe underwater because your lungs aren't equipped to do so, as was controlled by billions of years of evolution, a factor outside your own control. But if you had free will why can't you will yourself to absorb the oxygen present in the H2O molecules straight through your skin into your red blood cells? Certainly a tri-omni god would be able to do those things right? And he created us in his image? So why did he choose to limit our will to do them?

You perceive certain desires based on your mental state. You take action based on those perceived desires. Certain things happen as a result. All of that is still very much consistent within a deterministic framework. In reality this can be described as - my brain exists in a certain physical state (desires). This physical brain state cause my brain to send signals to various other parts of my body (I take action). The actions of my other body parts cause changes to other physical systems outside of my body (I get what I want).

All we have in this description is one physical system interacting with another to cause changes in those systems. Perfectly compatible with determinism. Remember, deterministic systems need not be predictable. A roulette wheel, a tossed coin, or a thrown die all are deterministic systems that are unpredictable.

Again you are confusing free will with unlimited will. Free will does not mean that we are not influenced by systems outside ourself. It means that our decisions are not determined completely by such factors. I’m not arguing that we actually have free will, and I’m an atheist, so I won’t address the religious component at all (you’d have to ask a believer such questions). The fact that we are limited in our abilities is not a valid argument against free will. Even if free will is the reality, that does not imply that forces outside us don’t influence our choices.

I don't know if I am confusing the two. Wouldn't the very fact that your will is limited, by definition, mean it's not free? You present some good arguments though, I gotta think on this some more.

The questions about god were really aimed more at the others in this thread, since it's pretty clear you don't subscribe to those beliefs.

Stremba, do you believe that you have no freedom from deterministic forces, whether biological or social / environmental? The framework would be: you’re on a ride which you have no agency to direct so valuing freedom is nonsensical since it isn’t real.

I was going to make a longer response, but before that, I want to be clear on what you believe. We need to be clear whether the belief is limitation on freedom or no freedom at all.

Actually, I think I can make the response brief.

Let’s call the above ‘the deterministic will’ (TDW).

Reality has a say in whether or not your desires are actualized in this world. TDW always accepts when reality says “no”.

When reality says no, you have the ability to defy reality (and transcend TDW) by persevering. By doing this, you are accessing a will which has at least some level of freedom from TDW.

This is my argument for free will in the secular domain. Again, there is no free will for Christians, but in the secular, freedom is real.

Cool. I sort of agree. It's just that those human brain systems come up with thoughts, decisions, and intentions that I would call "will". Since there are some that stem from the inner person rather than are dictated by some outside force I would also call those decisions and intentions "free". When I choose to call a bet , rather than fold, on the river, I'm would say that I'm using my "free will" to do so.

Are you though? Have you ever folded the nuts on the river? Certainly not right? Because your actions were predetermined, at least in some manner, by the cards you were holding. An almost perfect metaphor for life actually.

I have absolutely zero responsibility or accountability for my actions if determinism is true. There's literally no reason to punish anyone for anything and determinism automatically negates the need for morals or ethics. It's such simple logic. You have to write a 12 page dissertation that eventually says nothing to defend determinism. The mental gymnastics determinists have to do to try to explain free will away is mind boggling.

The poker analogies destroy you. I don't know how a determinist can explain away free will in a game that requires nothing but constant decisions.

You accomplished nothing with this post. I can put two cups in front of me knowing beforehand that I'm going to choose arbitrarily and at the last second choose one or the other for no reason at all. It has nothing to do with neurons or the environment. It's simply a split second decision that goes either way because my nature as a human being simply willed that decision.

Gods, demons, heaven and hell exist only in the minds of mortal men. Religion is a tool used by selfish people to control others.

So then what is the ultimate meaning of this world Mr Truth Teller?

Conveniently ignored my question about why you drink coffee in the first place though. Simply will yourself to feel caffeinated instead of drinking coffee if you have free will.

And naysayers like you have conveniently ignored my claim for free will via persisting against failure when reality tells you “no”.

If you accidentally chop off your finger can you persist against the failure of a severed limb to simply regrow that limb? Why not? You used your free will to grow it in the first place right? So grow another one. Be persistent.