Free Will, Determinism, and Definitions

What is free will?

If you've ever taken a philosophy course or engaged in chemically induced conversations about the world you've probably considered this question. The answer is not obvious. We all feel that we're free to choose between multiple options when we deliberate, this much feels obvious. It also feels obvious that although we went with option A we could have just as easily gone with option B. At this point some snarky individual (your professor probably) will happily point out that we live in a determined universe, what happens next is entirely dependent on what's happened before. If this is true then how can we possibly have been able to go with option B rather than A? The fact that we'd choose A was determined before we even began deliberating about it by facts about the universe that are beyond our control. At this point it may be tempting to say that there's nothing left worth calling free will. That's exactly the wrong conclusion because we started from the wrong place.

We began by asking what free will is. This question assumes that free will as a concept is coherent and we just have to think about it until we've hammered out any confusions that are associated with it. This is misguided. We use words to categorize reality in useful ways. Unfortunately, we're stupid monkeys so the categories we've picked to associate with our words will often confuse multiple distinct things, fictional concepts, or some combination thereof. Instead of asking what free will is we should instead look at the world and see what facts we'd like to associate with this sequence of two symbols. Since we're started with a naive concept that may be confused, or point at fictional things, this is difficult to get started. Whenever we're confronted with a conflict between our naive concepts and accurately describing the world the solution is simple. List our motivations for considering the topic, stop using the symbols associated with the possibly confused or fictional concept, and then let our motivations guide us in discovering facts about the world.

Applied to free will the solution goes like this. We find free will important because of the following--

1. We wish to be in charge of what happens in our life.
2. We clearly deliberate between options and we have very strong intuitions that we could have done otherwise after we've made a choice.
3. We may wonder whether things like punishment really make sense if a person could not possible have done something differently.

We'll now stop using the associated symbols because they may carry extra baggage and nothing important hangs on what symbols we use to categorize reality.

First, our desire to be in charge of our life. There's no reason this cannot be true in a determined world. Remember that in a determined world your identity is determined as well. There's no hierarchy of realities with physical and determined things happening in one while you guide the action from above. There are just determined events happening with you being one of them. This is counter-intuitive and it might be a good idea to stop using words like identity for the same reason we stopped mentioning free will. For our current purposes I will avoid doing this because it would require yet more digressions.

To continue; we've seen that our identity is determined just as the behavior of golf balls are determined. From here I believe we can define "in charge" as simply being a causal nexus of sorts. A point in the causal tree that has many branches. A human being with a distinct identity is clearly capable of shaping reality to fit his desires and goals. This happens in much the same way as a ATM discriminates certain inputs (being struck with a hammer vs having its buttons pressed for example) and performs a function in response. Of course human beings are vastly more complicated machines.

Notice that nothing about the world constrains a person to doing anything he does not wish to do; determinism never straps us down and makes us murder a man when we have no desire to do so. We gather input from our surroundings, process it, and then perform whatever function our processing has deemed appropriate. Included in this processing are all the emotions and cognitive algorithms that make us who we are.

To sum up, human beings do what they wish to do in response to the environment and are not prevented from making decisions that match their wishes. Motivation 1 has been met, we're in charge of our lives.

Next time I'll finish up and explore why we have strong intuitions that we could have done otherwise and whether punishment makes sense in a determined world.

Can atheists learn to work with christians?

Atheists and Christians face a serious problem. They have to coexist in the same world. Unfortunately for both groups, it's simply not likely that they will convince the other side to back down and see the light of truth. Perhaps this will happen in the future (I certainly hope it will) but that day is far off and I think we should adopt better strategies in trying to reach it. This will be directed towards atheists but christians can apply the same principles.

First, accent similarities, not differences. Do you believe God is the foundation of morality? Obviously not, something that does not exist cannot be the foundation of anything but a delusion. Should you focus on the fact that 'God does not exist' as a reason to look elsewhere for moral foundations when you're speaking with christians? Again the answer is no. This is a non-starter. The fact that God exists is a foundational belief that christians hold. Attacking it can only be successful when more periphery beliefs have been changed. Examples of periphery beliefs might be the evidence in the new testament about the resurrection or a belief that some of the traditional arguments for God succeed (the ontological, design, kalam, and so on).

Instead you should focus on all the beliefs you have in common. There are more than you might think. Is it morally right to rape, murder, and abuse? You will both agree (I hope!) that it is not. As you explore specific moral views you'll both see that you agree on most topics, or at least that you agree much more than you disagree. This accomplishes two things. It helps them identify with you ("this guy isn't so different from me after all...") and it lets them know that a different foundation for their moral beliefs exists and this foundation does not require gods. Luckily this sense of identification and works on you as well. If it's done right this exercise should make both parties like each other more and bring us one step closer to living in relative harmony.

Second, don't ridicule them. Is it ridiculous that they believe they have an omnipotent invisible friend who will grant their wishes if they ask hard enough? Maybe. Does it seem ridiculous to them? Not at all. You alienate and anger them by implying that it does. From the Christian view you are lost in an ocean of lies and immorality, isolated from an amazing truth, and yearning (perhaps secretly) for a relationship with God. When you ridicule them this impression deepens.

Another thing happening is that you make their devotion to their group stronger by challenging them especially if the challenge is a good argument. That last part is important. When attacked we retreat to positions we're committed to. This is not a rational decision, it's emotional and immediate. All humans do this whether they're christian, atheist, rational, or irrational. We'll do the same thing whether it's actually a good reason or not unless we've specifically trained ourselves to do otherwise. Since we live in a world were this training is very rare we've got to work with people as they are. We also don't think clearly when we're angry (that bit is pretty obvious). So the worst thing you can do when trying to identify with someone or convince them of anything is to ridicule them. Finally, remember that ridicule is not always intended. Monitor what you say and how you say it. In another post I may get into how to best phrase arguments to avoid giving the wrong impression.

Last but not least remember that you're still going to disagree at the end of the day. Nothing you say will be a knock down proof of your position and even if it was we shouldn't expect christians to accept it. What I've argued for here is a small step in the right direction. Once atheists are accepted by christian communities as normal and good people we can begin to explain why we think their beliefs are false and why it's important to use better belief forming methods. The more they identify with us the easier this process will be.

The growth of Christianity

I'll go ahead and grant that it's rational for Christians to believe that the explosive growth of their religion is best explained by Godly inspiration holds if the following is true (this bit was shamelessly stolen from Cartesian in a thread on Common Sense Atheism).

Given two competing explanations X and Y where Y is purely non-agential and naturalistic, every subject S should accept Y unless she knows that the entities involved in X exist and could/would act in the way described by X.

Christians have some reason to think X exists so it appears that they have reason to accept God as an explanation for the growth of Christianity. However, I see a couple problems with this line of thought.

Given mutually incompatible deities and several instances of events that have the features of X as described above it's plausible that each support the existence of their respective deities. But there can in fact be only one God. So if we attempt to say that a given instance of X truly demonstrates a deity when only one can exist then we're forced to deny that every other instance of X is accurate. Therefore since trusting events with the features of X lead us to mutually incompatible beliefs and no way to choose between them it does not appear that it's a good principle to use.

Do atheists know that God exists?

I've been running into this idea lately and it's been confusing me. The most popular way to justify belief in a God and Christianity is the self authenticating witness of the holy spirit. Due to the harmful effects of sin this witness isn't always so obvious. But when an unbeliever is shown Christian teachings the holy spirit heals the effects of sin and allows the unbeliever to see the truth. I'm a little fuzzy on this point, at times I've seen it claimed that atheists know the truth of Gods existence all the time and simply chose to deny it. In either case there is a point were the holy spirit shows itself to an atheist.

Here's a quote from William Lane Craigs Reasonable Faith "unbelief is at root a spiritual, not an intellectual, problem." He goes on to characterize the claim of intellectual difficulty as "not sincere" and "an intellectual smoke screen to keep from confronting the real issue: his[the atheists] sin before God." These are very common claims in Christian apologetics and theology.

Here's the problem. I'm an atheist, I'm daily confronted with Christianity and I do not feel this self authenticating spirit. Are Christians in general committed to the idea that I'm lying? Why would I do that?

This was actually a major reason I originally turned away from Christianity. I noticed the fact that there were a huge number of completely honest people out there on a quest for truth that arrive at completely different conclusions. It simply didn't seem likely that everyone except Christians were lying through their teeth. Not bad thinking for a 12 year old.

In any case, we've got a serious problem here. Either I'm a liar or God does not exist as described by apologists like Craig. Of course there's always option C were some convoluted apologetic justifies Gods actions. In the years since I first considered this problem I haven't found any plausible account of how this could be the case.

Introduction, purpose and all that jazz

This blog will mainly be about religion, atheism and philosophy. I'm not an expert in any of these fields so don't expect the last word on any given subject to come from me and whatever you do don't buy what I'm saying wholesale. There will be times when I'm very wrong and you shouldn't base your belief in the truth on the word of any single person let alone someone who's nowhere near certain himself. That brings me to the title of the blog. It's exactly what I want to do. I want to know what's true about our beliefs in gods, ideas about morality, meaning and purpose. What should people do? Why should they do it? Is there really an external world or has some deamon got me in his thrall? Hopefully I'll find out. If you're interested, you're welcome to join me.

The format will be as follows. I intend to read books on philosophy and religion, summarize what I think is important then comment on why it is (or is not) actually relevant. I'm going to follow other blogs on similar subjects and give my thoughts on them. I might get into politics as they relate to to the blogs focus but I'll try not to because I don't like politics much and know even less about it. Current events are likely candidates as well. Finally, sometimes I'll just rant on whatever thought has been running through my head recently.