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We can learn, computers can learn. We can change our minds, computers can change their minds (when further, more detailed, computation is completed - as an analogy to our "thinking things through").

Hi TrisB! You wrote: "To not have free will wouldn't stop you from making choices." Okay. But what kind of choices? You say computers can "learn." I accept that, with the qualification that they can only "learn" within the parameters established for them by their programmers: recursive loops, etc., etc., which perhaps provide for feedback that program logic can utilize in a "novel" way. Is this what you mean by "free will?"

But what a computer can never do is say, "I think I'll take a little break from executing this program, and go write a sonnet instead; or play baseball with my buddies; or maybe paint a watercolor, or compose a symphony, or build a tree house for my kids...." In that sense, computers are "determined," not free: They seemingly are "slaves" to their programs (and programmers) in a way a human being is not.

You wrote: I'm struggling in retrospect of my young days when I did believe in free will, and now trying desperately to understand what it could possibly be, and what would permit it to exist outside of order and chaos.

Well I certaintly agree with you that "order" tends very quickly to be boring, and that chaos produces "no occurrence [of] any significance."

When you boil it all down, human beings (and computers) are neither "orderly" nor "chaotic" (as a rule). The chief difference between them, it seems to me, is that humans can work outside of their "programs" -- which is why they have free will, and why computers do not. FWIW.

Being an atheist, you have ruled out a possible answer to the question of "what it could possibly be" in advance.

Thanks so much for writing, TrisB!

You wrote: "To not have free will wouldn't stop you from making choices." Okay. But what kind of choices?

LOLOL! I had the same reaction. A circuit board does not make choices, it executes logic. Software is the same albeit not hard-wired.

The metaphysical naturalist (atheist) view is that "all that there is" is matter in all its motions, microscope to telescope. The necessary consequence of that line of thought is that the "mind is what the brain does" that "there is no ghost in the machine."

That means the mind is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain. An epiphenomenon is a secondary phenomenon which can cause nothing to happen!

The atheist's "reality" (a false, second reality actually) - unfolds according to physical laws and physical constants only. What is called a "choice" is an illusion, it can cause nothing to happen. It is like a circuit board, cellular automata, or a phenomenon emerging from self-organizing complexity. The universe, in the atheist view, is executing its program.

Moreover, atheism fails on causation per se.

If not for time, events would not occur. If not for space, things would not be.

Every cosmology has a beginning and they all rely on space/time for causation. Yet there is nothing in the void of the beginning - no space, no time, no energy, no matter, no physical laws, no physical constants, no thing and especially no physical causation. There must be an uncaused cause of causation itself, i.e. God.

The chief difference between them, it seems to me, is that humans can work outside of their "programs" -- which is why they have free will, and why computers do not. FWIW.

Exactly so, my dear sister in Christ! Thank you for all of your outstanding posts.

Hi huys, this is all good stuff, but I'm still going to brutally disagree though lol!

[computers are "determined," not free: They seemingly are "slaves" to their programs (and programmers) in a way a human being is not.]

Is this not just blind postulation? I would here accuse you of lack of imagination - why couldn't we ever make a robot who could spontaneously decide to write a sonnet? Ok this one is more tough, but play baseball with my buddies achieves several important human drives - social behavior creating trust - improving mutual survival prospects, male urges to compete for obvious genetic reasons, the endorphin rush of exercise etc etc The point is that these are all just variables leading to finite desired end-states, no different in principle from a computer calculating an optimal course of action e.g. a robot calculating the shortest route to something. Sure one is more complicated, but is that not irrelevant?

[human beings (and computers) are neither "orderly" nor "chaotic" (as a rule). The chief difference between them, it seems to me, is that humans can work outside of their "programs" ]

How can something be neither orderly or chaotic? As I said, a "commuting" mixture is nothing different. Can humans really work outside their programs? Surely if I do something, I have to learn it first? Learning is a fascinating subject, and it starts often with freely associative attempts and empathic mimicking of others. Aside things which we do randomly, we generally have to create a subroutine describing what to do, before we do it. Yes yes we can write our own subroutines, but we only do so under the guidance of other ones, or as a learning process. Once written, it is then by definition not outside our programming. Our superior ability to learn compared with computers is on a sliding scale, and is irrelevant. It only reflects our current level of engineering expertise. The spontaneous desire to write sonnets arises out of a huge matrix of social phenomena, in a manor as to be inconceivably unpredictable - our minds see themselves so rich in complexity that they appear to "come alive". Sure our minds are complex, but again this is an issue of scale not substance. (Have you never marveled at the unpredictability and spontaneity of Microsoft products to go SEEMINGLY outside their programming?? Technically they don't, its just we cant explain why sometimes)

[you have ruled out a possible answer to the question of "what it could possibly be" in advance.]

Aren't all arguments based on axioms? Having them is not inherently wrong. Attack the axioms (order/chaos) if you must.