[TaoHorror]

Madness, to summarize TH belief before things get too tangled:
If the universe is all cause-effect, then it doesn't make sense that humans have something that exists outside of that. If, though, a soul exists, then the the cause-effect chain is broken and free will can exist.

You said it better than I can, Wilshire - you're now my official spokesperson 

Did I derail the discussion? Apologies, the title is something about what do we believe: we having a soul/free will is what I believe and if I'm wrong, then we do not have free will. But I'll shut up now if I'm derailing ( not being defensive ).

[Wilshire]

Uh, maybe not quite yet. Probably just because I've had this exact conversation with you a few times already, but you're right its topically relevant .

[TLEILAXU]

I've seen what I can only describe as astonishment in many pets. Ever see a magic trick done for a dog?
Not sure why you need free will, a soul, eternal life, and a god, to feel things...
Emotions are felt, whether we're machines or not.

Agreed, you don't need those things to feel things. I concede consciousness can probably be achieved without free will/soul. My point is we don't have free will if we have no soul. Our perception of free will is the result of complex calculations ( the darkness that comes before ). "Holy shit, I'm a machine!" is not enough for me to "believe" we have free will. There's more to it.

We've spoken before about this, several times, and while I get that that's the crux of your perspective, I'm not sure how you're applying it to this discussion specifically.

Madness, to summarize TH belief before things get too tangled:
If the universe is all cause-effect, then it doesn't make sense that humans have something that exists outside of that. If, though, a soul exists, then the the cause-effect chain is broken and free will can exist.

The thing is, our worldviews are shaped by our cultures, by the things preceding us. Just notice how we speak about these things. "We are just machines" "With no free will it's simply complexity" "The mundane world vs. a deeper metaphysics". We are haunted by the spectre of a dualism that has followed us for thousands of years, and we feel reduced when we think about the notion that there is "nothing more".

But there's a World out there, a world that defies our notion of what it should be. What would a God of the physical be like?

[MSJ]

Tao, if we are machines, then id like to know in the hell the scientific community is trying to build fully functioning AI's? By your line of thinking we are the AI's.

I'm not a scientist and far from learned on a lot of the things. But, my layman thinking and all I've ever been taught is that the human body is biological, not mechanical. To me, pretty cut and dry, and the arguments that we are machines are nonsense.

We have free-will. Thats my stance. I can go out today and make a million different decisions. Those decisions will effect my life in various ways. We have the ability to make choices, to me, that's all that's needed to have free-will. I think people want to be the one who learns that were mechanical robots and controlled by the "universe", aliens or whatever. I find it all to be total Bullshit.

ETA: excuse me if I'm reading your argument wrong. Kinda hard to see who said what when 5 posts are quoted in a post. If I am, sorry. Could you explain it better. Or, whoever believes we're fucking machines, is love to know where that line of thinking comes from.

[TLEILAXU]

Tao, if we are machines, then id like to know in the hell the scientific community is trying to build fully functioning AI's? By your line of thinking we are the AI's.

*insert Madness comments about language*
We can't even communicate unless we have agreed upon what we roughly mean when we say "machine"!. As for AIs, as far as I know what people in the scientific community are working on is machine learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning

I'm not a scientist and far from learned on a lot of the things. But, my layman thinking and all I've ever been taught is that the human body is biological, not mechanical. To me, pretty cut and dry, and the arguments that we are machines are nonsense.

But what exactly is biological? Every living being consists of one or more cells, each which takes in inputs as environmental/metabolic signals and produce an output. You could maybe say this could fit the definition of a machine. Going deeper, the  molecules in cells that carry out biochemical reactions can be termed molecular machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_machine#Biological

So the argument would be that, except for the presence of a divine component, we are machines in the sense that we take in an input and produce an output, according to physical laws.

[TaoHorror]

Tao, if we are machines, then id like to know in the hell the scientific community is trying to build fully functioning AI's? By your line of thinking we are the AI's.

I'm not a scientist and far from learned on a lot of the things. But, my layman thinking and all I've ever been taught is that the human body is biological, not mechanical. To me, pretty cut and dry, and the arguments that we are machines are nonsense.

We have free-will. Thats my stance. I can go out today and make a million different decisions. Those decisions will effect my life in various ways. We have the ability to make choices, to me, that's all that's needed to have free-will. I think people want to be the one who learns that were mechanical robots and controlled by the "universe", aliens or whatever. I find it all to be total Bullshit.

ETA: excuse me if I'm reading your argument wrong. Kinda hard to see who said what when 5 posts are quoted in a post. If I am, sorry. Could you explain it better. Or, whoever believes we're fucking machines, is love to know where that line of thinking comes from.

No worries. I'll be clear. I BELIEVE/KNOW we have a soul and have free will.

That aside, if I discover we don't have a soul ( or any permutation of that, no outside, no meta-physical reality ) ... than I say we don't have free will. This caveat on the above leads to my discussion we're complex machines, nothing more. The meta-physical allows for more, nothing else does. So, yes, in this scenario, we are the AI.

I could be wrong about all if it. Could be we don't have a soul, but sport free will. I simply don't buy into this, is all.

[TaoHorror]

So the argument would be that, except for the presence of a divine component, we are machines in the sense that we take in an input and produce an output, according to physical laws.

If we don't have a soul ( no divine ), than I concur with the above. Carbon based, but still machines nonetheless.

[TLEILAXU]

So the argument would be that, except for the presence of a divine component, we are machines in the sense that we take in an input and produce an output, according to physical laws.

If we don't have a soul ( no divine ), than I concur with the above. Carbon based, but still machines nonetheless.

Yep, we're on the same page regarding this.

[Bolivar]

I'm Roman Catholic. Grew up loving the art, music, and philosophy but it's only the last few years since really I got into the practice. The more I read the Gospel and the meaning behind it, the more I'm blown away. I really think the reason why Christianity has transcended all cultural barriers and epochs is because Jesus Christ really was the Word Incarnate, revealing the logic behind the cipher of the human paradox. I also really believe that if you try to orient yourself towards the kind of life He's describing, you absolutely nurture a closer relationship between yourself and the objective truth/good - God. It's awesome watching your spirituality grow when you take the time to study scripture, do good works, and to meditate and pray.

As far as an afterlife, I trust the Word, so it seems to me we might go to sleep after death, there really is oblivion, but at the end of time, we're reincarnated and some of us will make it to the second Creation while the rest evaporate forever. The sole entry criteria is how you treated people worse off than you. That's not to say it's the only motivation behind my charity and volunteering. The Gospel teaches that many people less spiritually-inclined or who came to religion late will absolutely get in before I do.

As far the free will discussion in this thread, it just seems blatantly axiomatic to me that we have it. We wouldn't be typing about it on an online discussion forum if we didn't. From a naturalistic point of view, it doesn't make sense that the only animal that evolved to have self-expression wouldn't in fact have a self to express. The idea that the soul is blind to itself is completely nonsensical - we can easily apprehend our behavior and our motivations and change ourselves to become better. Prey that's really bad at evading predators can't go to a self-help class to become a better escapist - it just dies off and its genes are discarded from the population. It's important to note that I don't need a religious argument for free will. Catholics don't believe in the theology because it's been dictated to us from the bishops - we believe it because it's true. The notion that we can use logic and reasons to understand the universe is not a secular scientific ideal - it's entirely premised on the Thomistic science and Augustinian philosophy of the Middle Ages.

I just don't see how things like language, abstractions, creativity, and civilization otherwise came to be - these entirely artificial ecosystems we've created according to our sensibilities as much as our environmental necessity. Too much of what defines us is completely unhinged from our survival programming and indeed goes against it. That's why I think the Cross, among other things, is the ultimate refutation of determinism. It's incontrovertible evidence that you can choose to supersede your survival programming, the social pressures of your culture, and even the laws of a legitimate state. That's not to say it's natural or easy for mankind to break our inclinations - the first among the apostles lost his shit when Christ told him he was going to Jerusalem to sacrifice himself.

I suspect the attack on free will is wholly motivated to support the fallacy that science undermines religious meaning. This view is woefully mistaken - marine biology and thermodynamics have no stake in your inherent value or purpose in life. The vast majority of neuroscience is devoted to the altruistic endeavor of recovering mobility and cognition in people suffering from disabilities. It's only these weird public personalities cultivating a commercial brand that misconstrue it to opine on metaphysics, without any training or credentials to back up their agenda. And even then, free will has no inherent bearing on religion or meaning. My wife is Buddhist-Taoist-Confuscist. She believes in all kinds of crazy supernatural and superstitious stuff. She honestly believes her Taoist masters have magical powers to see the future and into the afterlife. But she scoffs and ridicules videos I watch about free will.

The life and teachings of Jesus Christ have permanently and irreversible changed this world for the better. Those who attack the philosophical foundations of our society do so at the peril of us all.

[BeardFisher-King]

I'm in Bolivar's corner on this debate. Very well said. I'd just note, as did Bolivar, that the existence of a soul (or, to use a term less religiously-charged, a self) and its free agency does not require a divine foundation. Our nature as independent selves arises from our self-consciousness, our ability to use the first-person case, and our ability to look at others as subjects possessing the same abilities as us.

As for free will, if one believes that the only valid method for studying human nature is the mechanistic, cause/effect, reductionist approach of science, then there is no room for free will. Fortunately, there are other valid methods.

Bolivar, that's a beautiful post. You mentioned Catholic music, so I thought I'd add that I sing Gregorian Chant at my church, where we are blessed to attend the traditional Latin Mass.

[Wilshire]

I have deep concerns with anything that makes Humans special above all other things. It implies the kind of self-centered thinking that almost certainly leads astray more than it reveals.

[H]

I have deep concerns with anything that makes Humans special above all other things. It implies the kind of self-centered thinking that almost certainly leads astray more than it reveals.

Humanism.  In a manner of thinking, it is probably the most popular religion by far.

[TaoHorror]

I have deep concerns with anything that makes Humans special above all other things. It implies the kind of self-centered thinking that almost certainly leads astray more than it reveals.

Humanism.  In a manner of thinking, it is probably the most popular religion by far.

Well, there's a cost to everything. Human special conceit has allowed for some horrible acts of sadism with impunity. That said, it's not out of bounds to think/realize there is something to our consciousness beyond any animal we've encountered. I've been pulling for dolphins and apes to "make that jump" so we can socialize with them, but best we've been able to do is train/interact on words/sounds for reactions, etc. The book Congo alluded to advancement with gorillas, but guess that was just fantasy, nothing has seemed to come of it.

[Wilshire]

That's the main trouble though, isn't it? If we think we're special, by definition nothing else can be.
Just as astronomers spent millennia developing maths to explain how stars move around the Earth, because they assumed they were the center.
Once you have a hammer, all your problems become nails. There's no guarantee that someone will come along and point out we're wrong, or that we'll listen if they do.

I fully expect us to genocide every species on the planet, and if it comes to it, the Universe, should we continue to believe we are special (especially given how we treat fellow humans).

Just as I feel that an eternal afterlife, and a personal god, drains all meaning from the world, so to does Humanity being special deny us a civil place among the universe. I hope we either learn better, or are exterminated for our folly, before we do irreparable harm.

[H]

Well, there's a cost to everything. Human special conceit has allowed for some horrible acts of sadism with impunity. That said, it's not out of bounds to think/realize there is something to our consciousness beyond any animal we've encountered. I've been pulling for dolphins and apes to "make that jump" so we can socialize with them, but best we've been able to do is train/interact on words/sounds for reactions, etc. The book Congo alluded to advancement with gorillas, but guess that was just fantasy, nothing has seemed to come of it.

Well, yes, our consciousness is certainly something aside any other animal we know of.  Here is the thing though, our "Humanist" bent places the modifier of "beyond" to that though.  What I mean is that we are absolutely biased toward thinking that being conscious is "better"/"preferable" to not being so.  While my position most probably seems negative, I'm far more neutral on the question of "is this a good thing?"