Free will makes more sense of our world than determinism—and science certainly allows for it

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 20, 2020

Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Philosophy}

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Scientists weigh in on both sides but accepting free will allows us to avoid some serious problems around logic and personal freedom:

Free will is a contentious topic in science these days. Theoretical physicists weigh in sharply on one side or the other. Just this month, based on quantum mechanics, mathematician Tim Andersen says maybe and theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder says no. Based on cosmology, the study of our universe, physicist George Ellis said yes last June…
Is free will a logical idea? Free will is a logical idea and denying it often results in errors in logic. For example, theoretical physicist Sean Carroll argues that human beings are “100% governed by the laws of physics.” The problem is, as Michael Egnor points out,
“If materialists are right, they cannot rationally claim to be right. If we are just meat, we can’t argue that we are just meat because meat isn’t the kind of thing that can make actual arguments. So here is the surprising result: Materialists implicitly demand that, at least when they argue, we suspend belief in materialism. – Michael Egnor, “Physicist Rejects Free Will—and Thus Fails Logic” At Mind Matters News”
So, in order to be right, Sean Carroll must make no sense. Meat has no opinions. Similarly, Sabine Hossenfelder misses the irony that she insists that people “change their minds” by accepting her assertion that they can’t change their minds.
News, “Do we really have free will? Four things to know” at Mind Matters News

Also: Your mind vs. your brain: Ten things to know. Although we are only beginning to understand the workings of the brain, it clearly isn’t the same thing as the mind. Modern neuroscience research is both shedding light on our brains and revealing the depths of its mysterious relationship with our minds.

Comments

Damn I should’ve proofread that last paragraph talk to text really garbled that Anyways I really strongly recommend for all of you to watch videos with Aaron Schurger He does a great breakdown of the Libet paradigm He even shows that everybody’s RP is different, sometimes it’s nonexistent, how curious that is. His stochastic model actually is far closer to our common sense model then the post decision model And it actually makes more sense It looks like he’s probably right And I do strongly recommend that site I posted because it has all of the big name neuroscientist that work on this problem https://neurophil-freewill.org/ But I do recommend checking out that site and keeping an eye on itAaronS1978_{October 21, 2020
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Do you all ever noticed that every science paper is always written like the individual doesn’t exist and the brain does everything? No science paper ever says you choose, it’s always the brain chooses or the brain does this They purposely try to write freewill out of the equation and they purposely try to write the identity of the individual out of the equation as well Not once do they realize if they didn’t have the ability to make observations and choices that every bit of their science and research would be totally invalid Their conclusions are because of your genes, your predisposed to particular conclusions, twin studies tell us that (thank you Nancy Segal) Your brain makes the choice based off of its neurology, if I just simply moved some of the connections you wouldn’t make that choice anymore so why would I believe your conclusion based off the fact that your wiring could be bad and your wiring is influenced by your genes You made your choice because you were socially motivated to do so your environment influenced your choice and therefore your choice was determined by the influence of others around you The scientist could try to argue that it’s the environment that causes their conclusion based off of science But this can never be true as their conclusion is still filtered through their genetically determined brain and neurologically determined thought process, all of which could be flawed I mean your stomach can even change your perception according to new research and even has its own intelligence So if there’s no free well or no ability to do otherwise then you can chuck your science out the window Because I can’t trust your meat computer to be as effective as my meat computer but I can’t help that because I was born that way and neither can you Nothing can be helped if they are right including your points of view, your opinions, and your conclusions Can’t help believe in God while you can’t help being an atheist and it wasn’t because you logically discern there wasn’t a God you just have a broken gene or Super (duper) Determinism determined your opinion at the very beginning of the Big Bang So all of you chimps that think you have a higher understanding because of science about free well why don’t you exercise at higher understanding and realize that nobody can help them selves even when you present your information that you believe is rightAaronS1978_{October 21, 2020
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There is no known psysical law to produce information. Information is immaterial so can be produced only by an immaterial entity=mind. Free will is higher-level than information level. Morality is the end purpose of free will. Therefore morality is the end purpose of this universe. Therefore a mind who freely would chose morality with a constancy close to a psysical law=determinism is the ultimate goal. :)JohnB_{October 21, 2020
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Atheists absolutely must claim that they have no free will since for them to concede otherwise, i.e. to concede the reality of free will, is for them to admit the reality of their own immaterial mind, and hence, is for them to concede the necessary truthfulness of Theism. Free will simply must be denied at all cost by atheists in order for them to maintain a naturalistic worldview.. For them to do otherwise is for them to allow, as Lewontin put it, 'a divine foot in the door'. Lewontin's full quote reads as such,
"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen. " - Richard Lewontin
Very telling quote! I would like to specifically focus in on one thing in particular that Lewontin claimed. When Lewontin claimed that,,,
"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs,"
When Lewontin claimed that, Lewontin was, in essence, claiming that all of science was a completely natural endeavor by man. A endeavor that had no 'super-natural' component to it whatsoever. The technical term for this naturalistic assumption by Lewontin is called 'methodological naturalism'
Methodological naturalism Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method. Methodological naturalists limit their scientific research to the study of natural causes, because any attempts to define causal relationships with the supernatural are never fruitful, and result in the creation of scientific "dead ends" and God of the gaps-type hypotheses. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Methodological_naturalism
In fact, the judge in the Dover case, who ruled in favor of Darwinian evolution, and against Intelligent Design, being taught in the public schools of Pennsylvania, stated that one of his primary reasons for excluding Intelligent Design from the public school classrooms in Pennsylvania was that "Methodological naturalism is (supposedly) a 'ground rule' of science today"
Methodological naturalism Excerpt: Pennock's testimony as an expert witness[21] at the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial was cited by the Judge in his Memorandum Opinion concluding that "Methodological naturalism is a 'ground rule' of science today":[22] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)#Methodological_naturalism
Yet, contrary to what atheists want to believe, 'methodological naturalism is not today, nor has it ever been, a 'ground rule' of science today":
Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014 Excerpt: In short, methodological naturalism (MN) never was the way science was always done. Science — empirical inquiry — pretty much takes care of itself, as long as curiosity, the evidence, and testability are given half a chance. A Rule Honored in the Breach Nor does MN govern today, except in official contexts (such as federal courts or statements from national science organizations),,, https://evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1/
Contrary to what atheists falsely claim, the fact of the matter is that all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of intelligent design and is certainly not based on the presupposition of methodological naturalism. From the essential Christian presuppositions that undergird the founding of modern science itself, (namely that the universe is rational and that the minds of men, being made in the ‘image of God’, can dare understand that rationality), to the intelligent design of the scientific instruments and experiments themselves, to the logical and mathematical analysis of experimental results themselves, from top to bottom, science itself is certainly not to be considered a ‘natural’ endeavor of man. Not one scientific instrument would ever exist if men did not first intelligently design that scientific instrument. Not one test tube, microscope, telescope, spectroscope, or etc.. etc.., was ever found just laying around on a beach somewhere which was ‘naturally’ constructed by nature. Not one experimental result would ever be rationally analyzed since there would be no immaterial minds to rationally analyze the immaterial logic and immaterial mathematics that lay behind the intelligently designed experiments in the first place. Again, all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of intelligent design and is certainly not based on the presupposition of methodological naturalism. In fact, assuming methodological naturalism, instead of assuming Intelligent Design, as the 'ground rule' of science today" leads to, to put it bluntly, complete insanity within science.
Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist (who believes Darwinian evolution to be true) is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. the illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who also must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the hopelessness of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is simply too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must also hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, Darwinian Materialism and/or Methodological Naturalism vs. Reality – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaksmYceRXM
Thus, although the Darwinian Atheist may firmly believe that he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
I could go further in this post laying out the specific empirical evidence for free will from quantum mechanics and neuroscience, (empirical evidence that atheists simply ignore or even mischaracterize, as they mischaracterize Libet's experiments that validated the reality of free will, see Michael Egnor's articles on Libet),,,, ,,, I could go further, but suffice it for now to say that atheists, with their artificial imposition of their doctrine of methodological naturalism onto science, are forcing scientists to deny what the science itself is clearly telling them and forcing them to make completely insane claims that go completely contrary what we intuitively know to be true about reality. (Mainly, to deny that we really do exist as real persons. Real persons who really do have free will. i.e. both personhood and free will turn out to be illusory within naturalism)bornagain77_{October 21, 2020
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Morality does not exist if there is no free will. Don't tell me what I do is wrong if I have no choice in what I do.GCS_{October 21, 2020
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No free will - Nothing matters. People freely spend a lot of time trying to prove that they have no freedom to do what they do.GCS_{October 21, 2020
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Removal of free will is the removal of logic.BobRyan_{October 21, 2020
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