your first response seems to indicate that my restatement isn't equivalent, since not all mental processes are conscious ones.

anyway I'm not sure where to go with this now, I was just hoping to bridge the impasse because I was curious what aaron's response would be. But I've spent too many hours coding today and I've lost the thread :P

aaron: what is your objection to this definition of (libertarian?) free will: "the concept that humans are the conscious authors of their thoughts and actions"

I was assuming it was the word conscious but now I'm not sure if that makes sense or not

we shouldn't have to navigate around this stuff. i think it should have been obvious to aaron that "thoughts" in the definition of free will excludes things like the brain activity associated with reflexes.

aaron's way of responding is to beat you into submission with nittery without actually presenting an idea of his own

You had an accurate read of my view. If we take free will to be anything including reflexes, the notion of free will becomes utterly incoherent and completely detached from anything remotely close to the more common notions of it. And then I'll pretty much have no idea how to respond because the idea is novel and not sufficiently described to be understood.

But if we accept that things like reflexes don't count as an automatic violation of free will, then there's no issue with accepting the idea of God causing something like a reflex to help us to take notice of something, which then leads to consciously determined behaviors.

I don't have anything in particular against that definition. As it stands, it looks like it would serve as both libertarian and compatibilist notions of free will.

If you remove the word conscious from the definition, then you're back in augie's problem of saying that reflexes are willful acts, and then I once again need a better explanation of that view in order to understand it.

But that's not what you just said. Furthermore, you still have not elaborated on how other people can steal your free will from you.

Actually, I have. I've pointed out that there are no issues if you just step away from your auxiliary assumptions. You came in with strong assumptions, and you complained that they didn't make sense. My idea is for you to drop the strong assumptions, and adopt weaker assumptions that do not create the types of issues you are creating.

You are welcome to call it nittery, but I think I'm pointing out fairly obvious flaws in your concepts, and that if you took a step back from the idea that there's no way this can possibly work, you'll see that the resolution is quite simple.

I would respond by asking whether you (or augie) would also believe that all of our behaviors can be understood as the sum total of our mental processes.

If so, then it would be impossible to change ANY behavior without changing SOME mental process. With this understanding, I see no reason to try to argue against the question. I would simply point out that altering mental processes (as broadly understood here) is not a denial of free will (which specifically requires "conscious" mental processes).

If you do not think that our behaviors can be understood as the sum total of our mental processes, then there are some other things that can influence our behavior (including our will), and there's no inherent problem with God influencing those other processes, as there would be no necessary reason presented that this creates an issue for the will.

I think the above needs to be slightly amended, as some behaviors (such as jerking your hand away from a hot stove) do not use the brain, and instead use the reflex arc.

If you clicked the spoil button, did you consciously think the phrase that is contained therein? Did you author that thought?

I didn't want to get into too many technicalities, but you're correct that not all reflexes are the result of mental processes. Enough are that I can remove this subclass of reflexes and still have plenty of examples that work.

I could amend it by talking about all neuro-physiological functions, I think.

(Just for fun, if we allow such reflexes to not be problems for free will and authoring thoughts and whatnot, I suppose God could influence us without depriving us of free will by making us trip and fall as the result of a spontaneous muscle contraction or something like that. Of course, such examples are silly, but they are sufficient for a demonstration of influencing conscious thought processes without directly implanting thoughts and without affecting free will.)

Doesn't authoring a thought mean to be the originator, not just repeating anothers words?

I'm not following how, for want of a better description, how one's reflex can affect how one reflects (sry, I know that was terrible!).
For example, the hiring manager situation from above: what would be a plausible description of events? btw, it's rather contrived to have the better qualified candidate be the one being passed over and also the one praying. More convincing would be equal candidates, or better yet, the worse candidate praying. Isn't the whole idea to affect an unlikely outcome?

That's part of what I'm trying to figure out. What I'm failing to understand is how augie intends to bridge the gap from merely thinking the words to something else, and how this distinguishes free will from not free will.

For example, if I tell a classroom "Do problem #1" do they lack free will if they actually do problem #1? It seems like a very unusual approach to the question of free will to take away free will merely on the basis of those words.

The resolution I would have within the given definition is that after receiving the instructions, the person "owns" them by following through with the behavior. That is, there's some sort of process of assent to the statement during which "the will" then creates actual behaviors from the idea.

But if we grant this distinction (which is necessary to preserve a meaninful concept of free will), then there's once again no real issue with God implanting an idea (even directly) and the person freely willing to obey.

When skimming over a page, the eye is skipping words in a somewhat random manner. If something as little as an eye twitch brings into focus a particular word, which leads to the person thinking about the sentence, which leads to some observation about the candidate which makes him stronger in the eyes of the reviewer, then I'm done constructing an example.

At no point in this scenario did we assume that the individual applying for the job and praying was grossly underqualified for the position, or anything like that.

As far as this thread is concerned, ANYTHING that God does ruins free will (according to augie). I'm merely disputing that point.

But this sounds like a just-so scenario in which the reviewer needed to have performed a rather cursory reading of the candidates submission for the supernatural nudging to have any effect.

That's also why I mentioned a more convincing description would be if the worse (but still qualified) candidate was the one praying / ending up with the job. Otherwise, it sounds like praying is only going to be effective to correct objectively poor decisions. Surely there could be all kinds of reasons that the less-qualified candidate should end up with the job and hence have their prayer answered (reasons that the reviewer would not be privy to)? This is the type of example I was having difficulty following.

You're asking questions that are going beyond the scope of the conversation. I'm not proposing that prayer can get an underqualified (or lesser-qualified) person a job "by God's will." I don't even know whether I would believe that God would do that. Certainly, none of those have particular play in the details presented by OP, and none are relevant with regards to the question of free will and God's actions.

no, but i'd say if you discreetly altered their brain activity in such a way that they felt compelled to answer problem #1 without having read or heard explicit instructions and having the chance to reject them, that would be a violation of their free will.


i think this could possibly violate free will, depending on how much knowledge god has.

for example, if god already has the knowledge that upon reading and reflecting on the certain sentence, the reviewer will always select god's favored candidate, there is no free will in that example. the reviewer could not have not chosen god's candidate.

but, if god does not know that the reviewer will certainly choose god's favored candidate after reading that sentence, it wouldn't be a violation of free will. but it is also not an example of god answering a prayer. like i said before, i think it's an odd idea that god could try and fail at something.



isn't will power itself a mental process? what else is there besides mental processes?

I don't see how "discreetely" makes any difference. I actively changed their brain activity by speaking, and on the basis of my authority I can compel them to behave in ways they may not otherwise (gun-to-the-head, but not quite as strongly).

I maintain that your concept of "free will" is incoherent. This doesn't really make much sense to me.

It depends on your metaphysical assumptions.