Are you joking?
God (or nature if you prefer) necessarily is what it is. Choosing is an activity limited to creatures who cannot exit space time as long as they live.
Are you joking?
Yes, but it's not just choosing, thinking is also often considered a free will activity.
Are you trying to limit God?
Don't you see the profound difference between existing and being?
Invest time and resources in your education.
I'm not sure what kind of reasoning ability plants have. Does anyone really know?Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 12:03 pmSunflowers are not inanimate! But they don't reason because reasoning needs the ability to abstract general ideas from particulars, and this in turn needs symbolic language.
Animals that use tools (e.g.some apes , and crows) can generalise the concept of tools from bits of wood and a problem to be solved. However there's a huge difference of degree between what these intelligent animals do and what Einstein did.
True freedom cannot be "the expression of ourselves" because the very idea of self limits us to self and not-self, so we cannot be not-self. Not even the most empathetic person can be not-self. When you know the most you can know about about natural necessity, then you will be as free as you can be. Absolute freedom is impossible.bobmax wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 1:07 pmYes, but it's not just choosing, thinking is also often considered a free will activity.
That is to be able to think freely what you want.
But there is an underlying misunderstanding here about the freedom of the will.
Because by freedom we mean being able to take advantage of every possibility, even the most absurd.
While we do not realize that true freedom is, and only is, the expression of ourselves.
What we really are, not what we believe we are.
So freedom is directly connected with what I owe because this I am.
I choose what I owe because this I am.
And so we come to being.
"I am who I am"
Click.BigMike wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 6:57 amThey have. You just don't get it, do you?iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 6:27 amWhen my brain compels me to? And I suspect that the scientific community has not reached a definitive consensus on the free will/determinism conundrum...antinomy?Let's ask the scientists.
Why?
Perhaps. After all, if there is one thing we know for sure, nature doesn't create all that many Newtons and Einsteins and Hawkings. Though it does seem to mass-produce any number of arrogant, authroitarian "my way or the highway" objectivists.
On the other hand, even if one day we turn on the news and that is at the top of the newscast, how exactly would we go about demonstrating that this too is not just another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality?
Right, like pinning this down one way or the other isn't crucial when it comes to, say, assigning moral responsibility to the behaviors we choose. Just accept the arguments and the facts of the moral objectivists among us and, if you either can or cannot opt freely to do so, move on.BigMike wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 6:57 amWhy would you wish to demonstrate that this too is "just another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality?" If science demonstrates that everything adheres to the laws of physics and, consequently, there is only one "possible reality" how often do you wish to reiterate that this, too, is "just another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality"? Just accept the facts, and move on.
Ask you to confirm it?
So, is bahman a character that you play here or are you a character that he plays?
Big Mike, God (or nature if you prefer )does not exist like this or that exists. God is not a very powerful being among other beings, but is being itself. If it were not for being itself nothing would exist. Being implies relativity.
You can be it.