What IS free will?

What IS free will?
so many threads arguing about determinism but nobody ever says what free will is supposed to actually be

being able to choose a course of action from among various alternatives

That's because it's an incoherent concept, like "omnipotence" it collapses when you try to define it.

I believe free will is what you would call a meme.

omnipotence = being able to do anything/ having unlimited power. what's incoherent about that?

The ability to make your descisions and determinations without outside influence and bias.
IE its impossible to accomplish. Generally people just don't want unfamiliar bodies to dictate to them. But they can not stop the familial, cultural, economic, political, and personal influences from affecting their decisions. This is assuming there is no god because there is none. But if there were, it would only make it less probable.

> incoherent concept
> omnipotence
> collapses when you try to define it

Mr. user, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

but that makes no sense
if omnipotence is incoherent, it can be defined but it's just that the definition implies a contradiction

>The ability to make your descisions and determinations without outside influence and bias.
but when we say someone was "acting of his own free will" we aren't saying he wasn't biased or influenced by anything
it's more like we're just saying he wasn't under coercion or out of his mind

Can an omnipotent being create a rock so heavy he can't lift it? If yes, he's not all-powerful. If no, he's not all powerful.

Definitions that contain contradictions are incoherent.

it implies that the person couldve taken any other course of action and they didn't. But that would've actually been impossible.

that's what i said
so if you think free will is incoherent you should be able to state the definition and derive a contradiction from it

how is that impossible? seems like there are tons of things i could have done today but didn't because i chose to do other things

I don't believe in free will, so I'll do no such thing. One of the reasons I reject the concept is precisely because I have never seen a coherent definition of it.

>seems like

There you go. Free will is an illusion, it suggest you could have done other than you did, but there is no basis for thinking this is true.

"a rock that an omnipotent being can't lift" is just a self-contradictory phrase
it's like "triangular circle"
it's nonsense

So no, he can't. Therefore, there is at least one thing your "omnipotent" bring can't do.

yet you can't name any incoherent definition of it either
also it's not like you can't define a thing you don't believe in, that makes no sense

"The ability to act without constraint".
Do I have to explain why this is incoherent? Do I have to explain why I, as someone who doesn't believe in free will, am not the one you should be asking to define it?

Dopey cunt.

reread the post
"lifting a rock that can't be lifted by a being that can lift any rock" is not a phrase that describes an action, it's just nonsense, like "triangular circle"
even if you could argue that it does describe an action but just a logically impossible one, omnipotence could just be defined as "the ability to do anything possible"

A better question would why such a materialistic paradox would even matter. Better yet, why an omnipotent being would care about the material realm at all considering it's destined to fade away.

>Do I have to explain why I, as someone who doesn't believe in free will, am not the one you should be asking to define it?
absolutely
someone who confidently rejects the existence of something should absolutely be able to explain what it is and why he confidently rejects its existence
>"The ability to act without constraint".
do you have any argument that this is a good definition of free will? doesn't seem like a remotely good one. seems more like a definition of omnipotence.

So your omnipotent being can't do anything that is logically impossible? Guess what moron, that means he isn't omnipotent.

Besides, making a rock too heavy to lift is something I, a non-omnipotent being, can do with ease. Are you saying that I can do something an omnipotent being can't? guess what, that means he isn't omnipotent.

is there any reason to think i could not have done otherwise?
if not, why should we believe i could not have done otherwise rather than be agnostic about it?

Holy shit you are a fucking moron. Try and understand, you tiny brained cretin: I have never seen a coherent definition of free will. Further, I do not think such a thing exists. therefore, for you to insist that I provide something I do not think exists, to support YOUR argument, is what we adults call "being a silly goose".

Now fuck off back to your ball-pit.

>is there any reason to think i could not have done otherwise?

The fact you didn't.

The ability to make a decision, based on data currently available, without being restricted by causality and therefore necessity.

Imagine a bunch of different options lined up in front of you. Free will is that you can pick whichever you want without outside influences pushing you toward a certain option.

This notions seem ridiculous to me, but what's my opinion count for?

that's your modus operandi huh?
ignore most of every post and just throw random insults?
fucking nu-atheists

how is that a reason to think i couldn't have done otherwise?

Ppl who cant let go of free will are really unintelligent in my experience.

>without outside influences pushing you toward a certain option

Actually, it should be "inwardly pushing you toward a certain option" because physical restraints are usually recognized as impeding on the excercise of free will.

What part of your stupid post did I ignore, dumb-dumb? You claim an omnipotent being can't do something I can do, and you don't see this as a contradiction? Google "contradiction", you dopey spastic.

not him, i agree with some of your points but this one's off, you can create a rock that YOU can't lift, not that "can't be lifted", but you're asking if an omnipotent creature can make the latter.
Comparing oranges to apples

you obviously ignored the main part of my post, which was that the phrase in question does not describe an action but is nonsense
that was the main part of two posts I made in a row, and you failed to respond to it both times
instead you responded to the anticipated objection, where i said that even if you could argue that it was not nonsense but described a logically impossible action, that would still not be a problem
of course, you did not actually prove yourself capable of arguing that, so of course you should not have responded to that part at all
at this point I'm just explaining obvious shit to you in the hopes that the embarrassment will suddenly dawn on you

you literally haven't said a single sensible thing
the fact that you don't believe in free will is absolutely no reason to think you shouldn't be able to define free will
the fact that you believe all definitions of free will are incoherent is absolutely no reason to think you shouldn't be able to define free will
in fact both probably depend on your ability to define free will properly
the definition you just gave was not incoherent, it just was not a good definition of free will
there is a difference between a bad definition and an incoherent one

I'll illustrate this for you: I believe unicorns don't exist, but I believe this because I have a good idea of what a unicorn is and I don't believe the idea is incoherent
however, if I defined a unicorn as "a magic one-horned horse that exists in our naturalistic universe" I would be giving an incoherent definition
if I just defined a unicorn as "a gay equine" I would be giving a fully coherent but still terrible definition of a unicorn
if I defined a unicorn as "a magic one-horned horse" I would be giving a definition that was both coherent and good
the only type of definition that you have given of free will was of the second type, it was like defining a unicorn as a gay equine

how can you say that this makes him not omnipotent unless you have in mind already some definition of omnipotence?

That's a logic trap.
You can create a thing you can't control because you are not all-powerful.

If something were all-powerful, nothing would be beyond its capabilities. As such "Can you make a rock you cannot lift" isn't suddenly proof that omnipotence is bunk. It demonstrates a misunderstanding of omnipotence. It's like asking "If God is so omipotent, why doesn't he stop being omnipotent? An omnipotent being should be able to stop being omipotent otherwise it's not really omnipotent!"

Omnipotence is a state of being for which all is overcome: accordingly, no, there are some things that an omnipotent being cannot do, not because those things are beyond omnipotence, but because omnipotence is beyond them. God cannot create a rock he can't lift because there is no such thing as a rock God cannot lift. I

At the surface, believers in free will have no problem in defining free will, so long as they haven't been confronted by opposing beliefs. Everyone grew up believing in free will without realizing it. We think the word "choice" is a valid word, when "decision" or "selection" are actually correct. When the determinists (or indeterminists) explains how causality contradicts free will, then believers in free will can only dance around the subject, trying to lead the discussion into other territories, attacking the opponents ideas and never proposing a specific defense of free will. A true, concise definition of free will would be: to act without being caused to act... because if you were caused by something other than your "self" it is not free will. But what is the self? If it's the brain, free will is bunk, because the brain is composed of atoms and follows the causal chain of the universe. If it is immaterial or outside of this dimension, then there still exists a cause. It must be conceded that if free will is real, it is EXTREMELY limited. But how the tiny amount of free will arises, you will never get a coherent answer.

no, you're the one that doesn't understand, just like the rock sentence is a paradox omnipotence also is, at least within our universe