Can there be free will as well as fate?

I was having a conversation with my father and he told me that, despite us having complete free will, there are just some events that are simply meant to happen. We've all had such experiences, right? What do you think?

I think God's more of the engineer kind, making this grand machine capable of not only furthering itself, but also creating chemical compounds able to autonomously reproduce, evolve and adapt. He's just observing passively.

But sometimes he likes to intervene for the fuck of it.

I consider myself a Catholic but this is what I personally live on. No other answer satisfies me fully.

So God did give us free will, but it can be interfered with, similar to how even relatively libertarian governments usually interfere anyway in certain scenarios. And we have no way of judging such interferences as being "moral" or "immoral" (an argument often brought up by atheists), since God is a higher being, possibly with a sense of morality alien to ours. Is that what you're implying?

Everything is completely predetermined, fated if you want, there's only one way things can ever and will ever happen. We are also broadly free in the exercise of our will most of the time.

Aye

It's either that or God controls literally every single detail like a massive sperg.

OP here

You know, I'd like to hear replies from atheists or deists, or people who are more leaning towards the free will side than on the fate side.

Me personally, despite being a Catholic, I'm on neither, since I have no idea of what to thing of this yet.

If everything was meant to happen then their is no freedom...

A boy was meant to like a girl = No freedom

A teacher had an argument with a student = No freedom

A political leader wanting land = No freedom

Point is if everything happens for a reason then the freedom of thought does not exist

Not everything, but certain events.

My father always assumes responsibility for his actions and for the consequences that they bring forth, but he believes that certain events, such as him being with my mother, or his current business trip (a place he never thought he'd visit again) were simply meant to happen. His decisions and actions in his job can have alternative scenarios, but those other ones cannot.

His words, not mine.

I think there's a deterministic aspect in life in that you are constricted to the decisions the "person" you are would make, sort of an athiestic view of fate. Obviously this would lead to unchangeable scenarios in your life like I don't know, being at a blood donation clinic one day and it gets bombed or some shit. That could be seen as "fate" I guess.

If we assume causality everything must be determined, thus what alternative do you see? If there were no causality and everything were truly random and occurred uncaused by any other thing, how is this any more free? If the illusion of causality is created by say the micromanagement of God's will then here too where is freedom.
Insofar as freedom or free thought exists it is solely due to the causal nature of reality which permits us to reason and enact our will.

No still don't believe that. If he does or anybody else does okay, go for it

But in my opinion if you think everything happens for a reason you are being disrespectful and ignorant but with the "certain" things happen for a reason not so much I guess that's okay...Because you obviously would be avoiding the most atrocious things

and everything were truly random and occurred uncaused by any other thing, how is this any more free?

Because it's random, their are no strings attached. If everything did happen for a reason then their are strings I.e Nature having a mind, God, the Universe having a mind, Nature and the universe having plans...

If things happen for a reason then life is scripted and false. Our thoughts, feelings, people we speak too animals we see are all just one big play.

Thanks for the replies you guys. This is gonna make for an interesting thread indeed.
Yeah, that's kind of what's going on here. I'm a bit more inclined to believe in that in "pure free will" or "pure determinism".

>causality
I can see where you are coming from. Indeed, that is a valid argument. However, causality can open up to multiple different scenarios, right? Do you believe that humans have the ability to make their own decisions, or do you believe that everything is simply cause and effect?
> illusion of causality
Those three words lead me to believe that you are against the idea of causality, but I'm not quite sure.
> Insofar as freedom or free thought exists it is solely due to the causal nature of reality which permits us to reason and enact our will.
So even free will is a result of causality, right? So... does that make free will actually free, or not? I'm not sure what argument you're in favor of.

>3548301
> everything happens for a reason
My father does not believe in that at all. Trust me, he's the opposite. He hates people who think like that, and he gets quite impatient whenever, for instance, I tell him that I'll wait for something, rather than actually go out for it. He's a pretty decent and successful businessman. Don't even think for a second that he thanks his good life purely on luck or "fate", and that he discredits his own hard work. It's just that he believes that there are certain, say, "dots" or "checkpoints" in life that are already predetermined (considering what happened before, of course). For example, once again, when he met my mother. Everything else in between, however, is free will.

Think of it this way: those "points" sort of develop as your life goes on. If my father had taken a certain different choice in life, than his encounter with my mother would've never happened, and instead that "fate" would've been something else. But regardless, that fate was simply bound to happen.

I dunno, something like that.

(Same user)

Yeah I know and understand where your dad is coming from but he wont be thinking the "dots" would be people raping people, a still born, torture, human trafficking, animal abuse and all the other major bad things would be "dots" he would just be thinking of the good things or the slight bad things that make humans progress and learn from their mistakes not actually the big bad events.

Basically he is cherry picking, most people do that anyway

not god but brahman is the source of all creation

Makes sense too. You definitely have a point. I'll ask him about that soon enough.

What people don't understand is that there is no reason God has to adhere to logic, order, etc. He can make reality as inconsistant and paradoxically as he wants, so yes, there can be free will and fate at the same time.

In a random world everything possible would either happen or not happen in every possible moment. Besides the point that under these conditions nothing like life could ever exist, nothing really could exist just individual specks of matter flickering in and out of motion, completely independent of eachother, incapable of affecting eachother, their motion being of no consequence for their future behaviour. In a world without causality i don't think we can speak of freedom or free will, there's no will for there to be free. If we posit a fully formed person in such a world and assert they would immediately cease functioning and fall apart as the human body is mechanistic. Free thought and free will cannot exist by definition in a world where thought and will are impossible.
In fact thought and will, being products of human reason which depends on one thing following from another, are dependent on causality. Thus if we accept that causality necessitates by laws of motion the predetermination of all things and that both thought and will too stem from causality we should accept that any free thought or free will requires and wholly determinist world. Rather than being antithetical to free will determinism is its prerequisite.

>causality can open up to multiple different scenarios
can it? A dice thrown in the exact same way in the same conditions will always land on the same side. The laws of motion appear pretty solid above the subatomic level. As with an equation the only way you ever get a different result is by changing one or more variables.
>Do you believe that humans have the ability to make their own decisions, or do you believe that everything is simply cause and effect?
I don't consider these to be contradictory. Decision making is highly deterministic. It requires causality. When i make a decision i will surely do it for a reason. Something in the past, some bit of knowledge will lead me to decide on one option over another.

>brahman
A cow?
Jk, I know what you're talking about. I'm quite interested in Hindu mythology and philosophy.

Yeah, exactly. I agree. That's how I view God.

So you believe in both determinism and free will? That's new. Sounds reasonable to me. Not even being sarcastic here, it's something I haven't considered yet, due to how everyone claims those to be mutually exclusive.

Continuing from here >> illusion of causality
>Those three words lead me to believe that you are against the idea of causality, but I'm not quite sure.
I was just accounting for the possibility that reality is not causal, we have no way to prove one thing following another was caused by it, we assume causality because it appears to exist in an overwhelming majority of our observations and is key to us making sense of the world. It may not exist. God may be doing every single thing in a way that simply makes sense and there are no set in stone laws of motion ensuring that one domino falling causes another to fall.
>So even free will is a result of causality, right?
I think its only made possible because of it.
>So... does that make free will actually free, or not? I'm not sure what argument you're in favor of.
I'd describe my position as radical compatibilism. We can't necessarily control our will but we are free to exercise it in the world. Even though all of history since the beginning of motion has in a series of overlapping and clashing chains of events led up to my decision here and now I am still unless coerced able to take the path i want.
Imagine if the right-hand path in the OP picture were actually a painted wall which the man approaching it only perceived as an alternative path. Choosing the left-hand path he would have been able to exercise his free will in that. Although he had no real alternative and had he chosen the right he'd find a wall and be set on the same single existing path, he still made a free choice. We live by always picking the one real option.

The more significant and connected to the world at large that a particular thing is, the more it's governed by deterministic principles.

Like, nobody buy you could know what pair of socks you will pull out of the drawer tomorrow, but it's reasonably certain that if you were a Walmart cashier yesterday, you won't suddenly become the President tomorrow.

Whew, that's a relief. I was starting to worry I'd suddenly lose my will to live because I'd realize that life wasn't worth living because every single event is pre-determined.

You know, sometimes I wonder why it is that I, or really any of us, even ponder upon such questions in the first place. There always comes a time where we will simply have to assume things due to lack of knowledge. God, fate, the Universe, etc. Nobody has any definitive answers, you know? Although they do make for interesting conversations.

Hahaha, that's a funny scenario, but it is accurate. You got the right idea here.

Fate - X will happen

Free will - X will not necessarily happen

Free will cannot coexist with fate.

What does our will have to do with the certainty with which something will occur? Surely as long as we can make choices we have a free will no?

Freedom is not a relative state. Even if you were to be able to make every choice in your life but one, you would still not be free.

But maybe you are completely free. My point is just that such would deny the existence of fate. That is all.

To clarify are you claiming that the only way for us to be free is to be without limitations, with no conditions to restrict us?

I am oversimplifying like there's no tomorrow here, but essentially yes.

Why would you have an unworkable definition of freedom or free will?

?

Without limitations (thus without freedom by the definition you use) we cannot form a will, we can make no choices, we have no objects of reference by which to exist. Thus by your definition free will cannot exist.

As I explained here and causality is a prerequisite for will. But causality limits us to a single determined path. If we consider freedom to be a lack of limitation then either we concede that free will is an oxymoron or that the 'freedom' of will is unrelated to freedom as such.

>Without limitations we can make no choices, we have no objects of reference by which to exist. Thus by your definition free will cannot exist.

I don't see how.


Also, don't link your non-contextualized walls of text as responses.