Sure Roemer, and I’m sure the government also gives you:
-Your religion
-Your morality
-Food, water, shelter
Your argument does not follow through.
Also, please, this is an economics and politics board, keep your religious views to yourself.
There are real beings, like ourselves, and mental beings, like Santa Claus. Mental beings only exist when a human is thinking of the mental being. God is not a mental being, God is a real being. We don’t know we exist because we see our selves. We know we exist because we can make ourselves the subject of our own knowledge.
All historians agree that the Resurrection of Jesus is an historical event, not a metaphor. The followers of Jesus swore up and down that Jesus was alive. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan trace the Resurrection to within a few years of his death.
@Roemer
Santa Claus isn’t real? You’re wrong there buddy, I just saw him at the mall this past Christmas!( I am not taking you serious for obvious reasons, if you want to talk religion maybe you should go to a religion forum)
How do you differentiate between a mental being like Santa Claus, and God, which you claim is a real being? We have no means of proving the real existence of either.
Right, I believe in Santa Claus. All historians agree that St. Nicholas was a real being. Thus, Santa Claus is real, North Pole factory and all!
Let me walk everyone through the concept of freewill. Science is a method of inquiry based on knowledge gained from seeing, hearing, etc. Metaphysics is a different method of inquiry. An example of a metaphysical proposition is that, “humans have freewill.” Another example, is: “I think, therefore I am.” In metaphysics, we ignore questions we can’t answer or say that the question is a mystery.
Metaphysics sheds light on knowledge: Knowledge is the openness of being to the self-manifestation of being. I can’t think of any similar statement that sheds light on freewill. One implication of freewill is that humans possess a center of action that makes us unified with respect to ourselves but different from other beings. In other words, free will means that humans are finite beings.
Can I interpret the underlined to mean, “we can know stuff about ourselves”? And therefore that something exists if we can know something about it? I know something about Santa Claus. In other words, this is too vague. We still aren’t communicating.
The proof of God is called the cosmological proof. I have already explained it. What is wrong with the proof? Are you saying there is a logical flaw? What is it? Are you saying the basic assumptions are not true? One of the assumptions is that the universe is intelligible. This is what science is based on also. Why do experiments and spend decades studying scientific data if the universe is not intelligible?
I don’t really see a definition of free will there. You said just essentially, “If humans have free will, then they are finite.” (And what does finite mean in this context? That humans take up finite physical space?)
The meaning of finite is this: You exist and I exist, but I am not you and you are not me. We are two different beings. Our being is limited to ourselves. In other words, humans are finite beings.
So by finite you mean two humans are not the same person. Hence your definition of free will is that without free will we would not be separate people, but instead we would be the same person? That doesn’t seem like a definition.
Given that the definition seems elusive, is it your claim that the words “free will” cannot be defined, or are you just not sure how to phrase your definition yet?
Economics is a branch of metaphysics. Human beings employ means to achieve ends. The “ends” are called the “final cause” in metaphysics. Humans have to choose which ends to satisfy. Choose is another word for decide which has to do with free will. It makes no sense for economists to question whether or not humans have free will. Naturally, a liberal is going to deny that humans have free will because liberals only believe in scientific concepts. A liberal’s approach to economics is called “positive” because of their emphasis on measurements rather than pure reasoning.
@ Roemer
So according to you Milton Friedman was a pretty liberal guy?
At a lecture he once gave at a libertarian conference, I asked Milton Friedman why he didn’t believe in the Austrian theory of the business cycle. He said, “You can’t prove it.” Milton Friedman is definitely a liberal.
So by finite you mean two humans are not the same person. Hence your definition of free will is that without free will we would not be separate people, but instead we would be the same person? That doesn’t seem like a definition.
I was going to ignore this thread completely, but than this struck me as interesting. I can’t quite put it into better words at the moment, but doesn’t the law of identity at least imply subjectivism? In other words, and I can’t believe I am saying this, in a sense didn’t he give somewhat of a definition?
First I’m going to need to know what the law of identity is.
This might sound weird, but seriously I have no idea what the whole “A = A” thing is even about.
First I’m going to need to know what the law of identity is.
How would you define subjective reality? And how would you look at that in relation to choice (or at least percieved choice)? I guess the best definition of the law of identity may be “a thing which can define itself and that can contextualize the world around it”.
Also, how can you find causal relationships between things or categorize different things (e.g. a circle from a square) without a thing being what it is? How can something be not be what it is?
So by finite you mean two humans are not the same person. Hence your definition of free will is that without free will we would not be separate people, but instead we would be the same person? That doesn’t seem like a definition.
I was going to ignore this thread completely, but than this struck me as interesting. I can’t quite put it into better words at the moment, but doesn’t the law of identity at least imply subjectivism? In other words, and I can’t believe I am saying this, in a sense didn’t he give somewhat of a definition?
If free will is synonymous with individuality, why not just call it individuality rather than free will? The point being that although individuality may be necessary in defining free will, it is not sufficient. Free will must have some other property not yet mentioned.
If free will is synonymous with individuality, why not just call it individuality rather than free will?
dunno, I really don’t like using the word free will for anything, as it is a rather odd phrase and concept, my point was the man may actually have given a definition. Also you could simply invert your question “if individuality is synonymous with free will, why not just call it free will…individuality must have some other property not yet mentioned”.