I like this question because people have such a difficult time agreeing to agree on definitions. The most basic question of all, "What is Free Will" never gets hashed out so that people can discuss it on common terms. So I'm more interested now in just how to define it.
It's extremely difficult for people to imagine their own non-existence (whether before birth or after death), and perhaps the only way that an existing mind can contemplate itself is to imagine perpetual existence. Eternal Soul. After all, even the concept of time cannot exist without a mind to conceive it.
I'm convinced that the spiritual definition of it is just a self-serving delusion; the concept itself is just an emergent property (or Result) of a present mind. The question itself is meaningless in a scientific sense (as in what's one divided by zero), and only meaningful in a spiritual sense (as in how can I not have a soul). Hope I haven't speculated too much here already. The simple question(s) again that it comes down to is...
--What exactly is Free Will?
--Maybe there will always be two definitions, scientific vs. spiritual? Result vs. Cause?
Free Will is a Result, not a Cause
by Pope OoO (Out of Order)
Dec 30, 2012
I like this question because people have such a difficult time agreeing to agree on definitions. The most basic question of all, "What is Free Will" never gets hashed out so that people can discuss it on common terms. So I'm more interested now in just how to define it.
It's extremely difficult for people to imagine their own non-existence (whether before birth or after death), and perhaps the only way that an existing mind can contemplate itself is to imagine perpetual existence. Eternal Soul. After all, even the concept of time cannot exist without a mind to conceive it.
I'm convinced that the spiritual definition of it is just a self-serving delusion; the concept itself is just an emergent property (or Result) of a present mind. The question itself is meaningless in a scientific sense (as in what's one divided by zero), and only meaningful in a spiritual sense (as in how can I not have a soul). Hope I haven't speculated too much here already. The simple question(s) again that it comes down to is...
--What exactly is Free Will?
--Maybe there will always be two definitions, scientific vs. spiritual? Result vs. Cause?