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==Practical use of free will==

==Practical use of free will==

In my opinion the emphasis should be on the practical use of free will. To make clear the logic that people use when they talk in terms of choosing, but not focus on the common beliefs about free will that people have. And after that you can have some philosphical / scientific / religious talk about it. I don't have a problem with it if anybody has a different take than mine on what the logic in common practical use of free will is. Go ahead and criticize my take on it below. I have a BIG problem with it if some philosopher is mentioned who doesn't set out to find out what the logic in the common use is. Maybe common use is wrong, and some science suggests that it is false, but we should respect what it is, and then you can try to convince people to have something better. But to ignore common knowledge is really very elitist. And in my opinion the logic in common knowledge about freedom is actually very good, which I guess is why we use it all the time. 

In my opinion the emphasis should be on the practical use of free will. To make clear the logic that people use when they talk in terms of choosing in daily life, but not focus on common beliefs about free will that people might have.  

So free will is: the ability of a thing to turn out one way or another through choice. The alternatives are in the future in respect to the decider. What does the job of deciding is spiritual, and can therefore only be known subjectively.

So in practical use free will is: the ability of a thing to turn out one way or another through choice. The alternatives are in the future in respect to the decider. What does the job of deciding can only be known subjectively and is commonly referred to as spiritual.

For example the way people use words such as love and hate, is that those things do the job of deciding, realize one alternative over another. And how they come to know that any particular decision is loving, is by deciding it with their own free will. It is a social convention that these words should be used in this spontaneous way. So that means that in principle you may not calculate wether or not a choice is loving or hateful, so that the outcome is forced by the calculation, so that even a computer could determine who is loving or hateful. Instead you must determine what the spiritual quality of the decision is on the spot, by deciding from the available alternatives yourself spontaneously.

The spiritual are understood to be things like "love" "hate" etc. which are commonly known to exist by deciding that they are there, not by measuring.

It's important to note the distinction between (often inaccurate) descriptions of alternatives, and the actual alternatives themselves. For example a chesscomputer may calculate all possible moves and attribute a value to each move according to it's chance of winning. So the computer has gathered descriptions of alternatives, and then it calculates which alternative has the highest value. However the chesscomputer does not choose because the computer is forced to do the move with the highest value it calculates. There don't exist alternatives in the future of the computer, there only exists 1 forced result, the result with the highest calculated value of winning.   

There is a distinction between present alternatives that are calculated with a predefined goal, and alternatives that exist in the future. For example a chesscomputer calculates alternatives for the best move, so the chesscomputer is forced to do the best move without any possible alternative, and therefore it cannot choose. In science these principles are referred to as "weak" and "strong" anticipation (D. Dubois 2000).   

religion: according to Christian, Muslim and Jewish religions everything begins and ends with a decision. In the beginning the creation is a free act, and at the end the final judgement is also a free act. It is shown that the final judgement is a free act by the emphasis on the mercy of God in these religions. This means that the final judgement is not just a calculation of good and bad deeds with a forced result, it shows things may turn out another way by said mercy of God. In these religions the believer also relates to God of their own free will, by faith.

religion: the common use of free will in religion is the choice of God to create the universe, the final judgement of God between heaven and hell, and the choice of people to believe in God or not (faith).

science: scientists generally deny free will is real or have redefined free will so that there are no alternative results possible (reference Daniel Dennett, Robert Rosen). But in 2006 American scientists have demonstrated that alternatives are real with an experiment in which they searched a database of 4 elements, without actually running the search algorithm. The search algorithm was only possibly running, meaning a decision was made between the alternatives of running and not running the algorithm, and the decision turned out that the algorithm was not run. They could still functionally use the algorithm to search the database by only possiby, not actually, running it.

science: scientists generally deny, or redefine free will(reference Daniel Dennett, Robert Rosen). However, in 2006 American scientists demonstrated (P. Kwiat 2006) that they could search a database of 4 elements by only possibly running a search algorithm. Meaning a decision was made to run the algorithm or not, and the decision turned out that the algorithm didn't run.  

:Sir, you may want to avoid writing these huge "walls of text" in the future. People are less likely to read these huge essays on talk pages than simple, straightforward statements. [[User:DMorris|DMorris]] 12:09, 8 February 2010 (EST)

:Sir, you may want to avoid writing these huge "walls of text" in the future. People are less likely to read these huge essays on talk pages than simple, straightforward statements. [[User:DMorris|DMorris]] 12:09, 8 February 2010 (EST)