It does not logically follow that, just because the final scene is already written, the path one takes to reach it is solitary.

>>9205

Isn't the final scene an accumulation of multiple paths of choices resulting into a single event?

>>9214
No. It isn't. It is THE RESULT OF. Not THE ACCUMULATION OF.

>>9220

So if the final scene is the result of multiple paths, then that means people's paths are already written. Therefore you truly don't have free will regarding your decisions, your decisions are already laid out for you.

>>9222
Here we have ending X
Formula N results in outcome X
Let's substitute 3 for X
What formulas are there that will result in 3?
1+2=3
0+3=3
1+1+1=3
-1+4=3
etc. etc.
Potential paths can be infinite. The answer being three does not guarantee what the formula reaching it is going to be. The only guarantees are that there is a formula and that the conclusion is 3. Does your brain not work that you can't figure this out yourself?

>>9224

You have proven my point. If peoples paths will result in the same outcome regardless of their choice, then you free will is non-existant because you don't have a choice of how the outcome will be. The outcome is already decided.

If there are multiple paths to take, and god knows the result of every one of those paths, this as well disproves free will.

The knowledge of the result not only disproves the act of choice, it invalidates the life experience.

>>9225
...
...
...
>you free will is non-existant because you don't have a choice of how the outcome will be
Regardless as to whether or not god or fate exist, you still have no choice as to what the outcome of your actions will be. Congratulations, according to you, you have now disproven free will with or without god or fate. Or you would have, if that was what free will was.

Free Will - A philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives.

What you are describing: the ability to undertake any activity and will an outcome you desire, is not free will. It is ABSOLUTE FREEDOM. Free Will does not encompass choosing the outcome of the choices you have made.

You don't even know the definition of what you're talking about. This board depresses me so much.

One's end state is always set. The final fate of every human being is a guaranteed conclusion that has nothing to do with religion or the supernatural. In the end, everyone is going to die.

I have no problem combining the concept of "free will" with the hypothetical existence of god who decides the final fate of everyone. As it has been mentioned, the journey to the destination is what is the important factor when defining "free will"; as I added, gods or none, the destination (death) is always the same for everyone.

Possibly, I can understand this because of my own personal writing style. I give a form of "free will" to my characters. Although certain large events in the plot — and the final conclusion — are set in stone, how the characters get there is largely contingent upon their own personality and desires. I don't decide exactly what will happen in between the important events; and through the process of writing, I find very unpredictable and odd things can and do occur. All I do is tell a character that he must walk from A to B... but whether he walks in a straight line between or takes a detour around the world in between is entirely up to their own "free will".

>>9227

An outcome is the result of a choice. The idea of Revelations is that the ending is already set, therefore the choices that lead to that outcome are already set as well. You therefore have no free will.

>>9236
So you are saying that because the conclusion is given, there is ONLY ONE PATH that can reach it.

According to your logic
1+1+1
and
2+1
can not both equal three, because there is only one possible path to a given outcome.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

>>9237

Free will is still void in the biblical scenario.

You use the example of 3 being the outcome, with multiple mathematical paths that you can take. Just like God, you have limited the person to only specific paths which can lead to that conclusion. If I had true free will, I can make a decision which leads to 4 or 5 being the answer, instead of just 3.

Regardless of whether there are multiple paths, which lead to the same ending, the fact that you cannot change the ending means you don't have true free will.

>>9237

There are multiple paths that lead to 3. Regardless, your paths are limited to only conclusions that result in 3. Your not able to take a path that leads to 23, 47, 193.

So even if the multiple path idea is true, god has limited you to only specific paths that lead to HIS conclusion. That is not free will.

>>9245
>>9244
Free Will - A philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives.

Even if god limited you to a single path and you were given NO CHOICE WHATSOEVER, you could still be said to have free will so long as you had the capacity to choose between multiple courses of action if they had been open to you. You can have free will without having any choices. You simply wouldn't be capable of expressing it.

What you are calling 'true free will' is, by the philosophical community, referred to as 'absolute freedom' or 'freedom of action.' You still don't know the definition of the words you're using. Learn your definitions, and learn how to spell.

When you are presented with a choice do you not choose?

>>9249

Personal insults aren't necessary. I enjoyed the debate though. I guess we agree to disagree.

>>9256
You consistently misspell and you don't know the definition of the word you're trying to use. These are not insults. These are objective facts.

>play video game
>choose to use cheat codes or not
>beat the game, regardless of choice
>feel accomplished or bored depending on the choices you made.

That is, even if the end result is the same, it will still be... different.

one theory is that the future is planned because it is actually the present, and we have already made all of the choices we will make in our lifetime. when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. you relive your life, up to the point you die, and then your life flashes again. maybe someone knew they were reliving their life, told the future to an old person, who told someone else while replaying their life and so on in a big game of "hay, pass it down".
sorry for the run-on

Guys its Revelation there is only one. It's the Book Revelation According to John. Obviously none of you can read. That being said, you all also missed the point of the Book of Revelation. There was, at the time of its writing, a genre of literature that was very popular. Apocalyptic writings were common and not considered prophetic. In fact, many of the early Christian church leaders had another apocalyptic book as a part of the new Biblical canon. It was called The Shepherd of Hermes. It along with The Didache, were in pretty much everyone's version of the Bible for the first couple centuries of Christianity. So really what I'm saying is that Revelation was not meant to be taken literally at all. Ever. It was actually just John bitching about Rome without John explicitly bitching about Rome so that he wouldn't die.

A predetermined event does not necessitate a lack of free will. If we take free will to mean "The free choice of action within personal and environmental limitations", and consider events with extremely high likelihoods (eg: the sun will rise tomorrow), it's clear that while those events sculpt the range of your limitations, they don't predetermine which available actions you will select.
If the made up fantasy nonsense in the bible turns out to be true, the apocalypse is a prearranged event, and while god gives people knowledge of the event as an ultimate punishment, it doesn't force us to choose the right actions, otherwise there would be no need for punishment (automata don't feel or think, and therefor cannot be punished)

There is a deep point contained in this question that was at the heart of Henri Bergson's view of the world and the metaphysic that we desire of it.

From Aristotle and the beginning before him we have had a certain enchantment with the conceptualization of Galileo: that the world consists, immediately, of a timeless representation of the totalized dispositions of physical bodies and of their relationships. We view the future as a simple mathematical derivation of the present, wherein nothing is added except additional values to the differential equations ds/dt, dx/dt and dy/dt. We are all subject to a *natural* equation of ourselves with the future, with our own genetic replications; but capital asks that we understand ourselves in completely different terms, those of productive units or capital accumulation, as a site of self-understanding that is identical with the site of purchase and speculation upon our own reified natures presented as "stock."

The world of selfhood today is a marketplace filled with confusions and bewilderment; we desperately seek a foundation, a determinate substance, in order that we may branch out from satisfaction into success. Without the implicit concept that we are part of such a non-standard grouping, there is no motivation for the creation of a determinate substance or the creation of a determinate opposition.

The nature of our political being is helpless in the face of our total decisions: in Italy, the fascist state reigns supreme through the most pointless innocence. Berlusconi and his government is either guilty or innocent on the basis of meaningless sex parties; the procession of military police into politics and limitless violence into democracy is nothing next to the spectacle of Bunga Bunga. Emergency itself is a mere reality television show that represents the state while actuality retreats into a Cold War sense of universal threat dealt with only by "Doomsday Preparatives".