Dazhouan Doctrine Part I

Huh, as it turns out, I had the same idea as Luther did, about free will and predestination. If I were born 500 years earlier, I would have founded a new religion.

Ok, I haven't a clue if I've rattled on about this before, and I cannot be bothered to poke through my own archives. So here's a brief version of it.

I am a Christian. I believe there is a God, and it is a singular being. That really is about the extent of my belief, by the way. I'm a little doubtful about a lot of the other stuff that is attached to it. It's all written by men, always a dubious source. I mean, if in ten thousand years, someone finds a copy of the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, would it be taken as a serious historical document? It has occurred to me that it is possible that a very bored and rich person could fabricate the existence of a civilisation. Say we take the Shang dynasty in China. If I am not wrong, there are no actual documents or relics existing from that era. The only reference to it comes from the Zhou Dynasty, which followed it. So what if some bored scribe in the Zhou Dynasty decided to make up something and wrote it down? After a couple thousand years, no one really knows anymore if the history was real. If the Da Vinci Code survives a thousand years, will people really believe that Jesus married Mary Magdalene or whatever other nonsense is in that book?

Ok ok, back to the point. I don't believe in chance. I believe that everything has a cause, no matter how complex and involved it is. Given the exact same set of circumstances, things would happen the exact same way every time. It is impossible to vary from it, because the only autonomous factors are decisions, but if an individual is given the exact same set of conditions, the decision would be the same every time. People disagree, but really, it is like computers, for whom there are no random things, only an algorithm that runs every time a random number is requested. If two exactly similar computers are given exactly similar conditions and data, the answer would be the same every time. Unless there is some difference somewhere.

Do note that this does not invalidate the notion of free will. It does require a slightly different way of thinking about it. Free will is not random, that would not be free will at all, in any sense, for to be able to make autonomous decisions, one must make rational decisions. Rationalism is another complicated affair. Many people like to claim that the failure to take into account all available data is irrational. I say that in itself is a rational decision, to take only the amount of data that is perceived to be necessary to make a decision that is as informed as is needed. When a person makes a decision, the information that is discounted is considered to either cost more to obtain than the benefit of the improvement in the decision, or it is considered to be not important to the decision. Do also realise that the concept of importance is different between every individual. Every person has different priorities and preferences. The French generally prefer leisure to economic prosperity, certainly in comparison to Asians or Americans, but even then, it is a decision that is weighted. If the choice were between leisure and actual poverty, the choice would likely change somewhat. The utility derived from any particular thing varies between individuals. I find the utility maximisation model of economics to be a very all-encompassing one. Given preferences and constraints, every person makes decisions that maximise his or her utility given what is known. So-called irrational decisions are perfectly rational within the sphere of knowledge and thought at the time. With sufficient investigation, the maximisation is always there to be found.

Free will is within this context. If there is no maximisation of utility, then it is not free will. It is not will at all. It is giving up of all thought and action to Fortuna. If there is will, there will be decisions. To have will and not be able to make decisions is impossible. Even if you have an individual who has no means of manifesting decisions, such as perhaps a person who has lost all motor functions, or a non-corporeal ghost or something like that, decisions are still made, there is simply a gap with action. But to have will is to be enslaved necessarily to the factors which are involved in every decision. Free will is only the autonomy to maximise utility. To be given free will by God is to be allowed to develop without further modification. This is not to say that God does not know what will happen. If a mouse is released in a maze with cheese in the centre, the experimenter knows for certain that the mouse will seek the cheese. Yet the mouse is acting under its own free will. It decided to go look for food. That was a decision, not dictated by the experimenter, but known to him. To some extent, it was dictated in that by setting up the conditions, the experimenter knew what the decision would be. So the decision was created in that sense.

Ok, class is over, got to go. I'll continue later.