Thank you Mike for your comments and references. Just to clarify, we are not sociologists nor historians. Those social sciences give us an exquisite account of observed behavior but they do not establish a cause/effect relationship. They can provide us only correlational data - what may go together. We are behavior analysts - a natural science of behavior that can establish cause and effect relationships. It is a functional analytic science. As such we look at causes of behavior and establish a cause/effect relationship. So when we look at the historical record of behavior we can look at the factors (contingencies of reinforcement in place) that contribute to the change in behavior observed. Thank you for your reference of the Fourth Turning. Putnam takes a similar approach in his book The Upswing. He is a sociologist who demonstrated a correlation between the turns of I-We-I with changes in human behavior and concluded based on this observation, that was correlational, that human actions was the main driver of the turns he observed as well as others. Thanks again!
So in their books Generations and The Fourth Turning, leading generational experts Neil Howe (who'll have a new book out in July) and William Strauss (who has since died) showed that Americans have gyrated between eras of strong individualism (the 1920s) and strong community (the 1950s) many times. The crisis periods and the post-crisis periods are the times we come together, so 1933 to 1963 was a time of strong unity and we've been getting more and more individualized since 1964. It's a very interesting paradigm that I've been aware of since 1990, when I was 24.
(I view you gentlemen as sociologists, not theologians or moral philosophers, so I'll wait and see what you come up with in your next two posts before I decide whether to respond to your metaphysical or anti-metaphysical views.)
By the way Mike we view this issue of free will not from a metaphysical or anti-metaphysical views but from a view of science that considers metaphysical a philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality - therefore to be only discovered by the scientific method and not by philosophy alone. Heads up!
I hear you. In the next posting Faris and I address your point of view which is shared by many. Free will is a challenge. That is why we are taking the time to address it. We welcomed your comments. Just be open to an alternative to free will. Life can be better without free will
I believe that free will is God given. To me, that means that there is an innate sense within each human that they truly can do whatever they wish to - that there is an available set of choices and all choices are attainable. However, I believe that as soon as the rational thinking faculties of a human begins to develop, the free will of each person is subjected to laws that keep that free will in check. For instance, the law of gravity states that what goes up must come down (in crude terms) a baby at birth is unaware of this and believes it can do anything, it does not consider the law of gravity when it tries to jump of a chair. If the baby does jump, the law of gravity shows that with free will comes guardrails that do not take free will into account.
This also ties into the question of being able to have a relationship with God with or without free will. I think without the free will as I described it above, there is no faith because faith is based on a choice and that choice is based on the inner sense that the choice is available to you unrestricted.
Thank you Mike for your comments and references. Just to clarify, we are not sociologists nor historians. Those social sciences give us an exquisite account of observed behavior but they do not establish a cause/effect relationship. They can provide us only correlational data - what may go together. We are behavior analysts - a natural science of behavior that can establish cause and effect relationships. It is a functional analytic science. As such we look at causes of behavior and establish a cause/effect relationship. So when we look at the historical record of behavior we can look at the factors (contingencies of reinforcement in place) that contribute to the change in behavior observed. Thank you for your reference of the Fourth Turning. Putnam takes a similar approach in his book The Upswing. He is a sociologist who demonstrated a correlation between the turns of I-We-I with changes in human behavior and concluded based on this observation, that was correlational, that human actions was the main driver of the turns he observed as well as others. Thanks again!
So in their books Generations and The Fourth Turning, leading generational experts Neil Howe (who'll have a new book out in July) and William Strauss (who has since died) showed that Americans have gyrated between eras of strong individualism (the 1920s) and strong community (the 1950s) many times. The crisis periods and the post-crisis periods are the times we come together, so 1933 to 1963 was a time of strong unity and we've been getting more and more individualized since 1964. It's a very interesting paradigm that I've been aware of since 1990, when I was 24.
(I view you gentlemen as sociologists, not theologians or moral philosophers, so I'll wait and see what you come up with in your next two posts before I decide whether to respond to your metaphysical or anti-metaphysical views.)
By the way Mike we view this issue of free will not from a metaphysical or anti-metaphysical views but from a view of science that considers metaphysical a philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality - therefore to be only discovered by the scientific method and not by philosophy alone. Heads up!
Should be interesting. I suspect I'll have a great deal to say in response.
I hear you. In the next posting Faris and I address your point of view which is shared by many. Free will is a challenge. That is why we are taking the time to address it. We welcomed your comments. Just be open to an alternative to free will. Life can be better without free will
I believe that free will is God given. To me, that means that there is an innate sense within each human that they truly can do whatever they wish to - that there is an available set of choices and all choices are attainable. However, I believe that as soon as the rational thinking faculties of a human begins to develop, the free will of each person is subjected to laws that keep that free will in check. For instance, the law of gravity states that what goes up must come down (in crude terms) a baby at birth is unaware of this and believes it can do anything, it does not consider the law of gravity when it tries to jump of a chair. If the baby does jump, the law of gravity shows that with free will comes guardrails that do not take free will into account.
This also ties into the question of being able to have a relationship with God with or without free will. I think without the free will as I described it above, there is no faith because faith is based on a choice and that choice is based on the inner sense that the choice is available to you unrestricted.