Question… Doesn’t the interaction of the zillions of component particles also determine the next split second’s configuration and interaction of the particles - kind of like a giant pachinko machine or pool table? Or is each split second independently configured (random)? I have trouble seeing it as anything other than deterministic. (Not predetermined as in the end state is known or intended but deterministic as in each configuration causes the next.)
So, Malacandra’s first option was right? (I know you said he misrepresented you, but I’m not sure how? 
) You say that it wouldn’t cross your mind, and isn’t that the same thing as not being able to imagine it? Or am I missing a finer point here?
Well, whether or not we were created is kind of a different (larger?) issue than whether/why we were created with free will. But I have to disagree with the idea that if we were created, then there is no need to care about anything. I think that’s the point trying to be made about free will. Sure, we could have been created to not care about anything, but, what kind of life would that be? (See Jodi’s post #660 for a much more eloquent take on that than I could provide!) Personally, I don’t think God created us so he could “be the boss,” as you put it…certainly not regarding human actions. I think God’s greatest “invention” is the human brain, and as far as I can see, he would be a pretty lame inventor if he didn’t expect us to use it.
Okay. In order:
This disregards the element of human volition that is inherent in the concept “to freely choose,” by introducing back into the discussion the idea that something other than violition “makes” or “causes” choice. You are at the ice cream store. You have the choice of chocolate, or low fat vanilla. You love chocolate, but you are trying to watch your calories. Now, maybe you choose chocolate because that’s your favorite; maybe you choose vanilla because it’s lower fat; or maybe you choose neither because if you can’t have the good stuff, you’d rather have none. There is no force other than your own volition that is “making” or “causing” you to choose as you do. The thing “making” or “causing” the choice is your own weighing of your options – i.e., the exercise of free will itself.
Yes, but that something can be your own decision to get off the mark in the first place. You may be placed in a circumstance where you are forced to choose, but in the absence of coercion, the way you choose is an exercise in free will.
Why would you have to BE wrong to CHOOSE wrong?
What is the unchosen determinant in the ice cream example above?
:: Shrug :: I don’t know what you’ve seen or read. I’m not aware of a lot of people trying to prove or disprove a concept that is generally recognized to be not amenablr to proof.
Not IME, though YMMV. Most scientists don’t concern themselves with God or the spiritual realm because their business is what can be tested and verified – i.e., proven – and it can’t be. That doesn’t mean they believe in it, necessarily, just that they recognize it is literally not their business and are generally not interested in it.
Yes, “God is definitionally outside the realm of proof” can certainly be an agnostic statement – frequently is, I suppose. It isn’t in my case though; the fact that I can’t prove God doesn’t lessen my firm belief in Him. And the fact that he’s not objectively provable doesn’t mean I don’t feel that I personally have proof of Him. I see proof of Him in, among other things, the human recognition of beauty (which others dismiss as a fluke); in love and altruism (which others dismiss as biology); in the order of the universe (which others dismiss as chance); and the persistence and universality of the idea of Him (which others dismiss as a mass delusion). Beyond that, I’m not lying awake nights worrying about whether He exists or not. I’m confident He does, and I believe my life is still better in every way because I beleve in Him.
Not “I’d like to believe it’s true [but really I don’t]” but “I believe it’s true,” full stop. You are asking me about my reality, and my reality is the latter, not the former.
I don’t know why He did either, but I’m glad He did. And just because you and I don’t know the reason why He does something (or anything), doesn’t mean such a reason can’t exist. The assumption that if we as humans can’t figure out God’s motivation, then no motivation exists, reads as human arrogance to Christians.
This is your belief, but it is not mine. My only point is that since you can no more prove that yours is correct than I can prove that mine is – and yours is the side demanding proof – it really is not well done for you to be contemptuous and dismissive of people who have reached a conclusion different from your own.
I do. But my standards differ for people who repeatedly misrepresent my position, intentionally take offense based on their own misrepresentation, and tell me to shut up.
You said “there is no other basis for knowledge other than that which can be proven.” I refer you to the dictionary.com definition of the word know so that you can determine which of us is attempting to use a “specialized definition.”
Certainly that’s an acceptable assertion. I don’t know – mind, I don’t mean prove – whether it’s true or not.
Would I mind? Yeah. I don’t use a sig much, and I don’t use my sig to “acknowledge respect” for anyone’s views. I don’t know anyone who does. It’s not my assertion anyway, it’s yours; you can put it in your sig if you want.
He’s saying I “can” imagine it but god would stop me from acting on it. I’m saying I “can’t” imagine it because there’d be no motivator for bad behavior because everything would automatically be perfect. Bad behavior simply doesn’t need to exist.
The point I’m making is that if there is a supreme and all controlling being, everything else ceases to be relevant. I cannot apply “human” attributes to a god if we cannot (or have not) determined it exists. Worry, caring, love, hate, compassion…those are all human qualities. Familiar qualities. I know the assumption amongst christians is that we are created in god’s image, but my response to that is, sez who? There is nothing to make me think that that particular biblical concept is a keeper as opposed to all the metaphors we’ve discarded.
Aaaaaaaand I fucked up the coding again. Geez…I hope I didn’t have a stroke or something.
This is begging the question. Something has to determine volition. The will cannot determine itself.
And what determines THAT choice?
And something has to determine it. It still has to be CAUSED by something. I’m not talking about coercion, or being “forced to choose.” I’m saying that there can’t be any undetermined will at all.
How could it be otherwise? Are you saying that in terms of western religious morality, it is not evil to make an evil choice or good to make a good one? Don’t you have to INTEND a moral choice in order to act on one? Do intentions have moral values?
The intention (not to be confused wth desire) to do wrong is already wrong, and what gets you to that intention? In order to choose a “wrong” intention you first have to intend a wrong intention and you get into an infinite regression. What is the difference between someone who chooses “rightly” and someone who chooses “wrongly?” Something has to determine that difference and that determinant cannot be chosen without THAT choice requiring a determinant. Sooner or later you always have to arrive at either an unchosen determinant or a random one. The will cannot determine itself.
Who knows? I guess preference in flavors is non-volitional but it doesn’t really matter. It is not necessary to be able to identify the determinant in order to knoiw that one has to exist.
:: Shrug :: I don’t know what you’ve seen or read. I’m not aware of a lot of people trying to prove or disprove a concept that is generally recognized to be not amenablr to proof.
Not IME, though YMMV. Most scientists don’t concern themselves with God or the spiritual realm because their business is what can be tested and verified – i.e., proven – and it can’t be. That doesn’t mean they believe in it, necessarily, just that they recognize it is literally not their business and are generally not interested in it.
Yes, “God is definitionally outside the realm of proof” can certainly be an agnostic statement – frequently is, I suppose. It isn’t in my case though; the fact that I can’t prove God doesn’t lessen my firm belief in Him. And the fact that he’s not objectively provable doesn’t mean I don’t feel that I personally have proof of Him. I see proof of Him in, among other things, the human recognition of beauty (which others dismiss as a fluke); in love and altruism (which others dismiss as biology); in the order of the universe (which others dismiss as chance); and the persistence and universality of the idea of Him (which others dismiss as a mass delusion). Beyond that, I’m not lying awake nights worrying about whether He exists or not. I’m confident He does, and I believe my life is still better in every way because I beleve in Him.
Not “I’d like to believe it’s true [but really I don’t]” but “I believe it’s true,” full stop. You are asking me about my reality, and my reality is the latter, not the former.
I don’t know why He did either, but I’m glad He did. And just because you and I don’t know the reason why He does something (or anything), doesn’t mean such a reason can’t exist. The assumption that if we as humans can’t figure out God’s motivation, then no motivation exists, reads as human arrogance to Christians.
This is your belief, but it is not mine. My only point is that since you can no more prove that yours is correct than I can prove that mine is – and yours is the side demanding proof – it really is not well done for you to be contemptuous and dismissive of people who have reached a conclusion different from your own.
I do. But my standards differ for people who repeatedly misrepresent my position, intentionally take offense based on their own misrepresentation, and tell me to shut up.
You said “there is no other basis for knowledge other than that which can be proven.” I refer you to the dictionary.com definition of the word know so that you can determine which of us is attempting to use a “specialized definition.”
Certainly that’s an acceptable assertion. I don’t know – mind, I don’t mean prove – whether it’s true or not.
Would I mind? Yeah. I don’t use a sig much, and I don’t use my sig to “acknowledge respect” for anyone’s views. I don’t know anyone who does. It’s not my assertion anyway, it’s yours; you can put it in your sig if you want.
[/QUOTE]
Let me try this post again with the coding and excess text cleaned up:
This is begging the question. Something has to determine volition. The will cannot determine itself.
And what determines THAT choice?
And something has to determine it. It still has to be CAUSED by something. I’m not talking about coercion, or being “forced to choose.” I’m saying that there can’t be any undetermined will at all.
How could it be otherwise? Are you saying that in terms of western religious morality, it is not evil to make an evil choice or good to make a good one? Don’t you have to INTEND a moral choice in order to act on one? Do intentions have moral values?
The intention (not to be confused wth desire) to do wrong is already wrong, and what gets you to that intention? In order to choose a “wrong” intention you first have to intend a wrong intention and you get into an infinite regression. What is the difference between someone who chooses “rightly” and someone who chooses “wrongly?” Something has to determine that difference and that determinant cannot be chosen without THAT choice requiring a determinant. Sooner or later you always have to arrive at either an unchosen determinant or a random one. The will cannot determine itself.
Who knows? I guess preference in flavors is non-volitional but it doesn’t really matter. It is not necessary to be able to identify the determinant in order to knoiw that one has to exist.
You’re going to have to define “determine” and “determinant” in this context for me. The only context I know “determinant” in is mathematical, and I can’t tell if you mean “determine” as in “cause” or “determine” as in “decide” – and that makes a big difference in how your post is read. Without knowing what you mean by these terms, I’m afraid I can’t answer your post.
Let me put it this way. What makes you WILLING to do something? (Please note that I am drawing a distinction between will and desire. Wanting to do something is not the same thing as being willing to do it.)
No more than it makes the universe something that I made to happen, and it’s all just reacting to me.
Furthermore, causality itself is only a useful way of viewing reality, it’s not a fundamental “truth” about reality itself. The division of The Big Bang — the only event that has ever occurred, and which has no prior cause — into a sequence of events in which the subsequent ones were caused by the prior ones, is merely a mental convenience.
As Alan Watts once said, the notion that the actual reason something is as it is now is because some prior state of affairs caused it is akin to an observer watching a cat come into the room. You see the head enter first, followed in short order by the tail. Knowing something about cats and motion and the passage of time and so forth, you can predict the tail as soon as the head begins to enter, but the tail of the cat was not really “caused” by the head.
Causality is highly useful — necessary, even — for us to be able to make predictions and to be able to fashion outcomes to our own ends. I am in no way disparaging the scientific method and its applications, believe me!
But as an explanation of reason, prior-state-causality is no more inherently “just so” than the assertion that the universe in its entirety is here and all events merely necessary pieces of universe in its 4-dimensional aspect. Or, for that matter, that the universe is here, and happening, because it want to and as it wants to.
(Neither purpose & intent nor the lack thereof are compellingly appropriate, really, but just as we find it necessary and useful to conceptualize the universe as passive object for everyday purposes, we find it necessary and useful to concepualize the universe as possessing purpose unto itself when we are embracing a sense of identity that incorporates it in its entirety)
Wouldn’t you have to exist outside of causation then?
I agree. The best I can make out, chaos is our best understanding existence at the lowest level that can be comprehend scientifically. Determinism seems to be a useful illusion beyond chaos. And free will is a useful illusion beyond determinism.
A universe with a purpose being indistinguishable from one that just happens exist leads me to conclude that a purpose is unnecessary and unlikely.
Are you on drugs?
Seriously. Are you on drugs?
I refuse to believe you think Badchad is disagreeing with theists respectfully.
The only two possibilities are that you are on drugs, or cannot read. So which is it?
No, Lemur866, I think it’s Badchad who’s on drugs. Note his claim of my “personal irrationality”. :rolleyes: :dubious:
Ok, myabe they are all on drugs… and they are not sharing, either. Selfish fuckers.
Well, wouldn’t that be situational? My willingness to babysit my sister’s kids is dependent on the inconvenience to me, her need, my desire to see my nieces, and my close relationship with her (which generally makes me want to accommodate her if I can). If I’m very busy, maybe I’m not willing. If she just wants to go shopping, maybe I’m not willing. If I’m mad at her, maybe I’m not willing. Under any and all of those circumstances, it may or may not be something I desire (i.e., want) to do.
What makes me “willing” to do a particular thing is my own determination that is the correct or desireable thing to do under the circumstances – i.e., that I have evaluated the situation and decided there is sufficient reason for me to act in a given way. How is that incompatible with free will?
I mean, in reality, doesn’t the whole concept of “will” itself imply “free will”? Because if it’s not “free” how can it truly be said to be your will as opposed to someone else’s (coercion) or no one’s (randomness)? (This appears to be supported by the dictionary definitions of the noun “will” – cite.) I’m not trying to engage in reductio ad absurdum, considering how often such arguments are fallacious, but when you say “there’s no such thing as free will” I’m having trouble seeing why that doesn’t mean “there’s no such thing as volitional conduct.” I have trouble seeing how that could be correct, either logically or in reality.
The idea that because various other factors might influence the choices we make, therefore those choices are not free seems to me to be nothing more than an argument against any personal responsibility, ever. Not only do I not see it as required by logic, I don’t even see it as being logical at all.
You realize that badchad could (and I do) excuse his rudeness (which is the origin of this entire lengthy thread) on the same basis. Moreover, we aren’t the ones professing willingness to turn the other cheek, nor to practice kindness and love the first 490 times someone pisses us off–or are those passages of the New Testament you choose to reject?
Listen, don’t bother to try to lecture me on my duty as a Christian. Since you have nothing but contempt for the faith, it’s not like I’m going to listen to you anyway – especially if your response boils down to a whiny “you’re not supposed to be as mean to me as I am to you!”
To take something I said and misconstrue it to mean something it transparently did not mean is either stupidity (you didn’t understand it in the first place), or dishonesty (you understood it, but chose to intentionally misconstrue it anyway). To selectively quote my post to change the meaning is clearly dishonest, since that could not possibly be done through inadvertance. Your idea of civil is apparently that you will be contemptuous and patently rude to me, while I will tolerate your idiocy and dishonesty. Apparently, to you to be Christian is to be a complete door mat. Fortunately, I don’t take my behavioral cues from you.
Nor from Jesus, either. The credo of a Christian hypocrite: “I’m just as sassy and full of nastiness as I please–fuck this turning the other cheek bullshit. I’m a fucking Christian, and I’ll behave however I please to any goddamn non-Christian as I like. We’re not your fucking doormats, asshole, and we take guff from no one. We’ll beat your ass up if we choose to, and laugh about it afterwards. So don’t fuck with us, Mac. Fuck Jesus, the little wimp didn’t know jackshit about getting along in the real world.”
That’s my credo, alright. I think it’s been nicely showcased in this thread. In fact, “fuck Jesus” is tastefully tatooed on my left buttock, though few people know that. (Until now! [Oops!])
It does, however, seem important to mention that I don’t think you’re an intellectually dishonest jerk because you’re a non-Christian; I just think you’re an intellectually dishonest jerk. You could behave as you’ve behaved in this thread with a big ol’ cross on your neck and I’d treat you exactly the same way. So do me a favor and don’t take this as another example of those hostile Christians persecuting poor little you for your lack of faith. It’s not that aspect of you; it’s just you.
A bit of medical advice:
When the doctor informs you that he needs you to take a urine sample at home and preserve it in the refrigerator overnight, it is suggested that you take the care to label it correctly.
Otherwise, in a standard early morning stupor, you might accidentally pour it over your breakfast cereal.