Fate or chaos, the atheist dilemma
Jason
It's been a little while. I've been busy and the times I've checked
the group out, not much interesting was going on. I thought I'd have
to stir things up myself.
In a little moment of pondering, I stumbled again upon the problem
atheists face with how the world operates.
On one hand, they can choose an absolute, naturalistic determinism.
There is no room for free will. If someone was smart enough, she
could predict what would happen eons from now by looking at the
arrangement of atoms today. The fact that I am a doctor and live a
prosperous life is nothing of my doing. The fact that a person loses
their child to a drunk driver is just as unavoidable. In fact, there
is no such thing as "prevention" what will happen, will happen.
On the other hand, they can choose a undetermined, naturalistic
universe where things change based on quantum fluctuations. Our
super-smart gal could not predict the future, because she does not
know the random fluctuations of sub-atomic particles. But this makes
us no more responsible for our actions and allows us no more control.
Again, free will has no quarter in this world. Once we rise above the
sub-atomic chaos we resume our deterministic way of life. There is no
way our minds can take advantage of this sub-atomic randomness to
effect directed change. The determinism merely rides on a wave of
absolue undeterminism.
There are no other options to the rational atheist. How can one
live with such barren, stark knowledge? The theist has at least the
opportunity to invoke a dualistic framework in which free will can
somehow operate (and, of course, we have had enough conversations
about the exact way this may or may not happen). Despite the
shortcoming of our knowledge of how free will works, having the option
is a world better than not even having the option available.
I have the feeling that the majority of atheists ignore this problem
and continue to function under the illusion that they are in control
of their destiny. In essence, the only way to remain sane and atheist
is to close one's eyes and pretend they do not notice they are
standing on the precipice to the abyss.
This is what the following .sig has been referring to
Jason
For life is at the start a chaos in which one is lost.
The individual suspects this, but he is frightened at
finding himself face to face with this terrible reality,
and tries to cover it over with a curtain of fantasy,
where everything is clear. It does not worry him that
his "ideas" are not true, he uses them as trenches for
the defense of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten
away reality.
- Jose Ortega Y Gasset
David Wynne-Griffiths
from drfries...@homeATALL.com (Jason) contains these words:
> I have the feeling that the majority of atheists ignore this problem
> and continue to function under the illusion that they are in control
> of their destiny. In essence, the only way to remain sane and atheist
> is to close one's eyes and pretend they do not notice they are
> standing on the precipice to the abyss.
Atheists have little in common other than a disbelief in gods, and I
greatly doubt there are many atheists who are under the illusion that
they are in control of their own destiny in a world where everything is
so subject to chance.
Some theists seem to think that everything that happens is part of some
master plan of their imaginary god. However, it is good to note that
mankind is gradually recovering from these ancient superstitions about
supernatural beings who control our destiny, and that, at least in
Europe, belief in such nonsense is already very much a minority
interest.
--
~~~~~~~~~~
David W-G
~~~~~~~~~~
George Hendricks
> It's been a little while. I've been busy and the times I've checked
> the group out, not much interesting was going on. I thought I'd have
> to stir things up myself.
Naughty person.
> On the other hand, they can choose a undetermined, naturalistic
> universe where things change based on quantum fluctuations. Our
> super-smart gal could not predict the future, because she does not
> know the random fluctuations of sub-atomic particles. But this makes
> us no more responsible for our actions and allows us no more control.
> Again, free will has no quarter in this world. Once we rise above the
> sub-atomic chaos we resume our deterministic way of life. There is no
> way our minds can take advantage of this sub-atomic randomness to
> effect directed change. The determinism merely rides on a wave of
> absolue undeterminism.
If we lived in a vacuum, perhaps; but we don't. The world around us
isn't deterministic; geology, biology, and meteorology are all crap
shoots.
Since all of these provide the backdrop to our lives, we can't possibly
determine what we will be doing since we don't know what we will be
reacting to.
F'rinstance. Say my sister is one of the people struck and killed by
lightning
this year. Would this affect the lives of my family? Yes. Is it even
theoretically possible to predict that this will happen? No. All you
could do ahead of time is assign odds, given a bunch of assumptions
that might or might not be true.
Step back a bit farther. It's 2002. A hurricane dumps a foot of rain over
much
of the central United States. This leads to a 20 foot flood in the
Mississippi.
During the flood, the next hurricane strikes the gulf coast. The storm
surge combines
with the flood to wash out one of the flow control projects separating the
Mississippi
and the Atchafalaya (sp?). By the time the waters go down, the
Mississippi has been
captured beyond human recall, and Baton Rouge and New Orleans are now
backwaters on a tidal estuary with no fresh water supply or reason to
exist. Now; how
could all this have been specifically predicted in 2001? Knowing where
every atom was
(or what it was doing) would not have let you call those hurricanes, or
specifically predict
how any given person would react to the situation.
Sergei Lewis
drfries...@homeATALL.com says...
> In a little moment of pondering, I stumbled again upon the problem
> atheists face with how the world operates.
Every so often, I ponder on the problems I face as a theist.
> On one hand, they can choose an absolute, naturalistic determinism.
> There is no room for free will. If someone was smart enough, she
> could predict what would happen eons from now by looking at the
> arrangement of atoms today. The fact that I am a doctor and live a
> prosperous life is nothing of my doing. The fact that a person loses
> their child to a drunk driver is just as unavoidable. In fact, there
> is no such thing as "prevention" what will happen, will happen.
God, I am told, is omniscient. He knows everything that is to
happen. Moreover, everything that is to happen is part of his plan. It
is all predetermined. Absolute, supernatural determinism. The fact
that I am a software engineer living a prosperous life is nothing of
my doing. The fact that a person loses their child to a drunk driver is
just as unavoidable - the God who knows of every sparrow that falls
has already planned for it, before it happens, decided on the time. In
fact, there is no such thing as "decision" - God, I am told, has
already decided on who is coming to Heaven and who is going to be
burnt.
> I have the feeling that the majority of atheists ignore this problem
> and continue to function under the illusion that they are in control
> of their destiny.
> In essence, the only way to remain sane and atheist
> is to close one's eyes and pretend they do not notice they are
> standing on the precipice to the abyss.
I have the feeling that the majority of theists ignore this problem
and continue to function under the illusion that they are in control
of their destiny.
In essence, the only way to remain sane and atheist
is to close one's eyes and pretend they do not notice they are
standing on the precipice to the abyss.
If you have an answer that you're happy with, try applying it to the
opposition's case too.
--
Sergei Lewis - http://members.tripod.co.uk/Folken
Dan Prescher
news:3b5227b8.336792322@news...
> In a little moment of pondering, I stumbled again upon the problem
> atheists face with how the world operates.
>
> On one hand, they can choose an absolute, naturalistic
determinism.
> There is no room for free will. If someone was smart enough, she
> could predict what would happen eons from now by looking at the
> arrangement of atoms today.
We know this is not how things work, and you already know this, given
what you follow with below. So this is really no choice at all, just
part of your setup, right?
> On the other hand, they can choose a undetermined, naturalistic
> universe where things change based on quantum fluctuations.
"Things change" for lots of reasons besides quantum fluctuations, but
I guess that you mean unpredictable change only takes place at the
quantum level.
>Our
> super-smart gal could not predict the future, because she does not
> know the random fluctuations of sub-atomic particles. But this
makes
> us no more responsible for our actions and allows us no more
control.
You lost me here. How does not being able to predict the future make
us not responsible for our actions?
> Again, free will has no quarter in this world. Once we rise above
the
> sub-atomic chaos we resume our deterministic way of life.
"Sub-atomic chaos"? There is a fundamental unpredictability to certain
aspects of sub-atomic events, but why are you aching so to make
everything lead to deterministic hell? Part of your setup again?
>There are no other options to the rational atheist.
Here' one -- limited free will. Most of what impinges on the human
nervous system goes unnoticed by consciousness. Autonomic systems
handle the important stuff -- the stuff that has to be reacted to
quickly to ensure survival. There isn't enough bandwidth to make it
all available to consciousness, then wait for a decision. So only the
stuff that's relatively unimportant to immediate health and well being
makes it into consciousness.
Once the trivial stuff gets modeled, however it gets modeled, in
mental space, then there is per force enough time to consider
different courses of action in response, if response is needed. That's
a choice right there, and that's
all consciousness if for. Memory and symbol manipulation (imagination)
are utilized to "make future", to cast various scenarios given the
input of past experience and probable trajectories and outcomes. A
choice is made between those hypothetical futures, and a course of
action determined to realize the outcome.
The choice of whether or not to take action in the first place, which
future to affect and which actions to use to
affect it are restricted by existing physical and mental ability and
past experience, but are essentially as "free" as things get. The fact
that past experiences can be misremembered and that imagination can
supply choice factors that don't actually exist (god, heaven, hell,
etc.) doesn't make any difference to the essentially free yet limited
nature of the choice.
>How can one
> live with such barren, stark knowledge?
If we're talking about the knowledge I outlined above, there is
nothing barren or stark about it. It's fascinating. It might deprive
you of a cherished falsehood, but that's your problem.
>The theist has at least the
> opportunity to invoke a dualistic framework in which free will can
> somehow operate (and, of course, we have had enough conversations
> about the exact way this may or may not happen).
"Invoke" is a nice choice of words. Belief in dualism is pretty much
the same as belief in magic and the supernatural.
>Despite the
> shortcoming of our knowledge of how free will works, having the
option
> is a world better than not even having the option available.
Just believing in the option doesn't make it available. I posit
limited free will for the reasons I outlined above. You seem to be
saying that just the warm glow the option of free will gives you when
you think about it is reason enough for you to believe in it. Can't
argue with that -- just a different set of requirements for acceptance
of a theory.
> I have the feeling that the majority of atheists ignore this
problem
> and continue to function under the illusion that they are in control
> of their destiny. In essence, the only way to remain sane and
atheist
> is to close one's eyes and pretend they do not notice they are
> standing on the precipice to the abyss.
I have the feeling that you're the one who feels he's standing on the
precipice, and that you're feeling pretty good about having a belief
that, even though not founded on any convincing evidence, gives you
comfort, joy, and a sense of control.
Whatever gets you through the night, Jason, but there's no need to go
through the back door to tell us about it. Just be honest. Say that
you believe the world is a proving ground, we're eternal souls trapped
in physical bodies striving to pass the test in one lifetime, the
bible is the rule book, god is the judge, heaven the reward, hell the
punishment, and your inability to face any other scenario is reason
enough to believe, even given the complete lack of convincing evidence
for any of the aforementioned.
Just be honest with us and with yourself, Jason. Have the courage of
your convictions, whatever they're founded on.
xoxoxoxox
>opportunity to invoke a dualistic framework in which free will can
>somehow operate (and, of course, we have had enough conversations
>about the exact way this may or may not happen). Despite the
>shortcoming of our knowledge of how free will works, having the option
>is a world better than not even having the option available.
>
Firstly your statement regarding theistic empiricism relating to freewill needs
clarity.How can an option (a choice) be "available" when the parameters of
choice are ill-defined and the mechanics of its operation (operator?) are
uninteligable? Are we to assume that freewill is a mystical, mysterious object
accessed through faith (like a methaphysical Mastercard) or is it merely a
semantic abstract, refering more to the sense of general lack of foreknowledge
of our own destiny that we all experience?
If all that will happen has already happened, then neither theist nor atheist
truly affects the outcome of the future. In that respect each of us stands on
the precipice of the abyss.
But tell me... I have no "real" freewill, but God does?
Shannon
Gregg Holmes
How can one
> live with such barren, stark knowledge?
Just as theists live with the lack of barren, stark knowledge.
Eric Pepke
> On one hand, they can choose an absolute, naturalistic determinism.
> universe where things change based on quantum fluctuations.
Some of us have other options, such as perceiving the world as it
actually works.
> There are no other options to the rational atheist. How can one
> live with such barren, stark knowledge?
I'm alive. It seems to work pretty well, and the world doesn't seem
stark and barren this week.
> I have the feeling that the majority of atheists ignore this problem
> and continue to function under the illusion that they are in control
> of their destiny.
There are a lot of so-called problems that I ignore because they are
incoherent, such as matters of "free will." All definitions I have seen
are either tritely obviously true or tritely obviously false. The
philosophical dilemmas arising from the idea seem entirely a result of
flip-flopping between definitions to give the illusion of thought.
Pillow
> It's been a little while. I've been busy and the times I've checked
> the group out, not much interesting was going on. I thought I'd have
> to stir things up myself.
>
> In a little moment of pondering, I stumbled again upon the problem
> atheists face with how the world operates.
>
> On one hand, they can choose an absolute, naturalistic determinism.
> There is no room for free will. If someone was smart enough, she
> could predict what would happen eons from now by looking at the
> arrangement of atoms today. The fact that I am a doctor and live a
> prosperous life is nothing of my doing. The fact that a person loses
> their child to a drunk driver is just as unavoidable. In fact, there
> is no such thing as "prevention" what will happen, will happen.
>
> On the other hand, they can choose a undetermined, naturalistic
> universe where things change based on quantum fluctuations. Our
> super-smart gal could not predict the future, because she does not
> know the random fluctuations of sub-atomic particles. But this makes
> us no more responsible for our actions and allows us no more control.
> Again, free will has no quarter in this world. Once we rise above the
> sub-atomic chaos we resume our deterministic way of life. There is no
> way our minds can take advantage of this sub-atomic randomness to
> effect directed change. The determinism merely rides on a wave of
> absolue undeterminism.
>
the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. English majors were even more
impressed! Some of them were thrown into despair about it. Not so
for us pedestrian chem. majors. Since we actually had to study
quantum mechanics, in p-chem. and again in grad school, it was not so
mysterious after all, just some very pretty equations which were a
pretty good fit to observations given some assumptions. I don't know
if any of us actually believed that this was the way things really,
really were. In any case, for us big objects the quantum fluctuations
weren't very important and quantum mechanics is the same as classical
mechanics, for all practical purposes. Right?
I don't feel the free will vs. determinism thing in my life as an
atheist. I mean, I go around purposefully all the time, except when
I'm zoning out on the tube, say. And when my bladder is full, free
will doesn't seem to matter either. So, qualitatively these questions
are easy to point out in my daily life--some things I have control
over and some things I have no control over. These stark contrasts
seem artificial to me. What's "absolute undeterminism?"
(That’s a rhetorical question.)
Atheism to me is the realization that I do not live in a silly world,
and that, ultimately, the world portrayed by religions is very silly
indeed. It must be rejected by any sane adult. However, I must admit
that when my brain is really straining about ultimate things, and the
smoke is rising from my head, I'm really just banging my head against
the inside of my cage. I don't have much to offer as a substitute for
those fantastic myths, but I know that they are myths, and that god is
part of the silly stories too.
Pillow
Dave F.
I'm glad to see that you are still haunting this newsgroup! It's good to
see someone who is willing to stir the pot a bit, and add some alternative
viewpoints!
In the interests of brevity, I will attempt to summarize your main points.
Any violence I do to your meaning is unintentional!
You suggested that there are two ways atheists can view the future with
respect to the past and our ability to change things through our own
decisions:
1. "Absolute, naturalistic determinism"...a kind of Newtonian universe in
which the future is absolutely and unalterably predetermined by the past.
You argue there is no room for free will in such a universe.
2. "Undetermined, naturalistic," with quantum unpredictability...a kind of
Heisenberg universe which is unpredictable, yet still beyond our free will
because quantum fluctuations operate beyond our control and at a level far
below our everyday macroscopic world.
You then write:
> There are no other options to the rational atheist.
I'm not so sure.
First, let me pull a dictionary definition of "free will" that I hope we can
use for this discussion (from my New World Dictionary of the English
Language): "The freedom of the will to choose a course of action without
external coercion but in accordance with the ideals or moral outlook of the
individual."
Your supposition seems to be that since an atheist's "will," "ideals," and
"moral outlook" are all products of genetics and environment, both of which
are out of an atheist's control, that the atheist's past (both genetics and
personal history) more or less represents a form of "coercion." Put another
way, even though an atheist might think that he is making a decision, in
fact, he can only crank out the predetermined output of a complex algorithm
that is the result of factors outside his control.
I think that you, as a theist, may feel that since your "soul" is touched by
God, it is truly independent of genetics and one's personal history, and
that an individual's decisions will be inflenced by three things: nature,
nurture, and God's divine spark imparted to his soul. Perhaps it's this
"spark" that you see as the difference between having free will and not?
I would counter that our algorithm for making decisions is so enormously
complex that it cannot be predicted or understood. It is a function of
billions of DNA code pairings, and terrabytes of data that have been
ingested through our ears, eyes, skin, and other sensory organs. It is a
function of what we have had to eat on any given day, and how much sleep we
got the night before. It is a function of previous complex cognative
functions such as introspection, philosophizing, and even slogging through
newsgroup posts like this one! I think that it is the enormous complexity
of our decision making process that causes the illusion of the "divine
spark."
At the end of the day, if free will is an illusion, it is a very good and
useful illusion. Someone who is "programmed" to take an active part in
running his own life will, I am convinced, almost always do better than
someone who is "programmed" to be a fatalist.
> I have the feeling that the majority of atheists ignore this problem
I hope that I have convinced you that I have at least not ignored the
problem!
> and continue to function under the illusion that they are in control
> of their destiny.
We are in partial control of our destiny. We can make decisions, and we
live with the results of those decisions. That much can be directly
observed, and any line of reasoning that leads to a different conclusion
must be wrong.
In essence, the only way to remain sane and atheist
> is to close one's eyes and pretend they do not notice they are
> standing on the precipice to the abyss.
This seems another matter to me. The abyss (eternal death?) problem we
atheists have to deal with is pretty much orthogonal to free will arguments,
unless perhaps you think that true free will must imply the divine spark
that would be eternal.
Best Regards,
Dave F.
Tony Griffin
>
> Howdy all,
> It's been a little while. I've been busy and the times I've checked
> the group out, not much interesting was going on. I thought I'd have
> to stir things up myself.
Hi Jason, welcome back.
[Snip - two options for atheists, both deterministic]
> There are no other options to the rational atheist. How can one
> live with such barren, stark knowledge? The theist has at least the
> opportunity to invoke a dualistic framework in which free will can
> somehow operate (and, of course, we have had enough conversations
> about the exact way this may or may not happen). Despite the
> shortcoming of our knowledge of how free will works, having the option
> is a world better than not even having the option available.
>
> I have the feeling that the majority of atheists ignore this problem
> and continue to function under the illusion that they are in control
> of their destiny. In essence, the only way to remain sane and atheist
> is to close one's eyes and pretend they do not notice they are
> standing on the precipice to the abyss.
S'easy. I know that the apparently solid matter I see is mostly empty space. I
can worry about falling through it, or reflect on the fact that it seems to bear
my weight with no problem and will probably continue to do so.
Likewise, I *seem* to have free will in my day-to-day activities. I decide to do
something and often succeed in doing it. It doesn't feel as if I'm ignoring
anything of consequence, so my sanity is probably secure.
> This is what the following .sig has been referring to
> Jason
>
> For life is at the start a chaos in which one is lost.
> The individual suspects this, but he is frightened at
> finding himself face to face with this terrible reality,
> and tries to cover it over with a curtain of fantasy,
> where everything is clear. It does not worry him that
> his "ideas" are not true, he uses them as trenches for
> the defense of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten
> away reality.
> - Jose Ortega Y Gasset
This is odd. I've read this sig of yours several times and what I thought it was
saying is that people deliberately delude themselves into religious (and other)
belief to avoid the bleakness of reality. You are now saying it only applies to
atheists?
Or have you finally realized that your beliefs are a comforting illusion? :)
How's the little theist?
Tony
Brian Holtz
> On one hand, they can choose an absolute, naturalistic determinism.
> There is no room for free will. [..]
> On the other hand, they can choose a undetermined, naturalistic
> universe where things change based on quantum fluctuations.
> [..] The theist has at least the
> opportunity to invoke a dualistic framework in which free will can
> somehow operate [..]
Contrary to your assertion, dualism does not solve the problem. The
real solution is to realize that the self is not a soul or homunculus
or point particle but rather the self-influencing and self-controlling
material pattern instantiated inside one's skin. As I write in my book:
Volition is the power or act of making decisions about an agent's own
actions. A decision is the causing by a system of events which were not
physically determined from outside the system but rather were contingent on
the internals of the system, and which were not predictable except perhaps
by modeling the internals of the system.
Free will is either of the doctrines that volition is not externally
determined (weakly free) or is not pre-determined (strongly free).
Determinism is incompatible with strong free will, but is compatible with
weak free will if agents have internal state that influences (and thus helps
determines) their actions. Weak free will is also compatible with forms of
indeterminism in which the acausality is not so rampant as to undermine
agent self-influence. Strong free will requires indeterminism, but
degenerates into uncaused chance if acausality confounds not only prediction
of effect but also attribution of cause.
Since most effects seem caused rather than uncaused, and since the
complexity of minds makes them hard to predict, minds appear to have at
least weak free will. Weak free will is sufficient for assigning ethical
responsibility to decision-making systems even in the face of complete
determinism.
Anti-materialists posit an immaterial soul or will that is free from both
deterministic causality and random non-causality. This notion violates the
law of the excluded middle. Either the immaterial will is subject to
(perhaps probabilistic but nonetheless causal) causes, or it is not. The
same is true of material minds. The actions of an immaterial will could be
said to be caused by its own internal causal processes, but the same can be
said of material minds.
--
Brian...@sun.com
Knowledge is dangerous. Take a risk:
http://humanknowledge.net
Steven Carr
> There is no room for free will. If someone was smart enough, she
> could predict what would happen eons from now by looking at the
> arrangement of atoms today. The fact that I am a doctor and live a
> prosperous life is nothing of my doing. The fact that a person loses
> their child to a drunk driver is just as unavoidable. In fact, there
> is no such thing as "prevention" what will happen, will happen.
CARR
Can you tell me a real event which was prevented from happening? As
far as I can tell, no event which has occurred has been prevented.
Only imaginary events have been prevented.
Try reading Daniel Dennet's book 'Elbow Room' to see how free will
operates in a deterministic universe.
<skip>
> There are no other options to the rational atheist. How can one
> live with such barren, stark knowledge? The theist has at least the
> opportunity to invoke a dualistic framework in which free will can
> somehow operate (and, of course, we have had enough conversations
> about the exact way this may or may not happen). Despite the
> shortcoming of our knowledge of how free will works, having the option
> is a world better than not even having the option available.
Theist free will is indistiguishable from magic.
As you do not believe your actions are determined by anything, I
assume you will not take offence by my pointing out that your actions
are not determined by rational thought. As for the idea that your
moral values and sense of ethics determine your actions, that can go
out of the window.
It is true that the only alternative to determinism is randomness.
Hopefully though, I live in a deterministic universe, where my
thoughts, needs, beliefs, desires, morals etc etc (everything that
goes to make up me), determine my actions. The alternative is
unthinkable.
Steven Carr
http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/
Steven Carr
> "Jason" <drfries...@homeATALL.com> wrote in message
> news:3b5227b8.336792322@news...
<skip>
> >Our
> > super-smart gal could not predict the future, because she does not
> > know the random fluctuations of sub-atomic particles. But this
> makes
> > us no more responsible for our actions and allows us no more
> control.
> You lost me here. How does not being able to predict the future make
> us not responsible for our actions?
CARR
This baffles me as well. Apparently we only have free will if we have
absolutely no idea what we are going to do next. If we know what we
are going to do in the next second, Jason denies that we have free
will. The idea that we only have free will if our lives are a constant
source of amazement and wonder to me sounds like the very opposite of
free will, but that's theism for you!
Suppose Jason does something and it turns out that he chose that
course of action for a reason. What sense does it make to say that
reason did not determine why he made that choice? After all, that is
what we mean by doing something for a reason. Theists only have free
will if they do things for no reason!
<skip>
Steven Carr
Ez
atheist like yours truly. However, I like to look at it a different way.
If we follow the determinist's approach, then everything that we have done,
are doing, and will do had already been put in place since the beginning of
time. But this doesn't really matter to us, because in my view, we still
have free will.
When I feel like having some milk, I'll go down to the fridge and grab some
out. Why does it matter if what we do has already been determined? Even if I
had been destined from the start of time to get the milk, or even write this
post, I still feel as if I'm doing it because I want to. As long as we feel
like we have free will, its all okay.
Jason
<g...@pipeline.com> wrote:
>Step back a bit farther. It's 2002. A hurricane dumps a foot of rain over
>much
>of the central United States. This leads to a 20 foot flood in the
>Mississippi.
>During the flood, the next hurricane strikes the gulf coast. The storm
>surge combines
>with the flood to wash out one of the flow control projects separating the
>Mississippi
>and the Atchafalaya (sp?). By the time the waters go down, the
>Mississippi has been
>captured beyond human recall, and Baton Rouge and New Orleans are now
>backwaters on a tidal estuary with no fresh water supply or reason to
>exist. Now; how
>could all this have been specifically predicted in 2001? Knowing where
>every atom was
>(or what it was doing) would not have let you call those hurricanes, or
>specifically predict
>how any given person would react to the situation.
>
You are trying to make an argument without choosing sides. You
provided no third option in my dilemma. Therefore you much chose one
of the two (or provide a third). If you chose determinism, then you
would be false and if we were smart enough we could predict everything
that would happen. If you chose determinism plus chaos, then no we
cannot predict things (as you state), but the real point is that there
is no free will in the equation. The fact that we cannot predict
things is not due to the choices made by people, but rather by the
random fluctuations of sub-atomic energy.
Jason
<tgri...@pipeline.com> wrote:
>This is odd. I've read this sig of yours several times and what I thought it was
>saying is that people deliberately delude themselves into religious (and other)
>belief to avoid the bleakness of reality. You are now saying it only applies to
>atheists?
Well, frankly I don't know what the hell Ortega personally meant
becaue I have the quote out of context. But I like it anyway...
>How's the little theist?
He is doing just find. 11 months now. Hard to believe they grow up
so fast. He does have his pop-up bible which he enjoys, but then
again he really seemed to respond the other day when "Highway to Hell"
was on the radio...
Jason
"What terrifies us is not the explosive force
of the atomic bomb, but the power
of the wickedness of the human heart."
-Albert Einstein
Jason
<sl236...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>If you have an answer that you're happy with, try applying it to the
>opposition's case too.
Most of the answers I've seen have to do with God's nature of being
outside time. That isn't going to work in the atheist model...
Jason
RELIGION is always a transaction.
Always something that PEOPLE DO for God, in order to
GET GOD to do something for them. But since the GOSPEL
is the proclamation that GOD has once and for all DONE
EVERYTHING that needs doing, Christianity AS A RELIGION
is always at ODDS with the GOSPEL.
- Robert Farrar Capon
Jason
<xw...@erols.nospam.com> wrote:
>I think that you, as a theist, may feel that since your "soul" is touched by
>God, it is truly independent of genetics and one's personal history, and
>that an individual's decisions will be inflenced by three things: nature,
>nurture, and God's divine spark imparted to his soul. Perhaps it's this
>"spark" that you see as the difference between having free will and not?
Well, this wasn't really what I was getting at. I would assume that
an atheist would believe in a naturalistic world. Therefore
everything that exists in the world operates in a cause and effect
manner (except at a subatomic level). Free will has trouble then,
because nothing in the naturalistic world qualifies as not being an
"external coercion". In other words, the spark of will cannot be ex
nihilo created in the mind. It has to be a product of some external
stimulus.
The theist on the other hand has access to the "mind". This is an
albeit "mystical" object because it does not operate a naturalistic
manner. (and thus is very hard to study or learn about). But this
option does allow for the spark of will to be manipulated without
outside influence before it is realized in the natural brain. That's
what I was after.
>At the end of the day, if free will is an illusion, it is a very good and
>useful illusion. Someone who is "programmed" to take an active part in
>running his own life will, I am convinced, almost always do better than
>someone who is "programmed" to be a fatalist.
It is possible that y'all are just not programmed fatalists. And
lucky for you... :)
>This seems another matter to me. The abyss (eternal death?) problem we
>atheists have to deal with is pretty much orthogonal to free will arguments,
>unless perhaps you think that true free will must imply the divine spark
>that would be eternal.
The abyss was more a statement about the realization that we are
conscious entities trapped in a cage. What will happen, will happen.
Nothing matters.
Jason
The darkness has a hunger that's insatiable,
and the lightness has a call that's hard to hear.
-Indigo Girls
Paul Filseth
> On one hand, they can choose an absolute, naturalistic determinism...
> On the other hand, they can choose a undetermined, naturalistic
> universe where things change based on quantum fluctuations.
No we can't. The universe does whatever it does. We don't have a
choice in the matter. Not having a knack for _choosing_ beliefs, for
persuading ourselves that whatever pleases us must be how the world
really is, is one common cause of atheism.
> There is no room for free will. If someone was smart enough, she
> could predict what would happen eons from now by looking at the
> arrangement of atoms today.
That's language abuse. Freedom is the ability to do what you
want. You're using "free" for an unintelligible concept invented
by philosophers in an attempt to reconcile their own irreconcilable
premises, and labeled "free" as a result of their erroneous theory of
mind. It has nothing to do with common-usage freedom. Suppose you're
in jail and two lawyers offer you their services, and one says he'll
get you to do things that don't depend on what your goals and desires
are, and the other says he'll get you out of jail. Which one will you
hire, the one who says getting out of jail isn't real freedom because
whether you'll get out is predetermined?
> The fact that I am a doctor and live a prosperous life is nothing
> of my doing.
Of course it's your doing. You went to medical school. You
chose to. You don't see that because rather than reasoning only from
materialist premises, you're mixing materialist and dualist premises.
The materialist premise is that your actions are caused by bouncing
atoms. The dualist premise is that you are a disembodied mind made of
spirit-stuff. Of course if you assume both those things then _you_
didn't cause yourself to be a doctor. But if you really want to know
what materialism implies, you have to reason from materialist premises
_consistently_. There's no such thing as spirit-stuff. You _are_ a
bunch of bouncing atoms. Specifically, the very bouncing atoms that
caused you to choose to go to medical school. So it was your doing.
> The fact that a person loses their child to a drunk
> driver is just as unavoidable. In fact, there is no such thing
> as "prevention" what will happen, will happen.
Of course there's such a thing as prevention. What will happen
will happen. And what won't happen won't, _because something prevented
it_. If you don't want to lose your child to a drunk driver, that
desire is part of the network of cause and effect, and it's likely to
cause you to drive defensively and buy a well-made car-seat.
> Our super-smart gal could not predict the future, because she does not
> know the random fluctuations of sub-atomic particles. But this makes
> us no more responsible for our actions and allows us no more control.
Of course it doesn't. What makes us responsible is choosing our
actions based on our preferences.
> Again, free will has no quarter in this world. Once we rise above the
> sub-atomic chaos we resume our deterministic way of life. There is no
> way our minds can take advantage of this sub-atomic randomness to
> effect directed change. The determinism merely rides on a wave of
> absolute undeterminism.
Free will _requires_ a cause and effect universe. Determinism is
the natural home of free will and quantum mechanics is the threat to
it, not vice versa. But the randomness isn't a problem because Planck's
Constant is so small. It's _because_ quantum randomness averages out
to roughly deterministic rules that we're able to control our actions
and impose our wills on the world.
> There are no other options to the rational atheist. How can one
> live with such barren, stark knowledge?
What's barren and stark about it? That's an aesthetic judgment
on your part, one probably caused by your thoughts following a track
worn into your brain by years of magical thinking.
> The theist has at least the
> opportunity to invoke a dualistic framework in which free will can
> somehow operate (and, of course, we have had enough conversations
> about the exact way this may or may not happen).
A _rational_ theist is in the same boat as a rational atheist:
dualism changes nothing. Dualism holds that what spiritual minds do
is affected by physical events and can affect them in turn. That
means any spiritual world is part of the same cause-and-effect network
as the physical world. The line between them is arbitrary.
> Despite the shortcoming of our knowledge of how free will works,
> having the option is a world better than not even having the option
> available.
You don't know "how free will works"? You can't even explain
what you _mean_ by it! All you can say is "It's not causal and not
random." That means it's not anything. "Causal" is what we call
events that correlate with earlier events, and "random" is what
we call events that don't.
> I have the feeling that the majority of atheists ignore this problem
Pretty much the way we ignore the orders of gods and the giant
gaping god-shaped holes in our cold cold hearts. We ignore them
because they don't exist. The "problem" is an illusion. It looks
like a problem to you only because you can't set aside all your
dualist premises.
> In essence, the only way to remain sane and atheist is to close
> one's eyes and pretend they do not notice they are standing on the
> precipice to the abyss.
I see the abyss. It's a _painting_ of an abyss, on flat rock.
It looks like an abyss to you because it's a pretty good painting and
you're standing in just the right spot. But I can tell it's just a
painting, because I'm looking at it from a different angle and the
perspective is off.
--
Paul Filseth Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only
To email, delete the x. proved it correct, not tried it. - Donald Knuth
John Secker
<drfries...@homeATALL.com> writes
>The abyss was more a statement about the realization that we are
>conscious entities trapped in a cage. What will happen, will happen.
>Nothing matters.
>
lives of those around me. The question is, what does "deciding" mean in
this context? From inside, it feels as though "I" make up my mind before
acting. In practice, the mechanics of this "making my mind up" are
probably the firing of a large number of synapses in a semi-random way
which produces results that feel like making my mind up. I use the
phrase semi-random because, like evolution, it is clearly not a case of
choosing at random between a bunch of equally likely options, as in The
Dice Man. The structure of my brain, both physical and electrical, will
have an overwhelming influence on the final choice. So, in the end, the
choice is made by the physical effects of physical objects inside my
head. Why should I not call this free will? As far as I am concerned,
"I" am those objects, and the electrical states of those objects. This
is why, when my brain is denied oxygen for long enough, and the
electrical states are no longer preserved inside my head, then I am dead
and gone.
--
John Secker
Kahuna Burger
: At the end of the day, if free will is an illusion, it is a very good and
: useful illusion.
This is a great phrasing, and mirrors my own philosophy well. Anytime I
worry about the big "is it free will or are all my actions
pavlovian/skinerian responses with no real choice" I get over it fairly
quickly with two memories - difficulty of choosing and regret. If I don't
have free will, what is the waiting to make deicsions and mental anguish
over hard ones all about? If I don't have free will, why could I regret a
previous decision - not just the actions that ensued but the decision that
I made?
Does this Jason guy do anything except assign beliefs to people and then
argue about them? Its pretty obnoxious, even though his phrasing seems
polite and reasoned. Telling other people what they think is not a useful
discussion tactic. Maybe he could list his own beliefs then actually ask
about and believe ours....
--
The Big Kahuna Burger Alt.atheist # 1037
\./'\./'\./'\./'\./'\./'\./'\../'\./'\./'\./'\./'\./'\./'\./
....will work for Chick tracts....
Paul Filseth
> As I write in my book: Volition is the power or act of making
Terrific analysis*. I only have one tiny gripe...
> Free will is either of the doctrines that volition is not externally
> determined (weakly free) or is not pre-determined (strongly free).
Why are you labeling these variations "weak" and "strong"? This
seems to implicitly accept the dualists' notion that freedom is about
unpredictability rather than about control. Quantum randomness doesn't
make our freedom any stronger; if anything it weakens it, by (ever so
slightly) weakening the ability of our preferences to affect our
actions.
(* Terrific book. I'm bowled over by the sheer ambition of it. What
are you doing in this century? You belong in the Enlightenment.)
George Hendricks
> provided no third option in my dilemma. Therefore you much chose one
> of the two (or provide a third). If you chose determinism, then you
> would be false and if we were smart enough we could predict everything
> that would happen. If you chose determinism plus chaos, then no we
> cannot predict things (as you state), but the real point is that there
> is no free will in the equation. The fact that we cannot predict
> things is not due to the choices made by people, but rather by the
> random fluctuations of sub-atomic energy.
I must, hmm? How about if I refuse? Suppose that I feel that if macro events
outside our skulls like, say, weather systems the size of subcontinents are
unpredictable;
then there's no reason to say that the highly interconnected and chaotic system
inside our
heads are about as predictable as a game of tic-tac-toe? Sure, in large
numbers it's not
too hard to figure out how folks will behave in the short term; but writing the
script for
an individual from the get got just isn't going to happen
Short form; we're no different from the rest of the universe. Monolithic
predictable order
doesn't happen inside people any more than it does outside.
Automort
>seems to implicitly accept the dualists' notion that freedom is about
>unpredictability rather than about control.
This derives from early studies of creativity, or rather, attempts by 1950s
psychoanalytically trained pshrinks to study it. They attributed it to free
association and random behavior. Of course the ability to come up with ideas
seemingly at random is part of the creative process, but they treated
creativity as a disorder of thinking rather than a means of problem solving.
Being rigid and repressed themselves, naturally they would.
>Quantum randomness doesn't
>make our freedom any stronger; if anything it weakens it, by (ever so
>slightly) weakening the ability of our preferences to affect our
>actions.
Excellent point to bring up to "New Age" types who see randomness on that level
as proving freedom. Freedom comes from control, not helplessness.
Paul Filseth
> I would assume that
> an atheist would believe in a naturalistic world. Therefore
> everything that exists in the world operates in a cause and effect
> manner (except at a subatomic level). Free will has trouble then,
> because nothing in the naturalistic world qualifies as not being an
> "external coercion".
Lots of things in the naturalistic world aren't external coercion.
Brain cells, for instance.
> In other words, the spark of will cannot be ex nihilo created in
> the mind. It has to be a product of some external stimulus.
The notion that will is a "spark" rather than a pattern is part
of dualism. Materialism doesn't imply something just because some
random mixture of materialist and dualist premises does.
> The theist on the other hand has access to the "mind". This is an
> albeit "mystical" object because it does not operate a naturalistic
> manner. (and thus is very hard to study or learn about).
Atheists have access to mind. It's what we come to atheistic
conclusions using. It's a nonmystical process that's so easy to study
they let undergraduates into psychology classes.
> The abyss was more a statement about the realization that we are
> conscious entities trapped in a cage.
We're in a universe, not a cage. A cage is an object designed
for containing organisms. That's what theists think we're in, not
atheists.
> What will happen, will happen. Nothing matters.
"Nothing matters" is synthetic. "What will happen, will happen."
is analytic. Synthetic statements do not follow from analytic
statements.
Brian Holtz
> > Free will is either of the doctrines that volition is not externally
> > determined (weakly free) or is not pre-determined (strongly free).
>
> Why are you labeling these variations "weak" and "strong"? This
> seems to implicitly accept the dualists' notion that freedom is about
> unpredictability rather than about control.
I take it you're not disputing the identification of these two
senses of "free will", but instead are urging that the unpredictability
sense not be given some kind of primacy by labeling it "strong".
As stated, strong free will is a strict subset of weak free will,
and that would justify the terminology.
But I think you're right that the more interesting distinction is
between pre-determination and internal determination (as opposed to
mere lack of external determination). Also, given my definition
of volition, I notice that weak free will as defined above is true
by definition. :-( So now I'd define free will as either of the doctrines
that human choices are a) determined internally rather than externally
(volitional free will) or b) not pre-determined at all (indeterminate
free will).
> (* Terrific book. I'm bowled over by the sheer ambition of it. What
> are you doing in this century? You belong in the Enlightenment.)
I'm just surprised that nobody seems to have tried to create such a
systematic and analytic (as opposed to merely alphabetical) summary
of what humanity knows. The closest I've found are the Propaedia
outline of the Encyclopedia Britannica (which of course meekly refrains
from making assertive judgments) and The Bible According To Einstein
(which ignores philosophy, math, and the social sciences, and which
is written in an annoying biblical style).
There are of course various systematic statements of philosophical
belief, but these seem invariably to derive from mysticism or faith
in divine revelation, which of course invalidates them. That leaves
(as far as I've been able to find) things like Rand's Objectivism,
whose metaphysics and epistemology seem just amateurish and sloppy.
It's not like there isn't a vague consensus on ontology and (especially)
epistemology within the tradition of Analytic philosophy. It's just
that nobody seems to want to stick their neck out and try to summarize
that consensus.
So the book is my meager attempt to summarize the most important
things humanity knows and the most valid things humanity believes.
If its shortcomings inspires someone to do a better job than I've
done, then the effort will have been worth it. :-)
James Jones
rush off to the ceiling and leave you to suffocate in your chair, but
as I think Damon Runyan put it in a slightly different context,
that's not the way to bet. (Of course, that doesn't mean I necessarily
think there's such a thing as free will.)
James Jones
Opinions herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of
any organization.
Jason wrote:
>
> In a little moment of pondering, I stumbled again upon the problem
> atheists face with how the world operates.
>
> On one hand, they can choose an absolute, naturalistic determinism.
> There is no room for free will....
>
> On the other hand, they can choose a undetermined, naturalistic
> universe where things change based on quantum fluctuations....
> Again, free will has no quarter in this world....
James Jones
>
> The abyss was more a statement about the realization that we are
> conscious entities trapped in a cage. What will happen, will happen.
> Nothing matters.
One has to be pretty darned well off to be able to say "nothing matters"
with a straight face.
It may well be that a sufficiently good model of me would accurately
predict my behavior--indeed, people can do a decent job of predicting
how some people will react to some things just based on what is at
best an informal mental model--but even if that's the case, I can
tell when I feel I'm being coerced and when I'm not. To be sure, it's
a continuum; I may not notice that my significant other is trying to
influence my behavior through positive reinforcement. Because of that
I don't know whether "free will" is even a meaningful notion--it
attempts to turn this fuzzy notion into an absolute property.
I hope everyone's read Raymond Smullyan's delightful dialogue between
God and a man about free will in _The Tao is Silent_, BTW.