Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Free Will

[Mechanicalsalvation]

So have you watched the talk? You seem to be more up to speed with the latest debates on the Free Will. What say you?

I am going to watch it later, hopefully...

Also, to your points about the limited and unlimited. As long as inflationary physics and the boundary that the speed of light presents stay true. The universe is actually finite(though ever expanding). It thus gives rise to the multiverse, which because of the boundary of the speed of light; we could never interact with or observe. Making it in essence....another universe.

So, even the unlimited is in fact limited. LOLOLOL crazy right?

My view on this is that physical universe is limited however there is another much larger/unlimited universe of Consciousness which is also expanding yet infinite.
Matter = Energy = Consciousness. What we call matter is in fact only a form of consciousness transmutated to exhibit certain phenomena. That is why the impossible magic when seemingly inconscious matter could produce live and eventualy mind could have taken place at all...

 

[Kyriakos]

I think about this to be much more complex phenomena and as more peculiar in human and even general reality. Your actual consciousness or say the portion of it which in any given time you would call your actual self-aware/practical self may vary greatly. Depending if you sleep or are awake and what you experience with this consciousness. Now you may say that as a human being your consciousness is predominantly mental but I dont think you can say that soul is if only in part mental for at present human mentality constitutes rather the opposite of what an immortal soul the portion and representative of omniscience and omnipotent God, traditionally represents.
Why should soul be supernatural/superconscious in that way and not just totality of our conscious and subconscious processes? Why it cant be just some wider mental not yet totally known self? Because its not with agreement with universal spiritual experience of mankind and even more importantly with Nature and its evolutionary processes. You can observe in nature around you and inside you -your body - astonishingly intelligent processes which are completely independent of your mentality and on which your very life depends. Your imperfect and semiconscious mental world doesnt add anything to these and as we can witness is even potentially very harmful to them. Yet we may be quite right when we see ourselves as potential gods in making for this great imperfection of ours can possibly lead us to greater revelations. Only its not straight forward process just like our linear mental thinking is. Its nature is totally different....


Yet free will probably exist in absolute form as well. That is if there is such a thing as absolute. And to that I say why not? Just because you can form an mental conception of it is for me like seeing animal footprints in the snow. The animal exists too. And the only reason we can form the conception of it is because we experience the opposite of it. You cant separate the limited and unlimited. What you experience as limited is only a fraction of unlimited in any given time and space. For how could something be unlimited if it could not limit itself?

Yes, instead of barbarism of physical strength we have ended up with economical barbarism. We have enslaved human life in economical machinery and even whole nations made subjects to economic vampires. But this experience is only end result of material and rationalistic age which at its peak have proven to be one of the most creative ages of mankind. It seems it laid foundation for future where people will not be easily fooled by single idea/ ideal but yet will progress on the strength of some higher culture and principles.

Indeed there are a great many processes going on in the human body (eg how much of one substance gets used in one part of the body, and so on) which we are not conscious of, or in control of, and yes i agree that it would not be to our benefit at all if we tried to control them (the case of Franz Kafka, who seems to have tried to control some of that, leading to his utter collapse, is a poignant one here).

I am not of the view that the entirety of the mental world of a person is somehow linked to the external cosmos at some other level. Of course it might-- even more so if we define external and internal in a different way, which may be warranted although it is not particularly frequent in our current state of logic-centered consciousness.
I think that the entirety of the mental world of a person is way too vast to ever incorporate to any considerably large degree in the actual consciousness, and even if that would happen i honestly doubt that the deeper parts of the mental world would end at some point- something has to be below, at all times, so as to allow for something (consiousness) to be above it and function based on it.

Even if one can consciously examine a million variables in the course of a few minutes, that still means that below his consciousness there exist endless trillions of trillions of variables, which allow their upper edges to be projected into his consciousness and be understood as the variables he is in control of and can ponder.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Indeed there are a great many processes going on in the human body (eg how much of one substance gets used in one part of the body, and so on) which we are not conscious of, or in control of, and yes i agree that it would not be to our benefit at all if we tried to control them (the case of Franz Kafka, who seems to have tried to control some of that, leading to his utter collapse, is a poignant one here).

I am not of the view that the entirety of the mental world of a person is somehow linked to the external cosmos at some other level. Of course it might-- even more so if we define external and internal in a different way, which may be warranted although it is not particularly frequent in our current state of logic-centered consciousness.
I think that the entirety of the mental world of a person is way too vast to ever incorporate to any considerably large degree in the actual consciousness, and even if that would happen i honestly doubt that the deeper parts of the mental world would end at some point- something has to be below, at all times, so as to allow for something (consiousness) to be above it and function based on it.

Even if one can consciously examine a million variables in the course of a few minutes, that still means that below his consciousness there exist endless trillions of trillions of variables, which allow their upper edges to be projected into his consciousness and be understood as the variables he is in control of and can ponder.

Yet these trillions of trillions of variables and processes are happening on every second and moment to moment basis and with ease with which one could drink a glass of water; all falling into "perfect" harmony. That is why I said it doesnt show the signs of mental intelligence and action. Yet the tremendous intelligence we cant deny including that of the design of our own human body and its "imperfect" mental processes.
From yoga I have learned that there are higher layers of mind which are not soul or God/Universal consciousness but are very much in tune with these. Each of these layers seems to be fields larger then the physical universe itself but they are not manifested in any significant way on Earth except of consciousness of some few very developed individuals or in writings of great poets and such.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yet these trillions of trillions of variables and processes are happening on every second and moment to moment basis and with ease with which one could drink a glass of water; all falling into "perfect" harmony. That is why I said it doesnt show the signs of mental intelligence and action. Yet the tremendous intelligence we cant deny including that of the design of our own human body and its "imperfect" mental processes.
From yoga I have learned that there are higher layers of mind which are not soul or God/Universal consciousness but are very much in tune with these. Each of these layers seems to be fields larger then the physical universe itself but they are not manifested in any significant way on Earth except of consciousness of some few very developed individuals or in writings of great poets and such.

I do not agree that the rest of the mental world does not belong to the individual. It surely still belongs to him, it just is never fully incorporated in his consciousness. It probably is infinite (this is a guess, of course, no way to calculate this) which by itself leaves even more open the possibility of some sort of unknown cosmic connection, or partial connection of the individual and the cosmos or elements of it.
However, in my view, even if that is the case, still each individual has his own mental world, and is not part of some collective of a mental world. I do think that the human mental abilities in regards to levels of thought and calculation, synthesis and analysis are incredibly superior to those used most of the time.

 

[lovett]

You really cannot condense the material because there is so much that needs to be refuted. I am sorry that you have a negative impression of Sam Harris. I dont see how that is possible unless you are attempting the journey with preconceived notions. Have you seen his TED talk?

I rather doubt that. One can condense a great many more complex thinkers than Sam Harris. My negative impression is possible -I venture- because I know about the subjects he chooses to discuss. I suppose one might consider this 'attempting the journey with preconceived notions' - well in that case such an attempt is advisable.

His TED talk, now you remind me, is one of the sources of my negative opinion. He just crudely trots out a form of subjective value theory, in which all questions of value are determinate, without any defence whatsoever.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I do not agree that the rest of the mental world does not belong to the individual. It surely still belongs to him, it just is never fully incorporated in his consciousness. It probably is infinite (this is a guess, of course, no way to calculate this) which by itself leaves even more open the possibility of some sort of unknown cosmic connection, or partial connection of the individual and the cosmos or elements of it.
However, in my view, even if that is the case, still each individual has his own mental world, and is not part of some collective of a mental world. I do think that the human mental abilities in regards to levels of thought and calculation, synthesis and analysis are incredibly superior to those used most of the time.

I disagree that we do not agree. Not only that individual is or has as part of himself (in his superconscious state) higher mental levels but also he is one with God and the whole of Universe. The separation that we experience (and death) on physico-mental level is only a necessary evolutionary step. Physical mind and its analytical and logical deductive faculties serve the purpose to be able to know the world and develop life from their own perspective and level and they are far superior to the instincts and senses but they are not in position to reveal the whole of truth.

 

[Kyriakos]

Then i will agree that we don't disagree

 

[Gatsby]

A theological question.

The Bible says:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

But this implies God predestined Jesus' death. Wouldn't that be contrary to the Christian doctrine of free will? Did God force Pontius Pilates' hand? And Judas' too? What's more, Jesus knew that Judas would betray him. Did Jesus/ his Dad 'make' Judas betray him?

Or more generally, are the concepts of free will and an omniscient creator compatible? And since omniscience implies predestination, can God be omnipotent if he can't change what is predestined?

Jesus and The Son are not necessarily one and the same. This passage, like many other passages in the four gospels, has a much deeper meaning than first appearances would suggest.

I suspect that concepts like "omniscience" and "omnipotence" are about as useful for understanding the Divine as epicycles are for understanding the orbits of the planets.

 

[Kyriakos]

Good timing, given that i was just getting sucked into studying the system of Conic sections, devised (probably) by Apollonios of Pergamon in the middle of the Hellenistic era. A heavily superior system for studying circles, ellipses, parabolas and hyperbolas to the one which followed 1800 years later, the Cartesian Axis.

Sad to see that we went from full 3d, to 2d. Nice improvement :/

 

[timtofly]

Jesus and The Son are not necessarily one and the same. This passage, like many other passages in the four gospels, has a much deeper meaning than first appearances would suggest.

I suspect that concepts like "omniscience" and "omnipotence" are about as useful for understanding the Divine as epicycles are for understanding the orbits of the planets.

What would the Divine equate to you then? If God is everywhere, and all the universe only exist in God, would God knowing everything also be a part of that as well? Are we equating the "guesses" of science with the writings of the Bible?

Perhaps the Bible and Jesus are not God's interaction among humans on earth. Are you suggesting that humans in their spare time came up with words with deeper meanings that they were unaware of? But there is no God who can actually interact with humans and yet everything that is, exist within such a God? Would it be God attempting to communicate with man, or man trying to figure God out?

 

[CYSQUATCH9]

I rather doubt that. One can condense a great many more complex thinkers than Sam Harris. My negative impression is possible -I venture- because I know about the subjects he chooses to discuss. I suppose one might consider this 'attempting the journey with preconceived notions' - well in that case such an attempt is advisable.

His TED talk, now you remind me, is one of the sources of my negative opinion. He just crudely trots out a form of subjective value theory, in which all questions of value are determinate, without any defence whatsoever.

LOLOLOL

As opposed to the beautiful and peaceful divine command theories? LOLOL you cant be serious. You either do not understand science or are an anti-intellectualist. How anyone could watch his TED talk and have a negative opinion is pathetic. The man begins to cry on stage when speaking of the suffering of his fellow man. Whether you agree with his proposal or not, your negative outlook on his talk tells me everything I need to know about what kind of lens you view the world through.

Since you know so much about the subjects that Sam wishes to discuss, where is free will? Where? Those thoughts that pop into your head, when do you choose to think them? And why didnt you choose to think something else?

Those thoughts are the product of your brain. There is no objective reason to think that the brain is anything other than a physical system. Your brain is formed by genetics. Did you choose your parents?

Your brain is then sculpted by entanglement in the world you live in. Did you choose to be born where you were? Did you choose the school you went to as a child? Did you choose every person that you interacted with?

Any response that you could possibly attempt is thoroughly refuted in the talk, but that is the real problem. Either you can not understand what is presented in the talk, or you refuse to watch it. If you refuse to watch it, then you desire to have an antiquated conversation, which I will gladly recuse myself from.

Not only is free will an illusion, it is a completely incoherent concept. To say you could choose something else, is the same as saying you chose to live in an alternate universe. How exactly does one do that?

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm...

Presenting materialism as a basis for examining the mind is nothing new at all. It has even been discussed a few times in this very forum. It is my own view too that materialism is not refuting any idealistic stance which is not itself utterly extreme. And i would have liked to watch the video, but you cannot expect one to just give 1.5 hours of his life on some thinker just because another person claims that this thinker is something great. So it would help a lot if you can summarise his main points, if you insist on basing the discussion on your part on that video.

 

[timtofly]

You forgot the question. When a parent spends hours, blood, sweat, and tears, why a child goes into a totally different direction?

Free will may be an illusion, but it gives humans a sense of direction. It is not an alternate universe, but different dimensions of the current one. One can choose to live a mundane life that physics determines for them, and become a slave to it, even in their higher education.

Imagination can only take you so far, especially when science and peer review will keep you grounded to reality.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite." W. Blake

Here is an example of visionary/mystical poet. This perception one can have only beyond ordinary limited mind.

 

[lovett]

LOLOLOL

As opposed to the beautiful and peaceful divine command theories? LOLOL you cant be serious. You either do not understand science or are an anti-intellectualist. How anyone could watch his TED talk and have a negative opinion is pathetic. The man begins to cry on stage when speaking of the suffering of his fellow man. Whether you agree with his proposal or not, your negative outlook on his talk tells me everything I need to know about what kind of lens you view the world through.

Since you know so much about the subjects that Sam wishes to discuss, where is free will? Where? Those thoughts that pop into your head, when do you choose to think them? And why didnt you choose to think something else?

Those thoughts are the product of your brain. There is no objective reason to think that the brain is anything other than a physical system. Your brain is formed by genetics. Did you choose your parents?

Your brain is then sculpted by entanglement in the world you live in. Did you choose to be born where you were? Did you choose the school you went to as a child? Did you choose every person that you interacted with?

Any response that you could possibly attempt is thoroughly refuted in the talk, but that is the real problem. Either you can not understand what is presented in the talk, or you refuse to watch it. If you refuse to watch it, then you desire to have an antiquated conversation, which I will gladly recuse myself from.

Not only is free will an illusion, it is a completely incoherent concept. To say you could choose something else, is the same as saying you chose to live in an alternate universe. How exactly does one do that?

This is a rather interesting response.

You make quite a lot of assumptions for someone who knows next to nothing about me. You assume the counter-point to Sam Harris's ethical and metaethical views I have in mind is Divine Command Theory. You say this is pathetic, and allude it indicates I have some sort of perverse perspective on the world. By the by, here you seem to confuse a judgement on someone respectability as a thinker with a judgement on their character.

Well, predictably your assumption misfires: I am inclined Sam Harris' rather crudely Benthamite view with other much more sophisticated (secular) accounts of value (and moral issues in general) which are quite at odds with his view. Objective value theory springs to mind, although (my turn to assume) I take it you don't really know what that is. Well, we don't have to stay rooted in the consequentialism tradition Harris seems entrenched in: I think consequentialism is true, but would never deny virtue ethical or deontological views (for instance, Kantian Contractualism) provide highly plausible alternatives. I suppose the problem here is that you are presenting Sam Harris as a serious thinker: to be taken as a serious thinker he has to engage with serious thinking, and Divine Command Theory has not been considered such for quite a long time.

On the issue of free will you also exhibit a certain rashness. Again, I hope you can admit you do not know much about the topic of free will. This is a topic on which thousands of papers and hundreds of books have been written, in secular philosophy alone. Of this vast swathe of literature, by your conduct in this thread I can be forgiven from concluding you have seen precisely one 80 minute talk. Maybe you have watched it twice. As I say, it seems to me a little rash with that in mind to assert any possible response to this talk has been 'thoroughly refuted' (someone should inform Philosophy & Public Affairs to stop taking submissions on this topic, for it has been solved!) when you have less than a complete command on the literature. I think very few professional philosophers would take that view on their own pet-theories.

But anyway, apart from these somewhat surprising remarks there is a small amount of substance in your post. You think that free will is impossible because we don't choose every circumstance that effects our lives (our childhood school, for instance). I suppose your idea here is that, for any choice to be free, we must have chosen every circumstance that lead you to make that choice. So maybe you would like to defend that claim (although, feel free to recuse yourself instead...).

 

[Souron]

Where is your empirical evidence for a soul? Let me just stop you there because there is none. So you must have the "ghost in the shell" argument, which we have already discussed, and is thoroughly dismissed in Mr. Harris's talk.

I was mearly using the language you used in making my point. But it applies just as well whatever the nature of your being is. That fact that you have little control over who you are does not diminish your free will.

 

[Gatsby]

What would the Divine equate to you then? If God is everywhere, and all the universe only exist in God, would God knowing everything also be a part of that as well? Are we equating the "guesses" of science with the writings of the Bible?

Perhaps the Bible and Jesus are not God's interaction among humans on earth. Are you suggesting that humans in their spare time came up with words with deeper meanings that they were unaware of? But there is no God who can actually interact with humans and yet everything that is, exist within such a God? Would it be God attempting to communicate with man, or man trying to figure God out?

Most popular conceptions of “God” are fundamentally anthropomorphic, in that they propose a discrete, substantial personal entity endowed with qualities which resemble human qualities, e.g. volition, ambition, a sense of self, emotions, a recognisably human type of intelligence, and sometimes even human psychopathologies. However, advocates of such conceptions dismiss the fact that such qualities have evolved in a unique set of circumstances to enable the survival of one particular type of organism (Homo sapiens) on one particular planet occupying a tiny part of an immense cosmos.

While most such advocates have moved on from beliefs which are more obviously the products of human narcissism and naïveté – e.g. that the Earth is the centre of the universe, that God actually looks like a human – they still cling to more subtly naïve and narcissistic beliefs such as those described above.

I am not saying that “God” and “Divine” are concepts with no truth behind them; what I am saying is that they contain a kernel of truth surrounded by a very thick husk made up of limited human perception, socio-biological conditioning and cultural baggage. Imo a more accurate conception of “God” or the Divine would be a primal void which is ever-pregnant with possibilities, or a cosmic wellspring through which the un-manifest (and thus unlimited) becomes manifest (and thus limited).

Regarding the question of whether the Bible and Jesus are God’s interactions among humans on earth: well, they are and they aren’t.

They are in the sense that every event that occurs is ultimately “God’s” interaction amongst humans on earth, because the ultimate origin and nature of humans is that of the pregnant void – just like everything else. The Bible and Jesus are special in this sense, because they are all about a deliberate conscious attempt by humans to know that primal voidness, by actually utilising the cultural and perceptual tools available to people (i.e. like using concepts to ultimately free yourself from attachment to concepts).

They also aren’t, in the sense that God and Jesus are not literal divine beings. Or, to put it another way, they are not humans endowed with turbo-charged versions of qualities which are conducive to human survival and propagation on planet Earth.

Humans, such as Jesus and those who wrote the Bible, did not come up with words with deeper meanings that they were unaware of; rather, they used the cultural and linguistic tools available to them to point to deeper truths which ultimately lie beyond the ken of human intellect. “He who has eyes to see, let him see”. One of those cultural tools was a concept of God, and in Christianity’s case the concept of God as the Holy Trinity. Christians do interact with God just as the ancient Egyptians and others interacted with their gods; what they interact with is not an exterior ultimate reality, but a psychological device designed to help them find ultimate reality within and around them.

There is a reason why (unless you’re schizophrenic) the response to your prayers is always silence: it’s because silence is the language of the primal void. The primal void has no need of ambition, self-preservation, accountability or negotiation. It is not merely “perfect”, but beyond and before perfect.

 

[timtofly]

Where does this void exist? It seems to me, just a projection of an emptiness found within. Science has not produced any other dimensions that we cannot already perceive within the physical realm.

Space is a made up of discrete elements that obey strict rules. There is no going out into this vast cosmos and finding anything else but these elements. The brain fires in physical patterns that can be studied, but there is no delving into the unknown via physical means there.

Humans do have a vivid imagination and can come up with all sorts of interesting places, but we can tell from a physical point of view what is real and what is not, as long as science holds to it's current method of identifying reality.

As long as humans can reason, they will keep coming back to this reality we call life, that humans have a hard time getting the better of. The answer to prayer is not always silence, and if God speaks to a person, they have a choice to listen or turn away. I am not sure how that works with people who have been affected by chemicals in their brain. Or the consistency that God does not communicate with every one. Perhaps some may look on this consistency as a convenient excuse. I have to admit that I do not have all the answers, just what has been revealed. Neither can I neglect the reality of each situation, where humans came into contact with God, although it could all be a lie, and then there would be no basis in reality for the Bible to stand on.

You cannot have it both ways. If what humans claimed to have been reality, should be taken as a reality. One cannot pick and choose what they want to be a reality. All people who have some sense of a spiritual dimension, may not have the same definition of such dimension, but one cannot say it does not exist, or only exist in certain imaginations. If it does not exist as another real dimension, then it does not. If you say that it was just humans projecting their thoughts, or inner void, then it is not a reality, it is only an imagination. I do not think that this projected void is a projection. It is an actual knowledge that a spiritual realm is missing and cannot be a reality for that person and therefore they fill it with their own imaginations.

To clear up my view: I do not say that I have a personal relationship with God, because I created it in my mind, and personalized God to fit my circumstances. I have a personal relationship with God, because he took the effort to befriend me. Now, I agree that even that would be considered a projection to some, but it is a reality that I cannot get rid of, no matter how much I try. How many people in real life who have the same common bond between them projecting the same reality would it take to change it from imagination status, to reality?

 

[Souron]

So Mr. Harris's argument is that free will is an illusion. He states that the one thing that cant be an illusion is the conscious mind. However, consciousness has not been defined. But we know this, all evidence points to consciousness arising in the brain, the brain is a physical system, the brain is beholden to the laws of physics.

Consciousness usually defined as having a sense of self, the idea that you are distinct from your surroundings. I agree that that's a requirement for free will. Consciousness and agency, the ability to act, are sufficient for free will. Being subject to the laws of physics does not preclude free will.

There has been proven conscious action in plants as well.

Not true. However, it has been proven that plants something like a pain response. But almost no animals have been proven to have consciousness.

 

[Souron]

Yet these trillions of trillions of variables and processes are happening on every second and moment to moment basis and with ease with which one could drink a glass of water; all falling into "perfect" harmony. That is why I said it doesnt show the signs of mental intelligence and action. Yet the tremendous intelligence we cant deny including that of the design of our own human body and its "imperfect" mental processes.
From yoga I have learned that there are higher layers of mind which are not soul or God/Universal consciousness but are very much in tune with these. Each of these layers seems to be fields larger then the physical universe itself but they are not manifested in any significant way on Earth except of consciousness of some few very developed individuals or in writings of great poets and such.

My view on this is that physical universe is limited however there is another much larger/unlimited universe of Consciousness which is also expanding yet infinite.
Matter = Energy = Consciousness. What we call matter is in fact only a form of consciousness transmutated to exhibit certain phenomena. That is why the impossible magic when seemingly inconscious matter could produce live and eventualy mind could have taken place at all...

I disagree that we do not agree. Not only that individual is or has as part of himself (in his superconscious state) higher mental levels but also he is one with God and the whole of Universe. The separation that we experience (and death) on physico-mental level is only a necessary evolutionary step. Physical mind and its analytical and logical deductive faculties serve the purpose to be able to know the world and develop life from their own perspective and level and they are far superior to the instincts and senses but they are not in position to reveal the whole of truth.

This all may be a useful model of reality and existence, that could potentially lead to insightful conclusions. But you must agree that it's not the way most people describe reality and existence. In particular, people describe the world as made up entirely of distinct physical objects. And the common model also leads to insights, though these may seem less profound, because the model is common. So I ask, by what metric is your model superior, that we should view what you describe as more real than the traditional reality and existence that we ascribe to objects viewed distinctly?

Also, I feel compelled to say that I question about your analytical method. But I doubt there's room for discussion there.