Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Free Will

[Gatsby]

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.

“Where” is a function of spacetime. The void is ontologically prior to spacetime and existence/manifestation; asking “where” it exists is a bit like asking how many humans there are in a lung. The void “exists” everywhere and nowhere. To borrow a phrase from Lao Tzu, it is “smaller than an electron, (yet) it contains uncountable galaxies.”

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.

If we look closely at these physical elements, we find that they are almost entirely made up of empty space. If we look at space, we find that it is a sea of virtual energy particles continuously popping in and out of existence. It’s as if empty space is continuously “pregnant”….

To what extent are the “discreteness” of these elements, and the “strictness” of the rules they obey products of limited human perception? What we call laws of nature are really just useful models of how phenomena around us behave. Moreover, perhaps these “strict” rules are really just stereotyped patterns or habits of behaviour? As brilliantly useful as science is, we must remember that it too is a product of limited human perception and should be treated as a tool of expedience.

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.

I speak from my own personal experience when I say prayers are always answered with silence, and I concede that I probably went too far with that remark. So I’ll resort to a thought-experiment: what would happen if I said a prayer and it *was* answered with something other than silence? I would analyse the response, and I would probably work out that the answer was actually: me listening to my own intuition; a result of a chemical imbalance in my brain; a suggestion implanted into my subconscious by an earlier experience; a product of increased receptiveness of my mind to data from my environment as a result of the calming experience of praying; a sudden internal catharsis which had been a long time coming but was finally triggered by the act of prayer; or perhaps even a communication from a non-corporeal (but ultimately finite) entity. However, it would be an enormous jump to conclusion to call it a direct communication from a Supreme all-powerful Creator of the universe. The multitude of these more prosaic explanations for “communications” from God also provides a solid explanation for why God does not seem to communicate to everyone. Each person and each situation is different.

This is not to say that all experiences of communication with God are lies. It is simply saying that the mechanisms of communication are more natural, organic, and automated than most believers think. If you have trouble accepting that, then think of it this way: an all-knowing God is going to know what you will pray for before you do, and will have already arranged an appropriate response.

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.

I am not saying that spiritual dimensions do not exist. What I am saying is that they are conceptual tools for knowing and coping with reality, just like our concept of a “physical” dimension. What makes a dimension “real” anyway? What precludes the imagined from having any “realness” of its own? What I am saying is that all of what we call reality, is ultimately of the primal void.

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?

I would say that you have a personal relationship with God because that is how your psychological makeup has developed and evolved. And there’s nothing wrong with that, so long as it doesn’t cause you to harm anyone. Moreover, that doesn’t make your relationship any less “real”, it just means you have a conceptual model for dealing with the world, like virtually everyone else. That conceptual model must contain at least some element of truth. Otherwise, why would you hold onto it?

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

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.

Is subconsciousness form of consciousness? Sure it is. Having sense of self is called self-awarness.

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

If plants have been proven to have pain response what else it is if not some rudimentary form of consciousness? I am not sure though what progress science made in that direction since this dude:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose . Possibly non.

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?

You can view objects distinctly or not. Its just a game of consciousness or matter of what you view as practical for particular purpose. But how are you going in ultimate analysis separate matter and consciousness? They seem to be opposite but how could matter produce something which is not itself? How could Absolute shape something outside of itself?

 

[warpus]

That conceptual model must contain at least some element of truth. Otherwise, why would you hold onto it?

If I could convince myself that I had a personal relationship with the creator of the universe.. that would be kind of awesome. I can see the appeal.

 

[Borachio]

It's not a terribly hard thing to do.

If you can convince yourself that things happening in a movie, a book, or a play, are real, or that the result of some sporting event really matters, (and most people can), I'd say convincing yourself of the reality of a personal God is fairly easy.

You do have to want to, though.

It's just a matter of suspending disbelief.

Go on! Give it a go and see.

I imagine, though, that you already have done, at some stage in your life.

 

[Souron]

Is subconsciousness form of consciousness? Sure it is. Having sense of self is called self-awarness.

I view the terms as synonyms, or near so. If you're using the word in a different way, please define it explicitly.

If plants have been proven to have pain response what else it is if not some rudimentary form of consciousness? I am not sure though what progress science made in that direction since this dude:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose . Possibly non.

There was a bit of news of a study that did this kind of thing recently, I think in the last year. But pain response is a simple thing compared to consciousness and other kinds of abstract reasoning.

You can view objects distinctly or not. Its just a game of consciousness or matter of what you view as practical for particular purpose. But how are you going in ultimate analysis separate matter and consciousness? They seem to be opposite but how could matter produce something which is not itself? How could Absolute shape something outside of itself?

The only way to reason about what may or may not be produced by matter is by observation. There's nothing philosophically wrong about matter producing anything at all, including "consciousness", sapience, spirits, and whatever else we may imagine.

 

[Gatsby]

If I could convince myself that I had a personal relationship with the creator of the universe.. that would be kind of awesome. I can see the appeal.

And presumably you can also see why, despite the advance of science, religion and belief in God won't be going away anytime soon. Irrespective of how truthful belief in a personal God is, many people still find it very useful.

I agree with Borachio that it isn't hard to do, and suspension of disbelief definitely plays a role. But I think you also need to have some foundation in reality, no matter
how weak that foundation may be. However maybe that's just me, and some people can just block out the reasoning parts of their mind altogether?

 

[timtofly]

“Where” is a function of spacetime. The void is ontologically prior to spacetime and existence/manifestation; asking “where” it exists is a bit like asking how many humans there are in a lung. The void “exists” everywhere and nowhere. To borrow a phrase from Lao Tzu, it is “smaller than an electron, (yet) it contains uncountable galaxies.”

The void replaces God?

If we look closely at these physical elements, we find that they are almost entirely made up of empty space. If we look at space, we find that it is a sea of virtual energy particles continuously popping in and out of existence. It’s as if empty space is continuously “pregnant”….

I agree that going as small as one can physically go will always be space, but such is God. God is infinite, and physical cosmos from the furthest away, down to the smallest physical item, all consist within God and is part of God.

To what extent are the “discreteness” of these elements, and the “strictness” of the rules they obey products of limited human perception? What we call laws of nature are really just useful models of how phenomena around us behave. Moreover, perhaps these “strict” rules are really just stereotyped patterns or habits of behaviour? As brilliantly useful as science is, we must remember that it too is a product of limited human perception and should be treated as a tool of expedience.

Laws are obeyed or these elements would not "hold" together nor form anything that could be scientifically and reasonably explained.

I speak from my own personal experience when I say prayers are always answered with silence, and I concede that I probably went too far with that remark. So I’ll resort to a thought-experiment: what would happen if I said a prayer and it *was* answered with something other than silence? I would analyse the response, and I would probably work out that the answer was actually: me listening to my own intuition; a result of a chemical imbalance in my brain; a suggestion implanted into my subconscious by an earlier experience; a product of increased receptiveness of my mind to data from my environment as a result of the calming experience of praying; a sudden internal catharsis which had been a long time coming but was finally triggered by the act of prayer; or perhaps even a communication from a non-corporeal (but ultimately finite) entity. However, it would be an enormous jump to conclusion to call it a direct communication from a Supreme all-powerful Creator of the universe. The multitude of these more prosaic explanations for “communications” from God also provides a solid explanation for why God does not seem to communicate to everyone. Each person and each situation is different.

Do you not experience events? How would you know these events are not answers to prayer. God is not just 'sound' or even just 'an answer', God is life.

This is not to say that all experiences of communication with God are lies. It is simply saying that the mechanisms of communication are more natural, organic, and automated than most believers think. If you have trouble accepting that, then think of it this way: an all-knowing God is going to know what you will pray for before you do, and will have already arranged an appropriate response.

The human mind can deceive us and cause us to think we are "hearing" God. One would think that there is a mechanism that would falsify or clarify if it is God or not.

I am not saying that spiritual dimensions do not exist. What I am saying is that they are conceptual tools for knowing and coping with reality, just like our concept of a “physical” dimension. What makes a dimension “real” anyway? What precludes the imagined from having any “realness” of its own? What I am saying is that all of what we call reality, is ultimately of the primal void.

Once again, either a spiritual reality exist in reality or it only exist in the mind. You cannot have both. Unless one only lives within themselves. The mind is not the creator of reality, yet some believe that it is. If the primal void is God, then I agree.

I would say that you have a personal relationship with God because that is how your psychological makeup has developed and evolved. And there’s nothing wrong with that, so long as it doesn’t cause you to harm anyone. Moreover, that doesn’t make your relationship any less “real”, it just means you have a conceptual model for dealing with the world, like virtually everyone else. That conceptual model must contain at least some element of truth. Otherwise, why would you hold onto it?

Or it is a reality and I have no say whatsoever in the relationship.

I am not sure if it is intentional, but what you are saying is what I have learned in life, except the argument is going in the other direction. I am not sure about how that coincides with belief, since I find belief tends to be tedious and not very substantial. Any person can say they believe something. I just like knowing something. I suppose I could have unconsciously switched definitions around. I suppose any one can think they know the truth and it still be a lie.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I view the terms as synonyms, or near so. If you're using the word in a different way, please define it explicitly.

I connect consciousness mainly with sentinence and life but there may be possibility it can be scaled down to something even within the unliving forms. Any sense doesnt exist for itself alone the recipient of its impulses is some form of (sub)consciousness no matter how primitive or infinitesimal.

There was a bit of news of a study that did this kind of thing recently, I think in the last year. But pain response is a simple thing compared to consciousness and other kinds of abstract reasoning.

Its only matter of degree. What you specificaly refer is mental consciousness or conscious mind. You dont loose consciousness when you sleep. Sometimes part of your consciousness can work better in sleep when its not obstructed by physical mind like in case of deep sleep in R.E.M.

The only way to reason about what may or may not be produced by matter is by observation. There's nothing philosophically wrong about matter producing anything at all, including "consciousness", sapience, spirits, and whatever else we may imagine.

We use science to study matter. And we need something to study our own consciousness.

 

[CYSQUATCH9]

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...).

feel free....LOL I see what you did there

First off, he nor I, have made the argument that pleasure is uniform.( I am assuming you meant to type "I am inclined to disagree with the rather crudely expressed Benthamite...")

I am not familiar with Kantian, but I know Objective value theory and Contractualism. But suggesting that you should not discuss Divine Command Theory, is the same as saying you shouldn't talk about the weather if you are gonna go sailing. Whether they know it or not, the majority of people in this world function under Divine Command Theory. Without free-will, faith based religion becomes hopeless. Unless you're in to Calvinism or something...You must discuss Divine Command Theory because that is where the problems reside. Religious tribalism is a serious issue nowadays(in case you havent caught the news lately).

Now, on to my defense.

Not only every circumstance, but every possible response that arises from those circumstances. The flaws in memory alone are enough to debunk free will. If you can not author all causality, there is no free will. If you can not freely inspect all known options. There is no free will. Because free will is simply an incoherent concept. It is an illusion.

For instance, what compelled you to respond to me? What compels you or I going further in this conversation? You have no control over what I am going to type, but it will have an affect on your life. The amount of control that you have over the words I will type and what your brain will think next is exactly the same. Let me make this argument more explicit...

You are having a great day. You walk in on your partner having sex with someone else. You will lose all control of your faculties(unless you are freaky). You will probably do something you regret. Where is free will? You know how thoughts just arise in your mind. They can generate actions, emotions, responses much the same as other people can. You know when you hear a song, and you cant remember the name of the band. You know the answer. Why cant you remember? You are the victim of your brains failure in memory. Just like you were the victim of a faithless wife, or a wandering mind. We all are in essence, the victims of circumstance....luck.

However, there is room for the self here. Lets say you are bullied as a child. Some people commit suicide. Others say, I'm gonna learn martial arts. Then the path of your life takes you down the road of self-defense. You become so confident in your abilities that you are comfortable avoiding physical conflict altogether. What is the difference between you and the person that commits suicide. I think we have the answer, the physical structure of your brain. What gives rise to the physical structure of your brain? Where is free will?

Sams argument for free will is in congruence with his argument of deterministic, scientific values giving rise to morality. One thing he is not guilty of, is telling you what these values are, he offers his opinion that they have to do with human flourishing, because that is what we are programmed by evolution to value. He always says that these are questions that we must find new answers to, and I agree.

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.

Until atma is proven, there is no reason to believe that you are greater than yourself. There must be an independently verifiable fact. Meaning you and I can run the same experiment and get the same result.

The fact that you have little control over who you are, obliterates the concept of free will.

Lastly, the talk is 50 minutes, not an hour and a half. There is quite a lengthy Q&A. Sam is not just an atheist out beating the atheist war drum. He has studied Buddhism and believes in spirituality and higher states of consciousness. He is a personal friend of the Dalia lama. Religious and meta(fill in the blank) thinking has been his passion his entire life. He got into neuroscience to help him find the answers that he has been seeking.

 

[Kyriakos]

^That free will is not absolute is not in contention by any reasonable person. However that does not mean it has to not exist at all. You might as well had argued that we don't have free will cause no matter how much we will it, we cannot move a mountain.

In my view, for all intents and puproses, free will does exist, given that it seems one can expand his consciousness to account for more variables and thus will what he wants with them as well. He will never be able to account for all variables, and probably not even for any significant part of them either. However to say one is not free cause he can- as an example- make 5 trillion choices in his lifetime, and not 5 trillions of trillions of choices, is true, but besides the point, cause no one can make even 5 trillion choices unless they actually are endlessly occupied with subdividing all those which they can choose upon.

In short: a line can be seen as finite if you draw it on a blackboard. It still is infinite from the point of view of any of the atomic specks which comprise it. And that is pretty much what we are.

 

[lovett]

Now, on to my defense.

Not only every circumstance, but every possible response that arises from those circumstances. The flaws in memory alone are enough to debunk free will. If you can not author all causality, there is no free will. If you can not freely inspect all known options. There is no free will. Because free will is simply an incoherent concept. It is an illusion.

For instance, what compelled you to respond to me? What compels you or I going further in this conversation? You have no control over what I am going to type, but it will have an affect on your life. The amount of control that you have over the words I will type and what your brain will think next is exactly the same. Let me make this argument more explicit...

You are having a great day. You walk in on your partner having sex with someone else. You will lose all control of your faculties(unless you are freaky). You will probably do something you regret. Where is free will? You know how thoughts just arise in your mind. They can generate actions, emotions, responses much the same as other people can. You know when you hear a song, and you cant remember the name of the band. You know the answer. Why cant you remember? You are the victim of your brains failure in memory. Just like you were the victim of a faithless wife, or a wandering mind. We all are in essence, the victims of circumstance....luck.

However, there is room for the self here. Lets say you are bullied as a child. Some people commit suicide. Others say, I'm gonna learn martial arts. Then the path of your life takes you down the road of self-defense. You become so confident in your abilities that you are comfortable avoiding physical conflict altogether. What is the difference between you and the person that commits suicide. I think we have the answer, the physical structure of your brain. What gives rise to the physical structure of your brain? Where is free will?

Sams argument for free will is in congruence with his argument of deterministic, scientific values giving rise to morality. One thing he is not guilty of, is telling you what these values are, he offers his opinion that they have to do with human flourishing, because that is what we are programmed by evolution to value. He always says that these are questions that we must find new answers to, and I agree.

This isn't really an argument. It is an extended repetition of you belief that 'for any choice to be free, we must have chosen every circumstance that lead you to make that choice.' And then, tacked on to that, is the question 'What place does free will have in a purely physical universe?'

Well, that's a fair question. I might answer it tomorrow, if I have the time. But I wonder if you would care to provide an argument for your position. In an argument,we move from a set of premises to a conclusion via some limited, commonly agreed, set of functions (those in 2nd-order logic, for instance). Your conclusion is that free will is incoherent. Perhaps you could make clear what your argument is.

 

[Souron]

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.

This an arrogant and dangerous view. You really should not assume that a given argument successfully deflects all possible objections without having heard those objections. Open your mind to the possibility that you may be wrong.

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?

Not only every circumstance, but every possible response that arises from those circumstances. The flaws in memory alone are enough to debunk free will. If you can not author all causality, there is no free will. If you can not freely inspect all known options. There is no free will. Because free will is simply an incoherent concept. It is an illusion.

Yes, you don't seem to have a coherent definition of free will. That's the crux of why you're wrong about the properties of free will: you define it in a way that is incoherent and inconsistent with actual use of the term.

Choosing is not like living an an alternate universe. Free will does not require omniscience.

For instance, what compelled you to respond to me? What compels you or I going further in this conversation? You have no control over what I am going to type, but it will have an affect on your life. The amount of control that you have over the words I will type and what your brain will think next is exactly the same. Let me make this argument more explicit...

The only think compelling me to respond to you is internal to me, ergo I am freely choosing to do so.

You are having a great day. You walk in on your partner having sex with someone else. You will lose all control of your faculties(unless you are freaky). You will probably do something you regret. Where is free will? You know how thoughts just arise in your mind. They can generate actions, emotions, responses much the same as other people can. You know when you hear a song, and you cant remember the name of the band. You know the answer. Why cant you remember? You are the victim of your brains failure in memory. Just like you were the victim of a faithless wife, or a wandering mind. We all are in essence, the victims of circumstance....luck.

This is rather incoherent, but I wanna point out that when you lose control of your mental faculties, that does mean don't have free will when that happens. That's what that turn of phrase means. As a consequence, we may be more lenient in judging a person in that situation. There have been cases where a criminal defendant has been found not guilty of murder for a person they've provably killed in that situation.

Until atma is proven, there is no reason to believe that you are greater than yourself. There must be an independently verifiable fact. Meaning you and I can run the same experiment and get the same result.

Agreed, but I never said otherwise.

The fact that you have little control over who you are, obliterates the concept of free will.

No it doesn't. How it does? The burden of proof is in you.

 

[CYSQUATCH9]

^That free will is not absolute is not in contention by any reasonable person. However that does not mean it has to not exist at all. You might as well had argued that we don't have free will cause no matter how much we will it, we cannot move a mountain.

In my view, for all intents and puproses, free will does exist, given that it seems one can expand his consciousness to account for more variables and thus will what he wants with them as well. He will never be able to account for all variables, and probably not even for any significant part of them either. However to say one is not free cause he can- as an example- make 5 trillion choices in his lifetime, and not 5 trillions of trillions of choices, is true, but besides the point, cause no one can make even 5 trillion choices unless they actually are endlessly occupied with subdividing all those which they can choose upon.

In short: a line can be seen as finite if you draw it on a blackboard. It still is infinite from the point of view of any of the atomic specks which comprise it. And that is pretty much what we are.

That is in no way the argument I am trying to express and is an ignorant view of relativity.

This isn't really an argument. It is an extended repetition of you belief that 'for any choice to be free, we must have chosen every circumstance that lead you to make that choice.' And then, tacked on to that, is the question 'What place does free will have in a purely physical universe?'

Well, that's a fair question. I might answer it tomorrow, if I have the time. But I wonder if you would care to provide an argument for your position. In an argument,we move from a set of premises to a conclusion via some limited, commonly agreed, set of functions (those in 2nd-order logic, for instance). Your conclusion is that free will is incoherent. Perhaps you could make clear what your argument is.

"Its easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled" -Mark Twain

And what exactly are you contributing to the discussion besides character assassination?

This an arrogant and dangerous view. You really should not assume that a given argument successfully deflects all possible objections without having heard those objections. Open your mind to the possibility that you may be wrong.

Choosing is not like living an an alternate universe. Free will does not require omniscience.

So me disagreeing with you is equal to not having an open mind?

I never said it requires omniscience. That is the problem here. I said if you cannot freely inspect all known options. That is not omniscience. There is a good deal of talking past one another here and it revolves around the fact that no one is willing to watch the talk.

Why is that?

Y'all have devoted hours to composing responses in this thread but complain about the length of the talk. Clearly this is a topic of interest for all of those involved, but you wont listen to a new approach on the subject by neuroscientist? And you tell me that I will not open my mind to the possibility of being wrong? That is a pot calling the kettle black argument.

 

[Gatsby]

The void replaces God?

The void doesn't replace God because:

1) The void is ontologically prior to any notion of being, including divine beings. Conceptions of "God" are the human mind attempting to put a human face on reality, because it is challenging for the human mind to even just see, let alone accept reality for what it is.
2) The void does not have many of the key characteristics that are often associated with God. All phenomena are born from, sustained by, and return to the pregnant void, but the void does not have volition, agenda, personality, selfhood, or interest in human affairs. It is not characterised by anything we could meaningfully call intelligence; rather it is beyond intelligence, and intelligence is - like all other phenomena- ultimately a product of the pregnant void. The void can't be called omniscient, unless the fact that all events ultimately arise from, and occur within, the void can be interpreted as omniscience. The same goes for omnipotence, however I would also add that omnipotence is itself an illogical concept which takes a human/finite quality (the ability to manipulate one's environment in accordance with one's will) and extrapolates it out to infinity.

As science has advanced, it continuously reduced the avenues through which a personal God can affect the universe (the God of the Gaps effect). Consequently it has become harder and harder to justify the existence and need for such a being. I predict that as science advances the remaining "Gaps" will fall away until only one Gap is left: the pregnant primal void. It will be very difficult indeed to shoehorn any notion of a personal God into this last gap.

I agree that going as small as one can physically go will always be space, but such is God. God is infinite, and physical cosmos from the furthest away, down to the smallest physical item, all consist within God and is part of God.

This conception you have of God looks very different to more traditional conceptions. It also seems to me that your conception of God is a strategy for coping with the God of the Gaps effect. The problem with this strategy (and the reason why most churches are reluctant to adopt it) is that it comes with an unavoidable cost: the broader and more inclusive a concept is, the less meaningful and useful it is. Your position is kind of like saying "everyone is family": if everyone is family, then no one is family. You are spreading "God" so wide and thin that the very fabric of the concept has been reduced to virtually nothing. Or, to look at it another way, your conception of God is actually pointing towards a primal void.

Laws are obeyed or these elements would not "hold" together nor form anything that could be scientifically and reasonably explained.

"Laws", "obeyed", these are very personal terms to apply to reality. Self-reinforcing patterns (or "habits", if you prefer) could just as easily give rise to a coherent cohesive cosmos. Moreover, self-reinforcing patterns negate the need for explaining where these "laws" of nature came from: rather than being eternally set 'prior' to the creation of the cosmos, they co-evolved with it. If these patterns were not conducive to a coherent cohesive cosmos, then we wouldn't be here. I imagine that there are many such abortive cosmoses (cosmii?) produced by the boundless primal void.

Do you not experience events? How would you know these events are not answers to prayer. God is not just 'sound' or even just 'an answer', God is life.

See my point above re: spreading concepts too thin. "God" is not life, "life" is life.

I didn't say that such events weren't answers to prayers. I actually said that they effectively *were* answers to prayers, just not in the way that most believers think. I have a similar view of miracles: they are not supernatural violations of natural "laws", but unusual phenomena which occur through undiscovered natural means.

The human mind can deceive us and cause us to think we are "hearing" God. One would think that there is a mechanism that would falsify or clarify if it is God or not.

That sounds like a very ambitious experiment. Before you could even do it you'd have to define "God" first. Theologians have been arguing about the definition of God for millennia, and many would regard the very idea of defining God as blasphemous and nonsensical.
Once you (miraculously?) sorted out your definition of God and performed the experiment, you would find yourself running full-speed into Ockham's Razor: as I said in a previous post, there would be a huge amount of other explanations you'd have to conclusively rule out before you could be satisfied that God was personally responsible.

Once again, either a spiritual reality exist in reality or it only exist in the mind. You cannot have both. Unless one only lives within themselves. The mind is not the creator of reality, yet some believe that it is. If the primal void is God, then I agree.

It seems like you're equating physicality with reality. It also seems you have a very dualistic view of mind and matter. I do not share either of these views, because just as the apparent substantiality of matter vanishes upon closer inspection, so too does the apparent distinction between mind and matter. Couldn't one just regard the physical universe as a subset of spiritual reality? That would make sense, especially when you observe chains of causality between material and immaterial parts of reality e.g. a building first exists in the imagination of an architect, then it's blueprints are drawn on paper, then the physical building itself is built according to the blueprints.

At any rate, the primal void is before "mind" and "matter". Whether the mind is the creator of reality or not depends on how you define "the mind". If by "the mind" you mean your own personal mind with all its own memories and habits and thoughts etc., then I agree with you - with the caveat that your own personal mind is very capable of shaping your experience of reality. But if by "the mind" you are talking about Mind itself - i.e. beyond any particular personality or individual, just pure awareness - then I'm not sure. I personally suspect that pure awareness itself is actually voidness.

Or it is a reality and I have no say whatsoever in the relationship.

Well then it's your choice whether you want to look more closely at it to see if you can come up with other more plausible explanations.

I am not sure if it is intentional, but what you are saying is what I have learned in life, except the argument is going in the other direction. I am not sure about how that coincides with belief, since I find belief tends to be tedious and not very substantial. Any person can say they believe something. I just like knowing something. I suppose I could have unconsciously switched definitions around. I suppose any one can think they know the truth and it still be a lie.

Do you like knowing something, or the feeling of knowing something?

 

[timtofly]

The void doesn't replace God because:

1) The void is ontologically prior to any notion of being, including divine beings. Conceptions of "God" are the human mind attempting to put a human face on reality, because it is challenging for the human mind to even just see, let alone accept reality for what it is.
2) The void does not have many of the key characteristics that are often associated with God. All phenomena are born from, sustained by, and return to the pregnant void, but the void does not have volition, agenda, personality, selfhood, or interest in human affairs. It is not characterised by anything we could meaningfully call intelligence; rather it is beyond intelligence, and intelligence is - like all other phenomena- ultimately a product of the pregnant void. The void can't be called omniscient, unless the fact that all events ultimately arise from, and occur within, the void can be interpreted as omniscience. The same goes for omnipotence, however I would also add that omnipotence is itself an illogical concept which takes a human/finite quality (the ability to manipulate one's environment in accordance with one's will) and extrapolates it out to infinity.

I would not say that the void is God. I would say that one took the concept of God and called it the pregnant void. God as a being is an ontological concept to explain the unknown. God is not a form. To call God a being is narrowing down God to our level of understanding.

God does not have any of those characteristics unless God wishes to reveal God to humans. I am not sure why the cosmos would have intelligence, nor to a form, God either. Intelligence is basically how one uses what they know, and relates to humans. The void just replaces God and the need for a designer to have more knowledge than his creation. The void does this by negating anything with knowledge.

As science has advanced, it continuously reduced the avenues through which a personal God can affect the universe (the God of the Gaps effect). Consequently it has become harder and harder to justify the existence and need for such a being. I predict that as science advances the remaining "Gaps" will fall away until only one Gap is left: the pregnant primal void. It will be very difficult indeed to shoehorn any notion of a personal God into this last gap.

Yes, the concept of the void just means that scientist have outsmarted themselves out of knowledge, since the end is just void. Because God is not always present, does not mean he is "gapped". Science nor the void are able to replace God, although the void sounds like a great idea, since God is an unknown. It seems to me that we have gone from nothing to something and then back to nothing. I am sure that even in a technologically advanced world, that is how most people feel all the time.

This conception you have of God looks very different to more traditional conceptions. It also seems to me that your conception of God is a strategy for coping with the God of the Gaps effect. The problem with this strategy (and the reason why most churches are reluctant to adopt it) is that it comes with an unavoidable cost: the broader and more inclusive a concept is, the less meaningful and useful it is. Your position is kind of like saying "everyone is family": if everyone is family, then no one is family. You are spreading "God" so wide and thin that the very fabric of the concept has been reduced to virtually nothing. Or, to look at it another way, your conception of God is actually pointing towards a primal void.

If the broader a thing is, the less useful it is, why settle for a void? That seems to have less purpose and meaning than God allowing humans to go it on their own. You are right in that many hold to religion and the church, because God is an alien concept to them. In the beginning God did bring order to the void. Even if that void was God, we are back to God looking within himself and bringing order to nothingness. That God allows humans to look into themselves and create their own meaning would make sense.

"Laws", "obeyed", these are very personal terms to apply to reality. Self-reinforcing patterns (or "habits", if you prefer) could just as easily give rise to a coherent cohesive cosmos. Moreover, self-reinforcing patterns negate the need for explaining where these "laws" of nature came from: rather than being eternally set 'prior' to the creation of the cosmos, they co-evolved with it. If these patterns were not conducive to a coherent cohesive cosmos, then we wouldn't be here. I imagine that there are many such abortive cosmoses (cosmii?) produced by the boundless primal void.

Laws are anything but personal. They are brick walls that confine personality. Laws do not have to be set a priori. They normally are the definition of how things work. They are called laws, because they seem to "govern" and never change.

See my point above re: spreading concepts too thin. "God" is not life, "life" is life.

I have no problem spreading God too thin. Perhaps life can be too thin also?

I didn't say that such events weren't answers to prayers. I actually said that they effectively *were* answers to prayers, just not in the way that most believers think. I have a similar view of miracles: they are not supernatural violations of natural "laws", but unusual phenomena which occur through undiscovered natural means.

Everything would be natural for God. "Supernatural" and "undiscovered natural means" seem synonymous to me.

That sounds like a very ambitious experiment. Before you could even do it you'd have to define "God" first. Theologians have been arguing about the definition of God for millennia, and many would regard the very idea of defining God as blasphemous and nonsensical.
Once you (miraculously?) sorted out your definition of God and performed the experiment, you would find yourself running full-speed into Ockham's Razor: as I said in a previous post, there would be a huge amount of other explanations you'd have to conclusively rule out before you could be satisfied that God was personally responsible.

It is very ambitious if one does not even define reality outside of one's own self. God is the responsible party, it has nothing to do with me. It is science and logic that are boxed in by Ockham's Razor.

It seems like you're equating physicality with reality. It also seems you have a very dualistic view of mind and matter. I do not share either of these views, because just as the apparent substantiality of matter vanishes upon closer inspection, so too does the apparent distinction between mind and matter. Couldn't one just regard the physical universe as a subset of spiritual reality? That would make sense, especially when you observe chains of causality between material and immaterial parts of reality e.g. a building first exists in the imagination of an architect, then it's blueprints are drawn on paper, then the physical building itself is built according to the blueprints.

I apologize for not braking this down into parts. The mind is separate from matter. If I just took that the physical was a subset of the spiritual, it still goes back to God is all. But it is not any human's view of the spiritual that manufactures what is seen in the physical. I am pretty sure that everything that exist in the physical exist in the "mind" of God. However when one rejects God, all they are left with is the pregnant void.

At any rate, the primal void is before "mind" and "matter". Whether the mind is the creator of reality or not depends on how you define "the mind". If by "the mind" you mean your own personal mind with all its own memories and habits and thoughts etc., then I agree with you - with the caveat that your own personal mind is very capable of shaping your experience of reality. But if by "the mind" you are talking about Mind itself - i.e. beyond any particular personality or individual, just pure awareness - then I'm not sure. I personally suspect that pure awareness itself is actually voidness.

I would just say that God created the physical, and gave humans the means to have a mind separate from matter, so they can think and reason things out and manipulate the matter around them.

Well then it's your choice whether you want to look more closely at it to see if you can come up with other more plausible explanations.

Having a personal relationship with the unknown is already more plausible to me than starting and ending one's life in the void.

Do you like knowing something, or the feeling of knowing something?

I am a melancholic depression prone person. Are we supposed to trust in our feelings or in what we know?

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

The void doesn't replace God because:

1) The void is ontologically prior to any notion of being, including divine beings. Conceptions of "God" are the human mind attempting to put a human face on reality, because it is challenging for the human mind to even just see, let alone accept reality for what it is.

Thats what Upanishads says. "Out of Non-being Being came to existence."

2) The void does not have many of the key characteristics that are often associated with God. All phenomena are born from, sustained by, and return to the pregnant void, but the void does not have volition, agenda, personality, selfhood, or interest in human affairs. It is not characterised by anything we could meaningfully call intelligence; rather it is beyond intelligence, and intelligence is - like all other phenomena- ultimately a product of the pregnant void. The void can't be called omniscient, unless the fact that all events ultimately arise from, and occur within, the void can be interpreted as omniscience. The same goes for omnipotence, however I would also add that omnipotence is itself an illogical concept which takes a human/finite quality (the ability to manipulate one's environment in accordance with one's will) and extrapolates it out to infinity.

Now what you seem to describe is what I would call some aspect of the Transcendental consciousness or the Christian Holy Ghost perhaps.
The fact that something is out of scope of logic only points out that its not limited by it.

As science has advanced, it continuously reduced the avenues through which a personal God can affect the universe (the God of the Gaps effect). Consequently it has become harder and harder to justify the existence and need for such a being. I predict that as science advances the remaining "Gaps" will fall away until only one Gap is left: the pregnant primal void. It will be very difficult indeed to shoehorn any notion of a personal God into this last gap.

As science has developed it has brought mans attention and mental consciousness on physical realities of life. Man has thus become a semi-animal with multiple capacities for his destruction. Man doesnt know who he is or what is his capacity but he has learned how to destroy himself.
I predict that as human life advances man will want to learn more of himself through introspective psychological observation or meditative techniques and reject the material side of life as the only form of existence - or even the main one. He will come to learn that impossibility is only yet unachieved reality which contains both personal and impersonal aspects and which is not bounded by either of these.

The pregnant primal void is left... But it is this void which is the source of human personality, right? So are you saying there is something which is the source but cannot influence the outsourced? Then it is not really matter of personal or impersonal God. For if impersonal can have direct influence on humans e.g. through change of consciousness then there is no reason why it couldnt take on some manifested or unmanifested personality.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

dbl pst

 

[Souron]

So me disagreeing with you is equal to not having an open mind?

No, but you saying that lovett cannot possibly have a valid objection because all objections are summarily discounted in the video is you being arrogant and close minded.

I never said it requires omniscience. That is the problem here. I said if you cannot freely inspect all known options. That is not omniscience. There is a good deal of talking past one another here and it revolves around the fact that no one is willing to watch the talk.

Why is that?

Y'all have devoted hours to composing responses in this thread but complain about the length of the talk. Clearly this is a topic of interest for all of those involved, but you wont listen to a new approach on the subject by neuroscientist? And you tell me that I will not open my mind to the possibility of being wrong? That is a pot calling the kettle black argument.

I might watch at some point. I'm unsure that It's worth my time though. I do feel like you've given enough of a defense that i can guess what the major points I disagree on. At least I'm fairly confident where I disagree with you. Debating free will is something I've done many times on these forums, from both sides.

But I can't debate a video, and you seem reluctant to engage too. If you do want to discuss free will, discuss it. State why free will cannot exist. I've directly challenged some of the points you made; defend them. Clarify the points I and other have found incoherent.

 

[Souron]

It is very rare (if not existent only in theory) that a metaphor will actually capture the reality of the other object or objects, or state it refers to. Most of the time the point of using a metaphor is to present a more familiar environment, while alluding to something different which by itself is a lot less evident or easy to examine.

That said, people who use metaphors often, and moreso people who are involved in literature that relies heavily on symbolism, may indeed try to find more precise metaphors.
However it is my view that you can never convey the reality of that which the metaphor is about, something more obvious when that which the metaphor is about remains in some more theoretical realm. (Then again, a complicated web of metaphor, known as an allegory, can act in a different way, but that is another issue...)

So yes, using the term "infinite", can utilise allusions to the mathematical examination of infinite sets (which i was taught many years ago, and vaguely recall). It also can refer to the sense of there being no end in something. Finally, the term "infinite" can even allude to an expansion of something that is so incredibly vast in relation to the capacities of the person who examines it, that it can be put to rest in his mind more easily if the singural term "infinite" is used, no matter that perhaps the expansive entity is not by definition an infinite one. Most of the time writers focus on some parts of the possible allusions. But all of the different allusions are active in any word.

To bring this part of the thread back.

I do agree that arguments from analogy can be weak, since for such an argument to be valid, the analogy has to be good. But something as strange as the idea of God, the only way to reason about it is by analogy. That's why i make analogy that God may be like infinite sets, i.e. something that we can reason about and understand thoroughly, though hard to get one's mind around at the same time.

 

[lovett]

"Its easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled" -Mark Twain

And what exactly are you contributing to the discussion besides character assassination?

Au contraire, you are too generous! I am not even contributing character assassination, for I am attacking your words, not your character. I am trying to prompt you into saying something useful by explaining that you have not yet met appropriate standards of discourse.

But alas, it appears I have failed. So as I promised, I will (briefly) say something about the place of free will in a purely physical world. Actually, I don't think you have any trouble with 'physicality' here - I cannot see what the problem could be: the more usual problem is finding a place for free will within a deterministic world. By that, I mean a world in which past events and the laws of nature are such that every future event is necessary. That means there is no possible world with the same past events and the same laws of nature, but which differs in terms of future events.

What sort of conception of free will is compatible with such a world? Well, the answer has been known for quite a long time. We can (so the compatibilist asserts) think of actions as being done freely when agents try to do these actions, and succeed in so doing them. After all, nobody thinks there is any problem with agents trying to do things in a deterministic world, nor with them actually doing those things. So this means that a necessary conditon for an action being free is that an agent cause the result of that action, and another necessary condition for an action being free is that an agent intentionally perform that action. These conditions together are sufficient for an action being free, and again determinism does not seem at all incompatible with their existing cases of causation and intention. So here is a conception of free will for which determinism makes no trouble. It is rather crude, and needs refinement - but it can be refined in natural ways.

I don't think this is the unique specification of the concept of free will. I think there are others, and some may well be incompatible with determinism (or indeterminism, or both). Concurrently, we typically care about free will because of its link with notion of 'moral responsibility' and that notion itself is open to varying (incompatible) specification. But this seems to me an admissible specification - and one clearly compatible with the truth of determinism.