The source of evil.

[Ayatollah So]

Originally posted by smalltalk
Anyway, where's the difference? Determinism vs. Probabilistics: neither meets my idea of a free will. Say, I want to have ice cream. What will I take, vanilla, chocolate or walnut?

Free will: chocolate, cause I like it
determinism: chocolate, cause I'm determined to like it
probabilistic: one minute please, I will toss a coin or roll the dice to see, what I prefer ...

But the first two are compatible: "chocolate, because I like it" leaves it an open question why I like it. There could be a reason, or not, but it would be beside the point. The fact that I have past experience with chocolate and I know that I like it, and that is my reason for choosing chocolate, is enough. Who cares why I like it?

But determinism does have one advantage, as your example shows. If my psyche works in deterministic ways, I at least have the potential of confidently acting on my wishes. If it's probabilistic, I could prefer chocolate but wind up choosing vanilla. And not for any reason I would recognize -- say "because I wanted to see if my tastes have changed, and it's been a while since I tried vanilla, so let's see." Nope: if there are reasons for what I do, we are heading back to determinism.

Deterministic free will is not as good as probabilistic free will: it's better.

There's only one way out of this trap: recognize the compatibility of free will and determinism. False dilemmas abound, and "determinism or free will" is one of them.

 

[Pikachu]

Originally posted by Pikachu
I hope you are not a mathematician

Originally posted by nihilistic

Any finite number / Infinity = Zero

It should have been that any fixed finite number (or a sequence with that finite number as a limit), when divided by an unbounded sequence of numbers approaching the limit known as infinity, will approach 0. There is a fundamental difference between those two statements. Your statement suggested a lack of knowledge of calculus and analysis.

Obviously you are a mathematician. I agree that the mathematically correct way to write my equation is:

Still the conclusion remains. If x is infinite, 1/x is far closer to zero than anyone ever has been able to imagine zero itself to be. That is close enough for me to call it exactly zero.

 

[Pikachu]

I think we need a definition of a free will get to the source of evil. As I see it, a person with a free will must be able to make independent decisions based on its own desires. If you always desires the same as someone else, then you are not free; you are brainwashed. If you never disobey your master, you are his slave and not free. You may want to be a slave, but in that case your will is not really free because it is too much influenced by someone else. Therefore we need evil to maintain our independence from God.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Originally posted by Pikachu
I think we need a definition of a free will get to the source of evil. As I see it, a person with a free will must be able to make independent decisions based on its own desires. If you always desires the same as someone else, then you are not free; you are brainwashed.

That's true for relationships between humans, but it doesn't follow for relationships between humans and god(s). There are two very different ways a god could make a being that always does what it wants -- a mindless robot that does things automatically, or an intelligent being that mulls things over and does what seems best from its own point of view. If the god approves of the latter's actions because, among other things, those actions are good for the welfare of that person, that certainly doesn't make the person a slave. It comes closer to making the god the slave. (But doesn't quite reach: the god presumably has larger concerns, including the welfare of other humans, and maybe the simple beauty of the universe. Or whatever -- consult your favorite holy book for details.)

 

[Pikachu]

Why does relations between humans and gods have to be fundamentally different for relations between humans?

I think that to be truly free, you have to be unique. Therefore humans have to be different from God. Evil is the only thing God is not, so the only way to make humans unique is to make us capable of being evil.

If we always acted good, we would always serve God. What's the point in being free if you only want to serve someone else anyway?

 

[Ayatollah So]

Originally posted by Pikachu
Why does relations between humans and gods have to be fundamentally different for relations between humans?

Because we're not gods. Not being a god, I can't design your environment so that your interests will be harmonious with mine, for example I can't guarantee that you won't run out of some vital resource that you can only get by taking it away from me. Not being a god, I can't design your mind to be sufficiently intelligent to perceive the fact (even if it is true) that hey, you can provide for yourself without harming me, and that hey, we can be friends. Not being a god, the only way I can get your desires to perfectly coincide with mine is to brainwash you. Which wouldn't be very effective either, but I digress.

I think that to be truly free, you have to be unique. Therefore humans have to be different from God. Evil is the only thing God is not, so the only way to make humans unique is to make us capable of being evil.

If we always acted good, we would always serve God. What's the point in being free if you only want to serve someone else anyway?

Who's serving who? Is God on our side, or are we on his, in that scenario? I think the only possible answer is "both".

If a god creates an exact duplicate of me in another galaxy, so that I'm not unique, does that somehow take away my freedom? Nope. But even if uniqueness were required, surely our being the size, shape, strength, etc. that we are, suffices to distinguish us from any god.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Originally posted by Ayatollah So
Who's serving who? Is God on our side, or are we on his, in that scenario? I think the only possible answer is "both".

I spoke too fast there: it depends on what kind of god you're talking about. On some views, the god in question seems to be a petty vindictive bastard, and there would be no question that the humans would be subservient in the world that it created. But since Pikachu's concept seemed very different from those views, I assumed that the deity cares deeply and fundamentally about our welfare.

 

[Pikachu]

Originally posted by Ayatollah So


If a god creates an exact duplicate of me in another galaxy, so that I'm not unique, does that somehow take away my freedom? Nope. But even if uniqueness were required, surely our being the size, shape, strength, etc. that we are, suffices to distinguish us from any god.

If God really duplicated you, you or your double or probably both would loose their freedom. You two then had to do exactly the same all the time, because if one of you did something different, that experience would make it different form the other and you are both unique again.

We don't necessarily need to be identical to God to always act good, but our will have to be very similar to Gods will. Of course God could have made a world were everybody agreed about everything, but I am not so sure such a world would be better than our world.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Originally posted by Pikachu
If God really duplicated you, you or your double or probably both would loose their freedom. You two then had to do exactly the same all the time, because if one of you did something different, that experience would make it different form the other and you are both unique again.

What if every time we did something different, the god just created more duplicates? But never mind that, there's an even bigger flaw in your argument. Suppose that me and my duplicate will do the same thing. It just does not follow that we had to do the same thing.

We don't necessarily need to be identical to God to always act good, but our will have to be very similar to Gods will. Of course God could have made a world were everybody agreed about everything, but I am not so sure such a world would be better than our world.

Since everyone has different experiences and different knowledge -- an obvious consequence of our being "only" human and not gods -- it's plain that we would never agree about everything, even if we are all doing our level best to believe only the true and seek only the good.