Omniscience and omnibenevolence

[promethean75]

god: i know joe will choose y but he's free to choose x.

philosopher: what do u mean 'free'?

god: i mean he could very well choose x if he wanted.

philosopher: then how do u know he's gonna choose y?

god: becuz i know what he eventually does, not what he has to do.

philosopher: bruh. if u know that he'll eventually choose y, then he wasn't free to not choose y. and if he is free to choose x, and does, you'd be wrong about him choosing y, so why am i even talking to u? listen to what you're saying dude: joe is free to do what i know he won't do. that just sounds retarded man.

[Gary Childress]

god: i know joe will choose y but he's free to choose x.

philosopher: what do u mean 'free'?

god: i mean he could very well choose x if he wanted.

philosopher: then how do u know he's gonna choose y?

god: becuz i know what he eventually does, not what he has to do.

philosopher: bruh. if u know that he'll eventually choose y, then he wasn't free to not choose y. and if he is free to choose x, and does, you'd be wrong about him choosing y, so why am i even talking to u? listen to what you're saying dude: joe is free to do what i know he won't do. that just sounds retarded man.

We don't even know if God is omniscient (let alone anything else about God, including if there is one). Newtonians thought God must be omniscient because they speculated that the universe and people in it were like a wind-up machine that behaved like their models of physics, like a clock or combustion engine or something. Maybe, it doesn't or we don't. If that is the case, then there's little need for God to be omniscient to the extent that he knows what we will do ahead of time. Omniscience was granted to God by Newtonian-era philosophers because that's what they thought physics was and they assumed consciousness is somehow physical too. So omniscience followed as a necessary quality God must have given the way they thought the universe behaved.

[promethean75]

thinking in statements is the inaudible sound-shadow of the words u know and 'consciousness' is just a word describing types of behavior of intentional systems. the cartesian theater doesn't exist, cogito ergo gary, and there is no gary in the machine.

"Maybe there is no determinism in the universe"

there isn't, strictly speaking, but causation exists and the very conditions of experience presuppose it (immanual can and did, i believe, establish this synthetic a priori truth). but listen I'm just splitting hairs here cuz it all means the same thing... but nothing is 'determined' in the sense of it being the plan of a determining agent, a determiner, who had it in mind before it happened and made it happen, etc. these are the conceptual cognates, if u will, that go along with our understanding of the word 'determine', and if we try using this word to describe how the universe works, only confusion will follow.

we usually mean the word in two ways. we say stuff like 'the weather station will determine the weather' and 'let's determine where we are first' and 'he's determined to win'. of the three statements here only the last is used causatively, and it's a statement about a creature with a will that acts deliberately and intentionally (to win), etc.

now wouldn't describing something that happened in the universe as 'determined' be just a bit misleading? is the universe willing and deliberating and acting intentionally? if not, why say it's determining anything?

[Gary Childress]

thinking in statements is the inaudible sound-shadow of the words u know and 'consciousness' is just a word describing types of behavior of intentional systems. the cartesian theater doesn't exist, cogito ergo gary, and there is no gary in the machine.

"Maybe there is no determinism in the universe"

there isn't, strictly speaking, but causation exists and the very conditions of experience presuppose it (immanual can and did, i believe, establish this synthetic a priori truth). but listen I'm just splitting hairs here cuz it all means the same thing... but nothing is 'determined' in the sense of it being the plan of a determining agent, a determiner, who had it in mind before it happened and made it happen, etc. these are the conceptual cognates, if u will, that go along with our understanding of the word 'determine', and if we try using this word to describe how the universe works, only confusion will follow.

we usually mean the word in two ways. we say stuff like 'the weather station will determine the weather' and 'let's determine where we are first' and 'he's determined to win'. of the three statements here only the last is used causatively, and it's a statement about a creature with a will that acts deliberately and intentionally (to win), etc.

now wouldn't describing something that happened in the universe as 'determined' be just a bit misleading? is the universe willing and deliberating and acting intentionally? if not, why say it's determining anything?

Causation exists in the sense that if I hit a billiard ball it will roll in the direction that I force it to. It can't "choose" to behave against the laws of physics. That applies to the billiard ball. However, my choosing to hit the billiard ball or not could be a matter of free will. If it is, then it's not pre-determined. You couldn't predict with 100% certainty what I will do except AFTER I have chosen to do it.

[promethean75]

your homeboy Spinoza said that if a stone were conscious it would believe it were flying through the air of its own volition.

see that's what that QM stuff is doin to u, gary. listen all that uncertainty jazz is about problems with observation, not causality. i mean just cuz u don't know where a particle has been doesn't mean he's been out breaking the laws of physics.

i can't think of another branch of science that has been mystified more than quantum physics.

[Astro Cat]

Sure: but this is why we make reasonable decisions about things without omniscience based on things like appearances. "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck," that sort of thing

No, that's not a good analogy, because we don't know "what it looks like." We have no reasonable expectation that observations some of us personally may have about that are reliable at all.

At one time, there was an intuition that the world was flat. That was an incredibly strong intuition...it looked totally right, based on visible evidence, and it was general, in that 100% of the people on the planet felt they had every reason to believe it. It matched common sense, not just intuition.

And it was utterly wrong.

Things we believe today are likely wrong. Newton was wrong about the motions of heavenly bodies, but it was reasonable for him not to take the Lorentz factor into account at the time: and that is what I'm driving at. In the absence of omniscience we're going to be wrong a lot, but it's reasonable for us to make decisions based on what's available to us.

Consider that you witness lightning strike a tree. Unless you think that God personally directs every lightning strike, you have every reason to believe that a lightning strike is just a thing that occurs under certain conditions. Now, maybe it's possible that China has been working on weather manipulation weapons and has decided to test one in your back yard; a weapon with a design such that you don't even begin to comprehend its mechanisms. Just because this is a possibility and just because you aren't omniscient doesn't mean it's unreasonable to move forward believing in the absence of evidence of such a plot that the lightning strike was simply a lightning strike.

Well, gratuitous suffering is the same. All suffering is gratuitous unless there is a plan behind it: when suffering "just happens," it is gratuitous suffering. If suffering is observed, it's as reasonable to suppose there isn't an incomprehensible plot behind it as it is to suppose there isn't an incomprehensible plot behind a lightning bolt striking a tree. Yes, even though it's logically possible in both situations that there's an incomprehensible plot behind them after all. The point is that it's reasonable to move forward on the belief that there isn't a plot behind suffering or lightning bolts unless evidence of such a plot is forthcoming.

So, again, the onus of evidence is on whomever says "there is a plan behind all suffering." If you agree that God has such a property that He would not cause or allow gratuitous suffering, then you're committed to the proposition that all suffering is non-gratuitous. We already know that suffering exists, and we know that all suffering that isn't non-gratuitous is gratuitous: so the person that puts forward the proposition that all suffering is non-gratuitous is the one with the onus of proof.

I think you are in a position such as this:
P1) If God is good, then God would not cause or allow gratuitous suffering
P2) God is good
Conclusion: God will not cause or allow gratuitous suffering

P3) If gratuitous suffering exists, then God is not good
P4) God is good
Conclusion: All suffering is non-gratuitous

I think you can't be agnostic about whether suffering is gratuitous: you're committed to it being non-gratuitous, and you have to be committed to that with certainty because to be uncertain about whether suffering is gratuitous is to be uncertain about whether God is good, or to be uncertain about whether God causes or allows gratuitous suffering; and I don't think you're agnostic about that. (Note! I notice we talked about this a little bit below, be sure to read that before responding to this section)

This onus of evidence could potentially be satisfied with theodicy, for instance. If you aren't going to use theodicy to defend your poposition that all suffering is non-gratuitous, then you have to otherwise defend it. It appears as though your response to this so far is revelation. That's unfortunate from my perspective because it's such a broad topic that I think it means we ultimately have to put this Problem of Suffering discussion on an indefinite pause because we have to establish whether revelation is a reasonable, rational, warranted method of determining that all suffering is non-gratuitous. But I think engaging in a conversation about the reliability of revelation is broad enough that we might as well be simply entering into an overly broad debate about whether God exists at all, rather than some narrow facet of theism like the Problem of Suffering attempts to be. But, even so, that appears to be where we need to go because as far as the Problem of Suffering is concerned, you have the onus of proof to show all suffering is non-gratuitous, and your answer is you know this because revelation, so we must probably open a debate about revelation's warrant.

You may be able to say, "There is a plan (and so no suffering is gratuitous), but we can't understand what that plan is." That is exactly what skeptical theism is. If that's your position, you're a skeptical theist. (Note that I'm saying "if," not presuming to put words in your mouth).

No, the burden runs the other way: if somebody says, "This suffering is gratuitious," and if they need that premise for their argument to work (which your argument certainly requires) then it's on them to show that they know, and we should know, that gratuitious suffering exists.

I haven't seen anything like that yet.

Well, again, "gratuitous suffering" is just "suffering." It's actually non-gratuitous suffering that's special. Just like a lightning strike is just a lightning strike unless evidence is forthcoming that it's actually a top-secret weather manipulation weapon (or similar), gratuitous suffering is just any suffering. The person that says there is a plot behind all suffering is clearly the one making the positive claim, and they hold the onus of proof. We accept that suffering exists, so suffering is just suffering (and that makes it gratuitous) unless evidence of a plot behind it is forthcoming. You say that your evidence for such a plot is revelation, so we will need to probably pause everything and figure out whether revelation is worth anything to justify the proposition that all suffering has a plot behind it (and therefore isn't gratuitous).

Basically, if you're agnostic about whether suffering is gratuitous, then you must be agnostic about whether God is good,

No, that doesn't follow either. In fact, if one believes God is good, that only strengthens one's conviction that suffering is unlikely to be "gratuitious." And one can believe God is good, not on intuition, but on revelation and even on experience. So the evidentiary basis is there, for the goodness of God; but there's still nothing for "gratuitous suffering."

It does follow, because what you said didn't quite match up to what I said. I said "if you're agnostic about whether suffering is gratuitous..."

Basically, there's modal logic here: you can't believe both that "necessarily, God is good" and "possibly, there is gratuitous suffering" because "necessarily, God is good" implies "necessarily, all suffering is non-gratuitous." The reverse is true as well: "possibly, there is gratuitous suffering" implies "possibly, God is not good." As you are committed to "God is good," you are also committed to "all suffering is non-gratuitous," it's not possible for you to be agnostic about whether suffering is gratuitous without also being agnostic about whether God is good. It's due to this fact that you have the onus of proof for establishing that all suffering is non-gratuitous, because "gratuitous suffering" is really just "suffering" -- unless there's a plan behind it. As you are the one positing the existence of a plan, you're the one that has to prove it. Again, that's going to necessarily steer us into talking about your evidence for the plan: revelation. I think theodicy would also work, but it sounds like you want to do revelation instead of theodicy, and that's OK. I'll go wherever you need to.

Snipping a few things that will ultimately just re-hash some of the above comments (though I have read it all, of course: let me know if I miss anything).

Well, this is probably going to explode into its own topic unfortunately. Where to begin? I find this whole concept that suggests God could have created humans perfectly, yet they somehow "fell" into imperfection, profoundly incoherent because the whole conclusion seems to contradict the initial premise.

I don't think so, at all. In fact, it seems quite obvious that one cannot "fall" unless one was once, in some sense "higher." Your supposition in your critique has perhaps been that human moral faculties have been historically uniform. Of course, moral evolutionists, progressivists and developmentalists like Kohlberg and Gilligan would eagerly deny that they have been uniform at all...and they're entirely secular in their theorizing.

But I would argue they're wrong; I would say that history demonstrates that human moral improvement is actually not very evident in the last several thousand years of history, and that a uniform fallibility, morally speaking, is much more evident. We killed more human beings in the last century than in all the previous centuries combined. We now have global scale, existential threats abundantly. And practices like slavery, child-murder, sex-trafficking and pornographic exploitation have never been more widespread. How has the "reliable" moral sense of human beings issued in such disasters?

However, take their version or mine, and you get the same thing: your confidence in a uniform, perfect moral intuition in the human species is simply not consonant with the evidence of history, or with the evidence today. It's pure assumption.

Well, as you well know, I'm a moral noncognitivist and to me "moral intuition" probably means more something like "intuition about what aligns with our values or not," which is really more like an introspection. But as I'm speaking to a moral realist, I have to test the waters on where the realist decides in a given moment what is "right" and what is "wrong" if it's something other than their personal values: so, I imgagined it must be something like an intuition or a "sense." The transcendental argument is still a problem if it is an intuition or a sense, but you have (perhaps wisely, perhaps not) taken the tack of grounding moral ideation in revelation instead (and so again, I think we have to talk about it). But, just explaining why I was taking the tack I was taking.

Let's just get into it I guess. First I need to establish a few things about what your position even is on this matter, please answer these to the best of your ability:

I shall do so, but briefly, so you can choose what you wish to pursue and we can let the rest slide, if we wish, okay?

1) When God created humans, did humans have reliable cognitive faculties (including any moral faculties)? "Reliable" for what? Were they still embodied beings, with only a limited perspective on the world? Yes. Did they have knowledge of good and evil? No.
2) When God created humans, would humans have known what "deception" is and how to guard against it? They knew who God is. Thus, they had good reason, and they should have known better than to choose what they chose. However, they were free to choose.
3) Do you believe it's within God's power to have given humans sufficient knowledge to make accurate moral decisions? Of course.
4) Do you believe a person can be held responsible (after making a poor choice) if they were forced to make choices that aren't informed choices? That's complicated. It requires us to consider the issue of "sufficient" knowledge. But nobody is ever "forced to make a choice": that's a contradiction in terms, of course.
5) If a creation is forced to exist in circumstances where they can't make informed choices, but the creator could have given them informed choices, is the creator culpable for not having done so when poor choices are inevitably made? I don't find the speculation here makes sense. It seems to require incoherent things. For example, how do you make the Creator "culpable"? Who's putting the cuffs on Him, and on what basis, since He's the locus of moral rightness itself? But if I can try to make sense of it, it seems to me it again misses that complicated question of "sufficient knowledge." "Sufficient knowledge" is, of course, considerably short of a standard like "comprehensive knowledge" or "omniscience."

I debated whether to respond to these piecemeal, but I feel like that would take a lot of real estate. We have a discussion about this somewhere far back, buried somewhere, and I hope you don't mind just retreading it from scratch here while it's fresh in our memories. But let me try to elucidate some of my complains about what's going on here.

The most important thing here is that it seems you agree that God has the power to give people sufficient knowledge to make accurate moral decisions. But then it seems like we're in a position like this:

P1) If a person has sufficient knowledge to make an accurate moral decision, they will never choose wrongly
P2) Adam and Eve chose wrongly
Conclusion: Adam and Eve didn't have sufficient knowledge to make an accurate moral decision

This seems tied to the fact that

P3) Knowledge of good and evil is required for preparedness against deception
P4) Adam and Eve were deceived
Conclusion: Adam and Eve didn't have knowledge of good and evil

Now, considering that

P5) People of sound mind make decisions based on what is good
P6) When presented with an informed choice between a good and a bad option, people evaluate the information available and consider the potential consequences of each option
Conclusion: Therefore, people of sound mind will always choose the good option if given an informed choice between a good and a bad option

but

P7) People of sound mind making an informed choice will always choose the good option if presented with a good and bad option
P8) Adam and Eve chose the bad option
Conclusion: Adam and Eve either didn't have sound minds or were not informed

and

P9) If someone is forced to make an uninformed choice, then they don't fully understand the consequences of their choice
P10) If someone doesn't fully understand the consequences of their choice, they aren't fully responsible for any suffering caused by that choice
Conclusion: If someone is forced to make an uninformed choice, then they aren't fully responsible for suffering that ensues because they didn't understand the consequences of the choice

So if they're not fully responsible, who is?

P11) Making an uninformed choice can lead to suffering
P12) Failing to give someone sufficient information is a situation that can lead to an uninformed choice
Conclusion: Anyone that fails to give someone sufficient information in a situation where they must make a choice is responsible for the suffering or harm they experience from that choice

Now, you say something along the lines that Adam and Eve "knew enough," but clearly they didn't:

P13) If a human is created perfect, then they will be of sound mind
P14) Adam and Eve were created perfectly
Conclusion: Adam and Eve would have a sound mind

And recall from P7 and P8's conclusion that the only way Adam and Eve could have erred is if they didn't have enough information. But if they didn't have enough information, that's not their fault (how could they help that?), that's God's fault. Why is it fair that Adam and Eve -- no, worse, not just them but all of their descendants, somehow punished for their choice -- are punished with the existence of all of suffering: torture, rape, earthquakes, birth defects, leukemia, starvation, and so on, when it's clear that God is the one at fault for their making a bad choice?

Of course, I have an intuition on what is just based on my values (which this does not fit), but what about yours? Is it "good" to punish descendants for "crimes" of ancestors ("crimes" which they aren't even responsible for committing, because they lacked necessary tools to avoid "committing" them)? Is that in line with God's nature, and therefore "good?" And, this is not an argument but just a curiosity, does that not grievously offend your personal sense of justice?

(EDIT: Also, I just thought of this one.

P15) Making an uninformed choice can lead to bad consequences
P16) Someone of sound mind would avoid bad consequences
Conclusion: Someone of sound mind wouldn't make an uninformed choice

This seems to raise a problem: if Adam and Eve were created with sound minds and were created to be morally good, how did they ever make an uninformed choice in the first place?

P17) Someone of sound mind wouldn't make an uninformed choice because it can lead to bad consequences
P18) Adam and Eve made an uninformed choice that led to bad consequences
Conclusion: Adam and Eve weren't created with sound minds

Of course, having to make an uninformed choice at all could have been avoided if God simply gave them the knowledge they required in the first place: so why didn't He?)

And the whole field of secular ethics today is blind. There is no secular theory that unites the various ethics "schools" into any kind of harmonious consensus, and nothing capable of doing so. As a result, we are all governed not by ethics, but by power.

I agree, this is expected on moral noncognitivism though. I think secular moral realists are grasping at straws trying to hang onto an idea they think is cool and want to borrow from theism.

WHEW! Ok, a bunch of the bottom section was all stuff that has (in one way or another) been commented on here; or stuff that I simply agree with or find no fault with.

Cheers IC

[Gary Childress]

your homeboy Spinoza said that if a stone were conscious it would believe it were flying through the air of its own volition.

see that's what that QM stuff is doin to u, gary. listen all that uncertainty jazz is about problems with observation, not causality. i mean just cuz u don't know where a particle has been doesn't mean he's been out breaking the laws of physics.

i can't think of another branch of science that has been mystified more than quantum physics.

Why do think a rock would "believe" it's flying through the air of its own volition? Did the rock 'intend' to go from the one place to the other? Did the rock ever make a choice?

Unless you're radically different from me, then if you walk from one spot to another it's because you choose to do so? If someone told you to do that, then you chose to obey them because there was some reason to do so, but it was not your 'fault' if you were under the impression that chosing to accept their command seemed like the right thing to do and it wasn't.

If you were sitting in a wagon and the wagon itself accidentally rolled down the hill, then you would presumably not think that you chose to go down the hill--it was not of your volition. You went down the hill because of the laws of physics. However, if you walked from one spot to the other because you chose to then it's because you chose to.

[Belinda]

thinking in statements is the inaudible sound-shadow of the words u know and 'consciousness' is just a word describing types of behavior of intentional systems. the cartesian theater doesn't exist, cogito ergo gary, and there is no gary in the machine.

"Maybe there is no determinism in the universe"

there isn't, strictly speaking, but causation exists and the very conditions of experience presuppose it (immanual can and did, i believe, establish this synthetic a priori truth). but listen I'm just splitting hairs here cuz it all means the same thing... but nothing is 'determined' in the sense of it being the plan of a determining agent, a determiner, who had it in mind before it happened and made it happen, etc. these are the conceptual cognates, if u will, that go along with our understanding of the word 'determine', and if we try using this word to describe how the universe works, only confusion will follow.

we usually mean the word in two ways. we say stuff like 'the weather station will determine the weather' and 'let's determine where we are first' and 'he's determined to win'. of the three statements here only the last is used causatively, and it's a statement about a creature with a will that acts deliberately and intentionally (to win), etc.

now wouldn't describing something that happened in the universe as 'determined' be just a bit misleading? is the universe willing and deliberating and acting intentionally? if not, why say it's determining anything?

Causation exists in the sense that if I hit a billiard ball it will roll in the direction that I force it to. It can't "choose" to behave against the laws of physics. That applies to the billiard ball. However, my choosing to hit the billiard ball or not could be a matter of free will. If it is, then it's not pre-determined. You couldn't predict with 100% certainty what I will do except AFTER I have chosen to do it.

Your choosing whether or not to hit the billiard ball is not a matter of 'Free Will". Voluntary action is not evidence of Free Will because you were caused to want what you want. You may choose to prove that an action is free of determining causes by for instance striking the billiard ball so that you deliberately lose the game, and in that case your motive for doing so was caused by some circumstances whether you are aware of them or not.

Most of us feel we are free to choose some actions. But we must obey the laws of nature .

[Gary Childress]

thinking in statements is the inaudible sound-shadow of the words u know and 'consciousness' is just a word describing types of behavior of intentional systems. the cartesian theater doesn't exist, cogito ergo gary, and there is no gary in the machine.

"Maybe there is no determinism in the universe"

there isn't, strictly speaking, but causation exists and the very conditions of experience presuppose it (immanual can and did, i believe, establish this synthetic a priori truth). but listen I'm just splitting hairs here cuz it all means the same thing... but nothing is 'determined' in the sense of it being the plan of a determining agent, a determiner, who had it in mind before it happened and made it happen, etc. these are the conceptual cognates, if u will, that go along with our understanding of the word 'determine', and if we try using this word to describe how the universe works, only confusion will follow.

we usually mean the word in two ways. we say stuff like 'the weather station will determine the weather' and 'let's determine where we are first' and 'he's determined to win'. of the three statements here only the last is used causatively, and it's a statement about a creature with a will that acts deliberately and intentionally (to win), etc.

now wouldn't describing something that happened in the universe as 'determined' be just a bit misleading? is the universe willing and deliberating and acting intentionally? if not, why say it's determining anything?

Causation exists in the sense that if I hit a billiard ball it will roll in the direction that I force it to. It can't "choose" to behave against the laws of physics. That applies to the billiard ball. However, my choosing to hit the billiard ball or not could be a matter of free will. If it is, then it's not pre-determined. You couldn't predict with 100% certainty what I will do except AFTER I have chosen to do it.

Your choosing whether or not to hit the billiard ball is not a matter of 'Free Will". Voluntary action is not evidence of Free Will because you were caused to want what you want. You may choose to prove that an action is free of determining causes by for instance striking the billiard ball so that you deliberately lose the game, and in that case your motive for doing so was caused by some circumstances whether you are aware of them or not.

Most of us feel we are free to choose some actions. But we must obey the laws of nature .

If you say so. As I say, "my choosing to hit the billiard ball or not could be a matter of free will." I don't have conclusive proof of that but I'm not aware anyone has proof showing otherwise either. So I used the word "could".

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Belinda]

Causation exists in the sense that if I hit a billiard ball it will roll in the direction that I force it to. It can't "choose" to behave against the laws of physics. That applies to the billiard ball. However, my choosing to hit the billiard ball or not could be a matter of free will. If it is, then it's not pre-determined. You couldn't predict with 100% certainty what I will do except AFTER I have chosen to do it.

Your choosing whether or not to hit the billiard ball is not a matter of 'Free Will". Voluntary action is not evidence of Free Will because you were caused to want what you want. You may choose to prove that an action is free of determining causes by for instance striking the billiard ball so that you deliberately lose the game, and in that case your motive for doing so was caused by some circumstances whether you are aware of them or not.

Most of us feel we are free to choose some actions. But we must obey the laws of nature .

If you say so. As I say, "my choosing to hit the billiard ball or not could be a matter of free will." I don't have conclusive proof of that but I'm not aware anyone has proof showing otherwise either. So I used the word "could".

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No knowledge is ever absolutely certain, and we must live and work with probabilities.

Which is more probable: that your action was that of an unidentifiable supernatural 'Free Will' or that your action was that of a natural man?

[Gary Childress]

Your choosing whether or not to hit the billiard ball is not a matter of 'Free Will". Voluntary action is not evidence of Free Will because you were caused to want what you want. You may choose to prove that an action is free of determining causes by for instance striking the billiard ball so that you deliberately lose the game, and in that case your motive for doing so was caused by some circumstances whether you are aware of them or not.

Most of us feel we are free to choose some actions. But we must obey the laws of nature .

If you say so. As I say, "my choosing to hit the billiard ball or not could be a matter of free will." I don't have conclusive proof of that but I'm not aware anyone has proof showing otherwise either. So I used the word "could".

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No knowledge is ever absolutely certain, and we must live and work with probabilities.

Which is more probable: that your action was that of an unidentifiable supernatural 'Free Will' or that your action was that of a natural man?

I couldn't tell you which is more "probable." Which do you think is more "probable"? And why do you think that?

[promethean75]

wait a minute cAstro skipped me man. could be becuz I don't use the quote function or I'm on ignore. goddamit henry see what u started?

this is promethean75 to Astro Cat, do u copy? over.

*krrkkuuurrkkshh*

this is promethean75 to Astro Cat, do u copy?. OVER.

*kurrrkkkshhhkrrk*

goddamit.

open the pod bay doors, Cat.

no not the ones on the ship.

omg did i just say that?

promethean75 to Astro Cat. I'm transmitting a distress call after losing contact. I'm in the omniscience/omnibenevolence thread surrounded by what appear to be.... well, you're not gonna believe this but they look like hobbits.

[Gary Childress]

wait a minute cAstro skipped me man. could be becuz I don't use the quote function or I'm on ignore. goddamit henry see what u started?

this is promethean75 to Astro Cat, do u copy? over.

*krrkkuuurrkkshh*

this is promethean75 to Astro Cat, do u copy?. OVER.

*kurrrkkkshhhkrrk*

goddamit.

open the pod bay doors, Cat.

no not the ones on the ship.

omg did i just say that?

promethean75 to Astro Cat. I'm transmitting a distress call after losing contact. I'm in the omniscience/omnibenevolence thread surrounded by what appear to be.... well, you're not gonna believe this but they look like hobbits.

It's probably because you don't use the quote function. If you want to seriously get her attention, then my advice would be to quote.

[Belinda]

If you say so. As I say, "my choosing to hit the billiard ball or not could be a matter of free will." I don't have conclusive proof of that but I'm not aware anyone has proof showing otherwise either. So I used the word "could".

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No knowledge is ever absolutely certain, and we must live and work with probabilities.

Which is more probable: that your action was that of an unidentifiable supernatural 'Free Will' or that your action was that of a natural man?

I couldn't tell you which is more "probable." Which do you think is more "probable"? And why do you think that?

One's metaphysical stance is the crux of the matter. My metaphysical stance does not include a supernatural form of existence. I am , in other words, a substance monist. The one and only ontic substance is nature.

Absolute Free Will, which it's claimed overrides nature, is therefore nonsense--- supernatural nonsense.

[Gary Childress]

No knowledge is ever absolutely certain, and we must live and work with probabilities.

Which is more probable: that your action was that of an unidentifiable supernatural 'Free Will' or that your action was that of a natural man?

I couldn't tell you which is more "probable." Which do you think is more "probable"? And why do you think that?

One's metaphysical stance is the crux of the matter. My metaphysical stance does not include a supernatural form of existence. I am , in other words, a substance monist. The one and only ontic substance is nature.

Absolute Free Will, which it's claimed overrides nature, is therefore nonsense--- supernatural nonsense.

Have you suddenly decided there's no God? Hey, maybe there is. If there is, then maybe it isn't nonsense. As far as "substance monism" I don't find that to be entirely convincing. First of all, what do you mean by "substance"? Is a belief, pain or anger a "substance"? What do you mean by "supernatural"? Does it mean other than the matter of the universe? Does it mean 'physical' matter acting on other 'physical' matter? Does it mean that which is not matter?

You're no more lost in this world than I am. I'm sticking with agnosticism on things I don't know. If it seems to be a matter of high moral purpose to believe something to be true or else false, then I guess I'll make the best decision I can based on what I think I know or what appears convincing. In which case, yes, I have free will. I'm not forced to mechanistically make a decision one way or the other on something. But you seem to be right about the fogginess of the word "free will", I mean, we can be wrong in our actions based on following bad advice or misinformation or any number of things. If there's a God, then who knows if he'll take that into account or not? I would hope so.