Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[attofishpi]

Bit of a logical problem here, mate.

..precisely.

[Atla]

In principle, you can measure a particle’s position to any degree of accuracy you desire, or its momentum to any degree of accuracy. The trade-off is that the more precisely you measure one, the less precisely you can measure the other. That doesn’t mean the particle itself is in some fuzzy indeterminate state without a real position or momentum—it simply reflects our limitations as observers.

This has profound implications for how we interpret "randomness" in quantum mechanics. The apparent randomness isn’t because there’s no definite underlying reality but because our measurements interact with the system. Determinism at the quantum level means that if the quantum states and conditions are exactly the same, outcomes are dictated by those states and their probabilistic rules. If we could know every detail, determinism would still hold.

This is so confused and incorrect, now we know Mike isn't a physicist.

[Noax]

Yet again you avoid the question by asserting something irrelevant to it, making me suspect that it challenges your assertions enough for you to evade.

The point is, any choice (to borrow the $3 or when/if to cross the street) is based on prior state, and thus is not an initiation of cause. You've not addressed that except to suggest that perhaps the decision is not in any way based on this prior state, which is the equivalent of Hellen Keller crossing a road without even knowing there is a road being crossed, let alone at a safe time.

Please respond to this point if you would, else I must conclude that you agree with it and that nobody has free choice since I've seen you define it this way.

There's still a choice to be made,

Not if Determinism were true.

Determinism has nothing to do with it. You seem incapable of distinguishing choice (genuine) from free choice. The former exists if multiple options are available, and if there was no choice, brains would not have evolved at all to make better ones.

The choice being free depends on one's definitions of it, and if those criteria are met.

Determinism has nothing to do with it because choice exists under both deterministic and under nondeterministic interpretations. The latter involves either fundamental or apparent randomness, and the vast majority of decisions do not utilize randomness as a basic for the choice. In fact, all the structures of decision making apparatus go to some lengths to not be sensitive to probabilistic effects. Schrodinger's cat is an exception, where the detector amplifies an uncaused random event into a classical choice of whether to kill the cat or not. That's a randomness amplifier. We don't see those in nature or in beings because there's no benefit to it.

Given a typical definition of free choice, the physical action resulting from the choice would have to be based on something not physical and not random, but containing information. This is why determinism is irrelevant since the alternative to that is randomness, the worst basis for a choice unless unpredictability is a goal, and there are plenty of deterministic ways to be unpredictable.

[Immanuel Can]

Yet again you avoid the question by asserting something irrelevant to it, making me suspect that it challenges your assertions enough for you to evade.

If you don't understand the relevance, I'll be happy to show it's not only relevant but conclusive.

Try to create an actual infinite regress on paper. Count backwards from 0...-1...-2...but don't write any number until the earlier number has already been written. And email me again when you finally get to write your first number.

QED.

The point is, any choice (to borrow the $3 or when/if to cross the street) is based on prior state,

"Based on" means nothing. Every choice has a "basis," but that "basis" is never the total explanation of why the decision goes the way it does.

Staring at the $5, your wife has a choice. One thing should could "base" it on is her desire for coffee. Another is her desire for parking. Another is her desire for you to retain your $5. All of those choices are "based on" things: but which one, which "basis" will she choose to respond to? You don't know.

There's still a choice to be made,

Not if Determinism were true.

Determinism has nothing to do with it.

It has everything to do with it.

If Determinism were true, there would be no such thing as any genuine choice, ever. Not since the very beginning of the universe.

You seem incapable of distinguishing choice (genuine) from free choice.

That's not a genuine distinction. When philosophers speak of "free will," they don't mean there are no physical conditions or even reasons to choose one thing or another, just as in the case of your wife and the $5. They mean that within all the prior conditions, the choice still ultimately happens by way of human volition, not merely by cause-effect of physical prerequisites, as in Determinism.

The choice being free depends on one's definitions of it,

It doesn't, actually.

What Determinists think is that you only imagine you have will, but you really don't. What you really have is causality making anything but one choice impossible. So, they think, Determinism is still true, but you are self-deceived.

Now, why a Deterministic universe would constitute all human beings as self-deceived is a question that automatically comes up, then...but they don't even try to answer it, so far as I can see. They just seem to think there's no answer to that one.

Determinism has nothing to do with it because choice exists under both deterministic and under nondeterministic interpretations.

That's just definitionally wrong. Sorry.

I think you're making a very old mistake, there. You're thinking that epistemology, what you know, is going to make a difference to ontology, or what is genuinely the case. But it's not.

If it's snowing outside, then whether or not you believe it is, is going to make not a stroke of difference to that. Likewise, if all things are predetermined, then whether or not we know that is not going to change that fact.

Good thing Determinism is false.

"Unpredictable" and "non-determined" are not synynoms. A person may not be able to predict what a determined universe will make happen, but that won't mean it won't happen exactly as it was predetermined to do. Think about it carefully, and you'll realize that's true.

[attofishpi]

...Oooo so get wiv that sista

they call that a smack down.

(and it was always gonna be dis way ,,,since da Big Bang an' all)

[attofishpi]

Yet again you avoid the question by asserting something irrelevant to it, making me suspect that it challenges your assertions enough for you to evade.

If you don't understand the relevance, I'll be happy to show it's not only relevant but conclusive.

Try to create an actual infinite regress on paper. Count backwards from 0...-1...-2...but don't write any number until the earlier number has already been written. And email me again when you finally get to write your first number.

Oi! CLOWN HEAD!

Just sayin' GOD did it is as fucked as the start of ANY CLOCK (*cockwart)

[Alexiev]

If Determinism were true, there would be no such thing as any genuine choice, ever. Not since the very beginning of the universe.

The dictionary definition of choice is: "an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities."

Since the person doing the choosing isn't aware of which he will choose, he is faced with options. This is obvious. That's why he's considering which option to choose. The possibility that he will inevitably choose one of the options is also obvious (assuming the options are mutually exclusive). That doesn't suggest he wasn't at one time faced with several. 'Faced with" means "he is considering".

We will leave the discussion of "free" for another time. But given this definition the "choice" is "genuine" regardless of whether it is predetermined.

[attofishpi]

..pathetic.

[Immanuel Can]

If Determinism were true, there would be no such thing as any genuine choice, ever. Not since the very beginning of the universe.

The dictionary definition of choice is: "an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities."

You don't read far enough in your own dictionary, then. That's the non-technical and non-philosophical use of the word "determine," as it "to choose."

Here's the technical, philosophical definition of "Determinism." And I'll cite my source:

"determinism, in philosophy and science, the thesis that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable. Determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did." (Encyclopedia Britannica)

Or

"Causal determinism is, roughly speaking, the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature." (Stanford)

Or

"Determinism is the philosophical idea that every event or state of affairs, including every human decision and action, is the inevitable and necessary consequence of antecedent states of affairs." (The Information Philosopher)

Good we could clear that up.

[Skepdick]

You can imagine all sorts of impossible things, perhaps: but you can't create them. It's mathematically that we can see that it's impossible. A chain with infinite prerequisites never gets started.

It's precisely Mathematics which gives us the framework for reasoning about the possibility. Such as the negative integers going back from 0 (which you could represent as The Big Bang) going all the way to negative infinity.

If you are going to insist that it's "impossible" do let us know how you've determined that.

[Immanuel Can]

You can imagine all sorts of impossible things, perhaps: but you can't create them. It's mathematically that we can see that it's impossible. A chain with infinite prerequisites never gets started.

It's precisely Mathematics which gives us the framework for reasoning about the possibility. Such as the negative integers going back from 0 (which you could represent as The Big Bang) going all the way to negative infinity.

Try going there. Go ahead. Write the sequence. Start at "0," but before you write "0", you have to write "-1". And before you get to write "-1," you have to have already written "-2"...and so on, infinitely.

(This exactly models the infinite causal regress problem: because one explicit requirement of an attribution of causality is that it must come before the thing it is supposed to have "caused." If it happened after, then you can know for sure it wasn't a "cause.")

Call me when you're done.

See it, yet? Try it, and you will.

[Skepdick]

Try going there. Go ahead. Write the sequence. Start at "0," but before you write "0", you have to write "-1". And before you get to write "-1," you have to have already written "-2"...and so on, infinitely.

(This exactly models the infinite causal regress problem: because one explicit requirement of an attribution of causality is that it must come before the thing it is supposed to have "caused." If it happened after, then you can know for sure it wasn't a "cause.")

Call me when you're done.

See it, yet? Try it, and you will.

Sure thing... In Haskell

Code: Select all

[0, -1..]

-1 comes before 0, -2 comes before -1, -3 comesbefore -2. And by induction.... there's no number without a predecessor.

You are more then welcome to inspect them - let us know which integers you've found missing...

[Immanuel Can]

...by induction.... there's no number without a predecessor.

I think you should do it by hand. You're not managing to realize what the thing you just said means, so perhaps you need a closer engagement with the test.

"no number without a predecessor": that means there's no predecessor for ANY number anymore. The 'first' predecessor never happens. So the prerequisite for the causal chain to commence NEVER HAPPENS.

Now the deduction is simple:

P1: No universe can possibly be the product of an actual infinite regression of causes. (mathematically certain and confirmed)
P2: But the universe exists. (empirically undeniable, unless you deny the reality of reality itself)

So what's the conclusion?

Let's see if you can do it.

[Skepdick]

...by induction.... there's no number without a predecessor.

I think you should do it by hand. You're not managing to realize what the thing you just said means, so perhaps you need a closer engagement with the test.

"no number without a predecessor": that means there's no predecessor for ANY number anymore.

No, it doesn't. It means you can't identify a number which doesn't have a predecessor.

Go ahead and point out number that is.

The 'first' predecessor never happens. So the prerequisite for the causal chain to commence NEVER HAPPENS.

You don't seem to understand how this works. Which is the 1st negative number then?

What is this "prerequisite"? Identify it.

P1: No universe can possibly be the product of an actual infinite regression of causes. (mathematically certain and confirmed)

Why are you lying?

[Gary Childress]

Truth and objectivity aren't always easy things to handle, Mr. Pronouncer.

You, Gary, have absolutely no access either to “objectivity” and certainly to no “truth”.

You pronounce this, not me.

[Middle English pronouncen, from Old French prononcier, from Latin prōnūntiāre : prō-, forth; see pro-1 + nūntiāre, to announce (from nūntius, messenger; see neu- in Indo-European roots).]

Jerk.