Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Alexis, let’s stay on target.

Mine or yours?

[Atla]

The religious can forever be preoccupied with things that don't exist. Others have better things to do.

[BigMike]

Mike, our fundamental picture of “reality” does not jibe. And as I plainly said when you came back here a few days ago: I am not the opponent you seek to work out your doctrines.

[Who, may I ask, do you feel you’ve forged agreements with here? What is your impression of why many don’t go along with you?]

I understand your position — that is, the elements of the position you present. So perhaps this will enable you to feel “heard”.

You are asking me to continue to engage with you and this could only amount to repeating what I’ve already written (no part of which you can accept!)

Alexis, I don’t need you to agree with me. I just need clarity. And I appreciate that you’ve at least said plainly: our pictures of reality don’t match. Fair enough. That’s honest.

But you keep saying you “understand” my position, while refusing to engage with its implications. And that’s the problem. Understanding something isn’t just being able to repeat it—it’s being able to reckon with what it actually means. So when you say you “can’t accept” what I’ve written, I’m still left asking: why?

You say we don’t “jibe,” but where, exactly, does the friction start? Is it the physical basis of thought? The rejection of free will? The view that blame and moralism cause harm? Is it the idea that we can build a better world by understanding causality instead of worshiping myth?

If all of that makes sense to you and you still can’t follow it to its conclusion, then maybe the issue isn’t intellectual—it’s emotional. Maybe it feels too stark. Too unromantic. Too unceremonious for a soul raised on metaphysics.

But the truth doesn’t ask for beauty. It asks for honesty.

So again, not asking you to agree. Just to tell me this:
What part of the causal picture—this unbroken web of interactions that shaped you, me, and every act of history—do you actually think is wrong?
Or are you simply holding onto an older story because it feels more like home?

[Ben JS]

How does a perpetual afterimage of things that have already happened, "do" anything?

The current temporal state of existence exists.
The current temporal state of existence is as real as any preceding or proceeding temporal state of existence.

To describe the current temporal state of existence as an 'afterimage', is poetic language - but misleading.

A stone crushes a flower.
The stone did not aim or intend to crush the flower.
The stone's momentum/trajectory led to the outcome of the flower being crushed.
The stone can contribute to the outcome of the flower being crushed in the absence of freedom.
The stone was determined to crush the flower, based on the forces that affected the stone.
The flower would not have been crushed in the absence of the stone.

We can act volitionally, in accord with our will -
but our volition and will were not products of volition / will.
They were the inevitable product/unfolding/procession from a prior temporal state of existence,
far preceding every form of life.

A person can contribute to an outcome - but only as they were determined to do so.
Our presence affects the environment, as the environment affects us.
It is a feedback loop - but a determined one.
The illusion is not that we can have affect,
the illusion is that the effect we have was ever going to be different.
The illusion we have is that our 'choice' is not genuine, as there was only one outcome.
We experience the process of choosing and evaluating,
but our 'choices' are products of an environment that existed before us -
a chain of causality that existed before the earth.

Stones do things.
People do things.
Things determined by forces/processes/mechanisms present before they stones/people were things.
If there is only one outcome, and that outcome was determined before we existed, then we do not have meaningful freedom.

Natural selection has no aim or intent.
Natural selection has an outcome, but no preferences.
Natural selection is indifferent to whether a species goes extinct or flourishes.
Natural selection is anthropomorphized by foolish beings who think an indifferent process wants any outcome.

The result/outcome of natural selection are being that are well adapted to surviving in their environment.
This was not by design, or intent or preference.
It was an inevitable outcome of the selection pressures living beings mutated under.

We are natural.
Everything we do is natural.
All our advancements,
raise the bar for the capacity of what nature can do -
as all we do is a part of nature.

We cannot transcend nature.
We demonstrate nature's capacity for brilliance -
nature's capacity for complexity and variety.
But we will always be a product of nature,
and anything we ever create or do,
will themselves also be part of nature -
as they emerged from nature.

Artificial / man-made are subcategories of nature.
Differentiating between aspects of nature that occur due to the present of homo sapiens,
as opposed to aspects and environments that are present in the absence of homo sapiens.
There is much utility in this distinction,
but do not mistake any of our actions as unnatural -
that'd be a flaw of your thinking.

We're more intelligent than natural selection.
Natural selection has no intelligence, it isn't conscious.
Our interests, shaped and endowed by natural selection,
do not need to align with natural selection -
we can defy it.
We can cause artificial selection,
or artificially affect the development of our species.

Natural selection has it's limits.
It can only cause change incrementally,
where each increment must itself provide advantage of previous increments.
And once a mechanism is shaped that can meet a survival need of a being,
natural selection cannot go back to the drawing board with that species and make drastic changes in light of new information.
It's dumb and short sighted.

Guess who has the capacity to not be short sighted?
Homo sapiens.
We were endowed with intelligence and reason.
We can evaluate our internal and external environment,
and construct plans and strategies for actualizing our goals.
Making WISE decisions.

That something was in the past,
does not mean we ought seek it in the present.
That natural selection shaped us in the past,
does not mean we ought look to natural selection as a guideline for how to progress in the future.

We can recognize what's in our health.
We can recognize our wants and needs.
We can evaluate what is of utility or detrimental to our objectives.

Natural selection is blind.
We do not have to be blind,
despite many acting so.

[BigMike]

How does a perpetual afterimage of things that have already happened, "do" anything?

The current temporal state of existence exists.
The current temporal state of existence is as real as any preceding or proceeding temporal state of existence.

To describe the current temporal state of existence as an 'afterimage', is poetic language - but misleading.

A stone crushes a flower.
The stone did not aim or intend to crush the flower.
The stone's momentum/trajectory led to the outcome of the flower being crushed.
The stone can contribute to the outcome of the flower being crushed in the absence of freedom.
The stone was determined to crush the flower, based on the forces that affected the stone.
The flower would not have been crushed in the absence of the stone.

We can act volitionally, in accord with our will -
but our volition and will were not products of volition / will.
They were the inevitable product/unfolding/procession from a prior temporal state of existence,
far preceding every form of life.

A person can contribute to an outcome - but only as they were determined to do so.
Our presence affects the environment, as the environment affects us.
It is a feedback loop - but a determined one.
The illusion is not that we can have affect,
the illusion is that the effect we have was ever going to be different.
The illusion we have is that our 'choice' is not genuine, as there was only one outcome.
We experience the process of choosing and evaluating,
but our 'choices' are products of an environment that existed before us -
a chain of causality that existed before the earth.

Stones do things.
People do things.
Things determined by forces/processes/mechanisms present before they stones/people were things.
If there is only one outcome, and that outcome was determined before we existed, then we do not have meaningful freedom.

Natural selection has no aim or intent.
Natural selection has an outcome, but no preferences.
Natural selection is indifferent to whether a species goes extinct or flourishes.
Natural selection is anthropomorphized by foolish beings who think an indifferent process wants any outcome.

The result/outcome of natural selection are being that are well adapted to surviving in their environment.
This was not by design, or intent or preference.
It was an inevitable outcome of the selection pressures living beings mutated under.

We are natural.
Everything we do is natural.
All our advancements,
raise the bar for the capacity of what nature can do -
as all we do is a part of nature.

We cannot transcend nature.
We demonstrate nature's capacity for brilliance -
nature's capacity for complexity and variety.
But we will always be a product of nature,
and anything we ever create or do,
will themselves also be part of nature -
as they emerged from nature.

Artificial / man-made are subcategories of nature.
Differentiating between aspects of nature that occur due to the present of homo sapiens,
as opposed to aspects and environments that are present in the absence of homo sapiens.
There is much utility in this distinction,
but do not mistake any of our actions as unnatural -
that'd be a flaw of your thinking.

We're more intelligent than natural selection.
Natural selection has no intelligence, it isn't conscious.
Our interests, shaped and endowed by natural selection,
do not need to align with natural selection -
we can defy it.
We can cause artificial selection,
or artificially affect the development of our species.

Natural selection has it's limits.
It can only cause change incrementally,
where each increment must itself provide advantage of previous increments.
And once a mechanism is shaped that can meet a survival need of a being,
natural selection cannot go back to the drawing board with that species and make drastic changes in light of new information.
It's dumb and short sighted.

Guess who has the capacity to not be short sighted?
Homo sapiens.
We were endowed with intelligence and reason.
We can evaluate our internal and external environment,
and construct plans and strategies for actualizing our goals.
Making WISE decisions.

That something was in the past,
does not mean we ought seek it in the present.
That natural selection shaped us in the past,
does not mean we ought look to natural selection as a guideline for how to progress in the future.

We can recognize what's in our health.
We can recognize our wants and needs.
We can evaluate what is of utility or detrimental to our objectives.

Natural selection is blind.
We do not have to be blind,
despite many acting so.

Ben JS, that was a refreshingly sharp and grounded breakdown—thank you for putting it so clearly. You're absolutely right: calling consciousness an "afterimage" is poetic, not literal, and it risks misleading people into thinking determinism somehow erases causality, participation, or value. It doesn’t.

What it erases is un-caused causes—things that just spring into existence or actions that erupt from an “I” disconnected from prior causes. But nowhere does determinism imply that people are inert like stones. What it clarifies is that our actions, though complex and deeply intertwined with feedback loops and internal modeling, are still the result of chains we didn’t choose.

You nailed it with:
"The illusion is not that we can have affect, the illusion is that the effect we have was ever going to be different."

Yes. That’s the liberating insight of determinism. It tells us: you can matter deeply—you can shape your world, influence others, build futures—but what you become, and what you cause, flows from what caused you. Your efforts are real. Your consequences are real. But they are not authored from a metaphysical void. They are part of the tapestry.

You also made an essential distinction between understanding our roots in natural selection and recognizing our ability to move beyond its blind constraints. We are nature, yes—but we are also the first known part of nature that can simulate alternate futures, plan across centuries, and adjust its behavior for ethical, aesthetic, or long-term goals.

You captured it perfectly:
"That natural selection shaped us in the past, does not mean we ought look to natural selection as a guideline for how to progress in the future."

Exactly. We are nature becoming aware of itself. The question isn't whether we can transcend nature—it’s whether we can consciously participate in its unfolding with clarity and compassion, rather than myth and moral panic.

And you’re right: we don’t need to call anything “unnatural” to criticize it. We don’t need mysticism to find awe, or divine decree to find morality. All of that can emerge—has emerged—from the causal fabric of a universe where stars explode, DNA mutates, and eventually, people write posts like yours.

That’s not bleak. That’s astonishing.

Thanks again for the clarity.

[Impenitent]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D42FPc67lks

Bob was here

-Imp

[Age]

How does a perpetual afterimage of things that have already happened, "do" anything?

The current temporal state of existence exists.
The current temporal state of existence is as real as any preceding or proceeding temporal state of existence.

To describe the current temporal state of existence as an 'afterimage', is poetic language - but misleading.

A stone crushes a flower.
The stone did not aim or intend to crush the flower.
The stone's momentum/trajectory led to the outcome of the flower being crushed.
The stone can contribute to the outcome of the flower being crushed in the absence of freedom.
The stone was determined to crush the flower, based on the forces that affected the stone.
The flower would not have been crushed in the absence of the stone.

We can act volitionally, in accord with our will -
but our volition and will were not products of volition / will.
They were the inevitable product/unfolding/procession from a prior temporal state of existence,
far preceding every form of life.

A person can contribute to an outcome - but only as they were determined to do so.
Our presence affects the environment, as the environment affects us.
It is a feedback loop - but a determined one.
The illusion is not that we can have affect,
the illusion is that the effect we have was ever going to be different.
The illusion we have is that our 'choice' is not genuine, as there was only one outcome.
We experience the process of choosing and evaluating,
but our 'choices' are products of an environment that existed before us -
a chain of causality that existed before the earth.

Stones do things.
People do things.
Things determined by forces/processes/mechanisms present before they stones/people were things.
If there is only one outcome, and that outcome was determined before we existed, then we do not have meaningful freedom.

Natural selection has no aim or intent.
Natural selection has an outcome, but no preferences.
Natural selection is indifferent to whether a species goes extinct or flourishes.
Natural selection is anthropomorphized by foolish beings who think an indifferent process wants any outcome.

The result/outcome of natural selection are being that are well adapted to surviving in their environment.
This was not by design, or intent or preference.
It was an inevitable outcome of the selection pressures living beings mutated under.

We are natural.
Everything we do is natural.
All our advancements,
raise the bar for the capacity of what nature can do -
as all we do is a part of nature.

We cannot transcend nature.
We demonstrate nature's capacity for brilliance -
nature's capacity for complexity and variety.
But we will always be a product of nature,
and anything we ever create or do,
will themselves also be part of nature -
as they emerged from nature.

Artificial / man-made are subcategories of nature.
Differentiating between aspects of nature that occur due to the present of homo sapiens,
as opposed to aspects and environments that are present in the absence of homo sapiens.
There is much utility in this distinction,
but do not mistake any of our actions as unnatural -
that'd be a flaw of your thinking.

We're more intelligent than natural selection.
Natural selection has no intelligence, it isn't conscious.
Our interests, shaped and endowed by natural selection,
do not need to align with natural selection -
we can defy it.
We can cause artificial selection,
or artificially affect the development of our species.

Natural selection has it's limits.
It can only cause change incrementally,
where each increment must itself provide advantage of previous increments.
And once a mechanism is shaped that can meet a survival need of a being,
natural selection cannot go back to the drawing board with that species and make drastic changes in light of new information.
It's dumb and short sighted.

Guess who has the capacity to not be short sighted?
Homo sapiens.
We were endowed with intelligence and reason.
We can evaluate our internal and external environment,
and construct plans and strategies for actualizing our goals.
Making WISE decisions.

That something was in the past,
does not mean we ought seek it in the present.
That natural selection shaped us in the past,
does not mean we ought look to natural selection as a guideline for how to progress in the future.

We can recognize what's in our health.
We can recognize our wants and needs.
We can evaluate what is of utility or detrimental to our objectives.

Natural selection is blind.
We do not have to be blind,
despite many acting so.

Ben JS, that was a refreshingly sharp and grounded breakdown—thank you for putting it so clearly. You're absolutely right: calling consciousness an "afterimage" is poetic, not literal, and it risks misleading people into thinking determinism somehow erases causality, participation, or value. It doesn’t.

What it erases is un-caused causes—things that just spring into existence or actions that erupt from an “I” disconnected from prior causes. But nowhere does determinism imply that people are inert like stones. What it clarifies is that our actions, though complex and deeply intertwined with feedback loops and internal modeling, are still the result of chains we didn’t choose.

You nailed it with:
"The illusion is not that we can have affect, the illusion is that the effect we have was ever going to be different."

Yes. That’s the liberating insight of determinism. It tells us: you can matter deeply—you can shape your world, influence others, build futures—but what you become, and what you cause, flows from what caused you. Your efforts are real. Your consequences are real. But they are not authored from a metaphysical void. They are part of the tapestry.

You also made an essential distinction between understanding our roots in natural selection and recognizing our ability to move beyond its blind constraints. We are nature, yes—but we are also the first known part of nature that can simulate alternate futures, plan across centuries, and adjust its behavior for ethical, aesthetic, or long-term goals.

You captured it perfectly:
"That natural selection shaped us in the past, does not mean we ought look to natural selection as a guideline for how to progress in the future."

Exactly. We are nature becoming aware of itself. The question isn't whether we can transcend nature—it’s whether we can consciously participate in its unfolding with clarity and compassion, rather than myth and moral panic.

And you’re right: we don’t need to call anything “unnatural” to criticize it. We don’t need mysticism to find awe, or divine decree to find morality. All of that can emerge—has emerged—from the causal fabric of a universe where stars explode, DNA mutates, and eventually, people write posts like yours.

That’s not bleak. That’s astonishing.

Thanks again for the clarity.

But, 'free will' still exists. Along with 'determinism'.

When 'you' human beings have become aware of "yourselves", and aware of who and what 'I' am, exactly, then 'you' will, also, have past the, 'We are nature becoming aware of itself' stage.

[Dubious]

The only valuable metaphysics is the one that can survive contact with physics, neuroscience, and reason.

These are my views regarding determinism and its sequels.

Determinism, at its root, is a story of origins, meaning the story of everything that was and will be at whatever point of time in the universe simultaneous with all of its multiplex manifestations. Determinism is the rule contained within each process which provides some kind of output. I imagine there are very few processes existing independently which do not interact much like an inert element which refuses to combine. In our case, an analogy would be the processing power of a single neuron being useless if it doesn't connect to a multitude of others.

In effect, if one could, like Laplace's Demon, consider the entire range of processes operating within the cosmos all rigidly ruled by its inherent deterministic paradigms yet providing a plethora of variable outputs through its interconnections, we are forced to acknowledge a host of probabilities and possibilities which such a fusion of inputs would cause...if cause is the right word.

The point I'm trying to make is that metaphysics amounts to an epiphenomenal state within our categories of permissible operations. This includes, to my mind, philosophy, theology, myths, art etc., encompassing as well all the made-up rules governing a society. The deterministic rules of physics created the human brain, however long it took, but without any intent to do so. If there were intent, it should not have taken so long!

A process, deterministically ordered has no knowledge of its consequences. In that respect we and the universe may be, or may as well be, nothing more than an episode of serendipity within a multiverse offering a near infinity of variable outcomes, all and each deterministically structured.

Metaphysics by contrast consist of derived mental events and agencies; a signature of value systems meant to operate as an extension of the physical forces responsible for our existence. The mystical too, within the human psyche, more often defaults to chords which don't ask for a resolution. When felt as music, that would be called the Tristan chord.

I think of mysticism as that which allows for an open-ended psyche, green-lighting itself for all kinds of speculation whose value resides in the kind of images it produces and follows. Being, as all things are, deterministically created, should not disallow us to achieve an inner escape velocity and thus create our own relevances vis-à-vis any settled reality as I believe it would, should and must for any so-called intelligent species existing within the same sphere of stark indifference.

Consciousness comes complete with its own mandate where not every truth is enhancing nor every non-truth pejorative. The brain mandates imagination where truth or an imagined truth may have an equal effect being impervious to any truth associations in which any truth, actual or not, only exists as the mind's own delineation.

In the cosmos, most things merge into each other, into one form or another. As consequence, the physical complexities which created us eventually merged into what we in turn create, summarizing itself into a process gradually forging its own independence as if it were the inevitable sequel forced by nature to reveal itself.

The difference between us, as I see it, is not based on any separation of views on determinism as it is with most here who do so by theorizing frothy, rootless scenarios incubated by their own sense of exceptionalism, but in its subsequent interpretation by those made capable through the laws of physics of so interpreting.

[BigMike]

The only valuable metaphysics is the one that can survive contact with physics, neuroscience, and reason.

These are my views regarding determinism and its sequels.

Determinism, at its root, is a story of origins, meaning the story of everything that was and will be at whatever point of time in the universe simultaneous with all of its multiplex manifestations. Determinism is the rule contained within each process which provides some kind of output. I imagine there are very few processes existing independently which do not interact much like an inert element which refuses to combine. In our case, an analogy would be the processing power of a single neuron being useless if it doesn't connect to a multitude of others.

In effect, if one could, like Laplace's Demon, consider the entire range of processes operating within the cosmos all rigidly ruled by its inherent deterministic paradigms yet providing a plethora of variable outputs through its interconnections, we are forced to acknowledge a host of probabilities and possibilities which such a fusion of inputs would cause...if cause is the right word.

The point I'm trying to make is that metaphysics amounts to an epiphenomenal state within our categories of permissible operations. This includes, to my mind, philosophy, theology, myths, art etc., encompassing as well all the made-up rules governing a society. The deterministic rules of physics created the human brain, however long it took, but without any intent to do so. If there were intent, it should not have taken so long!

A process, deterministically ordered has no knowledge of its consequences. In that respect we and the universe may be, or may as well be, nothing more than an episode of serendipity within a multiverse offering a near infinity of variable outcomes, all and each deterministically structured.

Metaphysics by contrast consist of derived mental events and agencies; a signature of value systems meant to operate as an extension of the physical forces responsible for our existence. The mystical too, within the human psyche, more often defaults to chords which don't ask for a resolution. When felt as music, that would be called the Tristan chord.

I think of mysticism as that which allows for an open-ended psyche, green-lighting itself for all kinds of speculation whose value resides in the kind of images it produces and follows. Being, as all things are, deterministically created, should not disallow us to achieve an inner escape velocity and thus create our own relevances vis-à-vis any settled reality as I believe it would, should and must for any so-called intelligent species existing within the same sphere of stark indifference.

Consciousness comes complete with its own mandate where not every truth is enhancing nor every non-truth pejorative. The brain mandates imagination where truth or an imagined truth may have an equal effect being impervious to any truth associations in which any truth, actual or not, only exists as the mind's own delineation.

In the cosmos, most things merge into each other, into one form or another. As consequence, the physical complexities which created us eventually merged into what we in turn create, summarizing itself into a process gradually forging its own independence as if it were the inevitable sequel forced by nature to reveal itself.

The difference between us, as I see it, is not based on any separation of views on determinism as it is with most here who do so by theorizing frothy, rootless scenarios incubated by their own sense of exceptionalism, but in its subsequent interpretation by those made capable through the laws of physics of so interpreting.

Dubious, I appreciate the thoughtful and poetic way you’ve captured what many avoid even glancing at—the immense, indifferent machinery of the cosmos, and our fragile flicker of awareness inside it.

You're absolutely right: determinism isn’t just a physics model—it’s a reality structure. It's the engine beneath everything from star formation to synaptic firing, and yes, even the epiphenomena we call art, theology, law, or myth. These are all downstream expressions of what physics and chemistry started, shaped by biology, and rendered into abstraction by our peculiar kind of nervous system. In that sense, metaphysics is not “outside” determinism—it’s nested within it, like software in hardware, like dreams in sleep.

You describe this beautifully:
"Metaphysics... a signature of value systems meant to operate as an extension of the physical forces responsible for our existence."

Yes. We are a continuation of physics—just at a different level of resolution. The laws of motion didn’t go away when we invented ethics; they simply showed up in more recursive, symbolic form. When we moralize, when we seek meaning, we’re not breaking out of the deterministic web—we’re weaving new threads into it.

You touched on something profound with this line:
"Consciousness comes complete with its own mandate where not every truth is enhancing nor every non-truth pejorative."

This strikes me deeply. There’s an emotional realism to that—one that doesn’t flinch from the fact that truth can wound, and illusion can heal. But if we’re honest, even our illusions are caused. Even our myths are outputs of the same mechanistic river. The mind’s “escape velocity” is not a rebellion against determinism—it is determinism, reaching for new forms.

And that, to me, is the most astonishing part.

We do not need freedom from causality to be meaningful. We are the meaning that causality produces when atoms start thinking. And if we accept that, fully—without delusions of metaphysical exceptionality—then maybe we finally take responsibility for what we are shaping. Not because we could have done otherwise, but because we now know what led us here, and we can change what leads to what comes next.

Your comment reminded me that the goal isn’t to extinguish wonder in the name of fact—but to root wonder more deeply in what is real. And you do that with elegance.

Thank you for that.

[Alexis Jacobi]

These recent posts, over-brimming with life-altering Truth, caused me to weep! How did you guys do it?! One stands awe-struck. No Tristan chord left unresolved, resolving truth!

Displacing Earth’s confabulating priesthoods you emboldened men lay out the truths that move mice, men & nebulae!

I feel that the tide has turned. By some alignment of the celestial and neuronic bodies a great determined song is being sung here. The proper use of poetry!

[Belinda]

How does a perpetual afterimage of things that have already happened, "do" anything?

The current temporal state of existence exists.
The current temporal state of existence is as real as any preceding or proceeding temporal state of existence.

To describe the current temporal state of existence as an 'afterimage', is poetic language - but misleading.

A stone crushes a flower.
The stone did not aim or intend to crush the flower.
The stone's momentum/trajectory led to the outcome of the flower being crushed.
The stone can contribute to the outcome of the flower being crushed in the absence of freedom.
The stone was determined to crush the flower, based on the forces that affected the stone.
The flower would not have been crushed in the absence of the stone.

We can act volitionally, in accord with our will -
but our volition and will were not products of volition / will.
They were the inevitable product/unfolding/procession from a prior temporal state of existence,
far preceding every form of life.

A person can contribute to an outcome - but only as they were determined to do so.
Our presence affects the environment, as the environment affects us.
It is a feedback loop - but a determined one.
The illusion is not that we can have affect,
the illusion is that the effect we have was ever going to be different.
The illusion we have is that our 'choice' is not genuine, as there was only one outcome.
We experience the process of choosing and evaluating,
but our 'choices' are products of an environment that existed before us -
a chain of causality that existed before the earth.

Stones do things.
People do things.
Things determined by forces/processes/mechanisms present before they stones/people were things.
If there is only one outcome, and that outcome was determined before we existed, then we do not have meaningful freedom.

Natural selection has no aim or intent.
Natural selection has an outcome, but no preferences.
Natural selection is indifferent to whether a species goes extinct or flourishes.
Natural selection is anthropomorphized by foolish beings who think an indifferent process wants any outcome.

The result/outcome of natural selection are being that are well adapted to surviving in their environment.
This was not by design, or intent or preference.
It was an inevitable outcome of the selection pressures living beings mutated under.

We are natural.
Everything we do is natural.
All our advancements,
raise the bar for the capacity of what nature can do -
as all we do is a part of nature.

We cannot transcend nature.
We demonstrate nature's capacity for brilliance -
nature's capacity for complexity and variety.
But we will always be a product of nature,
and anything we ever create or do,
will themselves also be part of nature -
as they emerged from nature.

Artificial / man-made are subcategories of nature.
Differentiating between aspects of nature that occur due to the present of homo sapiens,
as opposed to aspects and environments that are present in the absence of homo sapiens.
There is much utility in this distinction,
but do not mistake any of our actions as unnatural -
that'd be a flaw of your thinking.

We're more intelligent than natural selection.
Natural selection has no intelligence, it isn't conscious.
Our interests, shaped and endowed by natural selection,
do not need to align with natural selection -
we can defy it.
We can cause artificial selection,
or artificially affect the development of our species.

Natural selection has it's limits.
It can only cause change incrementally,
where each increment must itself provide advantage of previous increments.
And once a mechanism is shaped that can meet a survival need of a being,
natural selection cannot go back to the drawing board with that species and make drastic changes in light of new information.
It's dumb and short sighted.

Guess who has the capacity to not be short sighted?
Homo sapiens.
We were endowed with intelligence and reason.
We can evaluate our internal and external environment,
and construct plans and strategies for actualizing our goals.
Making WISE decisions.

That something was in the past,
does not mean we ought seek it in the present.
That natural selection shaped us in the past,
does not mean we ought look to natural selection as a guideline for how to progress in the future.

We can recognize what's in our health.
We can recognize our wants and needs.
We can evaluate what is of utility or detrimental to our objectives.

Natural selection is blind.
We do not have to be blind,
despite many acting so.

Ben JS, that was a refreshingly sharp and grounded breakdown—thank you for putting it so clearly. You're absolutely right: calling consciousness an "afterimage" is poetic, not literal, and it risks misleading people into thinking determinism somehow erases causality, participation, or value. It doesn’t.

What it erases is un-caused causes—things that just spring into existence or actions that erupt from an “I” disconnected from prior causes. But nowhere does determinism imply that people are inert like stones. What it clarifies is that our actions, though complex and deeply intertwined with feedback loops and internal modeling, are still the result of chains we didn’t choose.

You nailed it with:
"The illusion is not that we can have affect, the illusion is that the effect we have was ever going to be different."

Yes. That’s the liberating insight of determinism. It tells us: you can matter deeply—you can shape your world, influence others, build futures—but what you become, and what you cause, flows from what caused you. Your efforts are real. Your consequences are real. But they are not authored from a metaphysical void. They are part of the tapestry.

You also made an essential distinction between understanding our roots in natural selection and recognizing our ability to move beyond its blind constraints. We are nature, yes—but we are also the first known part of nature that can simulate alternate futures, plan across centuries, and adjust its behavior for ethical, aesthetic, or long-term goals.

You captured it perfectly:
"That natural selection shaped us in the past, does not mean we ought look to natural selection as a guideline for how to progress in the future."

Exactly. We are nature becoming aware of itself. The question isn't whether we can transcend nature—it’s whether we can consciously participate in its unfolding with clarity and compassion, rather than myth and moral panic.

And you’re right: we don’t need to call anything “unnatural” to criticize it. We don’t need mysticism to find awe, or divine decree to find morality. All of that can emerge—has emerged—from the causal fabric of a universe where stars explode, DNA mutates, and eventually, people write posts like yours.

That’s not bleak. That’s astonishing.

Thanks again for the clarity.

Yes, but causal determinism is more than a "chain" of causality. Causal determinism's "chain" if you like leads not only to sequence in time but also to clumps of contemporary circumstances that endure for significant time spans. These clumps of enduring circumstances(e.g. climates, epidemics, terrains) themselves are caused by even more enduring circumstances which taken as a whole are Nature itself.
Nobody knows whether or not human nature exists as a thing, or if humans are so adaptable that we can transcend what has gone before. In other words, are we defined by our histories or are we a work in progress? I sincerely hope that we, as species, nations, and individuals are works in progress!

[BigMike]

These recent posts, over-brimming with life-altering Truth, caused me to weep! How did you guys do it?! One stands awe-struck. No Tristan chord left unresolved, resolving truth!

Displacing Earth’s confabulating priesthoods you emboldened men lay out the truths that move mice, men & nebulae!

I feel that the tide has turned. By some alignment of the celestial and neuronic bodies a great determined song is being sung here. The proper use of poetry!

Alexis, mockery is always easier than engagement, especially when the questions hit too close to home.

You didn’t answer anything. Not a single question. Not the ones about the so-called “partial truths,” not the ones about what’s supposedly missing, not even a coherent objection to the “proverbial nutshell” you yourself quoted. Just a flood of sarcasm, as if performative irony could substitute for argument.

Why? Is it because you don’t actually disagree with the facts—only with the clarity? You can’t bring yourself to deny that the brain obeys deterministic laws. You don’t deny that desires, preferences, and actions emerge from causes beyond conscious authorship. You just don’t like what it means.

And that’s the real issue here, isn’t it?

You want the freedom of metaphysical mystery without having to defend it. You want to decorate causality with language like “gnosis” and “spiritual insight” while refusing to say what that even adds to the model. And when someone points out that this language—at best—obscures more than it reveals, you retreat into derision and theatre. Because what else is left?

You say my view is reductive. Maybe. But at least it’s coherent. It doesn’t ask people to trade explanation for poetry or pretend that hand-waving gestures at “something more” are meaningful just because they’re dressed in elegance.

If you have something to add—add it. If you can show that this “something more” is real, not just rhetorically pleasing, then do it.

Otherwise, it’s not me who’s hiding from the implications of reality. It’s you.

So here it is again, plainly:

Do you accept that human decisions are caused—shaped entirely by biology, environment, and history?
If not, say so—and show why.
If yes, then tell us what your metaphysical varnish actually adds, besides nostalgia for mystery and resistance to uncomfortable truth.

Because until you do, the weeping and winking is just cover for the absence of an answer.

[BigMike]

Alexis, reading your recent replies—the poetic sidesteps, the theatrical irony, the refusal to answer plain questions—I can’t help but wonder if you’re experiencing something deeper than intellectual disagreement. Something more personal. More conflicted.

Your language reminds me of what Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola described in Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind—the quiet agony of those who no longer believe what they once did, but who remain entangled in the trappings of that belief. The symbolism, the metaphors, the rituals of thought they can’t quite let go of, even when the foundation has eroded beneath them.

They describe people who continue speaking in elevated language about mystery and “higher meaning” not because they believe in it anymore—but because they’re afraid of what comes after. Afraid that a life without divine scaffolding might collapse into meaninglessness. But it doesn’t. It opens up.

Are you stuck in that same space?

You clearly don’t deny the facts—not really. You admit causality. You acknowledge the collapse of old metaphysical frameworks. You know, deep down, that the deterministic model is solid. You just don’t like where it leads. So instead of walking forward, you dance around it with lyrical resignation and ironic distance.

But Alexis, that’s not wisdom. That’s fear in costume.

And I say this not to antagonize you, but to say: you’re not alone. Many have stood where you are—torn between intellectual honesty and emotional inertia. But some of them found the courage to take the leap. To leave the safety of myth and metaphor and step into the beautiful, stark clarity of a fully natural world.

And they didn’t lose meaning. They found it—rebuilt from truth, not tradition.

So ask yourself, honestly:
Are you clinging to your metaphysical posture because you truly believe it…
Or because you’re afraid of what happens when you let it go?

If it’s the latter, maybe it’s time.
Not for a collapse. But for a liberation.
You don’t need “something more.” You just need the courage to stop pretending there is.

[BigMike]

Yes, but causal determinism is more than a "chain" of causality. Causal determinism's "chain" if you like leads not only to sequence in time but also to clumps of contemporary circumstances that endure for significant time spans. These clumps of enduring circumstances(e.g. climates, epidemics, terrains) themselves are caused by even more enduring circumstances which taken as a whole are Nature itself.
Nobody knows whether or not human nature exists as a thing, or if humans are so adaptable that we can transcend what has gone before. In other words, are we defined by our histories or are we a work in progress? I sincerely hope that we, as species, nations, and individuals are works in progress!

Belinda, that’s a beautiful and important addition—and yes, I absolutely agree. You're pointing to a deeper layer of causal determinism: that it’s not just a linear chain running from past to future, but a network of interwoven contexts—persistent, interacting, evolving. Climate systems, ecosystems, economic systems, cultural ideologies—these aren't just moments in time; they’re enduring conditions that shape the possible outcomes within them. They don’t just cause events; they constrain and shape entire fields of possibility.

And your phrase “clumps of contemporary circumstances” is so apt. They form the stage upon which all decisions and behaviors play out. A child born into poverty or privilege, into war or peace, into literacy or ignorance, inherits not just genetics but an entire causal landscape. Their decisions arise from this terrain. And yes, those terrains themselves have causes—stretching back through nature, through geology, through civilization, through biology.

So when we ask if “human nature” exists—we’re really asking: is there something essential and fixed in us that no environment can override? Or are we malleable enough, plastic enough, to transcend even the conditions that shaped us?

I think the honest answer is: both. We are the product of constraints—genetic, cultural, physical—but we are also the species whose brains are built to model the future, reflect on consequences, and change course. We can’t rewrite the laws of physics or delete our history, but we can learn from them. We can recognize that morality, compassion, and responsibility don’t come from magic—they come from recognizing patterns, adapting, and caring about what happens next.

And your hope—that we are a work in progress—is not just noble. It’s essential. Because even if we are deterministic machines, we are machines that can change their own conditions. Not from free will, but from understanding.

That's what gives me hope too. Not that we are free to choose anything—but that we are capable of learning what shapes us, and thereby shaping what comes next.

Thank you for bringing it back to the long view. That’s where this all leads.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You clearly don’t deny the facts—not really. You admit causality. You acknowledge the collapse of old metaphysical frameworks. You know, deep down, that the deterministic model is solid. You just don’t like where it leads. So instead of walking forward, you dance around it with lyrical resignation and ironic distance.

You have never, it seems, read carefully what I have written. You are super head-strong and as a preacher of a physicalist theology, you have arrived at all your conclusions. These are absolutely solid and inarguable. That is why I refer to your philosophy as “absolutist”.

I already explained, very clearly, that I accept the general notion of determinism. And that I still believe that we — human beings — can and do act in creative ways though we exist within structures that were set in motion previously.

The largest difference though is that I am not an atheist as you are. All this has been explained! But no part of it do you or can you accept!

Mike: I UNDERSTAND!