Free Will vs Determinism

[uwot]

God would indeed be a tyrant if He forced somebody to be eternally bound to Him against that person's ardent disbelief. That would be a very basic violation of the integrity of that person's personhood. And God will not do that.

Freedom has a cost. It means that you also have freedom to do the wrong thing, not just the right thing. But wrong choices have consequences, just as much as right ones do.

The amazing thing about you, Mr Can, is that you believe that committing a soul to eternal torture is not tyrannical. Even the most ambitious sociopath doesn't aspire to that level of punishment. Consider the fate of the 6 million Jews. Hitler killed them. Your God will torture them forever, because they weren't Christians. How can you say that your god is moral?

[davidm]

But both Nietzsche and Camus provided answers to these existential conundrums — Camus started a book asking why we shouldn’t commit suicide, but he didn’t finish the book recommending suicide. And Nietzsche thought that Christianity itself was nihilistic.

Nietzsche did not actually provide an answer. Camus tried; but the best he could offer was that we would spend our lives as if we were condemned men pushing a rock up a hill. "Embrace your rock," he said in The Myth of Sisyphus.

Okay. You can do that. How far does it really get you?

I think that Nietzsche and Camus did provide quite valid answers for them and perhaps for others, but if their answers don’t work for you, that’s fine. But the universe doesn’t care whether you or I are satisfied or not. It is under no obligation to conform to our beliefs or desires.

You're still a helpless pawn of an indifferent universe, chained to forces you cannot resist.

I cannot be a pawn of an indifferent universe. If the universe is indifferent to me (as it is) then I cannot be its pawn by definition. I could only be the pawn of a tantrum-throwing supernatural tyrant (see the Bible, specifically Book of Job, though many other passages suffice).

Also, I am not “chained to forces I cannot resist.” See: neo-Humean compatibilism. (I had hoped that there might be a way to unify the two competing discussions currently going on. Maybe this is one way.)

My solution: when the "answers" offered are really no answers, seek better answers.

But the “better answers” are only better if they’re true. Unless you believe in the Noble Lie. I don’t.

The issue is not whether Pascal himself was one of these people whom God will catch out; it is whether or not his calculation is rationally true. Quite a different question, that.

It’s not rationally true.

God would indeed be a tyrant if He forced somebody to be eternally bound to Him against that person's ardent disbelief. That would be a very basic violation of the integrity of that person's personhood. And God will not do that.

This is a transparently fallacious argument. If I were to die and suddenly find myself facing God, then my disbelief in him would come to an end. I base my beliefs on evidence. If I died and met God I would admit that I was wrong and revise my beliefs accordingly. In which case, on your own account, God would honor my newfound evidence-based belief and reward me with eternal life, right? If not, why not?

Freedom has a cost. It means that you also have freedom to do the wrong thing, not just the right thing. But wrong choices have consequences, just as much as right ones do.

Finally, your statement here is based on the fallacious premise that we choose our beliefs. Rather, I suggest our beliefs choose us. If it is raining today I don’t choose to believe it is raining; rather, I believe it is raining, because it is.

[Immanuel Can]

I think that Nietzsche and Camus did provide quite valid answers for them and perhaps for others,...

Then you should read them. You'll find out I'm telling the truth, and your faith that somehow they "provided answers" is unjustified. In fact, both simply said, in their own ways, "embrace the futility."

Check it out.

I cannot be a pawn of an indifferent universe

.
Yes, it's a mixed metaphor. I apologize. I should have said something like "helpless victim."

Also, I am not “chained to forces I cannot resist.” See: neo-Humean compatibilism. (I had hoped that there might be a way to unify the two competing discussions currently going on. Maybe this is one way.)

Compatibilism can't work with Materialism. Are you a Materialist? Then freedom has to be an illusion...nothing more.

The issue is not whether Pascal himself was one of these people whom God will catch out; it is whether or not his calculation is rationally true. Quite a different question, that.

It’s not rationally true.

Oh? You think you have a rational disproof for the Wager? I'd be delighted to see it.

If I were to die and suddenly find myself facing God, then my disbelief in him would come to an end. I base my beliefs on evidence. If I died and met God I would admit that I was wrong and revise my beliefs accordingly.

Right. But your ability to choose contrary to God would then be gone.

In which case, on your own account, God would honor my newfound evidence-based belief and reward me with eternal life, right? If not, why not?

Because God values you as a person; and being a person means having free will, and having the right to choose your relationships. If you don't want a relationship with God, you don't have to have one. But if I were you, I would.

When the Supreme Being reveals Himself, the time of the choice to disbelieve -- or to choose to believe -- will be past. You've got it now. Take it before it goes away.

Finally, your statement here is based on the fallacious premise that we choose our beliefs. Rather, I suggest our beliefs choose us. If it is raining today I don’t choose to believe it is raining; rather, I believe it is raining, because it is.

Actually, you don't need the term "belief" there at all.

You could say, "I know it's raining," or "I see that it's raining." But you do need belief to know a whole lot of things about which you have only partial information. You have to "believe" I am here to respond to you, for example. It's reasonable for you to do so, but it's less than absolutely certain at the moment.

Belief won't "choose" you. We might even say that human beings are creatures that "believe" things, since all human knowledge is merely empirical and probabilistic, not absolute. Thus, we must choose our beliefs.

[uwot]

But the “better answers” are only better if they’re true.

Answers are better if they are more accurate or simpler. It doesn't really matter whether they are true, because we have no way of knowing.

Unless you believe in the Noble Lie. I don’t.

Well, 'The noble lie' is Plato's story of gold, silver and iron people. I doubt anyone believes that, but we are inundated with noble lies, and practically everyone believes at least one. It's why conservatives keep getting elected.

[davidm]

But the “better answers” are only better if they’re true.

Answers are better if they are more accurate or simpler. It doesn't really matter whether they are true, because we have no way of knowing.

Agreed. I think this is the essence of scientific modeling. Newton's "laws" are strictly false, but they are instrumentally useful within a certain domain that does not involve relativistic velocities or the quantum microverse. But it seems to me a claim about whether God exists is of a different order. I can use Newtonian mechanics to plot a spacecraft's course to Mars because Newtonian mechanics, though literally false, remains useful within a restricted domain. Now maybe I can feign belief in God because it remains useful within a restricted domain -- such as not pissing off my fundy aunt at Thanksgiving dinner.

Unless you believe in the Noble Lie. I don’t.

Well, 'The noble lie' is Plato's story of gold, silver and iron people. I doubt anyone believes that, but we are inundated with noble lies, and practically everyone believes at least one. It's why conservatives keep getting elected.

Agreed. It definitely is why weirdos who say if global warming is real, then God will fix it, keep getting elected.

[Arising_uk]

I’m not quite sure what you mean by this. I think you mean that it is necessary that the past happened, but that you agree with me it is not necessary that it happened the way that it did — it could have been different. If this is what you mean, then we agree. ...

Without an OA it's not necessary, with one it is.

I do think this. The special and general theories of relativity give us strong grounds to think this. ...

And I think the Space and Time universe we live in gives us even stronger grounds to not think this.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. I’m not following what you mean when you say, “and they then change.” Who is “they,” and what is changing? ...

Simple, you still won't say when this OA makes its prediction and this is crucial as if there is freewill, in the sense that one can choose from another choice, then if this OA makes a prediction and right after the agent does differently then the OA is not O but just another A.

If an OA exists then the future is indeed immutable, for how else would an OA know the future? But the past and present are also immutable. Fortunately, free will does not require that we be able to change the past, present, or future. It merely means that we, by our free choices, have been able to make the past what it was; are able to make the present what it is, and will be able to make the future be, what it will be. ...

But if an OA can infallibly predict what you are going to do then there must be something that is determining the whole process, including making sure no accidental events stop the OA's predictions coming true?

Here is a question: Suppose I wish to change the present. Tell me how I can do that?

There is no fixed present I'd have thought. Nor is there a fixed future but there is a fixed past. You want to change the future? Act.

Another question: if the past, present and future are immutable, in virtue of what are they immutable? Might it not be the case that they are immutable, at least in part, because of your free choices and mine? ...

See above.

It must be borne in mind that the fixity of the past, present, and future, does not imply — nor could it even logically imply — the necessity of the past, present, and future.

I don't think the 'present' or 'future' are immutable but then I don't believe in an omniscient 'God'.

[davidm]

I think that Nietzsche and Camus did provide quite valid answers for them and perhaps for others,...

Then you should read them.

I have read them. Why would I even have been able to make the comments I did, without having read them? How do you like Nietzsche's argument that your Christianity is itself nihilistic?

You'll find out I'm telling the truth, and your faith that somehow they "provided answers" is unjustified. In fact, both simply said, in their own ways, "embrace the futility."

I don't have "faith" that they provided answers. "Faith" is your gig, not mine. Though granted there are existentialist Christians. "Embrace the futility" just strikes me as your reductionist oversimplification of their works. It also smuggles in a premise that must be argued for, rather than concluded: that life is futile unless it is eternal, or that it is futile unless god exists. Personally I think just the opposite: finitude is precisely what gives our lives meaning. An infinite life would be futile.

Responses to the rest later; gotta go.

[davidm]

I’m not quite sure what you mean by this. I think you mean that it is necessary that the past happened, but that you agree with me it is not necessary that it happened the way that it did — it could have been different. If this is what you mean, then we agree. ...

Without an OA it's not necessary, with one it is.

Ah, no. Why would you say this? I am genuinely puzzled. Please present an argument.

Now I really do have to go, so will respond more later.

[Immanuel Can]

How do you like Nietzsche's argument that your Christianity is itself nihilistic?

Not much, of course: but I understand it.

He hates what he calls "Judeo-Christian morality". He thinks it's a morality of the weak, because it favours the weak. He thinks its a powerless morality, because it denies the powerful supreme and unrestricted license. He calls it "nihilistic" because, as he sees it, it's against "life," meaning "the will to power."

But Nietzsche's wrong. The physically or intellectually powerful aren't morally strong. The morally strong are those who are so very powerful that they can afford to be merciful to the weak -- and it does not diminish their moral strength.

Though granted there are existentialist Christians

.

Quite so. Kierkegaard comes to mind, for one.

"Embrace the futility" just strikes me as your reductionist oversimplification of their works. It also smuggles in a premise that must be argued for, rather than concluded: that life is futile unless it is eternal, or that it is futile unless god exists.

The term they used was not "futile," but rather "absurd." And that's their word for it, not mine.

"Absurd" as they conceived it, seems to me to contain two elements: 1) it's "funny" in a rather unfunny sense, in that it's senseless, inexplicable, and ultimately ridiculous, and 2) it's also tragic for its meaninglessness.

The recognition of the absurdity of life in a godless world is essential to secular existentialism. Sartre and Camus thought so. Beckett thought so. So did Nietzsche's madman. To invent "meanings" for an inherently meaningless universe is what Camus called "intellectual suicide."

Personally I think just the opposite: finitude is precisely what gives our lives meaning. An infinite life would be futile.

Well, (secular) Existentialists as a whole would not much care for that. They would say that you were guilty of "bad faith" (Sartre's coinage there). That is, that you would be guilty of shying away from facing up to the ultimate absurdity of existence, and of inauthentically importing a phony sense of meaning to an inherently meaningless life.

To quote Nietzsche, you would be refusing to "drink your poison," that is, to see how things REALLY are, even though that's nasty and absurd. But he would still say, "Drink your poison; for you need it badly."

[Arising_uk]

The Laws of the Universe that science has come up with are descriptive not prescriptive. The Universe is what it is and humans write laws based on what they observe, the Laws do not control the Universe.

But the Universe does appear to obey them hence they are a description and not just imagination.

[Arising_uk]

Well, (secular) Existentialists as a whole would not much care for that. They would say that you were guilty of "bad faith" (Sartre's coinage there). That is, that you would be guilty of shying away from facing up to the ultimate absurdity of existence, and of inauthentically importing a phony sense of meaning to an inherently meaningless life.

To quote Nietzsche, you would be refusing to "drink your poison," that is, to see how things REALLY are, even though that's nasty and absurd. But he would still say, "Drink your poison; for you need it badly."

Except that the point of Nietzshe is that it is exactly because the Universe has no external meaning to provide to Man's life and that there is no 'God' to supply one either that the Uberman will come into being as the meaning creator and surpass those who blink.

[thedoc]

The Laws of the Universe that science has come up with are descriptive not prescriptive. The Universe is what it is and humans write laws based on what they observe, the Laws do not control the Universe.

But the Universe does appear to obey them hence they are a description and not just imagination.

Didn't I say the laws were descriptive? Do you have a problem reading or do you just have a burr up your butt for me?

BTW, Thanks for reminding me why I have you on ignore.

Arising_uk, who is currently on your ignore list, made this post.
Display this post.

[Harbal]

BTW, Thanks for reminding me why I have you on ignore.

Arising_uk, who is currently on your ignore list, made this post.
Display this post.

I don't think you've quite managed to grasp the concept of "ignore" yet, doc.

[thedoc]

BTW, Thanks for reminding me why I have you on ignore.

Arising_uk, who is currently on your ignore list, made this post.
Display this post.

I don't think you've quite managed to grasp the concept of "ignore" yet, doc.

Do you grasp the concept of "Display this post", it's part of the ignore concept, in case you hadn't noticed. The ignore function gives me the choice, I'm not determined by invoking it.

[Harbal]

The ignore function gives me the choice, I'm not determined by invoking it.

It doesn't give you a choice that you didn't have to start with, you dipstick.