Free Will vs Determinism

[Arising_uk]

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? ...

Oh! My apologies, I thought you were implying that the universe didn't follow the law-like laws that science discovers. That there was some unknowable universe that you appear to know about?

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

Eh!?

Arising_uk, who is currently on your ignore list, made this post.
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Hold on! Were you someone else here once before? As I remember some twat using this phrase before and still not getting the irony nor the contradiction.

[Arising_uk]

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

I thought I had been?

[Harbal]

Hold on! Were you someone else here once before? As I remember some twat using this phrase before and still not getting the irony nor the contradiction.

I don't think it was doc, it was a different twat.

[thedoc]

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? ...

Oh! My apologies, I thought you were implying that the universe didn't follow the law-like laws that science discovers.

I was saying that the Universe is described by the laws that science had discovered, the laws do not determine how the universe behaves. The Universe behaves and science describes what it observes. What part of that do you not understand?

[thedoc]

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

Hold on! Were you someone else here once before? As I remember some twat using this phrase before and still not getting the irony nor the contradiction.

If you will notice the phrase at the bottom of the post, that is displayed on every post by someone I have on ignore, I can choose to see the post or not. There is no Irony, just My ability to make a free choice of what I look at or not, is that beyond your comprehension.

[Arising_uk]

I don't think it was doc, it was a different twat.

Really!? I can't believe there're two twats who'd do this.

[Arising_uk]

If you will notice the phrase at the bottom of the post, that is displayed on every post by someone I have on ignore, I can choose to see the post or not. There is no Irony, just My ability to make a free choice of what I look at or not, is that beyond your comprehension.

Yanks eh! No sense of irony. Let me explain, the irony is that you were supposed to be ignoring me but not only did you respond but you told me that you were ignoring me and to top it off you posted some message that says you were ignoring me.

I laugh in the general direction of those who use the ignore function upon a philosophy forum and then reply as not only does it defeat the purpose of philosophising to use such a function it also demonstrates that they have no wit nor willpower and are narcissists to boot. I'll give IC credit in this matter.

[Arising_uk]

I was saying that the Universe is described by the laws that science had discovered, the laws do not determine how the universe behaves. The Universe behaves and science describes what it observes. What part of that do you not understand?

Well the point really? As are you not hinting that there is some universe that might not behave as the lawlike laws of science describe?

[davidm]

I’ll finish responding to IC later. First, this:

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.

This is incorrect as a matter of logic. Truths are either necessary or contingent, and they do not ever change their modal status. A necessary truth is necessarily necessary, and a contingent truth is necessarily contingent. Therefore, if truths about human actions are contingent, and they demonstrably are, then they are omnitemporally and necessarily contingent regardless of whether an OA exists or not.

I have already showed how, if an OA exists, human free acts are logically accommodated.

If there is no OA, we get:
There is a possible world at which I do x.
There is a possible world at which I do y.

If there is an OA , then we get:
There is a possible world at which I do x and OA foreknows that I do x.
There is a possible world at which I do y and OA foreknows that I do y.
However, there are no possible worlds at which:

I do x and OA foreknows I do y.
I do y and OA foreknows I do x

In the presence of an OA, I remain free to do either x or y. However, what I do, and what the OA foreknows, must match.

Necessarily (if OA foreknows that I will do x, then I will [not must!] do x)

As I explained upthread, your argument as to the alleged incompatibility of an Omniscient Agent with human freedom rests entirely on a classic modal fallacy. You are fallaciously imparting necessity to the consequent — my (free) act — whereas as a matter of logic it must be applied jointly to the antecedent and the consequent. Once this is done, as shown above, the argument to the incompatibility of omniscience with human free will entirely collapses.

I’ll respond to the rest of your points later.

On a side note of what I hope will be taken as constructive criticism by the powers that be here, even looking at this message board, still less using it, tends to give me a headache. The visual design is distinctly user-unfriendly and seems to reflect message board design standards from about 2001. The software also seems rather limited in its functionality, and worst of all, the smilies are generic and not very good.

Here is what I think is a well-designed message board with good software functionality: Freethought Forum

And — best of all — the above-linked board has more than 4,000 smilies!

[davidm]

I'll respond to the rest of your points later. I just wanted to briefly address this:

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.

And so the metaphysical club is hauled out!

Know that for an atheist like me, waving around the threat of your cruel, bloodthirsty, vindictive (but fortunately nonexistent) Sky Monster as a threat means nothing at all. A religion based on threats is a wicked cult. Should it be the case that your God exists as described, then he is a wicked entity and is unworthy of worship or respect.

[davidm]

I was saying that the Universe is described by the laws that science had discovered, the laws do not determine how the universe behaves. The Universe behaves and science describes what it observes. What part of that do you not understand?

Well the point really? As are you not hinting that there is some universe that might not behave as the lawlike laws of science describe?

Abandoning the idea that the laws of nature govern the universe, and going with the more parsimonious idea that the so-called laws are simply timelessly true descriptions of what happens, has important consequences, including decoupling the problem of free will and causal determinism in a way that such determinism (or any determinism) can no longer pose a threat to free will.

Worth a read:

Laws of Nature

[davidm]

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.

So God wants me to have a relationship with him? Great, I'm up for that. I hereby invite God to meet me at my favorite restaurant for dinner tomorrow night at a certain time. Being God, he would have known an eternity ago that I would make this invitation, and he knows the restaurant and the time to show up. I make this invitation freely -- his foreknowledge of my free act in no way necessitates my act. But all the same, he always knew I would issue this invitation.

What do you want to bet, Mr. Can, that tomorrow night I will be eating alone?

[Dubious]

True, but the key word here is "Developing World", where the backwardedness of supersition and magic still have a foothold....The "Secularization Hypothesis", as you call it has long ceased to be a hypothesis in Europe where Christianity became established even before the end of the Roman Empire.

"The Secularization Hypothesis" isn't about the ancient world but the modern one.

I’m aware of that. What I tried to say, but seemingly failed, is that the “sacralization” process which commenced in the ancient world and eventually enfolded all of Europe as the First World of Christianity, became the site ~ 1700 years later for its gradual de-sacralization. This happened for many reasons all commencing with the printing press and the rise of more secular philosophies.

The power of religion is now centered in those multitudes who are far less advanced, more prone to superstition and magic. This degrades the former prestige and power of those beliefs inversely to the number of people who still unquestioningly accept the bible as the holy fount of godspeak!

Definitely! Though it may sound contradictory to you, that is true for many agnostics and atheists alike especially in cases of severe mental trauma or on the expectation of oblivion to follow shortly.

Oh, I know it. It's a very common human experience to be cavalier about your eternal future until you're staring it in the face, with no going back. Unfortunately, by the time some people wake up, they've wasted most of their lives already -- and at some point, elderly people tend to become so entrenched in their disbelief that they ride the flaming plane into the ground rather than admit their lives have been mis-invested.

Is it ever too late to accept Pascal's Wager? Would it be less hypocritical doing it sooner than later?

Eventually, we all die alone...and what's it all worth? Nothing!

That's one possible outcome. What assures you that it's true?

Just because we have larger craniums doesn’t exempt us from what all other life is subject to. The main difference being we can make up band-aid stories of an afterlife and of god’s great concern for us humans while all other creatures just live the life they’re given.

Truth discovered independently...

But truth, in an Atheist world, is not virtue.

Truth is truth; whether in your favor or not it never gets “personal” or “customized to beliefs! It took us a long time in the West to accept that brutal fact though still not universally accepted.

Why face a grim "truth" if it gives you no happiness or comfort to do so? Who will reward you if you embrace truth, and who will chide you if you embrace comforting falsehoods instead? There is nothing to choose between them, for the Atheist.

Whether “grim” or not, it is what it is. The rest of your statement clearly defaults to wishful thinking. But for the intensely religious Truth remains a matter of perception more than inspection. These cute story, value-added laminations of mythological proportions once so effective has mostly faded within the Western psyche collective.

Death is not in the least frightening; being the end of your personal calendar, you’ll simply be what you were before you became, totally unaware of how long it took to make your debut along with the rest of all the animals on planet Earth.

If Materialism and soul-extinction are all that await us, what does it make sense to do but "eat, drink and be merry; for tomorrow we die"?

That would be the theist’s vulgar view if he ever lost faith; the atheist or agnostic not being preconditioned to it thinks of his existence in the world in very different terms. I know you would like to think of atheists as damned and miserable, even if they don’t know it themselves being too far gone along the path of perdition, but it just ain’t so!

"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" That's the question Jesus Christ asked. It's a very good one.

If by “soul” is meant human integrity, decency and self-respect, then it is indeed a very good question!

Yet neither atheists or agnostics feel out of place in a universe with no god at its center.

Oh, maybe you don't: but I assure you, many of them do. The wisest among them have been tempted to Nihilism by that realization. Thomas Hardy was a passionate firm-agnostic, and spent his life lamenting the death of God.

This statement is weird! If Hardy was such a “passionate firm agnostic” why would he be lamenting the death of god?? Could Nietzsche have been more convincing than god by destroying poor Hardy's faith in Him?

That’s plain silly! Faith is not usually subservient to what philosophers have to say. But that was then. If Hardy were alive today would you still believe he’d have the same reaction or find spirituality elsewhere...as many have?

You can't get more despairing than that. I'd say you're speaking only for yourself, there; if even that.

I would imagine myself despairing if I felt compelled to believe in a few pages of a book called the bible as the word of god and have my “Weltanschauung” limited to what it proclaims as truth and revelation.

Pascal was an opportunist hedging his bets on the bible.

That won't change anything, even if it were true.

Consider this: you won't care if your bridge engineer is a liar, a cheat, a wife-beater and an abandoner of his children. You won't care if he drinks, uses drugs and murders his neigbours; at the moment you drive across the bridge, the only think you'll care about is whether or not he got his calculations right when he built the bridge: will it hold up a car.

Similarly, it won't matter if you say Pascal was a rascal. What will matter is this: was he right, in this particular case. And the answer, logically, is absolutely, yes.

Yes! For us, being the opportunists we are, that would be the logical conclusion but I question whether a god could be stupid enough not to notice that the game was rigged and fall for such subversive logic! If we can figure it out you’d think god would know! Faith becomes a human strategy in an either/or showdown of probabilities.

If belief becomes conditional with the intent of covering one's ass on a very low "just-in-case" possibility upon death then faith itself is merely a matter of expediency, an insurance policy.

Sure. But it doesn't matter. If Pascal was right, who cares WHY he was right? Maybe his personal reasons, and the reasons of many who follow him in his reasoning are completely morally bankrupt: so what? Any moral failing is on them, if it's true.

Then why not simply call faith a methodology for calculating the odds. If correct you win; if you lose, no loss since oblivion can’t acknowledge such including both time and universe.

Even an atheist will notice a moral gap in this wager. I'm surprised you theists don't see it!

We see that possibility. But as I point out above, you can see now that it doesn't matter a whit. The engineer's bad character will not be the cause of his bridge collapsing: only mathematical miscalculation on his part will do that. Likewise, Pascal et al.'s lack of a moral motive will not stop Pascal's calculation from being correct.

But also as mentioned it forces belief based on a highly immoral motive; I don’t believe god would calculate the way Pascal has and which you so readily accept. It makes faith cheap. If knowing there was nothing in it relating to life or more purposely the after-life, God's existence would be of no concern to anyone and not even Pascal would have bothered to make his wager!

It is. It's utterly rational. You can see it is. You may cast doubt on the motives of Pascal, but that won't make his mathematics wrong. If he was merely being a self-serving rational strategist, then you should take his advice: for do you not want the most rational, strategic and self-serving outcome for yourself?

So finally we have your version of what faith is based on and relies upon; Pascal's Wager as a measure of pure rational practicality. And here I always thought that its absurdity is precisely what made faith believable knowing it to remain uncontaminated by any influx of rationality! This kind of turns things inside-out...almost as if faith were another form of Nihilism!

The Bible says, "It is appointed unto a man once to die, and after this, the Judgment."

Says who? The bible doesn’t say anything except that which men appointed it to say...even though I confess to the first part being indisputable.

And likewise, the Bible says, "...and what will you do in the end of it all?"

What will you do?

What I’ll do is to keep existing, for as long as allowed, within the open range of an indifferent universe until finally expectation meets reality.

[Immanuel Can]

And so the metaphysical club is hauled out!

Not at all.

We were speaking of Pascal. The Wager is just about figuring out rationally what makes the most sense, given a certain set of facts. What's here is not a threat, but a promise. Those who want a relationship with God can have one. And that's very good. This relationship will not be based on compulsion, but on your free will. That is also good. But free will comes with a price, by definition; the price is that you are also allowed to choose not to have a relationship with God. Not only is that better than forced compliance, it's the only basis on which a real, genuine relationship of persons can be had. That is also good. There are no constraints on your choice: you are actually allowed to choose that which is good for you, or anything else you genuinely wish. Whatever you wish you will have, because you can count on your choice being honoured by God Himself. This is also good.

But God Himself is inherently good, and He is the Giver of all good things. To choose to reject Him is to choose to reject the good, and all the things that are good. What's left? Whatever it is, it's what we call "being lost." God enjoins us not to choose to remove ourselves from all things good, and from His goodness. He's made this offer with absolutely everything He could do, short of depriving us of our choice. This is also good. But freedom is of very high value, as is genuine relationship. So our choice will be honoured.

It's not a threat, therefore. It's a promise of everything good. But it's a promise that you must believe and choose. For God will not deprive you of your personhood by tearing away from you the freedom to choose -- even to choose badly. Nevertheless, there is no necessity for anyone to miss the good.

As the Bible says, "God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Again, the Bible puts it this way: "'As I live,' says the Lord, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.'" But even God cannot force you do the right thing, without simultaneously robbing you of your individuality and dishonouring your choice.

If you understand that, then you know where you stand.

[Immanuel Can]

What do you want to bet, Mr. Can, that tomorrow night I will be eating alone?

Do you actually suppose that you come to the Supreme Being on your own terms, not His?

Let Him set the terms, and I'm absolutely certain you'll find Him. Insist on your own, and you'll have your own way.