Big Bang

[FondrenRoad]

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[mia1994]

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[Coelacanth]

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[mia1994]

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[Coelacanth]

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[mia1994]

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[NBMisha]

Omniscient/omnipotent implies no free will: appears true to me but not interesting with respect to how life is lived and conducted.

Dennett offers an analogue. The lottery is this coming Saturday. You decide to play, you pick your numbers, based on a fortune cookie or your Nascar fave or the serial number of your Fender, whatever. And you win or not. However, unknown to you, the numbers were actually chosen and hidden away week before last. The number outcome was preordained, fully determined, but no one knew about it.

Does this change anyone's experience? Not in the least.

What is the hubub?

Its not free will in fact, its free will as an instrument of religious doctrine, which is at stake. Or so it seems.

 

[mia1994]

NBMisha, I completely agree. A belief in the predetermined, whether ordained by God, or a clockwork universe is just about the most useless world view you could have. You can't do anything with it, except go mad. A strong belief in predetermanism means never having to say your sorry.

 

[GT WT]

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[mia1994]

To bring this back round full circle, the concept of an unmoved mover presumes that time predates the universe... and that doesn't completely jibe with what we observed about time. Cosmology paints a compelling view of the early universe and has some noticeable voids which neatly dovetail into spiritual areas. The voids don't prove religion but they certainly don't provide an argument to discredit it either.

The LHC is a tremendous undertaking that we are horribly remiss in giving over to the EU. The technology used in its creation will redefine the next 20 years. The science done by the device will redefine the next half century.

 

[Coelacanth]

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[mop]

a question to the atheists on this board. doesn't a purely naturalistic view of the world lead to a similar dilemma (if you grant the argument for determinism, which i don't by the way)? in other words, if everything is merely the result of certain physica laws then isn't everything predetermined even though there is no omniscient being to perceive it?

 

[FondrenRoad]

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[mop]

fondren...i think you missed my argument. if EVERYTHING is merely physical and there is no spiritual....then every emotion, every decision, every incident in the history of the universe can be explained by physical laws. if this is true, then were we to actually "move a planet" we would merely be doing what was predetermined from the first seconds of the universe.

 

[FondrenRoad]

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[mop]

wow...i disagree heartily. where does freedom come in? if every emotion is just chemical, then everything is actually predetermined and with enough knowledge we could predict every emotion, every action and every outcome from the beginning.

of course, i believe in God so i believe this isn't a correct worldview. but naturalism naturally leads to absolute determinism.

 

[GT WT]

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[FondrenRoad]

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[mop]

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[mop]

Fondren, it doesn't sound like you have thought about this too much. if EVERYTHING is naturalistic, then everything has happened without influence by free agency. that means that even consciousness, whatever it is, is predetermined by natural laws which led to it coming about. consciousness thought is nonetheless predetermined and every apparently "free" action is nothing more than a combination of natural laws acting upon said "free" agent to bring about predetermined outcomes. you need to go backwards to the beginning and build upon that slowly but surely. if everything that has happened happened without the influence of a god, then everything which has happened is merely bound to happen by whatever laws of the universe happen to be in place.

love? an illusion
emotions of any kind? your imagination playing tricks on you.
having fun while watching a UT football game? just chemicals in your brain responding to various stimuli which have been predetermined to bring about those chemical responses in your brain.

 

[GT WT]

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[Bob in Houston]

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[NBMisha]

But it still removes the choice from the hands of the 3rd party actor.

 

[Bob in Houston]

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[FondrenRoad]

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[mia1994]

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[Bob in Houston]

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[GT WT]

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[mia1994]

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[Bob in Houston]

I just don't think that knowing all possibiliities and the ultimate course means that the individuals were "directed."

It's like watching a movie that I've already seen. I don't affect it, but I know how it comes out.