This doesn’t prevent all negative effects on its own, but here’s an example of the flavor I’m talking about. Animals experience physical pain mainly for two reasons we know of: firstly to be made aware of threats to their well-being, and secondly to discourage bad habits. Feeling pain is useful if you accidentally place your hand on a hot stove or if you are exercising excessively.I can’t conceive a set of laws of physics for which “negative” effects do not take place. I guess the requisite for the definition of that set would be “to prevent the existence of moral beings”, because it is moral beings who are doing the evaluation of the negative and the positive.
There was once a member who frequented these forums named Spock who suggested that God could just create a universe in which good and evil people are sorted out by granting opportunities to do good if they so wished, but allowing no opportunities for evil. So either you help other people or you don’t, but you can’t sabotage each other. Would you object to that sort of world? There would still be free will. There would still be moral hoops for everyone to jump through. The choice is just shifted from good/evil to good/no-good.But what would happen if a given set of physical laws allows the existence of moral beings? Those beings will have desires. And if they are sophisticated enough (I think they will need to be very sophisticated to be moral beings), most probably sometimes the desires of any one of them will be in conflict with the desires of the others. You know the results…
The universe as it is understood by physicists today is probabilistic. That is, most events are more or less pre-determined give or take small-scale fluctuations at the quantum level, some of which are more probable than others. As far as we know, the brain controls our bodies, consists of particles, and none of those particles follows a separate set of physical laws. So, in principle, one could predict human behavior with arbitrarily high probability if only we could map out every particle, its momentum, etc. That level of computing power is beyond us, so we settle for lesser sciences like psychology for now.I understand free will, for instance, in the sense that you decided to enter in the forum, read what was available here -looking for something interesting to you-, and then decided to write a comment, put your ideas in order, made some corrections to your writing and finally posted it. Was it all determined by some physical laws or was it random?
Well, as you know, the physical laws of this world allow the blockage of pain using some chemicals. So this is given.This doesn’t prevent all negative effects on its own, but here’s an example of the flavor I’m talking about. Animals experience physical pain mainly for two reasons we know of: firstly to be made aware of threats to their well-being, and secondly to discourage bad habits. Feeling pain is useful if you accidentally place your hand on a hot stove or if you are exercising excessively.
Pain is very relevant to our decision-making in such cases, but it doesn’t make much sense to have (for example) the terminally ill experience pain all day everyday. They know they are dying, and there’s no way to change behaviors to avert the threat. Why doesn’t God just block their pain receptors? I don’t see how free will is diminished here. I suppose that would give humans fewer opportunities to alleviate each other’s pain, but there are plenty of other ways to choose to help people. The opportunity cost seems a small price to pay.
Look how people sometimes cause harm to others when they are trying to get some good for themselves, or for those they love. In a world like this, suffering caused by others is possible even when there are no evil intentions involved. In your opinion, which set of physical laws could prevent such situations?There was once a member who frequented these forums named Spock who suggested that God could just create a universe in which good and evil people are sorted out by granting opportunities to do good if they so wished, but allowing no opportunities for evil. So either you help other people or you don’t, but you can’t sabotage each other. Would you object to that sort of world? There would still be free will. There would still be moral hoops for everyone to jump through. The choice is just shifted from good/evil to good/no-good.
Centuries ago some philosophers had the same dream: “with the right method, we will be able, in principle, to know everything”. The difference was that the mathematical models they were thinking of were deterministic, while your “one” thinks of probabilistic models. Now, as you say no body has been able to apply those probabilistic models to predict the behavior of an ant, so much the less to predict the behavior of a human being. I distinguish between physics and marketing, and those fantastic claims about the “in principle” predictive abilities of your “one” are not physics, but marketing (and not of the best quality).The universe as it is understood by physicists today is probabilistic. That is, most events are more or less pre-determined give or take small-scale fluctuations at the quantum level, some of which are more probable than others. As far as we know, the brain controls our bodies, consists of particles, and none of those particles follows a separate set of physical laws. So, in principle, one could predict human behavior with arbitrarily high probability if only we could map out every particle, its momentum, etc. That level of computing power is beyond us, so we settle for lesser sciences like psychology for now.
This isn’t anything special about the human brain. We also can’t predict the behavior of an ant with perfect accuracy for similar reasons, but I doubt you would use this to argue that ants have free will. There are just lots of particles to keep track of.
That is how William Lane Craig as you say puts it. The atheist can not prove that God does not have morally sufficient reasons for allowing evil. End of story. The problem of evil is logically solved. Not emotionally, but logically.I wouldn’t put it like that, that plays into their hands about how God is terrible simply because he has the power to prevent evil and yet does not.
Of course pain is allowed to be blocked, but it is usually not due to our own human constraints, e.g., the medicine can’t be afforded by the patient, isn’t available to the patient, or would have undesired side effects. The question is why God doesn’t simply snap his fingers and eliminate the pain when it serves no purpose.Well, as you know, the physical laws of this world allow the blockage of pain using some chemicals. So this is given.
Firstly, a mortal’s inability to think of such a set of laws is no constraint on an omniscient being capable of arbitrarily complex calculations. God should be capable of anything logically possible. So unless an evil-free universe is logically contradictory, there shouldn’t be a problem.Look how people sometimes cause harm to others when they are trying to get some good for themselves, or for those they love. In a world like this, suffering caused by others is possible even when there are no evil intentions involved. In your opinion, which set of physical laws could prevent such situations?
This is a simple two-step argument. Do you believe every physical thing is reducible to particles and energy? Yes, any sane person does. Do particles and energy obey a mathematical set of physical laws? All signs point to “yes”. To say that a brain needn’t obey laws, you need to also doubt either the laws or the brain’s composition of particles. The fact that the laws are hard to apply in the case of the brain is not a counterargument, it is just an observation of our limited computing power.Centuries ago some philosophers had the same dream: “with the right method, we will be able, in principle, to know everything”. The difference was that the mathematical models they were thinking of were deterministic, while your “one” thinks of probabilistic models. Now, as you say no body has been able to apply those probabilistic models to predict the behavior of an ant, so much the less to predict the behavior of a human being. I distinguish between physics and marketing, and those fantastic claims about the “in principle” predictive abilities of your “one” are not physics, but marketing (and not of the best quality).
I enjoy reading your posts. Great questions too.The obvious question is: Why didn’t God just create a universe in which the good consequences occurred without the negative side effects? Since he would control all of the laws of physics, this would certainly be within his power.
As for free will, I am not sure in which sense you believe our wills to be free. Give or take some randomness at the quantum level, the behavior of all particles in the universe is deterministic. We may never reach the point where it is practical to predict someone’s actions beforehand. But if it’s possible to do this even in principle, then I’m not sure how you can say our wills are free.
Unless of course you believe our bodies are controlled by something beyond the reach of physical laws, in which case we’ll probably just have to agree to disagree. But I will ask this: Supposing I have an immaterial soul that lets me make decisions independently of my biochemical makeup, what exactly is it that I use to “will” myself to do something? Is there something one could examine to figure out how someone will behave? If not, it seems like you’re treating our behavior like an idealized coin flip that cannot be predicted even in principle. I wouldn’t call that free, I would call it random.
But all of this talk of free will is beside the point anyway, since God could just make the consequences of poor decisions less dramatic. For example, he could allow humans to lust to sort out the pious (I’m not sure why he needs to since he would know in advance, but whatever), but then prevent victims from suffering from lustful acts. Basically he could let us treat life as an exam in which we are graded but not actually harmed by others’ mistakes.
No, I am not a young earther; and I really am not ignoring what you say, Oreoracle. All the opposite: I was temporarily adopting the position of someone who thinks there is no free will and that all we see (and also that which we don’t see) is the result of interactions between elementary particles. As your initial question (“why didn’t God create a universe in which the good consequences occurred without the negative side effects?”) was followed by this additional clarification: “Since he would control all of the laws of physics, this would certainly be within his power”, it came to my mind that the inhibition of pain that you were requesting in your next post was not against the actual “laws of physics”. It well could be that in the future (I don’t know how long could it take) we will develop the ability to synthesize by ourselves the necessary chemicals that will inhibit unnecessary pain, and with no side effects. Perhaps it will take millions of years, I don’t know, but the point is that the current “physical laws” allow this possibility. So, I would take that for granted.Of course pain is allowed to be blocked, but it is usually not due to our own human constraints, e.g., the medicine can’t be afforded by the patient, isn’t available to the patient, or would have undesired side effects. The question is why God doesn’t simply snap his fingers and eliminate the pain when it serves no purpose.
Also, you’re ignoring the fact that knowledge of how to block pain well is fairly recent in human history, so God has sat idly by and allowed senseless pain for at least millennia (I’m not sure if you’re a young earther or not).
Before the existence of moral beings, this universe was evil-free, Oreoracle. And before the existence of animals there was no suffering. But if you ask me if an evil-free universe in which living and moral beings exist is logically possible, I would not be able to provide a proof, honestly. I simply don’t know.Firstly, a mortal’s inability to think of such a set of laws is no constraint on an omniscient being capable of arbitrarily complex calculations. God should be capable of anything logically possible. So unless an evil-free universe is logically contradictory, there shouldn’t be a problem.
I can conceive of simple universes in which it is possible to only ever be helpful or unhelpful, but never harmful. Think of a real-world Farmville (online game often played via Facebook) in which your options range from tediously watering your neighbors’ plants or focusing solely on your own. It is impossible to destroy others’ plants in Farmville. It would basically just serve as a test to see whether or not you have the empathy to help others even if it may bore you and not benefit you directly. Inject the players in this universe with an intense desire to have the best-looking farm–a desire comparable to, say, our sex drives–and presto, you even have drama in this universe.
Well, perhaps your two-step argument was so simple that it did not conclude anything. I say this: some human beings have developed remarkable and very useful physical theories (and I have learnt a little of them); we have a limited computing power and, besides, the claim that “one” could, “in principle”, predict human behavior with arbitrarily high probability, is not physics but dreadful marketing. That is what I really say.This is a simple two-step argument. Do you believe every physical thing is reducible to particles and energy? Yes, any sane person does. Do particles and energy obey a mathematical set of physical laws? All signs point to “yes”. To say that a brain needn’t obey laws, you need to also doubt either the laws or the brain’s composition of particles. The fact that the laws are hard to apply in the case of the brain is not a counterargument, it is just an observation of our limited computing power.
Again, it’s hard to apply the laws directly to many phenomena. The swinging of a double pendulum is difficult to describe even though it obeys simple laws of Newtonian mechanics. The motion of 3 planets with mutual gravitational attraction was addressed only about a century ago. Nobody ever doubted the underlying laws just because these computations are difficult.