Connection between free will and a known future?

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tonyrey said:
Your prejudice is still blatant.

Can you cite another person who did more to establish the foundations of modern science? Yes or no?
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The only prejudice I have is against error. All those people I mentioned were of more importance.
 
Peter_Plato said:
This assessment of Aristotle is pure mimicry and misconception rather than a substantive one. By what criteria do you distinguish “huge” contributions from lesser ones? Do you make any allowance at all for patrimony? For the fact that without Aristotle, the others on your list may have had no collective “science” to contribute to? Your dismissal is just uninformed.

His physics were limited by the historical “accidents” of his birth but were not essentially wrong. In fact, much of what he reasoned from simple observation became key aspects of Newton’s and Einstein’s work.

From a physical chemist…
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An accurate contribution is greater than an inaccurate one. The aforementioned contributors left insights that were built upon. Aristotle left a legacy of speculation masqueraded as fact. Geocentrism, his theory of motion,etc. Heliocentrism was proposed by Aristarchus of Samos in 3rd century BC. I think we have science despite Aristotle not because of him.
 
Roscoe_Turner said:
An accurate contribution is greater than an inaccurate one. The aforementioned contributors left insights that were built upon. Aristotle left a legacy of speculation masqueraded as fact. Geocentrism, his theory of motion,etc. Heliocentrism was proposed by Aristarchus of Samos in 3rd century BC. I think we have science despite Aristotle not because of him.
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The only “speculation” error that you keep bringing up relates to one issue, geocentrism. Yet, you conveniently forget that his observations about gravity that led him to falsely conclude the Earth was the centre of the solar system (an honest error given what was known and available technology), also led him to correctly surmise the Earth was a sphere, since things fall downwards to its centre.

Your negativity is unwarranted. My guess (from your admission that you don’t understand Aristotle) is you have read very little of his work and are judging based upon what other detractors have said about him. Those who have taken the time to read his works come away very impressed by the entirety of his contributions given his place in history and do not allow a few minor errors to cloud a fair judgement.
 
Peter_Plato said:
The only “speculation” error that you keep bringing up relates to one issue, geocentrism. Yet, you conveniently forget that his observations about gravity that led him to falsely conclude the Earth was the centre of the solar system (an honest error given what was known and available technology), also led him to correctly surmise the Earth was a sphere, since things fall downwards to its centre.

Your negativity is unwarranted. My guess (from your admission that you don’t understand Aristotle) is you have read very little of his work and are judging based upon what other detractors have said about him. Those who have taken the time to read his works come away very impressed by the entirety of his contributions given his place in history and do not allow a few minor errors to cloud a fair judgement.
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I never said I didn’t understand him I said you lost me. I ment if you
are using him as basis for your idea I am longer interested. His is wrong not only about geocentrism but also gravity and almost every other physical observation.
 
Roscoe_Turner said:
I never said I didn’t understand him I said you lost me. I ment if you
are using him as basis for your idea I am longer interested. His is wrong not only about geocentrism but also gravity and almost every other physical observation.
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Okay…

I am persuaded solely on the basis of your say so! :rolleyes:

Cheers
 
oldcelt said:
You must mean the one that God knew all about but decided to go through with that creation? Why? So he could send his son to save all people except for those he already knew would not be saved. So wars over how to understand and worship Him could break out? So that people could burn forever in hell-fire, or be detached from Him or whichever description of Hell you accept? So that children could be born with horrific birth defects or die at age 8 from a disease that He, as creator made?

The list is probably about as long as a person would care to take the time to compile.
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I don’t believe in the “loser” God that you speak of, even tho I know that many “Christians” believe God to be a “loser”, in that the Salvation “won” by God-Incarnate, Jesus, is only for some.

I have said many times that if one were to wake up in hell, so to speak, they would come to the realization that they not only built it themself but that they put themself there.

I have also said that Jesus went to everyone’s hell, by what He did on the cross and it was US who nailed Him to the cross and in so doing “won” the “keys” to everyone’s hell and will use these keys in due time, God’s Time.

The fact that God knew that some would never, this side of breath, take personal responsibility for their use of their free will is why God came up with a Plan before creation itself.

I also believe that when God became Incarnate that He gave up His Omni’s.

Just because God is “more” that we can conceive of or comprehend does not mean that God is as “little” or as “petty” as many conceive of God to be.

It’s pretty simple, either there is a God or there isn’t.

If there isn’t, than everything is a fluke and ultimately, everything is meaningless.

If there is a God, than God is wholly despicable, wholly beyond our wildest good dreams or somewhere in between.

Meeting Dad, Who Is referred to as God the Father, I would say that God is “wholly beyond our wildest good dreams” since God Is a Being of Love, Love is not an “attribute” of God but is God’s Very Being.

The captives shall be released and the dead shall rise.

A tie is absolutely and utterly unacceptable.

A tie, by the way, is what I call what those that think/believe that Salvation is only for some are rooting for.
 
oldcelt said:
Did I ask to be born, almost certainly not

Am I a puppet?
Under the Christian model, yes. Original sin and other concepts altered the rules and the definition of free will.Since the God I have come to believe in is involved in none of those, I feel that I have true will and am, therefore not a puppet.

So far as condemning one’s soul I was speaking about the Catholic teachings on suicide. I may not know much about this world, but enough to make some decisions and judgments without consulting God, sine I view Him as non-interventionist.
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It is merely your opinion that “Under the Christian model”, you consider yourself a puppet.

My opinion is quite different, since for one thing, I believe that it was in the “fall”, so to speak, that we got our free will in that we had something to choose between rather than being able to choose between God and God.

After meeting God, I have no trouble in believing that God “knows” everything about everything (past, present and future) in God’s creation and that we have free will, even tho God knows exactly what we will do.

I can also see how others could possibly not believe this since it seems absurd, but sometimes the simple truth does seem quite absurd.

I know that I can not “explain” God to anyone, given all of the time in the world, so to speak, and I also know that God can “explain” God instantaneously, actually in less time than an instant but as far as I know there is no human word that is applicable.

Lots of people like to put God in a “box”, God fits in no one’s “box”, no matter how nice they have made it.
 
Roscoe_Turner said:
Aristotle didn’t employ the scientific method, he wasn’t practicing science. Galileo was.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_New_Sciences

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chief_World_Systems
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Precisely what are the** logical, epistemological and methodological** foundations Galileo laid?

The very fact that Galileo was correcting Aristotle’s errors demonstrates that he didn’t establish the foundations of science but** relied on the axioms, principles and facts he inherited **from his Greek predecessor. It was Aristotle who was the first to create a comprehensive system of logic, metaphysics and science. He was the first taxonomist and some of his groups are still used today, like the vertebrates and invertebrates, which he called animals with blood and without blood. He further divided the animals with blood into live-bearing and egg-bearing, and formed groups within the animals without blood that we recognize today, such as insects, crustacea and testacea (molluscs).
Aristotle was the first genuine scientist in history. . . . Every scientist is in his debt. -
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Encyclopaedia Britannica
More than 2300 years after his death, Aristotle remains one of the most influential people who ever lived. He contributed to almost every field of human knowledge then in existence, and he was the **founder **of many new fields. According to the philosopher Bryan Magee, “it is doubtful whether any human being has ever known as much as he did”.[89] Among countless other achievements, Aristotle was the founder of formal logic,[90] **pioneered **the study of zoology, and left every future scientist and philosopher in his debt through his contributions to the scientific method.[91][92]
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  • wikipedia
Aristotle, regarded as the father of science, was** the first** to realize the importance of empirical measurement, believing that knowledge could only be gained by building upon what is already known.
Measurement and observation,** the foundations upon which science is built**, were Aristotle’s contribution. He proposed the idea of** induction** as a tool for gaining knowledge, and understood that abstract thought and reasoning must be supported by real world findings.
He applied his methods to almost everything, from poetry and politics to astronomy and natural history. His ‘proto-scientific method’ involved making meticulous observations about everything.
To study the natural world, he scrutinized over 500 species and, in a treatise about politics, he studied the constitutions of 158 Greek city-states, a mammoth undertaking and a direct contrast to Plato, whose idea of a perfect republic was based upon his idea of perfection rather than upon existing systems.
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Aristotle’s methods can be summed up as follows.


  1. *]Study what others have written about the subject.
    *]Look for the general consensus about the subject
    *]Perform a systematic study of everything even partially related to the topic.
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  1. This is the first sign of a scientific method, with literature reviews, consensus and measurement. The Greeks were the first to subdivide and name branches of science in a recognizable way, including physics, biology, politics, zoology and, of course, poetry.
    In about 200 BC, the famous library at Alexandria saw the first introduction of library cataloguing, essential for any scholar conducting a peer review.
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    explorable.com/history-of-the-scientific-method
 
Aristotle did not practice science as we know it. It is based on the scientific method. He did not test his theories. He did contribute with his development of logic, but what he did wasn’t science.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
For the beginnings of scientific method: Karl Popper writes of Parmenides (fl. 5th Century BCE):
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So what was really new in Parmenides was his axiomatic-deductive method, which Leucippus and Democritus turned into a hypothetical-deductive method, and thus made part of scientific methodology.[7]
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According to David Lindberg, Aristotle (4th Century BCE) wrote about the scientific method even if he and his followers did not actually follow what he said. Lindberg also notes that Ptolemy (2nd Century AD) and Ibn al-Haytham (11th Century AD) are among the early examples of people who carried out scientific experiments. [8] Also, John Losee writes that “the Physics and the Metaphysics contain discussions of certain aspects of scientific method”, of which, he says “Aristotle viewed scientific inquiry as a progression from observations to general principles and back to observations.”[9]
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The scientific method is the process by which science is carried out.[10] Because science builds on previous knowledge, it consistently improves our understanding of the world.[11] The scientific method also improves itself in the same way,[12] meaning that it gradually becomes more effective at generating new knowledge.[13][14] For example, the concept of falsification (first proposed in 1934) reduces confirmation bias by formalizing the attempt to disprove hypotheses rather than prove them.[15]
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He is clearly part of the development but he isn’t the only one nor the most important.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_history_of_scientific_method
 
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Roscoe_Turner:
Thank you for confirming that "the first comprehensive documents categorising and subdividing knowledge, dividing knowledge into different areas" were established by Aristotle: physics, poetry, zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, and biology.

You still have not explained what were the** logical, epistemological and methodological** foundations Galileo laid. Your references to previous scientists explains why you are unable to do so!
 
Roscoe_Turner said:
Aristotle did not practice science as we know it. It is based on the scientific method. He did not test his theories. He did contribute with his development of logic, but what he did wasn’t science.

He is clearly part of the development but he isn’t the only one nor the most important.
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???
Aristotle thought that Nature could best be understood by observation and reason – and that all knowledge should be open to examination and subject to reason.
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Science Education has shown a renewed interest in Aristotle’s works. (1) Today, theories in science are often based on abstract and mathematical models of the world.
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Scientific Method: In ancient times, events in Nature had been explained as the actions of the gods. The early Greek philosophers questioned the role of the gods as the cause of events and by the fifth century B.C. the Greek philosophers, such as Socrates, had separated philosophy from theology. But, if the gods were not the cause of events, what was? Philosophers advanced explanations based on philosophical principles and mathematical forms. Aristotle found that unsatisfactory. He decided the principles of nature could be found within nature and could be discovered using careful observation and inductive reasoning. Observations must be capable of being observed by the senses and should include the four causes: the composition, the shape (or form), the motion (or change), and the end result (or purpose). Identifying the four causes insured a thorough understanding of the event. Chance or spontaneity were not considered causes. He thought all things in Nature should be open to examination and subject to reason – and he set about applying his methods to all knowledge.
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Aristotle founded a school in Athens at the Lyceum which provided the world’s first comprehensive study of human knowledge from the perspective of natural philosophy. **His lectures followed a pattern that formed the basis of the scientific method. They included a statement of the idea or problem, the precise definition of terms, a statement of what he and other scholars thought about the matter, the observations, arguments based on how well the ideas agreed with observation, and finally what could be concluded. **His lectures notes are important as they not only show clearly his reasoning but they preserve many of the ideas of his contemporaries. (4, 5)
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Physics: In his work, Physics, (6) Aristotle examined the nature of matter, space, time, and motion…** In spite of his limitations, Aristotle made some remarkable contributions to physics and laid the groundwork for Galileo, Newton, and Einstein.** He reasoned that infinite velocities could not exist, that time and movement are continuous and inseparable, and that time was even flowing, infinite, and the same everywhere at once. These are all true and a part of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Some consider that Aristotle’s greatest contribution to physics was his description of time.
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Reading Aristotle reminds one of reading Einstein. He takes the simplest of observations and in it discovers fundamental truths. Force is a push or a pull. A horse can pull a cart and the cart pulls back on the horse and when the horse stops, the cart stops. Rest, then is the natural state of matter and the mover is acted on by that which it moves. These ideas became part of Newton’s Laws. He observed that there was both static and kinetic friction that opposed motion by studying shiphaulers. A hundred men could pull a ship but one man could not. Furthermore, he observed that the power needed to keep the ship moving depended on the force required and the speed. That is like the definition of power used today and, incidentally, something that Newton got wrong. Aristotle examined objects falling in fluids and realized friction existed there also. He found that the speed of objects increased as the weight of the object and decreased with the thickness of the fluid. This is now a part of Stoke’s Law for an object falling at its terminal velocity. He also considered what would happen if the fluid became thinner and thinner but rejected the conclusion as that would lead to a vacuum and an infinite speed, both which he considered impossibilities. Galileo allowed those impossibilities and is credited with discovering kinematics.
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Cosmology: **We sometimes forget that Aristotle proved the Earth was a sphere. **He observed that the shadow of the Earth on the moon during an eclipse was an arc. That was not conclusive as a disk might give the same shadow. The phases of the Moon and its appearance during eclipses show it to be a sphere and the Earth might be also…
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Scientific Progress: Many thought, and still think, that Galileo’s work was the final overthrow of Aristotelian physics and the start of a revolution allowing science to advance. That is not the case. It is just the normal progress of science that models and theories are revised as better observations and understanding occur. The Revolution was not so much an overthrow of Aristotelian Physics as it was in moving from the observable to the imaginable – and in again separating science from theology and philosophy. It is ironic that Galileo was accused of heresy for questioning the theories of a man who thought everything should be open to question and reason.
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jcmooreonline.com/2010/12/28/aristotles-enduring-contribution-to-science-education-and-physics/
 
I don’t know whether Galileo was the first to propose this, but one crucial difference between Aristotle’s approach and the scientific method is that many of Aristotle’s propositions weren’t falsifiable.

He also didn’t see the value in quantifying his discoveries. He even went so far as mocking the Pythagoreans for (I paraphrase slightly) “fancying that all of the world could be described mathematically”. Perhaps abstractions can’t be described mathematically, but most of the observable universe thus far has yielded to mathematical analysis to some extent. Clearly he underestimated math’s value to the sciences.
 
Oreoracle said:
I don’t know whether Galileo was the first to propose this, but one crucial difference between Aristotle’s approach and the scientific method is that many of Aristotle’s propositions weren’t falsifiable.
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Roscoe thinks they all have been proven false, thus not only falsifiable, but falsified. Take this one up with him.
 
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