Gnostic Atheism

[Bradski]

Yes to both of those and also - in many cases there is no best decision. It takes discernment but sometimes it could be gut feel or a toss up. We could say, mood, pattern of thought, all external conditions, all memories, all imagination - everything exactly the same then what? Ok, but I think that hypothetical is just saying: “If you replayed a moment in time, like rewinding a DVD, what would happen”? That’s just replicating an exact scenario.
I actually make decisions after praying and seeking the guidance of God. I try to discern which way He wants me to choose. So for me, there’s God’s guidance involved - not determining, but indicating what His Will is in that moment.

But if all conditions were wxactly rhe same, it would be exactly like replaying the CD. But you believe that replaying it would result in a different outcome. That makes no sense to me.

It would be liking watching the Godfather and (spoiler alert) Sonny gets killed the first time and doesn’t the next time you watch it.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I think you’ll find that the math department did actually have something to teach the philosophy department.
math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/HowManyAngels/Cantor/Cantor.html

Mathematics began as philosophical constructs serving a pragmatic function.

Philosophy created math; math did not create philosophy.

The Big Bang has not been debunked, though atheists desperately need that to happen.

The need some way to restore actual infinity as opposed to mere conceptual infinity.

By restoring infinity they hope (imagine) it possible to replace one infinity (God), which they cannot abide, with another infinity, which they cannot prove.

 

[Bradski]

You do have the strangest notions, Charles. People not abiding something in which they don’t believe?

I’m not sure if you say these things without putting any thought into them. I hope so, because they aren’t rational. Unless you know people like those you are disparaging, although I doubt if they exist outside of an asylum.

 

[reggieM]

But if all conditions were wxactly rhe same, it would be exactly like replaying the CD. But you believe that replaying it would result in a different outcome. That makes no sense to me.

Yes, but that’s not much of an experiment. All you’re doing is replaying a recording. Of course everything would be the same, but there’s no living person there. There’s no opportunity to do anything differently, even as a possibility. So, that hypothesis doesn’t tell us anything.

I think what you’d want to say is that, instead of replaying a recording, you were somehow a living person, put in the same situation - but still with the capability of making a decision, what would happen?

There are many cases where the decision is difficult - there’s no one best answer.
So, I flip a coin. Heads I go left, Tails I go right.
Exact same conditions - yes, I decide to flip a coin - but why not Heads Right and Tails Left?

 

[Bradski]

Yes, but that’s not much of an experiment. All you’re doing is replaying a recording. Of course everything would be the same, but there’s no living person there. There’s no opportunity to do anything differently, even as a possibility. So, that hypothesis doesn’t tell us anything.

I think what you’d want to say is that, instead of replaying a recording, you were somehow a living person, put in the same situation - but still with the capability of making a decision, what would happen?

There are many cases where the decision is difficult - there’s no one best answer.
So, I flip a coin. Heads I go left, Tails I go right.
Exact same conditions - yes, I decide to flip a coin - but why not Heads Right and Tails Left?

OK, lets go with exactly the same situation. Which is, as far as I am concerned, replaying the CD. But reply it exactly as it ran previously. What changes to make any decision different?

 

[reggieM]

OK, lets go with exactly the same situation. Which is, as far as I am concerned, replaying the CD. But reply it exactly as it ran previously. What changes to make any decision different?

The first time you did it, you had some options.
If it’s replaying a CD, then on any number of future replays - you don’t have an option, You’ve locked in one moment, including any chance outcomes.
It’s like saying “you have no free will about past events”. Yes, of course, because those choices have already been made and can’t be done over again in a past-historical state.
Beyond that, there are many small, micro-level decisions that go into a overt act of the will. There are decisions in your reasoning process. You think about one thing, compare with another, evaluate against a goal, calculate odds of success, determine a timeline for the decision, encounter your own moods and feelings – these are not really “conditions” because they are generated by your own reasoning process.
There is a lot of freedom that is used in that - it can’t be replicated.

 

[reggieM]

Ok. But the actions of a child are NOT determined by the actions of the parents.

Yes, but we’re looking at a causal-chain that explains the existence of each thing. The cause is a combination of factors that are required for the thing to exist. It’s similar to the notion of contingency. A contingent thing depends on other things for its existence. A caused thing is caused by other things for it to exist.
If there were any uncaused causes, they would have no prior cause.
This goes against the idea that “anything that begins to exist has a cause”.
Now we could say, that there are lots of uncaused causes but they always existed.
Or, we could say that the idea ex nihilo nihil fit is wrong because uncaused causes come into existence from nothing.
But those are big problems.
Reduction would have us trace back causes (molecules to man).
In the most common materialist view (yours may be different), everything is reducible to physics since everything came from some primal physical elements.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

You do have the strangest notions, Charles. People not abiding something in which they don’t believe?

I’m not sure if you say these things without putting any thought into them. I hope so, because they aren’t rational. Unless you know people like those you are disparaging, although I doubt if they exist outside of an asylum.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

You do have the strangest notions, Charles. People not abiding something in which they don’t believe?

I’m not sure if you say these things without putting any thought into them. I hope so, because they aren’t rational. Unless you know people like those you are disparaging, although I doubt if they exist outside of an asylum.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

This goes against the idea that “anything that begins to exist has a cause”.

That is just another unsupported assumption.

In the most common materialist view (yours may be different), everything is reducible to physics since everything came from some primal physical elements.

I am not aware even of one. If you meet one rub his nose into the graphite - diamond dichotomy. No one who is ignorant of the emerging attributes is worth to listen to, even if such a person happens to be an atheist (especially then ).

If you deny that every free decision is the start of a brand new causal chain, then you deny free will. Fine by me.

 

[Faithdancer]

"Atheists are of three kinds.

1. • The mere stupid man. (Often he is very clever, as Bolingbroke, Bradlaugh and Foote were clever). He has found out one of the minor arcana, and hugs it and despises those who see more than himself, or who regard things from a different standpoint. Hence he is usually a bigot, intolerant even of tolerance.
   • Mr Daw, K.C.: M’lud, I respectfully submit that there is no such creature as a peacock.
   • The despairing wretch, who, having sought God everywhere, and failed to find Him, thinks everyone else is as blind as he is, and that if he has failed–he, the seeker after truth!–it is because there is no goal. In his cry there is pain, as with the stupid kind of atheist there is smugness and self-satisfaction. Both are diseased Egos.
   • Oedipus at Colonus: Alas! there is no sun! I, even I, have looked and found it not.
   • The philosophical adept, who, knowing God, says ‘There is No God,’ meaning, ‘God is Zero,’ as qabalistically He is. He holds atheism as a philosophical speculation as good as any other, and perhaps less likely to mislead mankind and do other practical damage as any other. Him you may know by his equanimity, enthusiasm, and devotion. I again refer to Liber 418 for an explanation of this mystery. The nine religions are crowned by the ring of adepts whose password is ‘There is No God,’ so inflected that even the Magister when received among them had not wisdom to interpret it.
   • Dixit Stultus in corde suo: ‘Ain Elohim.’
   "*There is a fourth kind of atheist, not really an atheist at all. He is but a traveller in the Land of No God, and knows that it is but a stage on his journey–and a stage, moreover, not far from the goal. Daath is not on the Tree of Life; and in Daath there is no God as there is in the Sephiroth, for Daath cannot understand unity at all. If he thinks of it, it is only to hate it, as the one thing which he is most certainly not (see Liber 418, 10th Æthyr. I may remark in passing that this book is the best known to me on Advanced Qabalah, and of course it is only intelligibile to Advanced Students).
   
   “This atheist, not in-being but in-passing, is a very apt subject for initiation. He has done with the illusions of dogma. From a Knight of the Royal Mystery he has risen to understand with the members of the Sovereign Sanctuary that all is symbolic; all, if you will, the Jugglery of the Magician. He is tired of theories and systems of theology and all such toys; and being weary and anhungered and athirst seeks a seat at the Table of Adepts, and a portion of the Bread of Spiritual Experience, and a draught of the wine of Ecstasy.”*
   
   
   - Aleister Crowley, Liber LVIII​

1. 
   Did Crowley really believe his own pompous nonsense?

 

[reggieM]

I am not aware even of one…

The reason I mention prominent atheists is that you have, at times, said things like “atheists believe … etc” - in other words, you tend to speak for atheists.
So, it’s good to know what prominent atheists think.
I’ve mentioned Alex Rosenberg who wrote a popular book called “The Atheist’s Guide to Reality”. He’s trying to speak for atheists. I’ve met dozens of atheists on-line who agree fully with Rosenberg’s views.
The fact that you don’t agree, is a good thing, as I see it. Although I’m surprised you’ve never encountered this. In fact, I think you said something like “nobody believes in scientism” - or something (excuse the paraphrase).
In any case, here’s Alex Rosenberg (and he says this sort of thing frerquently in papers and his book.

In this essay, he explains the difference between an optimistic naturalist (athiest, of course) and a disenchanted (pessimistic) one.
But the first premise is this:

1. The physical facts fix all the facts

What is the world really like? It’s fermions and bosons, and everything that can be made up of them, and nothing that can’t be made up of them. All the facts about fermions and bosons determine or “fix” all the other facts about reality and what exists in this universe or any other if, as physics may end up showing, there are other ones. Another way of expressing this fact-fixing by physics is to say that all the other facts—the chemical, biological, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural facts supervene on the physical facts and are ultimately explained by them.

In a later point, he talks about emergence which is what the optimists use to blunt the reality of nihilism. But Rosenberg states:

None of these naturalists have a convincing explanation of how metaphysical emergence is possible …

The essay asks questions that it doesn’t answer.
His book basically lands on the side of pessimism - the nihilist view.

Edit: Just adding Richard Lewontin’s famous article reviewing Carl Sagan:

Science, as the only begetter of truth … Sagan’s argument is straightforward. We exist as material beings in a material world, all of whose phenomena are the consequences of physical relations among material entities.

 

[reggieM]

Wikipedia on Materialism

Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental things and consciousness, are results of material interactions.

Materialism is closely related to physicalism, the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Philosophical physicalism has evolved from materialism with the discoveries of the physical sciences to incorporate more sophisticated notions of physicality than mere ordinary matter, such as: spacetime, physical energies and forces, dark matter, and so on. Thus the term “physicalism” is preferred over “materialism” by some, while others use the terms as if they are synonymous.

Scientific “Materialism” is often synonymous with, and has so far been described, as being a reductive materialism. In recent years, Paul and Patricia Churchland have advocated a radically contrasting position (at least, in regards to certain hypotheses); eliminativist materialism holds that some mental phenomena simply do not exist at all, and that talk of those mental phenomena reflects a totally spurious “folk psychology” and introspection illusion. That is, an eliminative materialist might believe that a concept like “belief” simply has no basis in fact—the way folk science speaks of demon-caused illnesses would be just one obvious example. Reductive materialism being at one end of a continuum (our theories will reduce to facts) and eliminative materialism on the other (certain theories will need to be eliminated in light of new facts), Revisionary materialism is somewhere in the middle.

Materialism, Physicalism, Reductive materialsm, Scientific materialism, scientism, naturalism – those terms are mostly synonymous.
There’s a long list of noted scientists, philosophers and popularizers who subscribe to that idea (no matter what it is called).

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Materialism, Physicalism, Reductive materialsm, Scientific materialism, scientism, naturalism – those terms are mostly synonymous.

I think we are not on the same wavelength.

I am a materialist or physicalist, but I do not agree with the idea that everything can be reduced to the laws of physics. As I pointed out before, there are emergent attributes, which cannot be reduced to the underlying layer of the physical world. But that does not mean that one needs to invoke the existence of something “supernatural”, and I also gave specific examples when the attributes on the molecular level cannot be reduced to the underlying physical level.

 

[reggieM]

I think we are not on the same wavelength.

I am a materialist or physicalist, but I do not agree with the idea that everything can be reduced to the laws of physics. As I pointed out before, there are emergent attributes, which cannot be reduced to the underlying layer of the physical world. But that does not mean that one needs to invoke the existence of something “supernatural”, and I also gave specific examples when the attributes on the molecular level cannot be reduced to the underlying physical level.

Right - I’m not following.
My point is that there is a reduction from the physical form to the molecular or sub-particle level.
The same ratio of Hydrogen and Oxygen form liquid water, ice and steam.
Physical forces outside of the water molecule (heat, cold) cause different arrangements of the molecules. The same for diamonds. Pressures cause their molecular arrangements to be different from graphite.
The pressures that cause water to be ice - are physical. In fact, they act in a law-like function so we can actually replicate them.
That’s physicalism. Everything is reducible to the molecular level. An understanding of the physical movements and reactions of molecules would explain and predict what eventually would emerge.
This is true even for stochastic processes. We consider them random because we do not know how the environment causes each molecule to move. But with enough observations and understanding of physical forces acting on molecules, there would be (in theory) nothing random (given materialism).

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I am a materialist or physicalist, but I do not agree with the idea that everything can be reduced to the laws of physics. As I pointed out before, there are emergent attributes, which cannot be reduced to the underlying layer of the physical world.

“Emergent attributes?” So what laws govern “emergent attributes” and where do these laws come from if they are not reducible to the “underlying layer of the physical world”?

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Right - I’m not following.
My point is that there is a reduction from the physical form to the molecular or sub-particle level.
The same ratio of Hydrogen and Oxygen form liquid water, ice and steam.
Physical forces outside of the water molecule (heat, cold) cause different arrangements of the molecules. The same for diamonds. Pressures cause their molecular arrangements to be different from graphite.
The pressures that cause water to be ice - are physical. In fact, they act in a law-like function so we can actually replicate them.
That’s physicalism. Everything is reducible to the molecular level. An understanding of the physical movements and reactions of molecules would explain and predict what eventually would emerge.

No way. The most thorough knowledge of elementary particles will NOT lead you to the laws of biology, or sociology. And in reverse, the laws of biology and sociology cannot be reduced to the properties of the atoms. Not even in principle.

This is true even for stochastic processes. We consider them random because we do not know how the environment causes each molecule to move. But with enough observations and understanding of physical forces acting on molecules, there would be (in theory) nothing random (given materialism).

To our best knowledge (which is always subject to revision, IF there is reason to do it), there is fundamental difference between the macro-world and the sub-atomic world.

Of course examining every layer leads to the specific laws of THAT layer, but the “higher” layers cannot be reduced to the properties of the “lower” layers. There is no need to stipulate a “god-of-wetness” to find out why water is “wet”, even though the “wetness” cannot be reduced to the properties of oxygen and hydrogen.

Materialism does not equal to reductionism.

 

[reggieM]

No way. The most thorough knowledge of elementary particles will NOT lead you to the laws of biology, or sociology. And in reverse, the laws of biology and sociology cannot be reduced to the properties of the atoms. Not even in principle.

If the principle is “molecules-to-man” then man-to-molecules is the necessary reduction.

Materialism does not equal to reductionism.

Materialist, Rosenberg disagrees:

What is the world really like? It’s fermions and bosons, and everything that can be made up of them, and nothing that can’t be made up of them. All the facts about fermions and bosons determine or “fix” all the other facts about reality and what exists in this universe or any other if, as physics may end up showing, there are other ones. Another way of expressing this fact-fixing by physics is to say that all the other facts—the chemical, biological, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural facts supervene on the physical facts and are ultimately explained by them.

If there is something other than bosons, fermions and the physical laws and energies of the universe - what is it?

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

If the principle is “molecules-to-man” then man-to-molecules is the necessary reduction.

Explain wetness of water by referring only the properties of oxygen and hydrogen. Explain the rules of social contracts by referring only to the properties of the elementary particles. Because THAT is what reductionism means.

Materialist, Rosenberg disagrees:

What is the world really like? It’s fermions and bosons, and everything that can be made up of them, and nothing that can’t be made up of them. All the facts about fermions and bosons determine or “fix” all the other facts about reality and what exists in this universe or any other if, as physics may end up showing, there are other ones. Another way of expressing this fact-fixing by physics is to say that all the other facts—the chemical, biological, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural facts supervene on the physical facts and are ultimately explained by them.

If there is something other than bosons, fermions and the physical laws and energies of the universe - what is it?

The arrangement of those particles. Their properties, their interactions. And the arrangement, the properties and the interactions are NOT a physical entities. If you have only three points on a plain, you cannot discern the properties of the triangle without knowing the arrangement of those points.

Materialism does not assert that everything is “matter”. There are the actions, the relationships and the attributes (or properties), NONE of which are physical entities.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Materialism does not equal to reductionism.

Then there must be a “layer” (to use your term) of reality that is not controlled by laws of matter.

Where do the laws come from that pertain to “emergent attributes” if they are not the same laws that govern matter?