"God"

[tonyrey]

tonyrey

I am referring to the likelihood of emergence in all possible universes. They need not all be rational, comprehensible universes.

In this case, where so many other universes are not like that, rationality and comprehensibilty would be incidental – it clearly cannot be a fundamental aspect of universes if so many permutations lack that structure.

Are you arguing that rationality cannot be fundamental because many possible universes lack rationality ? If rationality is fundamental to this universe it is fundamental regardless of what could have been the case.

The comprehensibility of the universe in itself is evidence that it is **more likely **

to have a rational foundation. There are countless possible comprehensible universes but a far more limited number of comprehensible ones - and still fewer which contain minds which comprehend them.If you win the lottery, does that make you suspect it was rigged in your favor? By your measure, here, it would, it** must.** You have conflated incidence with necessity.

A false assertion. I specified “more likely”, not “must be”!.

It might be that your winning lottery ticket was a matter of chance, and your winning would not be an indicator that there was a “lottery design” in your favor. You have noted that you have an intelligent mind comprehending an intelligible universe, and concluded that the lottery was rigged in your favor. You don’t know the odds, you can’t see the metaphysics, you don’t know scratch about the real dynamics that obtain, but yet, a hunch is enough.

Winning a lottery ticket has nothing to do with rationality and the success of science. No one knows the source of reality but we do know that a universe must have a highly specific type of order if it is to be intelligible and provide a basis for rational beings to exist.** In the absence of further information **it is extremely likely that this universe has a rational source. There are immensely more ways in which this universe could be so disorderly that a rational existence is impossible.

You observe a strange being with a strange power on a strange planet which lacks that strange power. Would you jump to the conclusion that the strange being and the strange power have been produced by the strange planet?

I don’t think I’d jump to any conclusion from that. From what you’ve provided, I have no basis to conclude anything at all.

Precisely.There is no prima facie evidence for emergence. The onus is on the emergentist to justify his theory.

You are neglecting self-determinism which has everything to do with a rational choice.Far from being a glaring contradiction it is the universal presupposition in every court of law that a person is the cause of his/her behaviour.

Well, what yields choice A over choice B (and all other choices) as the result of premeditation? What differentiates “premeditation” from a random number generator, in other words? They appear to be synonyms for the same “black box” in your answers, here.

We choose according to what we consider more consistent with our values and purposes. Often we rely on intuition. Mechanical selection by neuronal processes may well have a element of randomness. It is certainly more akin to a black box than a conscious mind with insight and free will…

I am not alone in that view which is shared by the vast majority of civilised persons. Once again you are neglecting the possibility of an action being determined by the self. Your categories of causality are arbitrarily restricted to purposeless objects.

I’ve asked, repeatedly now, what did I miss?

You missed the fact that the buck stops with us - not with our heredity and environment.

If you say “purposeful objects” are a third class of cause, then how does that “third way” distinguish itself from a deterministic or random, or hybrid cause (law + chance)?

They are directed towards a future state or event.

The computers in the next room to me right now are running a big simulation I started this morning, which will take all day. They have a purpose I have given them, programs I installed and kicked off to run the simulation.

Unlike them you establish your own purposes.

But their purpose is subordinate to mine – they have no say in the matter, or any consciousness to say anything at all. But they operate toward an end, a purpose, deterministically.

Only because they have been programmed by a purposeful being.

I point that out by way of illustrating that “purpose” itself doesn’t detach a thing from causal influences for that purpose, necessarily. So if you say you have “uncaused purpose”, whence that purpose, again?

Your concept of a cause is retrospective, i.e. a past event or state. It needs to be supplemented by a cause which is prospective, i.e. a future event or state. An adequate explanation takes the entire process into account, the end result as well as the starting point. It is like going down a road into what has happened and completely ignoring the significance of what lies ahead if you turn round and look forwards. Otherwise your view of causality is unbalanced and gives you a distorted view of reality, depriving it of rhyme or reason, value or purpose. Life is more than a simulation…

 

[Touchstone]

I am referring to the likelihood of emergence in all possible universes. They need not all be rational, comprehensible universes.

OK, if you agree with this, then I think we are talking past each other on what we are referring to by “fundamental”. I am suggesting that if one out of many universes is “comprehensible”, “comprehensibility” is not fundamental with respect to the universes in general. That would be incidental. You are apparently using the term to mean “basic” for any given universe, which is fine, but tells us nothing about the nature of universes as a class.

Are you arguing that rationality cannot be fundamental because many possible universes lack rationality ? If rationality is fundamental to this universe it is fundamental regardless of what could have been the case.

Yeah, see above. We are deploying that term differently.

A false assertion. I specified “more likely”, not “must be”!.

ditto.

Winning a lottery ticket has nothing to do with rationality and the success of science.

It may. We don’t know empirically, and probably can’t test it, but string theory, for example, has maths that instead of explaining the cosmological constants for this universe, as hoped, ended up providing a landscape of cosmological configurations, which suggests a “cosmic landscape” of universes – see Leonard Susskind’s (Stanford heavyweight on string theory) Cosmic Landscape: The Illusion of Intelligent Design for a in-depth treatment of these theoretical implications.

This isn’t made up. It’s not intuition of whimsy. It’s the implications that fall out of extremely powerful and performative maths that model our universe.

If that’s the “marks” of a cosmic landscape that we can’t ever directly observe, then the configuration of this universe was a “win”, and just by sheer probability against the innumerable “trials” of other universes, there are going to universes that have “comprehensible” parameters.

So we don’t know, and can’t know. But that idea is at least founded on solid, establish physical models, rather than superstitious religious notions. Those religious notions could be right after all, too, but we’ve no basis empirically to say one way or the other.

No one knows the source of reality but we do know that a universe must have a highly specific type of order if it is to be intelligible and provide a basis for rational beings to exist.

This looks like you’ve just contradicted yourself then. You just got done saying the rationality of the universe is not the winning of a cosmic lottery draw for our universe, and now you admit we don’t the source of that structure. If you don’t know it, then you cannot rule out the lottery, right?

**

In the absence of further information

**

it is extremely likely that this universe has a rational source. There are immensely more ways in which this universe could be so disorderly that a rational existence is impossible.

You are confusing logical possibilities with practical possibilities. We can imagine all sorts of arrangements, but this has zero bearing by itself on what kind of metaphysics obtain. Perhaps the metaverse is eternal, and it’s rational/intelligible as a whole, every one of an infinite number of universe as comprehensible as the next. Or maybe they’re all different, following the maths of a meta-metaphysic, as suggested by the theoretics of string theory.

The point is, we have ZERO idea what is likely or not on that level. What you suppose to be “extremely unlikely” may be metaphysically impossible. In any case, basing your probabilities on logical possibilities is totally unjustified. If you think clearly about this question, the only conclusion we can reasonably come to here about “likelihood” is “inscrutable”.

Precisely.There is no prima facie evidence for emergence. The onus is on the emergentist to justify his theory.

What theory? I thought you were talking about a hypothetical power on some hypothetical planet?

We choose according to what we consider more consistent with our values and purposes.

Then our choices are determined for us, then, right? There are determined by our values and purposes. Now, what determines our values and purposes?

Often we rely on intuition. Mechanical selection by neuronal processes may well have a element of randomness. It is certainly more akin to a black box than a conscious mind with insight and free will…

I don’t see the difference, and I suggest you do not, either, or you’d point it out to me. I’ll ask again: what distinguishes the “non-black box” chooser in your view from the random “black box”? You just allowed that our choices [often] obtain from “values and purposes”, which pushes our regress down one level. Looking at that, will you say our values and purposes are just randomly generated, or are they also formed by some causal process? And if there are causes for those values and purposes, were they randomly generated, or are there causes for those causes.

Can you feel the regress making your claims look silly yet? I can push this as far as you want. Eventually you will say “I don’t have any pattern, purpose or plan that accounts for that”, which is the definition of randomness, or your will point to causal factors as ultimate. In either case, the myth of you magical free will be apparent.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

You missed the fact that the buck stops with us - not with our heredity and environment.

I’m not interested in responsibility here, but formation and cause. What caused the choices to happen as they did? Or were they uncaused?

They are directed towards a future state or event.

The servers I mentioned are also directed toward a future state or event. They are just not free to do otherwise. A future state does not make it free or random (or not free or random).

Unlike them you establish your own purposes.

How do I establish them? Or more properly, tell me how how establish them. What determines which purposes you adopt over others?

Your concept of a cause is retrospective, i.e. a past event or state. It needs to be supplemented by a cause which is prospective, i.e. a future event or state. An adequate explanation takes the entire process into account, the end result as well as the starting point. It is like going down a road into what has happened and completely ignoring the significance of what lies ahead if you turn round and look forwards. Otherwise your view of causality is unbalanced and gives you a distorted view of reality, depriving it of rhyme or reason, value or purpose. Life is more than a simulation…

OK, that I couldn’t make sense of. Why don’t we focus on what makes free will “free” as opposed to caused or random? That would be a breakthrough, to make headway on that, and would justify a lot of the posting time and thought we’ve invested in this thread so far.

-TS

 

[tonyrey]

tonyrey

                             *You missed the fact that the buck stops with us - not with our heredity and environment.*
                             I'm not interested in responsibility here, but formation and cause.

You’re not interested in responsibility here or anywhere else because there is no place for it in your scheme of things - which reduces persons to things!

What caused the choices to happen as they did?

We did!

They are directed towards a future state or event.

The servers I mentioned are also directed toward a future state or event. They are just not free to do otherwise. A future state does not make it free or random (or not free or random).

How can physical objects be aware of the future?

Unlike them you establish your own purposes.

How do I establish them? Or more properly, tell me how how establish them.

You do - using your power of reason, your emotions, your conscience, your intuitions, your imagination and, above all, your creative power. You are trying to analyse our activity scientifically into component parts as if we are biological machines, but we are persons - entities that cannot be put under a microscope or reduced to mathematical equations. Atomistic descriptions of the mind and its functions are doomed to failure because they are based on the false assumption that the basic reality is an atomic particle.

Your concept of a cause is retrospective, i.e. a past event or state. It needs to be supplemented by a cause which is prospective, i.e. a future event or state. An adequate explanation takes the entire process

into account, the end result as well as the starting point. It is like going down a road into what has happened and completely ignoring the significance of what lies ahead if you turn round and look forwards. Otherwise your view of causality is unbalanced and gives you a distorted view of reality, depriving it of rhyme or reason, value or purpose. Life is more than a simulation… OK, that I couldn’t make sense of.

Let me simplify it. I interpret your position thus:

1. The only type of cause is a physical cause.
2. That cause precedes its effect in time.
3. It does not take the future into account.
4. It is unaware of the outcome.
5. It is purposeless and valueless.

Why don’t we focus on what makes free will “free” as opposed to caused or random? That would be a breakthrough, to make headway on that, and would justify a lot of the posting time and thought we’ve invested in this thread so far.

Free will is free because it is an aspect of the creative activity of a person with the power of self-determination and the capacity for love. For the materialist the ultimate reality is irrational matter which lacks consciousness, creativity, autonomy, value and purpose. For the theist the ultimate reality is the conscious, creative, rational, autonomous, valuable, purposeful mind.

 

[tonyrey]

tonyrey

So?

Winning a lottery ticket has nothing to do with rationality and the success of science.

It may. We don’t know empirically, and probably can’t test it, but string theory, for example, has maths that instead of explaining the cosmological constants for this universe, as hoped, ended up providing a landscape of cosmological configurations.It’s the implications that fall out of extremely powerful and performative maths that model our universe.

Do you base your philosophy of life on theoretical implications? Several years ago a mathematician published a book on Creation demonstrating how the universe created itself… It seems to have made no impact. How can such theories be verified or falsified?

If that’s the “marks” of a cosmic landscape that we can’t ever directly observe, then the configuration of this universe was a “win”, and just by sheer probability against the innumerable “trials” of other universes, there are going to universes that have “comprehensible” parameters.

** If…**

So we don’t know, and can’t know. But that idea is at least founded on solid, established physical models, rather than superstitious religious notions. Those religious notions could be right after all, too, but we’ve no basis empirically to say one way or the other.

In one breath “solid, established physical models”, in the next “superstitious religious notions” and in the next “Those religious notions could be right after all…”!!!

No one knows the source of reality but we do know that a universe must have a highly specific type of order if it is to be intelligible and provide a basis for rational beings to exist.

If you don’t know it, then you cannot rule out the lottery, right?

I haven’t ruled out the possibility. I have pointed out why it is highly **improbable **in the light of the highly specific type of order that is required - in the absence of further information about other universes. Everything else is speculation but we **know **the necessary conditions for our type of rational existence. There may well be others of which we have no inkling…

**In the absence of further information **

it is extremely likely that this universe has a rational source. There are immensely more ways in which this universe could be so disorderly that a rational existence is impossible. We can imagine all sorts of arrangements, but this has zero bearing by itself on what kind of metaphysics obtain.

I clearly specified “In the absence of further information”.

The point is, we have ZERO idea what is likely or not on that level. If you think clearly about this question, the only conclusion we can reasonably come to here about “likelihood” is “inscrutable”.

“on that level” is the operative phrase. We are not operating at that level. We are basing our explanations on what we know about this universe. Otherwise you would not refer to “superstitious religious notions” - which presupposes knowledge of what you now concede to be inscrutable.

Precisely.There is no prima facie evidence for emergence. The onus is on the emergentist to justify his theory.

I thought you were talking about a hypothetical power on some hypothetical planet?

The theory of emergence on this planet. The basic principles of explanation apply to any planet.

We choose according to what we consider more consistent with our values and purposes.

Then our choices are determined for us, then, right? There are determined by our values and purposes. Now, what determines our values and purposes?

We do - as I have pointed out.

Often we rely on intuition. Mechanical selection by neuronal processes may well have a element of randomness. It is certainly more akin to a black box than a conscious mind with insight and free will…

I’ll ask again: what distinguishes the “non-black box” chooser in your view from the random “black box”?

On what do you base all your choices? Who is the final arbiter?

I can push this as far as you want. Eventually you will say “I don’t have any pattern, purpose or plan that accounts for that”, which is the definition of randomness, or your will point to causal factors as ultimate. In either case, the myth of your magical free will be apparent.

Do you regard yourself as a random operator? Or a rational, independent agent?

 

[Fran65]

Hi TS,

When I offer prayers I do not believe it to be magic. All I am doing is asking God for support and possibly for a miracle - but iI don’t know if it will happen - it is up to God. That’s why the best prayer is the Our Father - “May thy will be done”.

Magical belief is certainty that the action will have its effect, and if it doesn’t that is because there was some defect in the action taken. Magic puts man at the centre of his world. Prayer puts God there.

Frances

 

[Touchstone]

Hi TS,

When I offer prayers I do not believe it to be magic. All I am doing is asking God for support and possibly for a miracle - but iI don’t know if it will happen - it is up to God. That’s why the best prayer is the Our Father - “May thy will be done”.

I don’t see where “sure thing” effects the superstitious nature of the act or not. In fact, if it does pertain, it’s in the opposite direction, I think: if you can tap wood, or cast lots, and get a predictable, novel outcome every time, that’s not magic, that’s physics. The salient feature of superstition is, rather, the mismatch between cause and effect. Homeopathy, for example, supposes that even when the “active medicine” has been diluted so far that none of that material is even left in the solution, the homeopathic remedies might well yet obtain, due to some notion of “memory” in the water.

Like prayer, homeopathy doesn’t always work (!), and it’s a good example of a profound mismatch between an action and its believed effects (also like prayer). My homeopathic-remedy-loving friends (I’m a homeschooler, and homeschool communities seems to attract superstitions like homeopathy, I know not why) won’t make promises for that any more than they will guarantee the efficacy of prayer for a particular demand; but hey, they know it works some times, and it can’t hurt to try, right?

Magical belief is certainty that the action will have its effect, and if it doesn’t that is because there was some defect in the action taken. Magic puts man at the centre of his world. Prayer puts God there.

Frances

I can’t think why you are requiring “certainty” as a necessary component for magic, except as a means of gerrymandering the definition around your own superstitions, but I think if you go look at how the term is used – what it is applied to and why – you will see that your restriction appears to be a bit of special pleading. In any case, uncertainty or doubt about the efficacy about a superstitious action doesn’t alleviate the problem. The basic problem is that is irrational – mismatched between evidential warrant and belief, and allowing that it doesn’t always or even often work doesn’t change that.

As for putting God at the center, I think that’s probably the most most profoundly superstitious aspect of all this, and fairly seals the assessment, rather than clears one of the charge. I realize you see that as a good thing, but if you step outside of your beliefs for just a moment to take it in, you will see that this “putting God at the center” is as superstitious as it gets. If Molech was at the center for someone else, demanding child sacrifice as propitiation for his wrath, would you say the child sacrifice was somehow less supersititous because Molech was the central focus?

I have a hard time seeing you agree to a parallel clearing to the one you seek for yourself. I think the response that avoids such hypocrisy is: yes, it’s superstitious, but it’s TRUE and GOOD superstition. It invokes and addresses real supernatural and mystical powers or persons. The Molech cult, and all other supernatural appeals outside of Christianity are false counterfeits of TRUE superstition, and those are bad because they are false superstitions, not because there’s anything intrinsically wrong with superstitions… true superstitions are true, after all.

Etc.

-TS

 

[tonyrey]

The salient feature of superstition is, rather, the mismatch between cause and effect…

As when one derives everything without exception - and without the slightest difficulty** - **from matter. Hey presto! Given enough time anything can be achieved - without any need for insight or intelligence…

 

[Detales]

Apologies if this obvious clarification has already been made, but there are too many posts to read thoroughly, and this idea needs attention:

Eucharisted~ For me, a god is a perfect being. A being has life, so a god has a perfect life The use of the article “a” implies a discreet entity, a person, if you will. the implication of the statement as made is that God is a person, not Principle, and that is impossible. Perhaps the intention of the writer was clearer than this, but semantically it doesn’t work.

And Fran65, I have so far enjoyed and appreciated all of your posts I’ve read. This last reminds me of CS Lewis who said that “I pray not to change God, but to change myself.” Thanks for all your contributions.