Why must determinism be wrong?

[abucs]

Regarding the retort that the Earth goes around the Sun is true. That is still a construct of the mind in materialistic philosophy. It is definitely our construct. People 1000 years ago had a different construct and ‘truth’ than ours.

Einstein (or someone else) might say movement of any sort is meaningless until we first agree on a fixed place from which to measure in order to take account of relativity. That could be his truth.

From the Earth (or a vantage point still relative to the Earth) it looks like the Sun is going around the Earth. From the Sun (or a vantage point still relative to the Sun) it would look like the Earth is going around the Sun. From any other vantage point it looks like they are going around each other. Technically speaking, because they both exert gravity they can be said to go around each other but because the Sun has so much more matter it makes a great deal of sense to just shorthand the phenomena to say all of the planets are going around the Sun and ignore the other forces.

In quantum theory all Creation is a single entangled wave where distinctness only exists at the point of measurement and relative to conscious beings. From this perspective the truth is that a separateness of the Sun and the Earth is a qwerk of our minds and not the ultimate reality. Google “Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks”.

From another perspective all reality is a projection from a deeper reality such as a computer projecting images to a screen. Google “philosophical problems of movement paradox.”

At it’s heart the truth that the Earth goes around the Sun is one of perspective. It is our mind which constructs a truth from our different perspectives depending on our assumptions, whether it be of 1000 years ago, today, or 1000 years into the future.

Truth as it is commonly referred to in the materialistic philosophy is a construction of mind. And vice versa, constructing a truth can be done by convincing people until it is deconstructed and another ‘truth’ be put in its place. In a materialistic philosophy ‘truth’ is nothing but a human construct. It exists nowhere else but n our mind in our attemts to impose order on what we experience for survival value.

Absolute truth only makes sense if there is only one absolute perspective or vantage point. We have to know all Creation in order to have truth in its absolute sense. We can never do that, so our truth is always provisional. always a matter of construction from a partial perspective. It is “true” today, but maybe not tomorrow. When we come to the end of our scientific enterprise we will still only have a partial view and constructed (guessed) truths.

 

[Sair]

Regarding the retort that the Earth goes around the Sun is true. That is still a construct of the mind in materialistic philosophy. It is definitely our construct. People 1000 years ago had a different construct and ‘truth’ than ours.

Einstein (or someone else) might say movement of any sort is meaningless until we first agree on a fixed place from which to measure in order to take account of relativity. That could be his truth.

From our relative position on Earth, it is true that the Earth orbits Sol, the sun. There is only a certain extent to which relativity allows us to interpret anything just as we like.

In quantum theory all Creation is a single entangled wave where distinctness only exists at the point of measurement and relative to conscious beings. From this perspective the truth is that a separateness of the Sun and the Earth is a qwerk of our minds and not the ultimate reality. Google “Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks”.

Yes. Truth is relative, but that isn’t the same as saying that truth is flexible. If we experienced the sun, Sol, in close proximity, in all its truth, we would burn to a crisp before we were even conscious of Sol’s immediate presence! Everything is related, connected, but not interchangeable.

From another perspective all reality is a projection from a deeper reality such as a computer projecting images to a screen. Google “philosophical problems of movement paradox.”

And from another perspective entirely, this notion that we can manipulate reality with our minds and from certain perspecives - when we are nothing if not part of the reality we perceive - is pure arrogance, anthropocentric fantasy.

At it’s heart the truth that the Earth goes around the Sun is one of perspective. It is our mind which constructs a truth from our different perspectives depending on our assumptions, whether it be of 1000 years ago, today, or 1000 years into the future.

Does that mean the ‘flat-earthers’ are right, then, and because we can’t see the whole of Earth from our localised positions upon it, it’s not really an oblate spheroid?

Truth as it is commonly referred to in the materialistic philosophy is a construction of mind. And vice versa, constructing a truth can be done by convincing people until it is deconstructed and another ‘truth’ be put in its place. In a materialistic philosophy ‘truth’ is nothing but a human construct. It exists nowhere else but n our mind in our attemts to impose order on what we experience for survival value.

This seems ironic, coming from a religious believer. The business of religion is to construct ‘truth’, to overcome natural incredulity in the face of contrary evidence. Don’t pretend that it’s otherwise, that religion stands as a bastion of truth against the ‘deception’ of materialism.

Absolute truth only makes sense if there is only one absolute perspective or vantage point.

That must be why ‘absolute’ truth really doesn’t make sense. Absolute truth seeks to impose what certain people perceive to be right in spite of the real experience of sentient beings. In doing so, it can only result in wrong and in suffering.

We have to know all Creation in order to have truth in its absolute sense. We can never do that, so our truth is always provisional. always a matter of construction from a partial perspective. It is “true” today, but maybe not tomorrow. When we come to the end of our scientific enterprise we will still only have a partial view and constructed (guessed) truths.

When will we come to the ‘end of our scientific enterprise’? When there is no more to be discovered? But when will we know that we have come to that end? What I find extraordinary - as I’ve said many times before now - is that people already find it requisite to look beyond science to some supposed ‘supernatural’ reality, when science does not (as it freely admits) know everything. Why decide there’s a layer of reality beyond nature when we don’t fully understand nature? How, if we can’t know everything about nature, could anyone be arrogant enough to claim they undertand some level of existence beyond nature? This seems like a holdover from the time when the natural and supernatural were peceived as all part of the one reality, before humans understood natural processes enough to overcome the idea that spirits inhabited every rock, tree, river, and other natural entity that affected our own lives.

 

[abucs]

There is so much to disagree with there Sair. The basic viewpoint of the Christian that our reality is a secondary creation is still the best model. The observance that this projection produces a reality that looks locally deterministic and depends on part on a conscious observer is pretty good evidence for what Christians call God. It certainly beats the materialist philosophy in what we see in the world and in experimental scientific results.

As far as the end of the scientific enterprise, it is quite simple. There is only a limited body of axioms/laws that holds our reality together. We will either get to the stage where we ‘know’ it all (etremely unlikely) or we meet barriers that prevent us from knowing further, such as knowing both the position and momentum of objects.

We have already faced these restrictions in the quantum world. Their presence is remarkable in so much as the restrictions are placed on the knowledge of a conscious observer. There is no rational reason this should be following materialistic philosophy. The best explanation is that our universe is set up for conscious beings. A Creation. As Paul Davies, the agnostic physicist said, “it looks remarkably like the laws of physics saw us coming”. A variant is the agnostic physicist Fred Hoyle - “It ooks like a super intellect has monkeyed around with the laws of physics”.

I think when you study this closely it is as Francis Bacon the formulator of the scientific method said - A little bit of science leads you to atheism, more of it leads you back to God.

Or Heisenberg the Nobel prize winning physicist and one of the founders of quantum physics - the first gulps from the glass of natural science will back you an athiest. But God is waiting at the bottom of the glass.

I cannot in all good consciounce go back to atheism on intellectual grounds. I consider it pretty close to scientifically untenable and definately second rte compared to the basic theist position.

 

[abucs]

Similar post but fixing up spelling etc.

There is so much to disagree with there Sair. The basic viewpoint of the Christian that our reality is a secondary creation is still the best model. The observance that this projection produces a reality that looks locally deterministic and depends on part on a conscious observer is pretty good evidence for what Christians call God. It certainly beats the materialist philosophy in what we see in the world and in experimental scientific results.

As far as the end of the scientific enterprise, it is quite simple. There is only a limited body of axioms/laws that holds our reality together. We will either get to the stage where we ‘know’ it all (extremely unlikely) or we meet barriers that prevent us from knowing further, such as knowing both the position and momentum of objects.

We have already faced these restrictions in the quantum world. Their presence is remarkable in so much as the restrictions are placed on the knowledge of a conscious observer. There is no rational reason this should be following materialistic philosophy. The best explanation is that our universe is set up for conscious beings. “A Creation.”

As Paul Davies, the agnostic physicist said, “it looks remarkably like the laws of physics saw us coming”.

A variant is the agnostic physicist Fred Hoyle - “It looks like a super intellect has monkeyed around with the laws of physics”.

I think when you study this closely it is as Francis Bacon the formulator of the scientific method said - “A little bit of science leads you to atheism, more of it leads you back to God.”

Or Heisenberg the Nobel prize winning physicist and one of the founders of quantum physics - "the first gulps from the glass of natural science will make you an athiest, but God is waiting for you at the bottom of the glass.

That is certainly the case for me after studying quantum physics. I cannot in all good conscience go back to atheism on intellectual grounds. I consider it pretty close to scientifically untenable and definately second rate compared to the basic theist position

There is a lot in Christianity that cannot be proved - is Jesus God, did he rise from the dead, was Mary a virgin, does God wear a white T-shirt, is his favourite sport baseball? But all these questions are superfluous in the basic question of what makes more sense, Creation through conscious intelligent processes Creation through non conscious, non intelligent processes.

To put my humble name with Davies, Hoyle, Bacon and Heinenberg. Science tells me it’s the former. Like Giants, i can’t go against my own intelliegence (and i respect that). The atheist position does not meet my intellectual standards of reasonableness based on observation. The basic Theist one does (not withstanding the superfluous claims). I can do no other than follow reason and evidence. I think, not hope, there is a God based on the evidence and using reason and rationality.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Sair
**
How, if we can’t know everything about nature, could anyone be arrogant enough to claim they undertand some level of existence beyond nature? **

Why is it arrogance to claim we can know something about some level of existence beyond nature? How do you know that it is not more arrogant to claim there is nothing beyond nature when you can’t even prove that, despite your protests that anything to be believed must be proven? The very reason for asserting the existence of something beyond nature is not to be arrogant, but to submit ourselves before a higher power. It is atheism that asserts there is no Ego bigger than the atheist’s own ego, and religion that claims just the opposite.

 

[Giants]

Hello Giants,

One difference between the invisible, intangible unicorn or giraffe or washing machine or left ski boot etc and God is that all creation is said to have proceeded and be sustained by God for a purpose. This is a completely different relationship to Creation than an invisible anything contained within Creation. Because of this difference in relationship we can look to Creation to see if it suggests the ‘footprints’ of God. We cannot do that with an arbitrarily defined unicorn whose definition contains no relationship with Creation.

Strictly speaking, there’s nothing stopping me from continuing to define my unicorn in such a way as to give him a relationship with us that we could, in turn, use to claim as evidence for its existence.

As far as the reality of consciousness. I do believe consciousness is a fundamental reality because the study of physics tells me that it is written into the laws of our universe. This also makes fundamental consciousness incompatible with the materialistic philosophy of it being an accidental outcome of material development. This is why I rejected atheism and had another closer look at religion/Christianity.
The materialistic philosophy being incompatible with scientific evidence is one thing, the intellectual outcome of those that hold a materialistic philosophy is another. I maintain consciousness is an illusion under materialistic philosophy. When people are deconstructed to be fundamentally nothing more than bunches of atoms it has not been beneficial for society to put it mildly.

I don’t quite see how this argument is supposed to run through. I agree that consciousness is not illusory. I further think that consciousness is an emergent property of a working brain, and that working brains are fully beholden to the laws of nature. What I’m not seeing here is how an accidental set of processes would preclude there ever being a conscious system.

I grant you that science can’t really explain (yet) how consciousness results from brain activity, but this doesn’t mean that it can’t result from brain activity, save for a First Cause/Creator, or that it must be independent of brain activity.

At the end of the day, consciousness is the bedrock concept that everything else springs from. This is true whether our lives are finite or eternal. There can’t be any right or wrong, good or bad, if there isn’t a conscious system present to experience the difference. And not having free will doesn’t overthrow this point. There are certain concepts that must fall by the wayside in a determinist worldview - the idea of retributive justice, for one. Also the rationality of maintaining long-term feelings of anger against someone for wrongs committed by them. But the difference between good and bad, and a right action vs. a wrong action, is no less consequential.

But you seem to make an unjustified leap in asserting that consciousness must be illusory in a materialist worldview. What we do know about consciousness is that you can alter nearly everything about your conscious experience by effecting changes to your brain. If this doesn’t absolutely prove a causal link between brain activity and conscious experience, it would seem to strongly imply it.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Giants

**What we do know about consciousness is that you can alter nearly everything about your conscious experience by effecting changes to your brain. If this doesn’t absolutely prove a causal link between brain activity and conscious experience, it would seem to strongly imply it.
**

I don’t think anyone is disputing whether we could think without a brain!

What materialists cannot explain is the causal link between the material laws of the universe and our ability to fathom those laws, even up to the point of being able to reason about the origin of the universe and how we got to the point where we are. There is nothing in atoms and molecules that can explain why these atoms and molecules have arrived at a consciousness not only of the vast universe, but even of an infinite God who created this vast universe. A mindless evolutionary process explains nothing. It is merely a tree upon which the atheist can hang his hat, since he has nothing else on which to hang it.

 

[Giants]

I don’t think anyone is disputing whether we could think without a brain!

What materialists cannot explain is the causal link between the material laws of the universe and our ability to fathom those laws, even up to the point of being able to reason about the origin of the universe and how we got to the point where we are. There is nothing in atoms and molecules that can explain why these atoms and molecules have arrived at a consciousness not only of the vast universe, but even of an infinite God who created this vast universe. A mindless evolutionary process explains nothing. It is merely a tree upon which the atheist can hang his hat, since he has nothing else on which to hang it.

None of which overthrows my point. Your entire ability to “fathom” rests on your brain working a certain way. When it stops working a certain away, what you perceive changes along with it. Once you’ve conceded this point (and you have conceded this point), the “how” doesn’t matter anymore. We may one discover how brain processes produce consciousness. But that they do isn’t seriously disputed anymore.

 

[Kilbourne]

So, as I was saying, we are predisposed on empirical grounds, if nothing else, to disbelieve in complete determinism.

But looking at this logically, and given that any given event is a whole comprised of but necessarily more than its parts (causes), there must be some creative addition added in the succession of events. Some freedom must be involved in each and every happening.

Maybe that is all we need to say about it. Thus is determinism as a metaphysical proposition vanquished.

Note I haven’t begun to address free will, which is a whole udder topic.

 

[Kilbourne]

But suffice it to say, choices must be, even in some small way, free.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Giants
**
None of which overthrows my point. Your entire ability to “fathom” rests on your brain working a certain way. When it stops working a certain away, what you perceive changes along with it. Once you’ve conceded this point (and you have conceded this point), the “how” doesn’t matter anymore. We may one discover how brain processes produce consciousness. But that they do isn’t seriously disputed anymore. **

None of what you have said explains how collections of atoms and molecules that compose the cerebral cortex are able to understand an event that happened billions of years ago … the Big Bang. Knowledge, though it is based on sensory perceptions received by the brain, also relies on intuition and imagination. The ability of the mind to “abstract” from material events certain principles of beauty and truth, good and evil, free will and determinism, etc., rises above the physical into the mental and spiritual spheres. The laws of mathematics simply are not constructed out of atoms and molecules, even though the brain is. The laws of mathematics transcend the material world; they can be discovered, but they cannot be created; yet they can be understood by the mind.

A surgeon could never break open a brain and empty mathematics on the table.

 

[abucs]

Thankyou Giants for your reasoned and polite discussion.

Good luck.