More "miscellany" (General)

by dhw, Thursday, March 24, 2022, 12:09 (736 days ago) @ David Turell

First cause

DAVID: Only one of us is correct.

dhw: Not quite. Either you are right or you are wrong. I have chickened out of making a decision, so I am neither right nor wrong.

DAVID: Cowardly answer. For once take a stance.

dhw: There is no need to take a stance. Or I could say that I AM taking a stance by refusing to make a decision which by its very nature is based on ignorance. And instead I am pleading for the great virtue of open-mindedness. I could even add that I doubt if anyone has waged war in defence of agnosticism. But I shan’t. Oops, I have!

DAVID: You are intellectually incapable of choosing.

My intellect makes choices virtually every hour of the day, but there are certain choices for which I do not have enough information to make a decision. The existence of God is one. At this present moment, I must confess I can’t decide whether the West should intervene militarily in Ukraine or not. I suspect that I am not the only person grappling intellectually (and emotionally) with this dilemma. No need to list the pros and cons, as I’m sure all of us are only too aware of the present horrors and future dangers.

Free will

dhw: Yes, both sides are right and wrong. It depends what you actually mean by free will. You have consciously turned against earlier prejudices, but do you know what it is in you that made you such a rebel? Of course your actions are real, but that does not mean the decisions which lead to the actions have not been influenced by factors you are not aware of. I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m simply pointing out that there are different ways of interpreting “freedom”. We had a long discussion on the subject back in September 2010 under the heading “free will”, and out of interest I looked for my own “final” definition (which I have slightly amended here to include a split infinitive…ts, ts!): “an entity’s ability to consciously control its decision-making process within given constraints”. Of course it is essential that the definition covers all the pros and cons. Would you accept that definition?

DAVID: I don't see the constraints. I've fully changed my political beliefs from those in my childhood. I've set strict boundaries for myself in how I relate to relatives. Love for any of them depends on how they treat me. They can't be chosen for love or friendship, but they do not deserve to be tolerated when that seems necessary despite their actions. I've disowned one daughter. I make my future setting boundaries from past experiences. Yet, as you well know, I can find love in new worthwhile friends.

Constraints in my definition refer to circumstances in which freedom is impossible: I might wish I could fly, but I don’t have wings. I am not disputing the argument that it is your unique self and nobody else who makes the decisions, and it is a fair one. But it also fair to ask whether all the past experiences that have shaped your boundaries, plus all the biochemical components of your brain and body, might not have exerted an unconscious and uncontrollable influence on your decisions. How would you know? I am not taking sides, though. Just presenting both sides, as usual.

Milky Way

DAVID: think about God's approach: first a Big Bang to make a universe and quickly a proper galaxy to house our privileged planet. Quickly establishing what He intended. That other god that appears here, has to experiment, changes his mind, changes course. likes to be entertained by free-for-alls, and generally thinks about creating just for his own enjoyment. Which God do you think is most reasonable to envision?

You are deliberately trying to conflate two different stages of your God’s activities. If he exists, I am quite happy to accept the theory that he deliberately designed conditions for life, but that raises the question of why he wanted to create life. And that is where you embark on defending a theory that makes no sense even to you (see the thread on your theory of evolution). Your summary of my alternatives to your senseless theory is woefully inadequate or inaccurate. Experimentation would explain why we have all the different non-human designs if – as you claim – his one and only purpose was humans. Changing his mind or course would fit in with experimentation (“No, the brontosaurus is not going to help me achieve my one and only goal of producing a life form that can mimic me, so I’ll get rid of it.”) But if his goal was to provide enjoyment by creating things he finds interesting (you agree that he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations), then it is perfectly logical to argue that an unpredictable free-for-all would be far more interesting than a puppet show with himself pulling all the strings.


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