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@secularmerlin
You tell me what demonstration would convince you and I will tell you if I can do it!Can you demonstrate freewill?
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@secularmerlin
Yet in the world of star trek people teleport routinely without any apparent trauma or philosophical debate. If you enter into the spirit of star trek then teleporting is probably less harmful a long-haul jet flight. How can that be? Why aren't they worried about dying?
That teleporting destroys the original is a given. The interesting question is how teleporting can be acceptable even so. The answer is that something about the original is not destroyed - information. If what 'I' am are my tastes, loves, fears, hopes etc then 'I' am not destroyed - 'I' am preserved by the teleporter, stored as information about the configuration of my atoms, all ready to be given a new material presence.
Teleporting is fine once you let go of the big-headed notion that 'you' are anything more than the complex interaction of atoms.
As long as the teleported has the same information content as the teleportee then that is enough - at least it is for the inhabitants of star trek, and they should know!
Seriously, I think this tell us something very important about the nature of self.
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@secularmerlin
My first thought isthat this belongs in philosophy...
The trick for seeing that teleporting ok after all is to be steadast in one's monistic physicalism!
What am 'I'? 'I' am not the atoms in my brain; 'I' am the information manifest in patterns of activity in my brain.
That is to say my memories, hopes and fears, everything that makes me 'me' is encoded as patterns in the 'dancing of my brain atoms', I am not my brain atoms; I am what they are doing.
When I sleep dreamlessly or am put into a coma that dance stops. I'd have no hope or fears when I am comatose even though all my atoms are present ; but they aren't dancing in the right way.
Unless you believe in ghosts there is only ever matter and its activity. A teleporter only has to extract enough information to recreate an arrangement of atoms so they will do the same dance as before because that is all we are - the dance of atoms. You and I are a dance of atoms that thinks it's a person.
The teleporter cannot kill you because the you you think you are is an illusion. We are each of us just a pattern of dancing atoms.
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@disgusted
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@secularmerlin
I'm sure you would both consider two people making a car bomb in private to be immoral! Fortunately I know what you meant, but it's really hard to write anything that covers all the bases against a really determined pedant!whether the activities of consenting adults in private can be immoral.
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@secularmerlin
I do not believe something purely physical that lacks consciousness is good or bad because it lacks intent.That depends greatly on how you are using these very subjective terms. Example: a knife without a blade is a bad knife or any landing you can walk away from is a good one.
I don't think its always matter of 'good' and 'bad' being subjective; sometimes its because the meaning of good and bad varies with context. Using more precise terms makes the problem much less:
i wonder if you would have posted:
"I do not believe something purely physical that lacks consciousness is 'morally good' or 'morally bad' because it lacks intent."
"That depends greatly on how you are using these very subjective terms. Example: a knife without a blade is a morally bad knife or any landing you can walk away from is a morally good one."
or
"I do not believe something purely physical that lacks consciousness is virtuous or evil because it lacks intent."
"That depends greatly on how you are using these very subjective terms. Example: a knife without a blade is an evil knife or any landing you can walk away from is a virtuous one."
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@secularmerlin
I certainly don't know I'm 'loading', whever that is!
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@secularmerlin
@Fallaneze
I think we might have to start with what it feels like when we make choices.
Actually what it usually feels like is a) a brief noment of indecision ('um...') and b) the decision ('the chicken, please').
Often during the 'um...' period I am not sure what I am doing. On a long flight I try to decide 'chicken or beef' well in adance because i know I'd dither like Buridan's donkey otherwise.
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@PGA2.0
That people no longer exist in covenant with God after AD 70 because they cannot meet the agreement they made with God.
By 'that people' you mean 'Jews'.
"Jews no longer exist in covenant with God after AD 70 because they cannot meet the agreement they made with God."
One notes that this suggests god did not extend his covenant to include the gentiles but transferred his patronage to the gentiles, casting the jews aside.
To a secular cynic like me it appears that preterism/replacement theology arose sometime in the 16th century as a theological justification of anti-semitism.
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@Stephen
for those that manage to get to Paradise, then what?
According to Church Father Tertullian you can pass time enjoying watching sinners suffering in the flames of hell.
"I shall have a better opportunity then of hearing the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; of viewing the play-actors, much more "dissolute" in the dissolving flame; of looking upon the charioteer, all glowing in his chariot of fire; of beholding the wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows"
De Speculatis, ch XXX
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@PGA2.0
If we disagree on when Daniel was written doubt we'll agree on anything else about it!
I've been looking into it,and there is no shortage of interpretations of Daniel's prophecy even amongst the faithful. it's not easy to put myself in the position of a 1stC BC Jew so I can't be sure what it's intended audience would make of it. I doubt many ordinary Jews read it for themselves, not only because of illiteracy but the lack of copies - no printing in those days! How it was presnted to them would matter alot, but we can't know anything about it.
I imagine most ordinary Jews of the time accepted that a man could predict events 500 or more years in his future. I don't! Nor do I accept your interpretation of the significance of 70 AD. Theologially, it is a visible sign of the transition from the old covenant to the new, essentially asymbol of God breaking with the Jews and transferring his patronage to the gentile world.
I don't dispute the relevant events of AD70 happened - but I think Preterism forces its interpretation of Daniel, not the other way round.
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@secularmerlin
An even worse way to truth is to never question assumptions! Of course one needs a reason to question them, but I think the difficulty of bringing the mental into the fold is such a reason.
I don't think that applies to the origin of life or the universe because at least we seem to making progress, but mental phenomena are just as mysterious as they ever were. I have heard it described as with the origin puzzles weare looking for the right answers, for consciousness we are still looking for the right questions. That's more an epigram than a hard fact, but it makes the point fairly well.
I very much disaree about the need for prior definition. I think we are so from understanding the mental any rigid defintion wouldbe wrong, and we won't improve without debting and discussing it. Do people still use the term 'brainstorming'? It's a pity that internet forums end up being bad-tempered adversarial competitions rather than collaborations.
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@secularmerlin
There is every reason to suspect it! Prima facie, we have free will. It is only when we get some 'education' that we start to have any doubt about it.
What do we trust? Our naive intuition that we (ie our 'selves') are the authors of our choices or our acquired scepticism that dismisses free will because it conflicts with our physicalist assumptions?
Monistic physicalist determinism is a good philosophy - it's what science and technology are based on and has given us the modern world. But it hasn't explained the 'mental' - conciousness is as inexplicable today as it was for Socrates and Plato.
I'm certainly not saying physicalism is not true - it is what I suscribe to. But it has unsolved problems and i don't think they should be swept under the carpet.
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@secularmerlin
I get your point - are you getting mine?
Why do we think we have free will? In other words, what is the freewill we think we have? What is free will an illusion of?
I suggest we have the notion that we have - or is it are? - a self, an immaterial, ethereal 'thing' I won't try to define yet - and that self has desires and goals and hopes and fears. Free will exists when we can act as our self directs - when we are not like leaves blowing in the wind.
Would a conscious leaf think it chooses each twist and turn it takes as it is blown aloft? If it did, then that would be the illusion of free will. A leaf might blow from London to Birmingham, but it wouldn't have Birmingham as its goal. If I do the same journey, presumably I do have the goal of going to birmingham. I have free will, a leaf in the wind doesn't.
There is a difference between a human choosing to go to Birmingham than a leaf being blown bu the wind to Birmingham - a boring definition of free will makes it hard to explore the difference by denying there is a difference.
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@secularmerlin
We can therefore surmise that desire has a physical component.
But without any idea how to get a physical system to manifest things like desire, can't we surmise a non-physical component is involved?
We may disgree on what 'counts' as free will. You seem to favour an interpretation that free will must be causeless,which I agree is incoherent. But I think that makes it a very uninteresting interpretion! I prefer to think of free will in terms of there being a 'self' which is operating alongside ordinary physical cause and effect precisely because it is harder to dismiss.
It does involve having to think about what a 'self' is. I think that if free will is an illusion, so is the self. We talk about 'you having an illusion of free will', but what is this 'you'? 'Free will' is, maybe, as real as 'you' are - is that real enough?
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@secularmerlin
Is there a way that an arrangement of ordinary matter could have a desire? Can a computer be progrmmed to want to win, and feel disappointmrnt when it loses? It's trivia to mock up something that gives the outward signs, but to get a machine to have subjective states.. no one knows how to do that.A desire is a physical thing in that it is a brainstate and brainstate would seem to be achieved through chemical and electrical means. Since electricity and chemical compounds are both physical things desires must also be considered so. The question remains irrelevant.
Until someone does, 'a desire is a physical thing' is an unproven conjecture.
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@Yassine
I'd say the OP is about the identity of the Creator. Would you say the gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the same entity? if so one possible answer to the question 'Which one created the universe?' could be 'all of them'.- That's irrelevant to OP's question. As for the reason to believe the Quran has true knowledge, it is through preponderant evidence & proof. As to what makes a being 'necessary' or 'necessarily existent' it is that they are not contingent on (caused or explained by) any other being.
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@secularmerlin
What do you mean 'If it's true'!
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this edit box is too narrow to contain.
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@secularmerlin
Would a colour blind martian believe in divine command theory?
As an atheist I can see one slight problem with DCT.
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@secularmerlin
Do I detect a reluctance to answer the question?This question is irrelevant unless you choose your desires.
But what'sthe point? We both accept that free will is incompatible with determinism. I think that if people want non-illusory free will they have to adopt a dualistic view, which I don't and you clearly don't either, despite my best eforts to play devil's advocate!
But it is undoubtedy a strong illsuion, and closely bound up with the notion of 'self', which I also think is an illusion.
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@Fallaneze
If you go against a desire it can only be because you desire something else even more.
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@secularmerlin
@Fallaneze
Perhaps we can look at what is being affected in this 'cause and effect'.
Let's say the effect is a desire for tea rather than coffee. What is a desire? A desire can only be the effect of prior physical casuses if it is itself something physical. So is a desire something physical?
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@secularmerlin
Unless self is definable I'm not sure how we can have a serious conversation about it.
The 'Socratic method' is to explore issues through dialogue to bring out meaning where it is not initially clear.
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@Stephen
A great question that no one ever has been able to explain.
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@TwoMan
Unless the thing doing the causing is 'self', or 'you'.If something caused you to do something you have been compelled you did not choose.
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@secularmerlin
I still think you're hung up on free will having to be causeless, which of course makes free will incoherent. But the sort of free will that is desirable puts 'self'' 'in the loop', so to speak. Until we start thinking about things too hard and become amateur philosophers we start out believing there a self (or 'I') that has at least some say in the things we do.If whatever you are calling freewill is a cause it must still itself either have a cause or be a random event both are incompatible with freewill.
If you don't believe in free will,do you believe in 'self'? I don't mean your body. Bodies are containers or vehicles of the self; the brain may create and support perceptions but it is the self that does the actual perceiving. If we exchanged selves we would feel we had differnt bodies - our bodies would not feel they had different selves.
I don't mean to insist the self is real - I am describing the concept.
If self exists, then free will is the name given to how the self makes choices. I think it all a bit dualistic which means I am very biased against it! But AFAICT pure physicalism has failed to explain subjective consciousness and it's not easy to rule out dualism except on dogmatic grounds!
Dualism would allow self and free will to exist. I agree monist physicalism doesn't seem to have room for it.
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@secularmerlin
I think that is only a problem if you ask 'is X moral?' without being specific enough about X.
It might be that the morality of 'cutting someone with a knife' depends on circumstances, but i would argue it is always wrong to knife a stranger in the street with intent to harm' and always ok for a surgeon to make a necessary incision.
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@Stephen
I don't think anybody bar you would be in any doubt where I stand.
I don't do frothing-at-the-mouth polemic - I leave that to WisdomOfAges!
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@Stephen
The 'prophecies' in daniel are accurate upto about 200bc, which is understandable if they aren't genuine prophecies but forgeries wriiten after the events. The accuracy stops about 150 bc - there is no mention if the maccabbean revolts for instance.
All that is very conventional - I'd say most scholars who aren't literalists say more or less the same thing; it's the line taken by Wikipedia for instance.
IMO Daniel was written to bolster Jewish nationalism during a period when they were heavily oppressed by the Seleucids who seriously threatened the continuation of Jewish cultural identity - the Hebrew language was losing out to Greek, for instance. Daniel purported to say this dip in Jewish fortunes was long foretold, so the imminent restoration of Israels greatness it also foretold would be believed.
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@Stephen
I can recall at least one poster on DDO that seemed to get the wrong end of the stick. I can't be bothered to find the post now.
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@Stephen
The Book of Daniel purports itself to have been written by a Jew living in 6th century BC Persia, however I believe it was written much later, between 200 and 150 BC. I'm sorry I didn't make myself clearer.
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@Castin
@Barney
Castin was Casten on DDO. She can't fool me.
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@Stephen
Reading stuff like your posts, I should think.I wonder what drove these once normal everyday people to suddenly turn so vile and violent?
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@secularmerlin
You haven't - as I recall - addressed the idea that 'free will' or 'self' is itself a cause. If free will exists then it would be the cause of - or contribute towards - our choices. I'd say it is unreasonable to insist that our choices must be completely causeless to count as having free will. I think that if choice depend on 'self' that would be 'having free will'.it is either subject to cause and effect or it operates randomly.
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@Stephen
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@Tradesecret
Of course it is moral. Everything is moral. The question is not about whether it is moral, but about whose morals are we talking about?
It's possible somebody thinks it's moral, but it's possible somebody thinks Sidney is the capital of Australia. It doesn't mean they're right.
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@Stephen
YAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN
Pretty much what i feel when i see your stuff.
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@Tradesecret
Christianity came to the UK in the 6th century. Are you suggesting there were no laws against theft and murder before then?
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@TwoMan
But suppose I built a robot that, when presented with multiple options, rolled a dice to select what to do. According to that definition that robot has free will.As I stated earlier, choosing between multiple possibilities is the definition of free will.
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@TwoMan
I assume you accept determinism occurs at the physical level in brains. So do you think physics works differently in brains? Are you a dualist?I think of determinism as "this must lead to that". I don't think of human thought that way.
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@TwoMan
@Reece
I'd say the idea is that even if you could measure everything physical within and affecting a brain, it would still be impossible to predict the choice it will make because there is a non-physical element - free will - that also contributes to the process of decision making.
You could say that 'free will' is an aspect of 'self' so the self is involved (and perhaps dominant) in making decisions. I don't subscribe to that, but I think it is a good argument that if free will exists it must be dualistic.
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@Reece
keithprosser, what reasons?
secmer wrote:
Either your 'choices' are subject to cause and effect (which is incompatible with the idea of freewill) or they are random (which is incompatible with the idea of freewill).
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@TwoMan
@Reece
I think defining free will as absolutely causeless is too strong. It makes free will an uninteresting topic because it is clearly nonsensical for the reasons pointed out.
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@ludofl3x
Which brings us right back to deism at best. And as I believe you pointed out already, if your deism is one where a god does not interact in any way with the material world in any way that makes its presence plain, and this god totally defies description, then I'm pretty sure it functions exactly the same as atheism.
Deism was invented because there was no reasonable alternative to divine creation a few hundred years ago.
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@ludofl3x
But I digress! Shame on me.
You started the thread so i suppose you are allowed to digress!
I get your point.
Perhaps the crux is that Darwinism tells us what actually happens but makes no judgement of it. 'Survival of the fittest' is a principle that operates in the world just as F=Ma does. The difference is that F=Ma is an unbreakable law; 'Survival of the fittest' is not actually a law in the scientifc sense beause is can be circumvented - I don't think there is an official word for such things, so maybe we can call it a 'lawette'.
Of course another perspective is that human interention can be viewed as yet another factor in determining fiitness - we are a sort of 'super predator', not so different from a lion or tiger weeding out the individuals who don't meet certain criteria. So 'artificial selection' is a special case of natural selection rather than something completely different. Imagine looking at it from Martian's POV!
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