(January 27, 2010 at 7:57 pm)Zhalentine Wrote:

Quote:You would be coorect, haha! When one really thinks about this, to say that something is 'mere coincidence' is a rather feeble counter-point, and a strawman at that.

"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position." - Wikipedia

I did not misrepresent your position and then refute that misrepresentation, thus I did not create a straw man.

Hmmm, it seems my definition of straw man was inaccurate, which si what led to the current misunderstanding. Okay! I take it back, it is not a 'straw-man'. I still say it is a feeble counter-point. Why?

Quote:A rather feeble counter-point? That is up to opinion. Frankly, I think that saying God influenced your friend is a rather feeble and naive explanation for what happened. Forget about how the brain and body works making you react to every situation you are in, God did it.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Therefore, nothing can occur by 'mere coincidence', because there had to be an original action which caused it. To brush something off as coincidence is feeble because that would deny there was an original action which caused the reaction. A clear contradiction is plain.

Furthermore, the body and mind work in very complex ways, I do not deny that. But my friend's body did not cause each of the events within this scenario, nor did his mind, other than the decisions he made and the path he took that night. If you can provide me with a more likely and logical idea of how his body or his mind conspired to cause the events that night, I will gladly listen. But the most likely cause, in my eyes, of the reactions that night which occured is that the universe/God was conspiring to help my friend.

Quote:

Quote:Have you ever formed a strong emotional connection with someone in your life? Most people have. Has tehre ever come a time when, despite your own plans, that person asked you to make a decision between your plan, option A, and their plan, option B? Now let's propose that normally you wouldn't go with option B, but that you were so emotionally connected to the person offering it to you, you were instantly able to decipher it's preprecussions and purpose in relation to you, and went with option B.

You did not go with option B because the person offering it to you took away your free will, but because you understood perfectly why option B was there and in what ways it could benefit you. God presents us with the options, and the capability to nderstand those options, but if we choose to deny that, it muddles the reasoning and ultimately decisions become unclear and hard. He doesn't take away the will of the person, just gives them the answers and the tools with which to find them.

The person did not take away my free will. With your hypothetical situation, you said that I chose to go with option B; therefore, I made a decision based off of free will. To take away free will would require an external force (god) to make me choose a path. The person in your hypothetical is not making me go with them.

Nor is God within the hypothetical situation. In the scenario, you are able to see your friend's position clearly and understand it completely because you are emotionally connected to them, and can read between the lines of what they are saying. You still have the option to go with option A if you wish, but option B has been made clearer because you understand the person offering it to you, and by extension, you understand their proposition.

Quote:Perhaps you'll counter and say, "well god didn't make my friend choose those options."
Free will is defined as "the power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies" (link) Whether your god made an option look more appealing or forced you to do something, that violates the free will he has given you because the choice is no longer unconstrained.

God did not make it 'look more appealing' or 'force' anyone to make the decision. But if you accept God as a friend who is offering you a choice, and understand the choices He lays before you, then you have greater capacity to make the choice in an informed and understanding way.

Quote:Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Therefore, nothing can occur by 'mere coincidence', because there had to be an original action which caused it. To brush something off as coincidence is feeble because that would deny there was an original action which caused the reaction. A clear contradiction is plain.

You seem to have a problem with definitions. This is a mere observation (with a hint to look up words before you debate), don't go screaming ad hominem on me.

coincidence "happenstance (an event that might have been arranged although it was really accidental)" http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/web...oincidence

No where in the definition nor in my reply did I suggest anything that denied an original action. What I was actually implying in my post is that the mind and body react to the situations (the "action") and lead your friend to make the choices he did. It is a mere coincidence, an event that might have been arranged although it was really accidental, that your friend happened to do all that he did.

Quote:Furthermore, the body and mind work in very complex ways, I do not deny that. But my friend's body did not cause each of the events within this scenario, nor did his mind, other than the decisions he made and the path he took that night. If you can provide me with a more likely and logical idea of how his body or his mind conspired to cause the events that night, I will gladly listen. But the most likely cause, in my eyes, of the reactions that night which occured is that the universe/God was conspiring to help my friend.

When you say "my friend's body did not cause each of the events within this scenario" I get the impression that you think his body doing actions is what i meant. I included body when I was talking about the mind because the nerves are within the body that are not considered part of the brain. If I remember correctly from Anatomy, some reflexes do not enter the mind before the reaction occurs. For example, when you hit your knee's reflex the signal goes to your spinal cord and your spinal cord sends the reaction to your leg muscles (I think this is one of the reflexes that doesn't reach the brain before the body reacts) the original signal continues up the spinal cord and goes into your brain and lets your brain recognize that something hit your leg, but your brain doesn't send the reflex to your leg, the spinal cord does.

The body and mind did not conspire to cause the events that night (I'm just going to refer to the brain for now own because typing body and mind is choppy and now you know what i mean), they were merely reacting to the interactions going on. Your friend didn't choose to leave the party because god lead him to, his brain was subconsciously reacting to the situation and lead him to the conclusion to leave. When you called he could have already been tired from the evening with his other friends and decided to go home instead.

Quote:Nor is God within the hypothetical situation. In the scenario, you are able to see your friend's position clearly and understand it completely because you are emotionally connected to them, and can read between the lines of what they are saying. You still have the option to go with option A if you wish, but option B has been made clearer because you understand the person offering it to you, and by extension, you understand their proposition.

So we're both in agreement that out of free will I chose to go with option B.

@ Waston, your story example.

1. Why do you insist this is not a scientific matter?

2. Why do you consider a coincidence to be a 'feeble counter point'? Can't a coincidence simply be the more probable alternative?

3. Even if this really did not just simply happen but mean something "special" or, miraculous, or supernatural or whatever - what's it got to do with God, and how is it evidence of God in any way? God as in, a supernatural creator of the universe, a deity? (assuming that's how you define him, so, a further note: How are you defining God?).

There's a Sherlock Holmes quote, to paraphrase 'once you've eliminated the impossible then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth' - the problem with that kind of thinking of course - in my mind at least - is that it's very probably completely impossible to eliminate the impossible! Since you like Sherlock Holmes I just felt like bringing that up

EvF

Watson,

I suggest you read up some basic definitions before continuing, since if you confuse terms like "coincidence" with "random" or "uncaused" you aren't going to get very far here.

Secondly, I should really point out to that in quantum mechanics, every action does not necessarily have a cause. There are some really random events there.

Oh yes, and I'd like to see some evidence for this "free will" you speak of. If we are organisms, there is no explanation for "free will", merely the illusion of free will. Currently, the scientific evidence points away from its existence.

So first maybe he could go about defining 'free will'

Compatabilist definitions (as in, definitions that are even compatible with determinism) of free will I am perfectly happy to believe in because I consider them stating the obvious and so that's why I don't personally call them "free will". It seems meaningless to me.

Definitions that wouldn't be compatible with determinism, make no sense to me whatsoever, and not only seem impossible intuitively - I'm certainly very very very skeptical that it's even physically possible so I set the bar very high for the evidence required to change my mind (and I have no idea what it would or could even look like) -... but I also, of course (at least so far), know of no evidence supporting them whatsoever.

EvF

If we are organisms then there is no free will?

Thanks for the read EvF. I had never heard of determinism and compatabilism before. So I don't see how a "causal determinist" can'st see a cause for the creation of the knwon universe.

Is anyone a logical determinist? That seems far too black and white to make sense.

I think I've mentioned before that the one thing that really pisses the God character is free will.

In order to have a free choice you need to have an undertanding of pertenant facts.

This means you need knowledge, read genesis to see how the fictional Yahweh overreacts when his puppets gain some knowledge, (by eating fruit apparently, must be part of their five a day).

This means that he wanted to keep them as pets in ignorance, and as a result without REAL freewill.

Freewill was a defiance of God not a gift.

Allow me to respond to each of your posts, it may take me some time, but I have answers which I can give each of you. I will divide each section appropriately so that, in the event I need to give a repeat answer, I can direct your attention back to the original answer.

(January 27, 2010 at 8:55 pm)Zhalentine Wrote:

Quote:Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Therefore, nothing can occur by 'mere coincidence', because there had to be an original action which caused it. To brush something off as coincidence is feeble because that would deny there was an original action which caused the reaction. A clear contradiction is plain.

You seem to have a problem with definitions. This is a mere observation (with a hint to look up words before you debate), don't go screaming ad hominem on me.

coincidence "happenstance (an event that might have been arranged although it was really accidental)" http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/web...oincidence

A.) haha I do not, in fact, have a problem with coincidence and I do not take offense or see ad himinem in what you said. However, I find my own definition of coincidence has brought me much more accurate and applicable results when going about my day to day life. This is because I believe in my own words as true, and put the utmost faith in them first and foremost.

I don't find that that definition even applies to this situation, as if it might have been arranged then that makes it all the more likely that a God was behind was appeared to be 'mere coincidence.'

Quote:No where in the definition nor in my reply did I suggest anything that denied an original action. What I was actually implying in my post is that the mind and body react to the situations (the "action") and lead your friend to make the choices he did. It is a mere coincidence, an event that might have been arranged although it was really accidental, that your friend happened to do all that he did.

B.) You still have failed to point out the original 'action', however. You must take into consideration the event and it's pieces as a whole, look at the bigger picture, and tell me where there is a more likely cause than God that set the chain of events in motion.

C.) My friend did not have to make the decisions he made that night, but he chose to because something inside him, subconsciously, knew there was a proper place he had to be that night. He was shown the way he needed to go, though he himself was no consciouly aware of it, and he took that path.

Quote:When you say "my friend's body did not cause each of the events within this scenario" I get the impression that you think his body doing actions is what i meant. I included body when I was talking about the mind because the nerves are within the body that are not considered part of the brain. If I remember correctly from Anatomy, some reflexes do not enter the mind before the reaction occurs. For example, when you hit your knee's reflex the signal goes to your spinal cord and your spinal cord sends the reaction to your leg muscles (I think this is one of the reflexes that doesn't reach the brain before the body reacts) the original signal continues up the spinal cord and goes into your brain and lets your brain recognize that something hit your leg, but your brain doesn't send the reflex to your leg, the spinal cord does.

A.), B.) & C.)
D.) There appears to be no natural stimuli for my friend's having made the choices he did in the sequence he did, as I have already showed you where the definition of 'coincidence' could be considered faulty or to my use, and there still appears to be no original 'action' which he could have acted and reacted upon.

Quote:The body and mind did not conspire to cause the events that night (I'm just going to refer to the brain for now own because typing body and mind is choppy and now you know what i mean), they were merely reacting to the interactions going on. Your friend didn't choose to leave the party because god lead him to, his brain was subconsciously reacting to the situation and lead him to the conclusion to leave. When you called he could have already been tired from the evening with his other friends and decided to go home instead.

E.) Gotta correct you here. I didn't call him, HE considered coming to see ME. He was distracted however, by the fact that there were police men on my street, so he caleld his cousin instead. So no, he didn't leave the party because he was tired, since he actively sought out people to hang out with afterward. So then, his brain was subconsciously reacting to a desire to leave the party anyway...but why? If he wished to continue hanging out, why on earth did he leave? The party was still going.

Quote:Nor is God within the hypothetical situation. In the scenario, you are able to see your friend's position clearly and understand it completely because you are emotionally connected to them, and can read between the lines of what they are saying. You still have the option to go with option A if you wish, but option B has been made clearer because you understand the person offering it to you, and by extension, you understand their proposition.

So we're both in agreement that out of free will I chose to go with option B.
[/quote]
F.) Yes. because you understood the option regardless of your own thoughts and plans. You chose it because a friend presented it to you, a friend who you were very clsoe to. So close were you to this friend, that their train of thought in presentign option B to you was entirely clear to you.

G.) This is what happens with God. He is a friend offering you the second option. You don't have to accept it, but because God is your friend, you understand His train of thought as you would your own.

I don't have time to respond to everything else right now, so if you could all pelase wait for me to edit this post before responding, it would be extremely nice of you. Thanks!

-Watson

(January 27, 2010 at 6:13 pm)Watson Wrote:

(January 27, 2010 at 6:02 pm)Zhalentine Wrote:

(January 27, 2010 at 5:50 pm)Watson Wrote: My very best argument would be to point to certain instances in my life, my friend's lives, and my loved one's lives which, whether or not the person who experienced the was aware of them, could not logically be explained away as mere coincidence and whose only logical conclusion could be a guiding being at work.

Give us a specific example please. A lot of mysteries in life have been given credit to a god(s) until science debunked it.

Of course, no problem.

These will not be scientific problems, I can assure you of that. It is a matter of experience and of understanding. Therefore, I have no doubt I will be rebuttled.

A friend of mine was at his friend's house, spending time and having fun there. As the night wore on, he felt uneasy, and decided to leave. His friend's father asked if he needed a ride, but he politely declined. He chose to walk instead, and was on his way home when he wondered if I was around and willing to hang out. When he turned the corner toward my home, however, there were police cars up and down the street, so instead he walked on.

A little later he got the idea to call his cousin and see if HE wanted to hang out. His cousin declined and said he was sick, and that was the end of it. My friend walked on and eventually passed his a relative of his house. He thought about going in, but decided against it. Just as he was about to leave, however, someone he recognized but did not expect pulled into the driveway. Wondering what was going on, he went inside and discovered that a crisis within his family had occured.(for his own personal reasons I will omit the crisis itself.)

The point of that being that, had he accepted a ride home, had he gone to my house, had his cousin hung out with him, had he walked just a little bit faster or a little bit slower, he would not have been there during a time of need for his family.

Yet on that night, he was in fact there, and he is a strong enough willed person to have a prescence which is very reassuring, so his family certainly benefited from that.

I have more if you wish, but that's freshest on my mind and works best as an example.

That is extraordinarily mundane! You call that proof of divine intervention?

Remember, coincidental chains like these happen to horribly twisted fuckers all the time too, evil sons of bitches have extraordinary chains of good luck every once in a while too mate, so how do you explain that? Did god help the serial killer get away through a complex series of what seem like coincidences or were they genuinely just coincidences and only your little story was special?

Once you put it all in context it is quite obviously just probability. If there are 5 different decisions you must make to get to a particular place at a particular time then you have a given probability of getting all 5 choices correct, 1/32, that means that 1 of of 32 people that have 5 decisions to make will make the right decision by chance alone.

(January 28, 2010 at 8:42 am)Tiberius Wrote: Oh yes, and I'd like to see some evidence for this "free will" you speak of. If we are organisms, there is no explanation for "free will", merely the illusion of free will. Currently, the scientific evidence points away from its existence.

Please correct me if I am wrong, Adrian:

Your position is that free will is merely an illusion, i.e., we do not have free will.

It would then seem to follow from this:

1) that the only reason why you debate or discuss anything with anybody else is because you are compelled to based on your genetics, environment, etc.;

2) you have no reason to believe that anything you say could convince someone that you are "correct" in any position you take because the person you are talking to is compelled to think what they think also (unless of course you are compelled to believe such a thing);

3) there is no such thing as "correct", "right", "true", "correct application of logic" etc., it is only what a person is compelled to perceive/think; and

4) in reality, scientists are compelled to think free will doesn't exist regardless of what evidence they look at.

I guess that would mean there is no real point to any communication and it certainly diminishes (to zero)the weight of any argument put forth here on this forum.

I, for one, am glad we don't live like there is no free will. It would make a boring world (or maybe I am just compelled to think this).

My comments above were a bit "tongue in cheek" (I suspect I am missing some things regarding your point of view that would make my conclusions above not really apply). So my serious question, Adrian, is could you please elaborate on what you mean and how it works from your point of view?