(December 23, 2016 at 1:44 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote:(December 22, 2016 at 11:54 am)robvalue Wrote: Strangely enough, science is showing more and more that free will is bollocks. If it's eventually shown everything is purely deterministic, it would in theory be possible for an external being to "know" the future, simply by calculation.
But most religious people require us to have genuine choices so that God has something to judge and isn't simply assessing robots he set in motion. This logically knows out procognition/fate, and I don't know why they cling to it so tightly. What difference does that make? Why can't God just not know? Would that make it suddenly unworthy of worship? I think it would make God more likeable.
I think that it is strange, because if everything is deterministic and you eliminate choice, then you can no longer trust logic (and therefore any scientific conclusions). If you cannot choose, then you cannot make a determination that one thing is more reasonable than another. Or at least, the determination, isn't based on logic or reason, but on the physical configuration of the brain.
Given two opposing ideas, you cannot evaluate them in any real sense, as your answer is predetermined based on physics, not on logic. You cannot answer any differently. And even though you think you may be correct, as well as thinking critically, this is also just an illusion (under this view). Even posts and discussions here, are not an example of any creativity, thought, or rationality, it is just the output that corresponds to the input. Although the algorithm processing the inputs may be quite complicated; in the end you have no choice, determination of your own, or ability to evaluate whether a correct or incorrect output is the result.
This argument appears to me, to be cutting off the branch that it is sitting on!
This is a false dichotomy. That deterministic algorithms cannot also be rational. What makes you think you cannot evaluate the alternatives in any real sense? The outcome is determined, but that determination can include rational considerations. It has been shown by genetic algorithms that task oriented organisms can evolve from basics. Is rationality not simply another task?
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