RE: Theists: How can predetermined fate and free will coexist?
December 24, 2016 at 4:24 am
(This post was last modified: December 24, 2016 at 4:26 am by robvalue.)
(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!
Bold mine.
This is the problem I was talking about. If we assume no choices are being made, then there is no choice as to whether or not you trust something either. You can't get from determinism to any sort of imperative. So in any such discussions (involving imperatives), it's pragmatic to assume that there is more to choices than determinism. If that assumption is wrong, nothing has been lost since the discussion couldn't have gone any other way anyhow. Maybe this is what you were saying, I'm not sure. It is indeed a self-defeating argument.
I find a weird kind of irony with the idea of determinism dictating the flow of a discussion about determinism.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.
Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.
Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum