What do moderates think Jesus died for?

[Alan V]

I disagree with all three of these assertions.  Evolutionary forces act on chance combinations of materials over long periods of time rather than on determined ones.  Such chance occurrences happen because the material world operates statistically.  Life takes advantage of such chance occurrences to load the dice in its favor, thus leading to the emergence of consciousness and free will.  So consciousness and free will are properties which could not be predicted from the properties of simple particles or the rules of physics because they were self-organized rather than determined.  At most, they were enabled by taking advantage of the loophole of the statistical nature of thermodynamics, by working as parts of a total system where they benefited by increasing entropy elsewhere.

You are conflating quantum uncertain on quantum scale which are intrinsic to nature of reality as we understand them, with contingent macroscopic uncertainty resulting from achieveable but as yet unachieved macroscopic measurements, or calculatable but as yet uncalculated consequences due to ignorances about the mechanism.

As far as we can tell, quantum behavior is truly statistical.  There really is nothing more than can be said for the possible outcomes other than the statistics,.  There is in principle not any deeper underlying paths and mechanism that would enable you to a priori determine the outcome better than statistics.   There is no looking closer, nor is there anything to see if looked closer, as far as we can tell.

Macroscopic statistical phenomena are totally different.  Statistics of macroscopic pheonomenon is but a rough general description seeking to encompass a full array of specific paths and mechanism that individually uniquely lead to each of the specific outcomes.  It is but a description that glosses over existent but unprobed underlying paths and mechanisms that allow outcomes to be determined better than the statistics.  Look closer, and individual paths and mechanisms can be discerned.  

The probability of evolution only refers to ignorances about which specific creature had which specific properties in what specific environments. These things are in principle knowable even if difficult to determine.   Statistical description merely seek to make the most of it in spite of our addressable but unaddressed ignorances.

The same as free will.   The mechanisms of not just “free” will, but each outcome of free will, is in principle determinable.  The information required to determine the are also in principle determinable.  The fact that they are as yet underdetermined so statistics is the most we can say about them does not make them any less deterministic.

Emergence is nothing but properties of constitutents given full play.   Large systems has nothing that is not given to it by its parts.  It is still no more, and can’t ever be more, than sum of its parts.   But it allows some ways system can sum up to be more apparent.    Properties that emerge unpredicted in large system is the result of of constituents individual modeled with too many short cuts, not the result of some mysterious woo that is waiting for there to be enough components in the system to descent upon the observer.

It is true there is a fringe school called strong emergence that says large systems acquire something In principle unpredictable no matter how comprehensively and accurately one models each individual component.   But that is really mysticism borrowing words from real science.

Actually, the paragraph which you are addressing did not mention quantum mechanics at all.  I specifically stated "At most, they were enabled by taking advantage of the loophole of the statistical nature of thermodynamics, by working as parts of a total system where they benefited by increasing entropy elsewhere."  Your argument that macroscopic statistical phenomena are totally different is unpersuasive, because all you are saying is that if we knew more we would find it all determined.  I'm saying you are unwarranted to jump to that conclusion, and in fact observations about life, consciousness, and free will make what you say unlikely from my perspective.

This is because even simple emergent properties can't be predicted, let alone such more complex properties.  Salt is made from a combination of chlorine, a poisonous gas, and sodium, a metal.  Neither has properties similar to salt, which is important as one of the components which makes life possible.  So no, you have no case for dismissing out-of-hand unpredictable emergent properties. Calling them "woo" and "mysticism" is nonsense. Such odd combinations are fully material. And the idea that life and consciousness were somehow determined to emerge by the laws of the universe is much more likely to be woo and mysticism. That sounds like intelligent design to me.