RE: A "meta-argument" against all future arguments for God's existence ?
March 9, 2022 at 9:10 pm
(March 9, 2022 at 6:29 pm)Angrboda Wrote:(March 9, 2022 at 5:22 pm)The L Wrote: I always find this does well against all claims that God exists:
(1) If God exists then God gave people free will
(2) For God to give people free will then free will must be possible
(3) But free will isn't possible
(4) So God can't give people free will
(5) So God cannot exist.
The form is something like if X then Y if Y then Z not Z so not Y not Y so not X
The argument against that is that if free will were deterministic, then it wouldn't be free will. If it can be described mechanistically, then the outcome is pre-ordained, and that's not free will. Determinism is a metaphysical assumption that can't be tested. It's a lot like physicalism that way.
Either a system is deterministic or it is random.
Deterministic means that there is causality, that there is a certain logic to the system.
For example, an OS such as Windows XP is a deterministic system. It has various functions in its various libraries. One of the jobs of an OS is to take care of the file system that is present on your hard disk. When you try to save a file, the disk subsystem of Windows XP makes a decision as to where to keep that file and it sends commands to the harddisk and the internal logic of the hard disk handles the actual writing operation.
We definitely do not want randomness in such a system.
So, what is meant by “god gave us free will”?
I’m guessing that what they mean is that god gave us intelligence and we use that intelligence to make decisions.
I think one guy told me that if god wanted robots, he would have made us into robots. I think he was implying that a robot can’t have free will because it is something that is programmed.
I think they can since we can already observe software that has free will such as Windows XP.
Being programmed doesn’t mean that the program doesn’t make decisions as it runs.
Randomness or pseudo-randomness is great in certain machines such as lottery machines but if you want to make a “wise” decision”, then I don’t think it is a good idea to roll dices.
