Who throws the dice for you?

[Fromper]

I'm suddenly reminded of the TV show "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles". In one of the later episodes, a pre-terminator robot is being "taught" like a child how to interact with humans, and one of the scientists is playing D&D with it. The robot manages to roll a couple of 20s on a 20 sided die to get very good results, which the scientist teaching it thinks is lucky until someone else points out that the robot can probably manipulate the die well enough to roll a 20 any time it wants to.

A game of Dungeons and Dragons requires an element of randomness which is provided by the roll of the die. The universe needs an element of randomness too. But where does this element of randomness come from? I have a hard time accepting the idea that randomness just exists. In my mind the universe is either super-deterministic or there is a non-physical non-local element to reality in which randomness is being generated.

If a supernatural God is throwing the dice for us, I would expect that from our perspective randomness would just appear to be. As this happens to be the case in my mind a quantum mechanical world fits very nicely with theism. If I were an atheist, I would be stuck with super determinism.

Is that all you atheists have is super determinism or is there something else that I am missing?

So what you're saying is that you can't wrap your ahead around the randomness of quantum mechanics, so you insert an unnecessary extra factor (God) into it, to make it easier for you to accept. The real question is why you think randomness has to have a cause.

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Is that all you atheists have is super determinism or is there something else that I am missing?

I don't really think about it. What led me away from theism was not ever finding god. Posts like your OP sound to me as if you are saying that god must exist because you cannot fathom a universe where he does not. That seems, to me, to approach the issue from the wrong end. I suppose that some day it might be shown that the universe cannot exist without god, and that therefore god has to exist. I think he could make it a lot easier on everyone by just showing up.

That's probably a better answer than mine.

[Cato]

The universe needs an element of randomness too.

Oh yeah, how do you arrive at this declaration?

I have a hard time accepting the idea that randomness just exists.

You seem to be calling our inability to properly account for all causes to an event randomness. I can accept this definition for the sake of clarity, but you seem hellbent on inserting your God here instead of simply acknowledging our ignorance. Until you provide evidence for your God you are just compounding the problem; not simplifying it or explaining it.

This is nothing more than another God of the gaps argument

[Heywood]

So what you're saying is that you can't wrap your ahead around the randomness of quantum mechanics, so you insert an unnecessary extra factor (God) into it, to make it easier for you to accept. The real question is why you think randomness has to have a cause.

Negative Fromper.

I believed in God before I thought about these things. It is a case observation conforming to a previous theistic world view. It is more like the confirmation of a prediction.

Why do I think randomness has a cause? In my experience randomness is not something objective. Randomness is just ignorance.

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You seem to be calling our inability to properly account for all causes to an event randomness. I can accept this definition for the sake of clarity, but you seem hellbent on inserting your God here instead of simply acknowledging our ignorance. Until you provide evidence for your God you are just compounding the problem; not simplifying it or explaining it.

This is nothing more than another God of the gaps argument

Negative Cato, this isn't a case of having an inability to properly account for all causes of a random event. Bell's theorem suggests that at some level randomness is uncaused by local physical things.

That leaves you 2 options.
1. The universe is super deterministic.
2. Randomness is caused by non-local-non physical things.

[Anomalocaris]

So who or what is throwing the dice for you atheists?

You imagine at the most fundamental level of reality, inaccessible to science but no doubt still accessible to you through the ramblings of some bronze or iron age egomaniacal pot head, there must exist deterministic fundamental building blocks of reality, being acted upon by an external purposed agent you call god, that is producing an appearent nondetermininstic outcome at a level accessible to science.

Right?

Prove the most fundamental building blocks of the reality must be deterministic, or else cast away your idiot fantasy.

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Quantum mechanics says nothing about where randomness comes from. In my own experience randomness is generated by a mechanisms which contains variables which are hidden from me.

Really?

When have you experienced events at quantum level?

[Heywood]

You imagine at the most fundamental level of reality, inaccessible to science but no doubt still accessible to you through the ramblings of some bronze or iron age egomaniacal pot head, there must exist deterministic fundamental building blocks of reality, being acted upon by an external purposed agent you call god, that is producing an appearent nondetermininstic outcome at a level accessible to science.

Right?

Prove the most fundamental building blocks of the reality must be deterministic, or else cast away your idiot fantasy.

I'm glad you agree that science suggests there must be elements of reality that are inaccessible. The observable natural world isn't all there is.

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Quantum mechanics says nothing about where randomness comes from. In my own experience randomness is generated by a mechanisms which contains variables which are hidden from me.

Really?

When have you experienced events at quantum level?

When did I ever claim that I experience events at the quantum level? I only claimed that in my experience randomness is a subjective experience resulting from ignorance of all the elements which cause a particular outcome of an event.

[smax]

I'm not into the whole quantum thing, nor am I into advanced mathematics. Not for lack of capacity, mind you, It's just not my cup of tea.

That said, I'm certainly willing to entertain your question at it's most basic level. That question, as it appears to me, is:

Do my atheist views suggest a less calculated outcome than that of a theist?

The answer is, yes, they do. I admit that, and further more, I embrace it, especially in light of the evidence and results we have available. Many devout theists of all different religious subscriptions have met with terrible and humiliating ends. The same goes for atheists. Additionally, both theists and atheists have been known to prosper.

Based on the evidence, I think it's safe to say that whoever or whatever is "rolling the dice" isn't nearly as particular as theists so desperately hope.

And, this may surprise you, but as an atheist, I do not necessarily rule out a higher power of some sort, although I'd qualifying that by saying I'd imagine a higher power to be unimaginable (or beyond imagination). Further more, I think it would be, and is, silly to assume that any higher power would care one way or the other about our human plight.

So, as far as the dice roller goes, higher power or not, the results are the same: random. Some people live long and others die early. Some people prosper and others live through terrible suffering. And some people just simply have balance.

People like you undoubtedly dream baselessly of some kind of eternally blissful afterlife. But if we are both being honest, no compelling evidence of such a thing exists. Well, that is, except for the notion that we will all eventually transform back into pure energy. Perhaps there is bliss in that.

[Anomalocaris]

I'm glad you agree that science suggests there must be elements of reality that are inaccessible. The observable natural world isn't all there is.

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No, I do not agree.

Observable natural world may or may not be all there is. But the fact that it is in principle unobservable means in its broadest sense whatever may or may not be there has no detectable impact in principle and is thus totally indistibguishable from not being there.

So to assert there must be something worth asserting there is about the same as a petulent fart in polite company.

You can't ever know it is there, so don't pretend it is there.

When did I ever claim that I experience events at the quantum level? I only claimed that in my experience randomness is a subjective experience resulting from ignorance of all the elements which cause a particular outcome of an event.

Then your experience is irrelevent. Appending your experience to description of quantum event as if it were relevent is at best a non sequitar, at worst a conscious duplicity aimed at exploiting loopholes in listener's knowledge base of quantum physics and cognative perception.

[Heywood]

People like you undoubtedly dream baselessly of some kind of eternally blissful afterlife. But if we are both being honest, no compelling evidence of such a thing exists. Well, that is, except for the notion that we will all eventually transform back into pure energy. Perhaps there is bliss in that.

Negative Smax

I doubt you will ever see me argue the existence of an afterlife.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I think one issue you raise, smax, that is worth remembering is what 'most' atheists actually believe, or rather, don't. As an atheist I haven't ruled out the possibility of there being some sort of higher being, merely every single claim currently made up until this point by people proclaiming to be able to prove that there is a god.

There's a big difference, one which almost always seems to over the head of some theists.

What is a god anyway? I've been asking that of everyone who claims their particular version of whatever god it is they worship is real, and never received an answer I could relate to or that met my standards. Maybe my standards are too high?

[Cato]

God is now a non-local hidden variable in QM. If anything, that's an argument I haven't heard before.