Re: Science, God, and Free Will

On Oct 8, 1:36 pm, Alexander <alexanderhud...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 8, 12:19 pm, part...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Oct 8, 12:17 pm, Alexander <alexanderhud...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:> On Oct 8, 12:02 am, urthogie <urtho...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 7, 5:19 pm, Alexander <alexanderhud...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:> On Oct 7, 8:32 pm, urthogie <urtho...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


[ Alexander - here I merged two of your posts. Hope you don't mind]


Which things? If some events are left to 'free will' then those he
interferes with are, by your definition, no longer subject tofreewill. As I keep pointing out - god's involvement automatically
circumscribes the possibility offree will. God's non-involvement in
man's affairs is the only way to avoid this paradox and even then
there's the issue of what the initial parameters were. When you get

I see now. In 'free will', you mean 'unlimited free will'. That's
not what I mean. We don't have complete control on our actions - we
can't fly or breathe under water. God has certainly limited our
abilities. Even our volition doesn't seem to be unlimited - it seems
impossible to want things we think are impossible. Many years ago, I
was very ambitious about finding a simple description for the integral
of the gaussian. Later, I learned that it's simply impossible. My
great ambition vanished at once. I find it now impossible to want it,
unless I convince myself it is possible somehow. I think that in every
action that may refer to humans, we can find our limitation. Between
these limitation, free will can take place. And note that it may be
different for different people - some people may get angry when
someone steps on their foot. They don't even think before they do -
they have no choice here. Others may have a choice whether to get
angry or not.

into the subject of why some affairs are interfered with and others
aren't then you run into a lot of interesting theological questions as
well.

True. The trivial religious answer seems to be that God has created
the universe for some purpose, and gave humans free will for some
purpose (being part of the great purpose, of course). When this
purpose required free will, He gave it. Where it didn't, He didn't.
His purpose didn't require giving us the ability to grow wings, so we
can't choose to do it (and don't tell me about genetic engineering -
its only an example). The exact details of what this purpose is, vary
of course from religion to religion.


Meh ... I'll keep highlighting it then. If there really is a mind/
brain duality then why do lesions and other forms of brain damage
affect functions such as memory, perception, personality and mood/
emotion. A dualist approach predicts that, as the function of mind is
separate from the biological basis then these functions should not be
effected. That they are indicates the direct correlation of the two.


If you think Dualism means that mental & material cannot
communicate, then how does the mind control the body? perception is
essencially a tranformation of material to mental. I think Dualism
does assert the mutual causual effect. It's just that mental phenomena
can't be explained solely based on material phenomena, and not vice
versa. Hence Dualism asserts the duality of substances.

And you're right that the keyword is 'correlation' - note that it
isn't identical to 'identity'. Take an example. In the gauges panel of
a car there's a needle, with 'F' and 'E' on its edges. There's a clear
correlation between its position and the car's ability to drive. Also,
there's a special hose that may move it in the 'F' direction. The
Materialist may stop here, clearing the connection, and claiming that
nothing more is needed. S/he can precisely predict the car's ability
to drive based on this measurement. However, the Dualist notes that
theoretically, based on what we know on the laws of mechanics (we
assume we don't know the car's structure, of course), there's no
reason the car should stop when the needle reachs 'E'. Therefore, s/he
assumes the existance of another entity, the fuel tank, which,
according to mechanics, CAN affect the car's ability to drive. So s/he
asserts that the correlation between the tank's condition and the
needle's position is only that - a correlation. And then s/he argues
that Materialism doesn't explain the facts, even if it can predict
them correctly.





The basic assertion of Dualism is that the material can affect the
mental, and vice versa. So you claim you've proved the first
direction. I guess you wanted to refute the second.

No I'm saying you have to demonstrate the second.

In addition to previously given examples - one's knowledge that one
lies (usually) creates a certain emotional condition, which causes
detectable physical changes (sweating rate etc.) - that's a poligraph.
Emotions such as excitement affect the heart rate. Volition determins
many (most?) of our physical emotions.

I don't think the mutual causual effects of the 'mental' and
'material' are subject to debate between Dualism and Monism. It's just
that Monism argues that the 'material' is really just a strange mental
phenomena, or vice versa.



You may mean this fact may require the Idealist to explain a few
things. While true, it shouldn't bother the Dualist at all. And
really, the Idealist can explain it quite easily (the exact
explanation depends on the exact type of Idealism, of course).

Well ok - give me an example of an easy explanation.

Don't you think that any Idealist didn't know that material effects
can affect mental phenomena - one just have to kick a wall and feel
pain for that. Or eat too many dates. (I already said that I think it
theoretically impossible for any research in physics (or any other
field) to have any philosophical conclussions). Don't you think that
any of them didn't provide an explanation for that.

For Leibnitz, for example, there are no real objects - every object
is also a subject. So there aren't really materialistic effects on
mental phenomena. For Berkeley, there's a harder problem - why do we
all perceive things in the same way. He solved it by intoducing God,
which takes care of this. Just the same, God could take care of the
effect these material things have on us - just the same. Just two
examples of simple explanations.






Very wrong. His actions are amied at a specific goal/s (as are any
intelligent creature's), and can, in principle, be detected by the
guided course of events. For example, some historians claim that
history has a clear, guided course. Now, I'm not arguing that - I only
argue that, your claim that this God is theoretically indetectable, is
wrong.

Then provide an example of how we might (theoretically or otherwise)
detect god. You will also need to explain how we would distinguish
this from naturalistic processes.

That's what I did (the theoretical option). Some religions argue
that God has revealed once, and gave us (among other things) a
prophecy of how history would look. Then we check the history, and
find that He's correct (well, assuming these historians are correct,
and that their findings correlate to any religion's claims - I'm only
clarifying the theoretical possibility). That proves that He so guided
history (or has set its initial parameners correctly - which is the
same, considering His time independence). Even if you think that
'naturalistic processes' may yield a guided history, they can't guide
it towards a pre-stated goal.



And just another word on everyone's chains to physics laws - if we
came to the point that we assume that God makes everything
undetectably, we can just as well assume that He violates the laws of
physics when we don't look. It's just as undetectable.

Well yeah - which makes the argument redundant.

This paragraph was meant for urthogie.


Yeah we do - theists have a habit of avoiding evidence.

Atheists have a habit of claiming they have evidence, when at most
they have assumptions.

No - still have evidence. It exists and now you have to demonstrate
your claims if you want science to take them seriously. If you can't
then it's philosophy. Nothing wrong with that but it's a mistake to
conflate them.


Errr... let's just make sure we mean the same things when saying
'science' vs. 'philosophy'. The way I see it, science never explains
why things happen. It only explains how. 'Why' belongs to philosophy.
Physics can describe how two masses attract, and the dependence of
this attraction on the masses, distance, whatever. It can show how
complex motions (e.g. the solar system) are explained by this
assumtion. But it never answers why - why should any mass bother to
attract any other (don't mistake that general relativity explains that
- it's just a different description of the 'how'). Why does any
specifc law exist the way it does, or why are there any laws at all?
physics leaves this question to philosophy. That's okay, but the fact
physicists don't answer it, doesn't mean there doesn't have to be an
answer. It's like the fuel needle again - physics stops by showing the
correlation, being satisfied that all observed phenomena are explained
are predicted by this correlation. The philosopher may argue that we
can't stop here, and must assert the fuel tank's existance. If you
want to define Materialism as science and Dualism as philosophy,
that's okay - it doesn't decrease the necessity to accept Dualism.




The usual argument for Dualism states that Materialism can't explain
things like self-awareness or volition. Protons and electrons don'r
seem to have them, and there's no reason to think that a big number of
them will. It's totally unexplained, materialistically.

Children don't have a theory of mind until about 4 either - why do you
think this is?

I'm not sure what you mean here. Do you mean they don't have a mind?
why do you say that? or do you mean they know nothing on theories of
mind, on phychology? well, they don't know much physics, either. Do
you mean they don't assume that the mind is separate from the body? I
don't know what makes you sure they think their emotions are physical
things. And, they never assume that most of the material world is
actually a vaccum, either. When told, they find it hard to believe.

It is not about the individual function of protons or electrons -
that's a ridiculous level of reductionism. That's like arguing that a
steel girder is not the Eiffel tower therefore the Eiffel tower
doesn't exist.

Girder shows the basic characteristics of the Tower - it only has
some technical problems, of size and shape. If electrond were to show
a little mind, you'd be correct - we could assume that a great number
of them may have a greater mind. But they aren't describable at all in
mental terms. It's like saying that a chair doesn't show any social
behaviour, and to conclude that any number of chairs won't show it.
It's just that 0+0+0+.....0=0. The girder is like
1/10^18+1/10^18...=something detectable.


And your 'evidence' only suggests causual relation between mind and
matter. Such a relation seems also to exist in the other direction -
mood affects health. Happy sick people, which really want to be
healthy, tend to get healthy much faster than sad people who have
given up. Generally health seems to be better if someone's happier.

Actually its correlative rather than causal. If you want to look up
research on seratonergic synaptic functions and how mood influences
health then be my guest. Neuroscience has already been there and done
that. Why do you think SRI's (Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors) actually
work? It's not because they are magic happy pills that make people
feel good - it's because they have a direct impact on how our synaptic
functions work and actually alter mood.

This in turn can have direct influence on other physical symptoms -
especially those related to physically induced stress.

Here again I'm not sure what you want. Do you mean that material can
affect mental and vice versa? agreed. Do you mean that ONLY material
stimuli can change mental states? wrong, as people can indeed get
happier by altering their brain, but also by hearing good news, having
satisfaction of achieving something, etc.. Or just by deciding to be
happy, with no external reason.






See in the lasts posts. Functioning this way, God can do quite a
lot, and be very involved in our lives.

If God is 'involved' then we don't havefree will- see my comments
about the Skinner box.

Again, see above. We certainly don't have an unlimited free will.
Some ancient writer wrote that, if a farmer sees a princess, he'll
never want her, nor have any lust for her, no matter how beautiful she
is. That's because he knows it's impossible. This specific example may
be hard to visualize, in the modern world where people think that
everything is possible and reachable. But the idea is clear - even
volition isn't completely under our control.



God determins the events completely, when He wishes. He leaves some
open edges for us, when He wishes. Why did you rule out this option?

Because it's entirely deterministic. It's also capricious. Why don't
you see this?

Because I don't... Why is it deterministic? He never forces our
choice - only limits its range. If you order a computer to choose a
random number between [0,100], it doesn't mean you've
deterministically defined its output.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Science, God, and Free Will
    ... as the function of mind is ... That they are indicates the direct correlation of the two. ... that Materialism doesn't explain the facts, ... physics when we don't look. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Science, God, and Free Will
    ... Emergent Materialism asserts that the mind is irreducible (http:// ... Materialism doesn't have a convincing answer to the mind problem. ... conservation laws of physics aren't applicable to psychological ... phenomenon for which a complete physical explanation is not known. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Science, God, and Free Will
    ... God has certainly limited our ... as the function of mind is ... that Materialism doesn't explain the facts, ... physics when we don't look. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Science, God, and Free Will
    ... Height is not the emergent property ... If you know physics, you understand ... But it's appropriate to assume the default hypothesis that the mind is ... So you seem to abandon Emergent Materialism in favour of the Identity ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Getting out of this world?
    ... There's just your mind. ... But said physics don't apply in the Nodeworld. ... space occupied by the strings. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)