Free Will vs Determinism

[Immanuel Can]

Improbable things only have to happen once to be actual things.

That is true. But when things are highly improbable, we always look for a cause for that improbability. We don't just accept it as a "given"; we ask how it could come about that way, and what caused it to happen that way.

You notice the news never reports on all the cars that don't blow up.

That's different. That would not be reporting on a low-probability event, but instead, on a non-event. You'll notice that if something really unexpected and weird happens, all the papers DO report on that.

[OuterLimits]

Improbable things only have to happen once to be actual things.

That is true. But when things are highly improbable, we always look for a cause for that improbability. We don't just accept it as a "given"; we ask how it could come about that way, and what caused it to happen that way.

You notice the news never reports on all the cars that don't blow up.

That's different. That would not be reporting on a low-probability event, but instead, on a non-event. You'll notice that if something really unexpected and weird happens, all the papers DO report on that.

If there are infinite universes and only one of them has a planet where everything is right for life, then if you are alive and conscious you will definitely find yourself there and not elsewhere. Then it is just as reasonable to ask "why isn't someone else here rather than me" but it is the same kind of question. That person who is there, whoever they are, will wonder why they are there instead of someone else being there.

[Immanuel Can]

If there are infinite universes...

We should note first that this is a hypothesis entirely devoid of empirical proof...and, if we understand the implication of the word "universe," it is a hypothesis which is destined to remain eternally incapable of empirical proof. For if one such "universe" were to "touch" ours, then it would, by definition be part of our "universe," and cease to be "infinite" or "alternate" at all, and so would self-defeat the hypothesis of "other" universes.

But when we do, in fact, find that we exist, what the rational person does is to seek an empirical reason or cause for our existing. That's the logical and scientific thing to do.

As for positing the existence of infinite, unseen and unseeable alternate universes...well, that's a game. It merely testifies to the desperation of those who are willing even to abandon causality and science as a way of explaining, so long as they can create something that allows them to escape the First Cause hypothesis. And they'll even take a delusion or pure speculation, if nothing empirical or scientific is available.

That would just be sad. So I'm sure we're not going there, right?

[OuterLimits]

If there are infinite universes...

We should note first that this is a hypothesis entirely devoid of empirical proof...and, if we understand the implication of the word "universe," it is a hypothesis which is destined to remain eternally incapable of empirical proof. For if one such "universe" were to "touch" ours, then it would, by definition be part of our "universe," and cease to be "infinite" or "alternate" at all, and so would self-defeat the hypothesis of "other" universes.

But when we do, in fact, find that we exist, what the rational person does is to seek an empirical reason or cause for our existing. That's the logical and scientific thing to do.

As for positing the existence of infinite, unseen and unseeable alternate universes...well, that's a game. It merely testifies to the desperation of those who are willing even to abandon causality and science as a way of explaining, so long as they can create something that allows them to escape the First Cause hypothesis. And they'll even take a delusion or pure speculation, if nothing empirical or scientific is available.

That would just be sad. So I'm sure we're not going there, right?

What alternative do you favor? Anything which is unlikely was made by a powerful and knowledgeable agent?

That somehow is a less desperate approach?

What's the least desperate approach you can think of?

[Immanuel Can]

What alternative do you favor?

Well, given that time is linear, which all the evidence supports, that would argue for the impossibility of an infinite past, and so makes inescapable the necessity of a First Cause -- either an impersonal one, or one with intelligence. Those are the only two possible alternatives...unless you can somehow think of another.

Anything which is unlikely was made by a powerful and knowledgeable agent?

Not "anything which is unlikely." There's no necessity that a roulette wheel hitting a green "0" once needs explication, even though that is, on a one-spin basis, unlikely. After all, the marble has to land on something. But it would require explication if that same roulette wheel hit nothing but green "0"s for an entire day. That would be weird, and would need us to come up with some kind of explanation, wouldn't it?

Just so, if the odds of our existing were as small as one in a hundred, say, then it would really be unremarkable. Even one in a thousand or one in a million might fall short of a need of explication. But if the chances of our existing were within an extremely small window, and especially if there were not merely several but an infinite number of other ways things could have ended up, but somehow they didn't, then we would need to start looking for answers as to why we got the result we did, when by all rights and chances we should have got something wildly different.

Some secular scientists, apparently thinking impartially, have raised that very issue. Take, for example, this: http://bangordailynews.com/2013/08/31/e ... dnt-exist/

If we go looking for some reason that the odds were all against us, and yet we happen to exist, there'd be nothing desperate in that. We call it "causality," and, of course, it's a scientific basic.

[OuterLimits]

What alternative do you favor?

Well, given that time is linear, which all the evidence supports, that would argue for the impossibility of an infinite past, and so makes inescapable the necessity of a First Cause -- either an impersonal one, or one with intelligence. Those are the only two possible alternatives...unless you can somehow think of another.

Anything which is unlikely was made by a powerful and knowledgeable agent?

Not "anything which is unlikely." There's no necessity that a roulette wheel hitting a green "0" once needs explication, even though that is, on a one-spin basis, unlikely. After all, the marble has to land on something. But it would require explication if that same roulette wheel hit nothing but green "0"s for an entire day. That would be weird, and would need us to come up with some kind of explanation, wouldn't it?

Just so, if the odds of our existing were as small as one in a hundred, say, then it would really be unremarkable. Even one in a thousand or one in a million might fall short of a need of explication. But if the chances of our existing were within an extremely small window, and especially if there were not merely several but an infinite number of other ways things could have ended up, but somehow they didn't, then we would need to start looking for answers as to why we got the result we did, when by all rights and chances we should have got something wildly different.

Some secular scientists, apparently thinking impartially, have raised that very issue. Take, for example, this: http://bangordailynews.com/2013/08/31/e ... dnt-exist/

If we go looking for some reason that the odds were all against us, and yet we happen to exist, there'd be nothing desperate in that. We call it "causality," and, of course, it's a scientific basic.

Where do you get all of this "didn't end up" nonsense. Perhaps indeed everything ended up! And similar to the universe we see through telescopes, life is here and out there appears (so far) to be a whole lotta nothing. Complexity from simplicity being pretty well demonstrated daily, we're not looking at the lotto wheel hitting '0' repeatedly, just once where everything is the right way. Many Worlds is a very popular approach to QM among scientists. All those barren sterile universes are indeed posited to actually exist, it's just that nobody in them is having this conversation.

[Immanuel Can]

Many Worlds is a very popular approach to QM among scientists. All those barren sterile universes are indeed posited to actually exist, it's just that nobody in them is having this conversation.

"Posited" is the important word.

In this case, it manifestly means, "offered as an idea without a scratch of empirical evidence," or "offered as a pure speculation."

The "universes" which they "posit" to exist have no empirical evidence for their existence; and highly conveniently, if such evidence were ever to appear, would no longer be "universes," but just another part of this universe. So these random speculations can never, by definition, be expected (or, they hope, required) to have evidence.

What entitles that kind of bizarre reasoning to be called "science" at all? It can't be enough that some of the bizarre speculators who offer it have lab coats, can it? We're not that bamboozled by the bare "appeal to authority" fallacy, are we?

[OuterLimits]

In this case, it manifestly means, "offered as an idea without a scratch of empirical evidence," or "offered as a pure speculation."

What are the most far flung things that you would accept as "empirical evidence"? Are there distant galaxies?

Also, what is so unacceptable about an infinite past?

[Immanuel Can]

What are the most far flung things that you would accept as "empirical evidence"? Are there distant galaxies?

Why must we opt for the "far flung"?

The idea that there are additional galaxies beyond our own is already scientifically established. How many they are, nobody knows. Is that "far flung" enough to be responsive to your question?

Also, what is so unacceptable about an infinite past?

It's definitely impossible. We know that. We have both empirical and mathematical proofs that show it is inconceivable for a linear and causal universe to be thought to be past-infinite.

[OuterLimits]

Also, what is so unacceptable about an infinite past?

It's definitely impossible. We know that. We have both empirical and mathematical proofs that show it is inconceivable for a linear and causal universe to be thought to be past-infinite.

Proofs are disproved every day. The idea that there is a cycle of "big bang, big crunch, repeat" - what kind of "proofs" are there that this is not possible. Penrose favors something which repeats but in a different way.

"Mr God, where do you get your ideas."

If the universe has a creator, where did the impetus come from, in the creator's mind, to create the universe? Do we need to ask who created cause-and-effect?

[Immanuel Can]

The idea that there is a cycle of "big bang, big crunch, repeat" - what kind of "proofs" are there that this is not possible. Penrose favors something which repeats but in a different way.

Alexander Vilenkin:
"All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.
With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe."

So no past "Big Crunch" cycles. And as to the future of such supposed cycles, there is the fact that there is insufficient density of matter to produce a "Big Crunch" in the observable universe, and the fact that the exploded matter has exceeded escape trajectory for any such reversal. There is the fact that there is zero evidence of a "Big Crunch," and it's presently entirely a speculative model -- the only value of which is to avoid Vilenkin's conclusion, which he says is inevitable, given the data.

If the universe has a creator, where did the impetus come from, in the creator's mind, to create the universe?

It's a odd question to pose: maybe you can explain what you mean. If God is, as I suppose, a free Agent, capable of deciding for Himself what He will do, then you would have to ask Him why He has done what He has done, wouldn't you?

Do we need to ask who created cause-and-effect?

Cause and effect pose no problem for Theism at all. What would we expect of a law-giver God, except that He would assert particular scientific laws to create the observable regularities upon which we depend?

Francis Bacon, the inventor of the Scientific Method, was a devout Theist. He expected scientific regularities because He believed God to be rational and consistent. And it turns out he was right. But his original supposition was derived from his Theism, not from Determinist view. And you can read Bacon for yourself, and see that.

[OuterLimits]

If the universe has a creator, where did the impetus come from, in the creator's mind, to create the universe?

It's a odd question to pose: maybe you can explain what you mean. If God is, as I suppose, a free Agent, capable of deciding for Himself what He will do, then you would have to ask Him why He has done what He has done, wouldn't you?

This is why most physical scientists, when pressed, will back off on the very idea of a "free agent" in the first place. If all entities in the world are made of particles following laws, then every behavior comes from the past.

This is in fact the major point which creator-ism has to answer: the psycho-physical one. What physical events led up to the automatic creation of the universe - or what psychological events led up to the creator selecting to create the universe?

[Viveka]

If the universe has a creator, where did the impetus come from, in the creator's mind, to create the universe?

It's a odd question to pose: maybe you can explain what you mean. If God is, as I suppose, a free Agent, capable of deciding for Himself what He will do, then you would have to ask Him why He has done what He has done, wouldn't you?

This is why most physical scientists, when pressed, will back off on the very idea of a "free agent" in the first place. If all entities in the world are made of particles following laws, then every behavior comes from the past.

This is in fact the major point which creator-ism has to answer: the psycho-physical one. What physical events led up to the automatic creation of the universe - or what psychological events led up to the creator selecting to create the universe?

Some may say that since the nature of nature is a lack of intelligence then it requires an intelligent creator to make an intelligent being.

[OuterLimits]

Some may say that since the nature of nature is a lack of intelligence then it requires an intelligent creator to make an intelligent being.

If man has agency, then it seems it must come from agency, since it makes no sense it might come from reductionist automatism. But then science only works by reduction to mechanisms.

[Immanuel Can]

This is why most physical scientists, when pressed, will back off on the very idea of a "free agent" in the first place.

Actually, I doubt very much that they do "back off" that idea, and know of quite a number that clearly do not.

But even supposing some did, that would only really indicate a failure on their part even to entertain the possibility of non-physical entities existing...but would do nothing to suggest whether or not such do, in fact, exist. The existence of free agents is not dependent of physical scientists' willingness to believe in them, nor are physical scientists the most qualified people to speak of anything metaphysical.

Ironically, all of these putative scientists -- just like everybody else -- would be bound to get up in the morning and routinely ACT as if free will were a fact. They don't say, "Well, if my teeth are destined to be brushed, they'll brush themselves." They don't say, "I don't love my wife, I adrenaline and testosterone her." They don't believe that if they fail to save for their kids' college then Determinism will do it for them, and so on. They act like the rest of us: they believe they have selves, they believe in the morality of choices, they see themselves as causal agents who must make decisions, and who will produce different outcomes if they make different decisions, and so on.

If all entities in the world are made of particles following laws, then every behavior comes from the past.

You mean, if strict Materialism is true. Yes, that would then follow. Good thing strict Materialism is not true.

This is in fact the major point which creator-ism has to answer: the psycho-physical one. What physical events led up to the automatic creation of the universe - or what psychological events led up to the creator selecting to create the universe?

If you are supposing this because you suppose that God would have to be subject to the very causal chain of which He is Creator, then I think it's pretty self-evidently a strange supposition.

One basic criterion of "Supreme Being" is that He alone must be uncaused, and His decisions must be the decisions of the ultimate free-will-possessing Agent. So only if you were imagining a strictly Materialist universe, with (oddly enough) some kind of Materialist Supreme Being presiding over it, would you even have a reason to suppose that was a reasonable question.

To everyone else, it just looks like a complete misunderstanding of the concept "God."