Predestination, prophecy, omniscience, god has a plan and free will

[Dancefortwo]

So I thought I'd post my reply to this guy on reddit/debateachristian regarding free will, sin and prophecy and stuff.   

I REEEEEALLY want to thank @Paleophyte for his/her fabulous sentence involving the 'zigzag' analogy which I blatantly absconded with.  Thank you Paleophyte.   I want to give you credit for that.   The quotes in brackets are from the Christian on reddit and my replies are not in quotes.

Awww Thanx. Sorry to hear that it sounds a lot like you're talking to a brick wall with this one.

Sometimes I debate Christians online not because I'm trying to convert them, I do it for the Christian lurkers who are on the fence.  It just might plant a seed or raise questions that leads them to toss off the shackles of religion.   I also do it to hone writing skills and organize my thoughts, plus I'm still learing how to spell.  

[Minimalist]

I do it because most of them are prisoners of their early-childhood indoctrination and they never consider that what they were told was nothing but bullshit.

But I don't go hunting for them.  They have to wander into my crosshairs, here.

[Dancefortwo]

I do it because most of them are prisoners of their early-childhood indoctrination and they never consider that what they were told was nothing but bullshit.

But I don't go hunting for them.  They have to wander into my crosshairs, here.

The thing I notice about Christianity and I think it's sort of unique to the religion, is that the person is trapped in fear.  They cannot question what they believe because it's a sin to question what they believe.  There is almost no excape from this kind of religious entrapment when it conflicts with a basic tenet of the religion.   The Muslims chop off people's heads to keep people in line.   It's a different kind of nightmare.

[Alan V]

Has anyone ever said exactly what these "emergent properties" of life and consciousness are, where we find them explained and agreed on by
those who actually study life and consciousness ? How many are there, exactly, and where are they described ?

Good questions.

Life and consciousness are themselves conceived of as emergent properties.  Life emerges as a new property of complex arrangements of nonliving matter, and consciousness emerges as a new property of complex arrangements of previously nonconscious lifeforms, for instance in multicellular organisms with nervous systems uniting them.  Heck, consciousness emerges every day when we wake up from deep sleep. What is essential to emergence is top-down causation, in combination with bottom-up causation, which is what makes the whole different than the sum of the parts.

As for how those two break down into other emergent properties, I am presently reading an excellent book which covers some of the steps involved, titled Feeling & Knowing by Antonio Damasio.  It was only published last year, so as far as I know this is all relatively new in neuroscience and consciousness studies. 

I doubt you will find these issues agreed upon by the various experts in the various fields involved.  All I can say is that there are still different ways to interpret present data, per the Reduction and Emergence book, and that I prefer emergent perspectives from my own reading.

[Minimalist]

I do it because most of them are prisoners of their early-childhood indoctrination and they never consider that what they were told was nothing but bullshit.

But I don't go hunting for them.  They have to wander into my crosshairs, here.

The thing I notice about Christianity and I think it's sort of unique to the religion, is that the person is trapped in fear.  They cannot question what they believe because it's a sin to question what they believe.  There is almost no excape from this kind of religious entrapment when it conflicts with a basic tenet of the religion.   The Muslims chop off people's heads to keep people in line.   It's a different kind of nightmare.

But 400 years ago xhristards were every bit as bad as today's muslims.

[isbelldl]

They claim that "parts behave differently in wholes", but that doesn't necessarily mean that parts behave unreliably in wholes. Maybe I'm just missing something in there.

Wholes behave reliably by their own rules, which are in addition to the rules followed by parts.  In other words, the parts only dictate what happens up to a point.  So for instance, bottom-up processes determine their necessities, like the need to consume food regularly, but top-down processes choose which restaurant at what time.  

That kind of thing.

Do we have any examples of this type of phenomenon occurring other than the life/free will discussion? Say something in mechanics/physics/astronomy or some other field? I feel like if there is another example, I might be able to see it in a way that would make the current discussion more convincing. On the other hand, if there aren't examples beyond thoughts/consciousness/free will, is this some property that is only possible with life or potentially a mistaken belief based in incomplete information? I'm struggling to see reason to think it's not the latter, but if I'm wrong, I'd like to understand it better. If one exists, that second example feels like it would help me get there.

[Alan V]

Do we have any examples of this type of phenomenon occurring other than the life/free will discussion? Say something in mechanics/physics/astronomy or some other field? I feel like if there is another example, I might be able to see it in a way that would make the current discussion more convincing. On the other hand, if there aren't examples beyond thoughts/consciousness/free will, is this some property that is only possible with life or potentially a mistaken belief based in incomplete information? I'm struggling to see reason to think it's not the latter, but if I'm wrong, I'd like to understand it better. If one exists, that second example feels like it would help me get there.

This was a part of my summary of Reduction and Emergence In Science and Philosophy:

"In contrast, scientific emergentists claim 'wholes are more than the sum of their parts,' or 'parts behave differently in wholes.'  They base these contentions on observations from various areas of study, including high-energy superconductivity, thermodynamical systems, Benard cells in chemistry, the eukaryotic cell, slime mold, neural populations, the behavior of eusocial insects like ants and bees, and the flocking behaviors of vertebrates, and not just from the gaps in our knowledge in consciousness studies and applications of quantum physics."

However, since I am not familiar with the other areas of study the author mentioned, I can't add much more.

I will extend the example I already mentioned in such a way as to offer a second example, and hope that makes the emergent perspective clearer.  If I am deciding which restaurant to visit, I may take into account the distance to the restaurant, my budget, my degree of hunger, my tastes, what I have eaten recently, the timing, my weight, whether I am going with other people, whether it's a special occasion, and so on.  All of these issues might conceivably be reducible separately to bottom-up causation in various ways, but their combination as competing and possibly conflicting interests is what makes conscious deliberation and choice necessary.  Basically, humans are so complicated and have so many varieties of bottom-up causation to coordinate that some sort of top-down causation is necessary to plan in a way that satisfies them all serially, if possible.

So for me at least, the question is not whether the top-down causation we call "free will" really exists, but in what situations it is exerted.  More often than not, we rely on habits which can look externally like we are making choices.

[Bucky Ball]

Has anyone ever said exactly what these "emergent properties" of life and consciousness are, where we find them explained and agreed on by
those who actually study life and consciousness ? How many are there, exactly, and where are they described ?

Good questions.

Life and consciousness are themselves conceived of as emergent properties.  Life emerges as a new property of complex arrangements of nonliving matter, and consciousness emerges as a new property of complex arrangements of previously nonconscious lifeforms, for instance in multicellular organisms with nervous systems uniting them.  Heck, consciousness emerges every day when we wake up from deep sleep.  What is essential to emergence is top-down causation, in combination with bottom-up causation, which is what makes the whole different than the sum of the parts.

As for how those two break down into other emergent properties, I am presently reading an excellent book which covers some of the steps involved, titled Feeling & Knowing by Antonio Damasio.  It was only published last year, so as far as I know this is all relatively new in neuroscience and consciousness studies. 

I doubt you will find these issues agreed upon by the various experts in the various fields involved.  All I can say is that there are still different ways to interpret present data, per the Reduction and Emergence book, and that I prefer emergent perspectives from my own reading.

Thanks for that.
In a sense, I suppose I should recuse myself from this debate, as I see patients in acute care, and only see them at their worst.
I only see it all from the reductionist POV, along with their scans and Neuro evaluation scales.

[mordant]

The thing I notice about Christianity and I think it's sort of unique to the religion, is that the person is trapped in fear.  They cannot question what they believe because it's a sin to question what they believe.  There is almost no excape from this kind of religious entrapment when it conflicts with a basic tenet of the religion.   The Muslims chop off people's heads to keep people in line.   It's a different kind of nightmare.

But 400 years ago xhristards were every bit as bad as today's muslims.

And the way things are going, they'll soon be every bit as bad or worse.

[isbelldl]

Do we have any examples of this type of phenomenon occurring other than the life/free will discussion?...

This was a part of my summary of Reduction and Emergence In Science and Philosophy:

"In contrast, scientific emergentists claim 'wholes are more than the sum of their parts,' or 'parts behave differently in wholes.'  They base these contentions on observations from various areas of study, including high-energy superconductivity, thermodynamical systems, Benard cells in chemistry, the eukaryotic cell, slime mold, neural populations, the behavior of eusocial insects like ants and bees, and the flocking behaviors of vertebrates, and not just from the gaps in our knowledge in consciousness studies and applications of quantum physics."

However, since I am not familiar with the other areas of study the author mentioned, I can't add much more.

I will extend the example I already mentioned in such a way as to offer a second example, and hope that makes the emergent perspective clearer.  If I am deciding which restaurant to visit, I may take into account the distance to the restaurant, my budget, my degree of hunger, my tastes, what I have eaten recently, the timing, my weight, whether I am going with other people, whether it's a special occasion, and so on.  All of these issues might conceivably be reducible separately to bottom-up causation in various ways, but their combination as competing and possibly conflicting interests is what makes conscious deliberation and choice necessary.  Basically, humans are so complicated and have so many varieties of bottom-up causation to coordinate that some sort of top-down causation is necessary to plan in a way that satisfies them all serially, if possible.

So for me at least, the question is not whether the top-down causation we call "free will" really exists, but in what situations it is exerted.  More often than not, we rely on habits which can look externally like we are making choices.

So, I won't have much time for a while to look into this further myself, but I did look up Benard cells first since they had a proper name, so I figured easier to start looking into. I will note, I'm only going off Wikipedia, so again, my research may not be in-depth enough either. This was the section that seemed most relevant though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh%E...convection
Microscopic perturbations of the initial conditions are enough to produce a non-deterministic macroscopic effect. That is, in principle, there is no way to calculate the macroscopic effect of a microscopic perturbation. This inability to predict long-range conditions and sensitivity to initial-conditions are characteristics of chaotic or complex systems (i.e., the butterfly effect).

My understanding of chaotic or complex systems is that they technically are still predictable, but that behavior is so sensitive to change in inputs or other variables that they're functionally not. So, ultimately I'm trying to figure out the following:
- Is my understanding of complex systems wrong?
- Is my assumption that human behavior can be described as a complex system as I understand it?
- If my understanding of complex systems is right and that human behavior is a complex system, am I missing something else that would allow free will to not just be the illusion of choice arising from a complex system?

[Alan V]

My understanding of chaotic or complex systems is that they technically are still predictable, but that behavior is so sensitive to change in inputs or other variables that they're functionally not. So, ultimately I'm trying to figure out the following:
- Is my understanding of complex systems wrong?
- Is my assumption that human behavior can be described as a complex system as I understand it?
- If my understanding of complex systems is right and that human behavior is a complex system, am I missing something else that would allow free will to not just be the illusion of choice arising from a complex system?

Those are the kinds of questions which keep this topic open to debate and further research.

[Rhythmcs]

Giant caveat here, the type of free will still posited by researchers, and debated between them, is not the type of free will posited by god botherers and around which these debates generally center on a place like an atheist discussion board. It's a compatibilist free will..you could just call it a will and you'd lose nothing in the description or assertion of it...because no one credibly believes it to be free anymore.

We may be too good at systematically manipulating ourselves and each other to take it seriously, at this point. We'd be out quite a few billions of dollars, among other notable differences that could/would be.. if peoples will were free in that traditional sense.

[bluewater]

If I am deciding which restaurant to visit, I may take into account the distance to the restaurant, my budget, my degree of hunger, my tastes, what I have eaten recently, the timing, my weight, whether I am going with other people, whether it's a special occasion, and so on. All of these issues might conceivably be reducible separately to bottom-up causation in various ways, but their combination as competing and possibly conflicting interests is what makes conscious deliberation and choice necessary. Basically, humans are so complicated and have so many varieties of bottom-up causation to coordinate that some sort of top-down causation is necessary to plan in a way that satisfies them all serially, if possible.

You are using your hypothesis (”if I am deciding" - a decision being non-material) to prove your hypothesis (non-material emerges from material).

Necessity, being non-material, also assumes something non-material exists.

It would be helpful if you could provide a definition of 'material.'

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Heinlein's "All you zombies."

[Alan V]

If I am deciding which restaurant to visit, I may take into account the distance to the restaurant, my budget, my degree of hunger, my tastes, what I have eaten recently, the timing, my weight, whether I am going with other people, whether it's a special occasion, and so on.  All of these issues might conceivably be reducible separately to bottom-up causation in various ways, but their combination as competing and possibly conflicting interests is what makes conscious deliberation and choice necessary.  Basically, humans are so complicated and have so many varieties of bottom-up causation to coordinate that some sort of top-down causation is necessary to plan in a way that satisfies them all serially, if possible.

You are using your hypothesis (”if I am deciding" - a decision being non-material) to prove your hypothesis (non-material emerges from material).

Actually I was attempting, in a series of posts, to explain emergent materialism.  Many atheists in this forum think reductive materialism is the only possible logical position, whereas I have read that emergent materialism is still being taken quite seriously by scientists and philosophers. So far, neither position is confirmed by careful studies (at least as far as I have read), but we atheists still have our preferences for various reasons. Thus the discussion.

However, I do assert that what you call "non-material" emerges from the material as you say.  I prefer to call "non-material" thought processes, decisions, emotions, and so on "abstract information processing."  Abstractions do not have the same ontological status as their material substrates, i.e., nerve cells, brain chemistry, and electricity.  The question you should ask is whether there is, indeed, anything else necessary for them to exist as we observe. From what I have read, most modern scientists and philosophers no longer consider spiritual theories justifiable since they are such uneconomical explanations for observations.

Necessity, being non-material, also assumes something non-material exists.

"Necessity" is another abstraction. You should avoid reifying abstractions.

It would be helpful if you could provide a definition of 'material.'

According to Google, materialism is the philosophical doctrine "that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications." Most, but not all, atheists are also materialists. I have a friend who doesn't believe in God but still believes in spiritual concepts like precognition, though that is rare for atheists. He is a non-materialist atheist.

In any case, one reason I stopped posting in this forum was that I was repeating myself too much. The above response is just me repeating myself yet again. Others can take up the conversation after this, if they want to. I will bow out again.

[bluewater]

You are using your hypothesis (”if I am deciding" - a decision being non-material) to prove your hypothesis (non-material emerges from material).

Actually I was attempting, in a series of posts, to explain emergent materialism.  Many atheists in this forum think reductive materialism is the only possible logical position, whereas I have read that emergent materialism is still being taken quite seriously by scientists and philosophers.  So far, neither position is confirmed by careful studies (at least as far as I have read), but we atheists still have our preferences for various reasons.  Thus the discussion.

However, I do assert that what you call "non-material" emerges from the material as you say.  I prefer to call "non-material" thought processes, decisions, emotions, and so on "abstract information processing."  Abstractions do not have the same ontological status as their material substrates, i.e., nerve cells, brain chemistry, and electricity.  The question you should ask is whether there is, indeed, anything else necessary for them to exist as we observe.  From what I have read, most modern scientists and philosophers no longer consider spiritual theories justifiable since they are such uneconomical explanations for observations.

Necessity, being non-material, also assumes something non-material exists.

"Necessity" is another abstraction.  You should avoid reifying abstractions.

It would be helpful if you could provide a definition of 'material.'

According to Google, materialism is the philosophical doctrine "that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications."  Most, but not all, atheists are also materialists.  I have a friend who doesn't believe in God but still believes in spiritual concepts like precognition, though that is rare for atheists.  He is a non-materialist atheist.

In any case, one reason I stopped posting in this forum was that I was repeating myself too much.  The above response is just me repeating myself yet again.  Others can take up the conversation after this, if they want to.  I will bow out again.

I appreciate your patience and kindness, Alan. Thank you.

[TinyDave]

You are using your hypothesis (”if I am deciding" - a decision being non-material) to prove your hypothesis (non-material emerges from material).

Actually I was attempting, in a series of posts, to explain emergent materialism.  Many atheists in this forum think reductive materialism is the only possible logical position, whereas I have read that emergent materialism is still being taken quite seriously by scientists and philosophers. So far, neither position is confirmed by careful studies (at least as far as I have read), but we atheists still have our preferences for various reasons. Thus the discussion.

However, I do assert that what you call "non-material" emerges from the material as you say.  I prefer to call "non-material" thought processes, decisions, emotions, and so on "abstract information processing."  Abstractions do not have the same ontological status as their material substrates, i.e., nerve cells, brain chemistry, and electricity.  The question you should ask is whether there is, indeed, anything else necessary for them to exist as we observe. From what I have read, most modern scientists and philosophers no longer consider spiritual theories justifiable since they are such uneconomical explanations for observations.

Necessity, being non-material, also assumes something non-material exists.

"Necessity" is another abstraction. You should avoid reifying abstractions.

It would be helpful if you could provide a definition of 'material.'

According to Google, materialism is the philosophical doctrine "that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications." Most, but not all, atheists are also materialists. I have a friend who doesn't believe in God but still believes in spiritual concepts like precognition, though that is rare for atheists. He is a non-materialist atheist.

In any case, one reason I stopped posting in this forum was that I was repeating myself too much. The above response is just me repeating myself yet again. Others can take up the conversation after this, if they want to. I will bow out again.

Unless I am mistaken Alan V you are raising the question of asking the right question.

How? and Why? are often conflated, even though they represent diametric philosophical questions.
I'm sorry that you don't post as much as you once did, perhaps that decision was predetermined.

[OakTree500]

So I'm having a bit of an online conversation with a Christian (on reddit/debate a Christian)

Somebody had posted in an "ask reddit" post regarding unexplored areas of the world, about some mountain that was alleged to have Noah's Ark on it. It instantly set off an alarm of "...wait you think Noahs ark/the flood is a real event?" and have asked that question on an "Ask a christian" page - so far, may people legit think it happened and I think my brain is exploding with how absolutely mental that is.

In todays day and age, people thing the ENTIRE WORLD was flooded and that an old man [Old is an understatement as well] built the worlds biggest wooden boat [which would not survive a flood/the rain that would be needed to wash the earth away] and also gathered several of every animal on board........

.....I think I've genuinly just lost my faith in humanity today.

[Dom]

So I'm having a bit of an online conversation with a Christian (on reddit/debate a Christian)

Somebody had posted in an "ask reddit" post regarding unexplored areas of the world, about some mountain that was alleged to have Noah's Ark on it. It instantly set off an alarm of "...wait you think Noahs ark/the flood is a real event?" and have asked that question on an "Ask a christian" page - so far, may people legit think it happened and I think my brain is exploding with how absolutely mental that is.

In todays day and age, people thing the ENTIRE WORLD was flooded and that an old man [Old is an understatement as well] built the worlds biggest wooden boat [which would not survive a flood/the rain that would be needed to wash the earth away] and also gathered several of every animal on board........

.....I think I've genuinly just lost my faith in humanity today.

God works in mysterious ways...

[rocinantexyz]

In todays day and age, people thing the ENTIRE WORLD was flooded and that an old man [Old is an understatement as well] built the worlds biggest wooden boat [which would not survive a flood/the rain that would be needed to wash the earth away] and also gathered several of every animal on board........

.....I think I've genuinly just lost my faith in humanity today.

Yes it flooded the whole world and killed everyone. And yet somehow the Egyptian Old Kingdom civilization survived it apparently unscathed!