I always suspected theists don't actually have balls.... >;-}>

Agreed. And I support it whole heartedly...

But, is it nessesarily deterministic?

Chaos theory says no...

Just as it is obvious that you are a tacky, garish and ultimately tasteless cloth pattern, eh, 'paisley'...

It's hard to fathom how someone who believes in an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent god, (magic) can at the same time claim 'free will'. The nature of omniscience means that all events are known in advance, set in stone, as it were, unchangeable... the 'free will' of the theist is delusional...

Of course, since there is no such magic being...we do have free will, in all it's chaotic glory...

Synergy doesn't negate materialism, nor does materialism negate synergy...

It appears that Dorothy wasn't the only one who loved her straw-man most of all...

LC >;-}>

This is interesting. You say you agree - agree that every physical event has a physical cause. But then you question as to whether this is deterministic when it is deterministic by definition.

Sorry, but you are misinformed. Chaos theory is deterministic.

The "paisley" design is considered to be a very sophisticated and classy pattern. My guess is that the gentleman (Robert DeNiro) in your avatar has a "pasiley necktie." Paisley neckties were very fashionable in the late 1980's and early 1990's when "Angel Heart" was filmed.

Also, I am surprised to learn that someone who is espousing the implications of "chaos theory" doesn't have an appreciation for the connection between chaos theory, fractals, and the paisley pattern.

Actually, I never stated whether I believed in free will or not. This is an assumption on your part. I simply stated freethinking presupposes free decision-making which presupposes free will.

Also, the theological character trait of "omniscience" does not preclude free will. Omniscience simply means, in this context, that God knows all that there is to know, not necessarily that the future is completely predictable and already known. This view is known as "open theism." Open theism (a.k.a. free will theism) is a very popular movement today in evangelical circles.

Whether determinism, indeterminism, or acausality hold true does not threaten theistic belief. Each view has implications that support some form of theism.

I have already provided you with documentation that states explicitly that chaos theory is deterministic, not indeterminate. However, even if it were indeterminate, you seem to be missing the entire point. Indeterminism implies that you have physical events without physical causes. The bottom line is that indeterminism sounds the death knell of materialism.

Also, this is very strange. You want to call the free will of theism delusional while you allow yourself the luxury of asserting that you have free will. I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways.

It does negate scientific materialism. Scientific holism supports my worldview, not yours (unless you fancy yourself as some kind of New Age pantheist).

The fact is that the worldview of atheistic materialism is made out of straw and the atheists on this forum are having a hissy fit because I am simply lighting matches and playing with fire (metaphorically speaking, of course).

You call this an argument? Wikipedia's articles cite sources. If you have a problem with anything stated in the Wikipedia articles that I have quoted, then I expect you to do your homework and explain why they are in error. If not, then you have nothing to back up your assertion.

When I feel good, I don't blame it on God. When I feel angry, I don't blame it on God. Humans often have free-floating emotions. We don't need a target for our anger to feel angry. In addition, I fucking curse all the time, and I don't need any goose-phlegm reason to do so.

Or: Sometimes a banana is just a banana.

But aside from that, you've avoided the whole topic of the psychology of cursing by presenting usupported blanket statements. You've constructed a faulty syllogism, and present that as "proof."

As a psychology-related aside: have you ever been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder?

Didn't I explain QM to Paisley in another thread?

That was interesting Bob / Paisley. I have a zillion questions that will have to wait.

  I just wanted to share this again, with especially with P, and say again thanks P for your posts. As a hard core Atheist I do have an appreciation for the Pantheists awe and ideas, tho I disagree with their view of consciousness or anything being separate from material, or energy/matter.  That is, if I am understanding any of this correctly. (???) I am not a well read guy. Thanks again, and understand my onryness is directed at the causes of "unnecessary" suffering. > "Separation" Dogma.

Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, has described Pantheism as “sexed-up atheism.”

http://www.pantheism.net/atheism.htm

"Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings."

    Yes, i god as you, 100% connected and natural. Defeat all Dogma .... all of it, even as it is found in Pantheism etc.

 [ that was awesome Nigel the Bold ; yeah, "Discussing "free will" is mutual philosophic masturbation."   ]

I don't see anything in your response that remotely addresses the issue I broached earlier in this thread concerning the stubbing of one's toe. I suggest you do your homework first and then come back with some kind of argument.

When you say "we," I assume you are referring to physicists. And to say "we don't know what all those causes are" displays a basic misunderstanding of quantum mechanics. According to the standard interpretation of QM, nature is fundamentally indeterminate. Quantum events are uncaused and unbidden. Pure chance events have no cause by definition.

Virtual particles (quantum fluctuations) pop in and out of existence, uncaused and unbidden. Sounds like "creation ex nihilo" to me.

The standard interpretation of QM states that nature is fundamentally indeterminate. To be indeterminate means to be "without a cause" by definition. If something is without a physical cause, then it is beyond the purview of science. And what is beyond the purview of science is definitely open to philosophical reflection. If you're not capable of philosophical reflection, then you have dispensed with your rational faculties and therefore forfeit your right to engage in a rational discussion.

Stop the nonsense. Any QM interpretation other than the standard interpretation is philosophical speculation. This includes the "information theory" interpretation of QM.

Wrong on two counts!

1) There's evidence for free will. It's called first-person experience. 

2) The prevailing scientific evidence suggests that nature is fundamentally indeterminate.

Both present evidence to suggest that materialism is patently false. And unless you can present some counter-argument, I suggest that you make your exit now.

We know that information only has meaning relative to conscious intelligence. 

Atheistic materialism is at best a personal belief - a personal belief that is held by individuals in spite of the fact that there is compelling scientific and first-person evidence to suggest that it is patently false.

Just FYI, Spinoza's pantheistic God is completely deterministic. This is the primary reason why Einstein could not accept QM.

"Atheistic Materialism" is a metaphysical discussion, not a scientific one.

If QM proves indeterminism, then "atheistic materialism" is patently false.

Just FYI, chaos theory is deterministic, not indeterminate.  

Who's "we?" Speak for yourself.

It's like taking one of two positions: Either you accept the idea that conscious will is fundamental or resign yourself to the absurd position that physical events do not have causes. Personally, I like my position better than yours. 

HEY P , How free is the Sun , How free is the Earth ???  And so, how free are we ???

Nothing I added to the concept of matter/energy (structure, process, etc) was spiritual or mental (in the sense of being generated or governed in any way by thought ). It was just a way to more fully describe the way science studies the universe. We don't just analyse the composition of matter, we study the dynamics of the interactions of matter and energy, and the evolution/emergence of complex structures such as galaxies and DNA molecules, solar systems and the human brain and mind.

If these ideas and objects of study do not fit into your definition of materialism, then it is not your version of materialism, but it is definitely not spiritual either. You will note that nowhere in that description did I refer to a non-physical force, by the way.

In accordance with the true scientific approach, if we identify any currently mysterious influence or phenomenon which can be characterised consistently and predictably, and cannot be currently decomposed into known elements/forces, it is just added to the list of physical 'forces' or factors, just as historically happened with invisible influences like 'electricity' and 'gravity', and in more recent times , the strong and weak nuclear forces.

For that matter, if, as in QM, there appear to be phenomena which exhibit purely random behaviour, by which I mean displaying a probability that is definable with exquisite accuracy by a relatively simple mathematical equation, or even a constant, such as seems to apply to virtual particles, then that means that that behaviour is added to the lexicon of science, Note that pure randomness, or events whose rate of occurrence over time converges unerringly to precisely defined value is utterly inconsistent with any kind of meaningful thought process, otherwise you would have to assign sentience to a tossed coin...

It is your simplistic concept of 'materialism' that is way past its use-by date.

You do realize that "indeterminate" merely means we don't know the cause, and it seems as if it's perfectly random, right? It doesn't mean uncaused. Nowhere does Copenhagen claim it's "uncaused." He says it's "probabilistic."

There are other things that appear probabilistic, and would meet the terms of the Copenhagen interpretation. Do you know what they are? I'll give you a hint, since you'll probably need it. It's been mentioned a couple of times here already, and its initials are "chaos theory."

BobSpence1 referred to it, talking about fluctuations of energy. This happens on the planck scale, and is perfectly consistent with the standard interpretation.

Riiiiight.

Here's the problem: we don't know if they are uncaused or not. All we know is that they do. Energy fluctuations on the planck scale would also account for this behavior. Or are you missing that point? You seem to be. You seem to be missing the point that there's a lot we still don't know.

Any claim of knowledge you have on this point is not certain. You may be certain, but your certainty is unfounded in our current knowledge.

Do you see where 1a. is more applicable? You've had many people here try to explain it, many people who've had an actual education in physics, with some who've even practiced in the field. So far, the only one who even vaguely supports your idea is Eloise, and even she disagreed with you on most points.

What is your education in QM? Have you even studied it at university at all? I believe you have not. You certianly are completely incorrect on many of your assertions about it. And your constant insistence that we know the nature of QM events (and that is the Mind of God) is so fucking baseless, you're not even in the same ballpark as "the standard interpretation."

"Stop the nonsense." That's funny. You are a funny, funny man.

I wasn't talking about the information theory of QM. You're the one bringing up information theory. (Yes, I've mentioned it before in other threads, but that's because I thought you'd be interested, and because it's fun. Not because it's likely.)

What I'm mentioning is chaos theory as applied to energy fluctuations at the planck scale. This model explains both the indeterminate nature of QM (with causes!) and the spontaneous creation and mutual destruction of particles and anti-particles. This model was first brought up by BobSpence1, and further mentioned by me, in the hopes that you'd get the hint, and actually address the fucking issues. Instead, you go off on your repetitive (and quite ridiculous) assertion that "atheistic materialism can't account for QM."

As it turns out, it can. Just because you are too caught up in your dogma to recognize sufficient explanations isn't our problem. It's yours.

1. How does first-person experience "prove" anything about free will? All it means is you have the illusion of free will, and your brain accepts it.

2. "Indeterminate" does not mean "uncaused." It means simply that it's unpredictable, random, seemingly-arbitrary. As has been explained to you over and over (and you haven't rebutted), chaos is indistinguishable from true randomness. We've presented a chaos-based mechanism that fits the standard, accepted QM model.

You've  presented nothing but your same old tired arguments that are based on a presupposition of God. Any argument that presupposes God is a dead end.

So, unless you have something new to present, I suggest that you make your exit now.

Who's this "we" you speak of?

I suggest you go do your homework. This is a stupid statement, and if you knew anything about informtion theory and its implication in QM, you'd have avoided embarrassing yourself like that.

Again, "indeterminism" does not mean "uncaused." That is merely one possible (and fairly-well debunked, at this point) interpretation. Usually, it's the one brought up by blow-hard philosophers who like to think they know more than scientists, and are afraid to admit their persuit of knowledge is subjective and doomed to failure.

Like it all you want. Doesn't make it right.

The thought that intelligence suffuses the universe is also absurd. Basically, any claim to knowledge we don't have is absurd. The only rational approach is to accept the knowledge we have, admit the knowledge we don't have, and live our lives to the best of our ability.

You have a "God of the Gaps." You are cherry-picking the most ridiculous interpretations of QM to support your model, and you avoid any real point brought against you. You are not going to change your mind, as you suffer from a mental illness, NPD. Your argument is repetitive and tiresome and contains nothing of interest. I only jumped in because I wanted you to address BobSpence1's post, rather than dodge it like you've dodged everything else.

But I see that you are incapable of actual discussion. You aren't here to discuss: you're here to lecture us on how wrong we are, and how smart and interesting you are. Sorry, Professor, you're not nearly as interesting nor intelligent as you think yourself. I wish you could engage in an intelligent discussion, because I think you'd have real points to bring up. You border on being fun once in a while.

Better luck next time, though.

Others have done that better than I have. You haven't looked at their arguments. Why should I be less of an ass to you as you have to everyone else here?

I guess this is an improvement over your signature potty humor. Hopefully in the near future, you will actually make an effort to formulate some kind of logical argument.

I see little point, as you have demonstrated in this and every other thread you have participated in that you either dismiss logical arguments or respond with language tricks or other sophisms.

Another comment on chaos theory, indeterminate, etc.

A chaotic system is fully deterministic, in that we can quite definitely trace the cause/effect chain thru the system, but we cannot predict which outcome of the possible outcomes will actually follow from a given input, because of the extreme sensitivity to the actual magnitude of the input value - prediction would require knowing the input conditions to a literally infinite precision. So such a deterministic, fully 'causal' system is also indeterminate.

Similarly with a quantum event, such as the spontaneous decay of an unstable nucleus - we know the cause, it is all in the relative energy level of the intact nucleus and the lower energy of the decay products, with the slightly higher state of it has to pass thru before it can start the decay process being all that is stopping it. Quantum indeterminacy, an observed physical phenomenon that we don't know the ultimate nature of, means that at any given time, the actual energy of the nucleus has a finite and precisely known probability of temporarily exceeding the threshhold and actually decaying.

The idea of a background field of chaotically interacting energy quanta, or virtual particles, or whatever, is all we would need to drive such indeterminate, ie unpredictable, energy fluctuations.

Now of course we don't know how accurately this concept reflects the reality, but is broadly consistent with other well-established physics, and is therefore at least a model of what seems to be happening, which is ultimately all that we ever have about any phenomenon. Some models are more detailed and descriptive than others. Just another way of saying we have not reached the level of 'ultimate' reality, whatever that may be, and we may be 'doomed' to only get ever closer but not reach it. Along the way, we do get ever more accurate and usefully predictive models, AKA 'theories'.

As long as we have at least one plausible model, we are still in the realm of science, and it would be gratuitously naive to jump to the assumption of 'non-physical', whatever that ill-defined concept means, apart from just being a label we paste over stuff we don't currently understand. We are surrounded by discarded label reading 'supernatural' or 'God did it' for phenomena now well and truly integrated into our scientific understanding.

How does this negate quantum indeterminacy?

It shows you don't know what you're talking about. If you can't even answer a simple problem in QM how could you make statements about it?

Anyone else in this thread can PM me the answer if they want.

I know that the standard interpretation of QM states that quantum events are probabilistic ones. And I also know that you cannot refute this.

Paisley, can you get it into your head that 'probabilistic' does NOT, repeat NOT, mean without physical cause. In a chaotic regime, it means that the slightest variation in the actual parameters of the physical cause can lead to very different effect, therefore we can only assign a probability to any particular outcome for an input 'cause' within a certain range of values.

It wasn't meant to be a counter-argument, it was a comment on your demonstrated misunderstanding of Quantum Mechanics and indeterminacy. This should have been obvious.

It was at least partly sarcastic, so it obviously went straight over your head....