Thoreau's writing still intrigues me at times--he could scribble a bit--but his hermetic lifestyle at Walden seems fairly cold and austere, and HDT died at a fairly young age as well (what 47-48).
Philosophically speaking, any immanent, monistic view of Deus (Design, so-called)--which the Transcendentalists at times suggest-- would imply He controls all natural phenomena--including earthquakes. Unlikely. Wait a few days and some right-wing xtians will be making idiotic proclamations about the Haiti disaster.
i think this whole thing about living poetry in the earth is a bit overstated
pat robertson has weighed in on his knowledge of the way god works we are so fortunate to have such illustrious lights shining like old neon signs on their last gasps
Yes a bit boneheaded. Perhaps some of La Gauche whining about Robertson's remarks (they were inappropriate, but consistent with monotheism) could ask others in the theology bidness to offer an explanation of the quake.
Ask, say Padre Plantinga, who says......gremlins have a hand with natural processes, and when G*d is not pleased with humanity He sends down some orders to the fault-gremlins to ....engage in some spiritual punishment.
i don't think it is overstated at least not much have you been to yosemite? to the grand canyon? oh yes, you've been to the grand canyon to the place of the blue waters
Ever read Melville's Moby Dick? HM sort of takes on the implications of the Thoreauvian nature-mysticism (and one might say Design). Few would deny the sublime beauty of Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, or some pristine stretch of the North Coast....yet what about some tropical sea in summer, with packs of sharks feasting on whale carcasses, and on themselves? Or some plague- infected region of the third world.....
Queequeg sort of knows the score on the nature-mystics...after a dead shark's brought up on deck, and, yet nearly takes off his hands, Queequeg asserts no white man's god created sharks.... A bit obvious (and I can imagine the usual cleric or priest rolling his eyes at Melville, how vull-gar, etc), yet any spiritual Designer (or even Design team) designs sharks, and all predators, not to say plagues, natural disasters, etc.
i suppose there is a kind of poetic beauty even in the savage side of nature in its very wildness
can i really say that about haiti after an earthquake though? there's not much poetic beauty in a lifeless arm sticking out from the collapsed floors of a building except perhaps in the grief and anguish of those who look upon it
how did it come that beings who can love and thus who can experience grief arose from mere inanimate matter? what kind of universe do we live in where something as amazing as that can happen?
and is the possibility of suffering a necessary part of learning how to love?
if we lived in a completely safe world would we ever learn how to help one another? how to put aside self for a moment to care for another?
IN some sense I agree with you, S--perhaps that's the anomaly of human thinking or something (though humans have different responses to tragedy--i.e Limbaugh's isn't the same as most liberals). Yet it's difficult to understand or reconcile the "gratuitous evil" of say plagues and natural disasters with the Creator's supposed Justice, love, concern, etc.,even if there is a possibility for care, etc (...Plato's Euthyphro's dilemma however old and quaint hints at this issue: most choose to obey/have faith because they think G*d is Almighty, not because He is just--assuming He exists)
What the heart says, and what Reason says generally don't jibe.
I view plagues and natural disasters as a form of "free will" that God allows to nature, both to human beings and to his "lesser" creatures, if I may call them that. Human evil is easier to understand than natural evil, because most of us value human free will. Perhaps natural evil, however, also results from a crude form of free will.
If humans evolved from the lesser creatures, perhaps human free will is only possible if the lesser creatures and inanimate matter have a certain form of "free will". In inanimate matter this might take the form of quantum mechanical uncertainty and the non-deterministic nature of the universe.
God allows the universe to be non-deterministic, even though this results in suffering. Perhaps human consciousness and human free will are dependent on this quantum level of uncertainty in the gray matter of the brain, and perhaps this is why God allows the universe to be non-deterministic.
Is the movement of tectonic plates non-determined, or is it a matter of not having enough info/data, science not being advanced enough? Einstein I'm not, but I am sort of a determinist--except in regards to human thinking. We can't predict the weather, but that doesn't mean a thunderstorm's not determined in some sense, even if it involves probability--a Laplacean issue sort of.
Humans are a slightly different case obviously--I think human decisions are determined, or mediated in some sense (say deciding on lunch...), but humans have a unique ability to direct action, and that's free to some extent. We can do differently in many situations, it seems.
Formerly I tended to side with agnostics, but will admit now I am have my doubts of both sides, and I had a run-in with sleazy atheist or two. But I object to the rational theologians (some are catholics) who believe they can conclusively prove the existence of the Almighty, and that nature shows His handiwork so forth. Religious faith does not fit in those quaint Aristotelian categories.
So my views are similar to Pascal's wager in some sense: lacking compelling evidence one way or another (though I think the Bible counts as some evidence...as does Yosemite,perhaps) one chooses to "do the right thing" as far as that is knowable. Ie, don't join the mafia, or commit serious violent crimes, etc. That might not be sufficient for some believers, but better than nihilism.
Aquinas and the Necessity of Natural Evils - a google possibility
i hold that the five proofs for the existence of god by aquinas still hold water
movement action things are contingency necessity perception and perfection final cause as applied to humans i e the life of the soul
we could argue that the "sin" happened 500 yrs ago when the french brought slaves to haiti we're always facing the sins of history...we neglect the sin of establishing this country by the destruction of native indigenous society here...the earth shall weep
interesting exchange here
jh
i'm impressed with the outpouring of compassion and relief operations in haiti even if it sounds supremely chaotic people are digging in and helping one another
what i like about the GAIA theory of james lovelock is it forces the issue of human responsibility for caring for the planet
rarely do we count the cost or size up the consequences of actions which completely defy god's nature...we're not used to stating the moral evil involved in the construction of big river dams (although edward abbey did)or the really slovenly practices associated with mining (until very recently) or the over fishing of the oceans ( until very recently) or the destruction of rainforest (until very recently)
sally insofar as tragedy has always informed the urge to "poesize" an arm sticking up from the rubble serves as a poetic reminder - the description of it speaks loudly and the questions surrounding the irrationality of this kind of death are indeed the stuff of poetry
the lakotah did not cringe from speaking graphically of the devastations they witnessed their cries their poetry
The thomistic chestnuts fascinate me a bit, but they are not logically necessary arguments, but analogies of a sort, though the scholastic arguments are probably superior to what most protestant sola-fide types have to offer, or the views of the naive darwinist-atheist for that matter.
One thing about the Robertson fiasco that bothers me is this: Rev. Robertson becomes a type of symbol of any and all christians, at least to the idiotic secularist left (or pseudo-left, like these pedazos de mierda). The secularist know-nothings, like the blowhards Byronia or "Beytamotya" ranting away in the New Worlds comment box simply assumes anyone who holds to any religious views whatsoever implicitly agrees to Pat Robertson's silly, superficial views on JVH's wrath or something, when that is hardly the case.
The naive secularist may be as prone to fallacies and bogus generalizations as a Kirby O- like biblethumper; and as unaware of the First Amendment for that matter.
J-- The large-scale movement of the tectonic plates is pretty well determined, and is probably pretty easily predictable for a few hundred thousand years into the future.
On the other hand, some seismologists argue that earthquakes may be unpredictable at a fundamental level, because the system is so complex that it behaves chaotically.
I suppose that is the same as the thunderstorm example that you use. We can calculate the probability that an earthquake will happen within a given time window (with much larger uncertainties than predicting a thunderstorm), but we will probably never be able to predict the exact time at which an earthquake will occur, even if we fully understood all the physical processes and new the initial conditions.
Anyway, I think the point I was trying to make is that maybe in order to allow creatures with consciousness and free will to evolve, God imbued matter with quantum mechanical uncertainty which necessarily entailed a certain limit to His ability to control completely and precisely when and where earthquakes and thunderstorms and lightning bolts occur. Thus, innocent people suffer.
The weakness of this argument is that while quantum mechanical uncertainty may (or may not) play a role in human consciousness and free will, the unpredictability of earthquakes and thunderstorms is more related to chaos than to quantum mechanics, so maybe there really isn't any link that requires God to give up some control over natural disasters if he wants to create beings that have free will.
So it is not a very well formulated arguement--just an idea that perhaps someone smarter than me could develop more concretely.
...maybe in order to allow creatures with consciousness and free will to evolve, God imbued matter with quantum mechanical uncertainty which necessarily entailed a certain limit to His ability to control completely and precisely when and where earthquakes and thunderstorms and lightning bolts occur. Thus, innocent people suffer.
Interesting, but would orthodox theologians agree? I doubt it (perhaps jh could clarify). There are a few religious thinkers (Geach, I believe) who have views similar to this, or limit the supposed Creator's omni-whatever--or perfection--in some sense. Others might say that implies the Creator is no longer....an all-powerful Creator, and thus monotheism is cast into doubt. Doesn't orthodoxy insist on intercession/miracles? Alas, I think they are mistaken, but that is the official line.
Hume, whatever one thinks of the scoundrel, discussed this issue in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (as have others): how does one know a Deity, supposing He exists...is montheistic, instead of manichean, polydeistic, etc?? Is he One or, are there One Thousand....That was pre-QM of course, but the points still hold for the most part (and Hume had at least some awareness of probability issues, ie frequentism). As do Hume's points on miracles--reality's not so uncertain to where angels or Mary appear, even when needed (like all over the 3rd world).
In regards to humans, however I don't see how some degree of uncertainty preserves "free will." How would uncertainty work,like physiologically, when Daisy and her friends are deciding on lunch, or even out shopping? Searle discusses this somewhere. He sort of suggests either way, determined, or undetermined, any arguments for pure "free will" are not great, biologically speaking. Yet...from the perspective of the agent, she certainly believes she has something an ability to choose--intention-- and I think we do, to some extent--humans, at least rational ones, aren't bots. It's something like compatibilism. We can't choose not to be hungry, or not to feel cold in the snow, or not to go to the lavatory, etc. except by drastic measures.
But maybe there exists some odd quantum Mind that is not presently detectable. I doubt it, but consciousness is odd.
If there is no uncertainty, if the world, including the biological world, is entirely Newtonian, deterministic, and if human beings are a part of the biological world, then how can there be free will?
If quantum mechanics introduces some uncertainty into the world, then it seems to me that it potentially creates a way to understand human beings as being a part of the biological world, subject to all of its laws, while still being able to make choices that can change the outcome of the world.
The human brain may be largely determined by chemical reactions, and neural pathways that get strengthened with use, which may explain why we get stuck in repetitive patterns of behavior that can be hard to break free from. But perhaps at the quantum level there are some things that happen in the brain that are not determined by chemistry. Perhaps when a person makes a decision a previously undetermined quantum state in his/her brain becomes determined.
I haven't addressed your comments about God's ability (or lack thereof) to intervene in the natural world. Maybe tomorrow.
i'm probably trying to make too much out of quantum mechanics i read somewhere that even neurons are too big to really be affected by quantum mechanics
but whether or not QM plays a role in consciousness and the brain and free will it does seem to make it plausible to accept that our experience of free will may actually have some basis in reality rather than being a mere illusion
and if we can have free will and can act in the world and effect real changes without violating the laws of nature then maybe God can too
maybe God can act maybe God does act all the time and maybe this action is in harmony with the physical laws that God set up to govern the universe
maybe God can woo a person toward a particular decision without violating that person's free will
maybe God can woo a subatomic particle into a particular quantum state without violating that particle's free will without violating the uncertainty principle
maybe God also occasionally acts in ways that seem miraculous to us because we don't understand how did God do that?
i don't understand how Jesus walked on the water but i like to believe that he really did maybe as creator he had a really good rapport with all of those water molecules and could coax them into behaving in ways that they don't normally behave on their own
maybe he can coax me too into developing more compassion than i would normally have on my own that would be a miracle too
but this still doesn't answer the question if God can act then why doesn't God always act in the ways that we would like him to act?
why doesn't he stop the earthquakes? or make them happen somewhere else away from where people live? (although you could also ask why don't we stop building cities in places where there are earthquakes? the earthquakes were here first, after all)
or why didn't God send someone with a heavy duty jack to lift up the slab of concrete that had that little girl pinned by one leg? (although again, maybe God was giving us human beings a chance to do that of our own free will) (and whatever happened to that little girl? i never saw a follow up story on her)
i suppose i'm at a place where i'm trying to learn how to accept what is and to work with things the way they are to accept the situations in which God has placed me whether they be pleasant or unpleasant to accept the fact that God has created a world that has earthquakes and plagues and backs that get hurt from shoveling snow and hearts that swell with love and to ask how he wants me to live in that world
in practical terms maybe there is not much difference between a buddhist or an enlightened atheist trying to learn how to accept the universe as it is and a christian trying to learn how to accept God's will and to cooperate with it
except for me i like believing that there is Someone toward whom this whole world and my life is directed
one of the psalms says "your builder will marry you" i like believing that there is a builder who made this world-- both the parts that i love and the parts that i don't love yet-- and that this builder will (and in christ already has) unite himself with his creation and when i can see clearly when i have been united with him i will love his entire creation
Well, Miss S, what did older clerics say about philo-theological disputes: something like, it is not meet to speak of the Deity, or words to that effect. And I admit to being guilty of that (mentioning...the name of the heretic D**** H***! ....scandalous)
Maybe your view of the Creator is correct.....for you. And jh's works for....jh! And even say...Ezra Pound's religion worked for him.
As long as faith doesn't become hysterical, hyper-dogmatic, or "enthusiastic" as Locke would have said--or result in violence (ala holy wars, christian, muslim, etc)-- I don't have a problem with it (and that's the First Amendment, more or less)--though I don't think rational theologians of whatever type have any knock-down argument which can prove the existence of ..a monotheistic Deus, or really resolve the problem of evil, or show a soul exists, etc.
my husband makes the argument and i think he has a good point that we can be more certain that the soul exists than just about anything else
we can't prove it is immortal but we know with greater certainty that our own consciousness exists than that the things we perceive with our senses exist
you and jh may be figments of my delusion but if so there is still a me a consciousness, a soul that is having the delusion
but as to the other points i agree no knock-down arguments that go beyond the realm of personal experience just human beings trying to figure out what we're doing here
i think people who go to mass are crazy that's why we go we know we're all crazy crazy in love crazy convinced in what we cannot really see willing to follow a poem we are crazy people the oddest thing everyone is really welcome it might take some doing but you're all welcome sometimes the best meals are difficult to get in on
as far as the mass goes i can only attest to my own need i find it difficult to extrapolate to the needs and consciousness of others i know it has universal application when understood it is the thing for all matters but there's no way i can convince anyone
we rarely speak of the devil at baptism and once in a whle in a sermon but not very often
my sense is that 95% of all the people in the world are really good people trying to be as good as they can given their circumstances the 5% are perhaps tortured in some way tormented with something truly very damaged people...i still think these are good people whose lives have met with terrible misfortune
shit like that happens is it the devil is it failed and flawed humans doing terrible things
Serio, I agree with Descartes' Cogito, but only insofar that he shows the primacy of consciousness --yet he failed to mention, like, the primacy of eating, drinking, fighting, er, working etc. That people think in some fashion (but they do many other things) does not prove they float in some platonic--or theological --abode, as Hobbes pointed out as well.
28 comments:
Thoreau's writing still intrigues me at times--he could scribble a bit--but his hermetic lifestyle at Walden seems fairly cold and austere, and HDT died at a fairly young age as well (what 47-48).
Philosophically speaking, any immanent, monistic view of Deus (Design, so-called)--which the Transcendentalists at times suggest-- would imply He controls all natural phenomena--including earthquakes. Unlikely. Wait a few days and some right-wing xtians will be making idiotic proclamations about the Haiti disaster.
i think this whole thing about living poetry in the earth is a bit overstated
pat robertson has weighed in on his knowledge of the way god works
we are so fortunate to have
such illustrious lights shining
like old neon signs on their last gasps
Yes a bit boneheaded. Perhaps some of La Gauche whining about Robertson's remarks (they were inappropriate, but consistent with monotheism) could ask others in the theology bidness to offer an explanation of the quake.
Ask, say Padre Plantinga, who says......gremlins have a hand with natural processes, and when G*d is not pleased with humanity He sends down some orders to the fault-gremlins to ....engage in some spiritual punishment.
hey i recognize this quote!
i don't think it is overstated
at least not much
have you been to yosemite?
to the grand canyon?
oh yes, you've been to the grand canyon
to the place of the blue waters
how is that not living poetry?
you not be dissin' God's poetic work now be you?
sometimes i state things just to be polemical contrary
i thought you might react
poesie = making
`-)
Ever read Melville's Moby Dick? HM sort of takes on the implications of the Thoreauvian nature-mysticism (and one might say Design). Few would deny the sublime beauty of Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, or some pristine stretch of the North Coast....yet what about some tropical sea in summer, with packs of sharks feasting on whale carcasses, and on themselves? Or some plague- infected region of the third world.....
Queequeg sort of knows the score on the nature-mystics...after a dead shark's brought up on deck, and, yet nearly takes off his hands, Queequeg asserts no white man's god created sharks.... A bit obvious (and I can imagine the usual cleric or priest rolling his eyes at Melville, how vull-gar, etc), yet any spiritual Designer (or even Design team) designs sharks, and all predators, not to say plagues, natural disasters, etc.
interesting questions J
i suppose there is a kind of
poetic beauty even in
the savage side of nature
in its very wildness
can i really say that
about haiti after an earthquake though?
there's not much poetic beauty
in a lifeless arm sticking out
from the collapsed floors of a building
except perhaps in the grief and anguish
of those who look upon it
how did it come that beings who can love
and thus who can experience grief
arose from mere inanimate matter?
what kind of universe do we live in
where something as amazing as that
can happen?
and is the possibility of suffering
a necessary part of learning how to love?
if we lived in a completely safe world
would we ever learn how
to help one another?
how to put aside self for a moment
to care for another?
IN some sense I agree with you, S--perhaps that's the anomaly of human thinking or something (though humans have different responses to tragedy--i.e Limbaugh's isn't the same as most liberals). Yet it's difficult to understand or reconcile the "gratuitous evil" of say plagues and natural disasters with the Creator's supposed Justice, love, concern, etc.,even if there is a possibility for care, etc (...Plato's Euthyphro's dilemma however old and quaint hints at this issue: most choose to obey/have faith because they think G*d is Almighty, not because He is just--assuming He exists)
What the heart says, and what Reason says generally don't jibe.
I view plagues and natural disasters as a form of "free will" that God allows to nature, both to human beings and to his "lesser" creatures, if I may call them that. Human evil is easier to understand than natural evil, because most of us value human free will. Perhaps natural evil, however, also results from a crude form of free will.
If humans evolved from the lesser creatures, perhaps human free will is only possible if the lesser creatures and inanimate matter have a certain form of "free will". In inanimate matter this might take the form of quantum mechanical uncertainty and the non-deterministic nature of the universe.
God allows the universe to be non-deterministic, even though this results in suffering. Perhaps human consciousness and human free will are dependent on this quantum level of uncertainty in the gray matter of the brain, and perhaps this is why God allows the universe to be non-deterministic.
I don't know. I'm in over my head here.
Is the movement of tectonic plates non-determined, or is it a matter of not having enough info/data, science not being advanced enough? Einstein I'm not, but I am sort of a determinist--except in regards to human thinking. We can't predict the weather, but that doesn't mean a thunderstorm's not determined in some sense, even if it involves probability--a Laplacean issue sort of.
Humans are a slightly different case obviously--I think human decisions are determined, or mediated in some sense (say deciding on lunch...), but humans have a unique ability to direct action, and that's free to some extent. We can do differently in many situations, it seems.
Formerly I tended to side with agnostics, but will admit now I am have my doubts of both sides, and I had a run-in with sleazy atheist or two. But I object to the rational theologians (some are catholics) who believe they can conclusively prove the existence of the Almighty, and that nature shows His handiwork so forth. Religious faith does not fit in those quaint Aristotelian categories.
So my views are similar to Pascal's wager in some sense: lacking compelling evidence one way or another (though I think the Bible counts as some evidence...as does Yosemite,perhaps) one chooses to "do the right thing" as far as that is knowable. Ie, don't join the mafia, or commit serious violent crimes, etc. That might not be sufficient for some believers, but better than nihilism.
Ive probably said enough. ciao
Aquinas and the Necessity of Natural Evils - a google possibility
i hold that the five proofs for the existence of god by aquinas still hold water
movement action
things are
contingency necessity
perception and perfection
final cause as applied to humans
i e the life of the soul
we could argue that the "sin" happened 500 yrs ago when the french brought slaves to haiti
we're always facing the sins of history...we neglect the sin of establishing this country by the destruction of native indigenous society here...the earth shall weep
interesting exchange here
jh
i'm impressed with the outpouring of compassion and relief operations in haiti
even if it sounds supremely chaotic
people are digging in and helping one another
what i like about the GAIA theory of james lovelock is it forces the issue of human responsibility for caring for the planet
rarely do we count the cost or size up the consequences of actions which completely defy god's nature...we're not used to stating the moral evil involved in the construction of big river dams (although edward abbey did)or the really slovenly practices associated with mining (until very recently) or the over fishing of the oceans ( until very recently) or the destruction of rainforest (until very recently)
sally insofar as tragedy has always informed the urge to "poesize" an arm sticking up from the rubble serves as a poetic reminder - the description of it speaks loudly and the questions surrounding the irrationality of this kind of death are indeed the stuff of poetry
the lakotah did not cringe from speaking graphically of the devastations they witnessed
their cries
their poetry
ever since the flood
jh
The thomistic chestnuts fascinate me a bit, but they are not logically necessary arguments, but analogies of a sort, though the scholastic arguments are probably superior to what most protestant sola-fide types have to offer, or the views of the naive darwinist-atheist for that matter.
One thing about the Robertson fiasco that bothers me is this: Rev. Robertson becomes a type of symbol of any and all christians, at least to the idiotic secularist left (or pseudo-left, like these pedazos de mierda). The secularist know-nothings, like the blowhards Byronia or "Beytamotya" ranting away in the New Worlds comment box simply assumes anyone who holds to any religious views whatsoever implicitly agrees to Pat Robertson's silly, superficial views on JVH's wrath or something, when that is hardly the case.
The naive secularist may be as prone to fallacies and bogus generalizations as a Kirby O- like biblethumper; and as unaware of the First Amendment for that matter.
J--
The large-scale movement of the tectonic plates is pretty well determined, and is probably pretty easily predictable for a few hundred thousand years into the future.
On the other hand, some seismologists argue that earthquakes may be unpredictable at a fundamental level, because the system is so complex that it behaves chaotically.
I suppose that is the same as the thunderstorm example that you use. We can calculate the probability that an earthquake will happen within a given time window (with much larger uncertainties than predicting a thunderstorm), but we will probably never be able to predict the exact time at which an earthquake will occur, even if we fully understood all the physical processes and new the initial conditions.
Anyway, I think the point I was trying to make is that maybe in order to allow creatures with consciousness and free will to evolve, God imbued matter with quantum mechanical uncertainty which necessarily entailed a certain limit to His ability to control completely and precisely when and where earthquakes and thunderstorms and lightning bolts occur. Thus, innocent people suffer.
The weakness of this argument is that while quantum mechanical uncertainty may (or may not) play a role in human consciousness and free will, the unpredictability of earthquakes and thunderstorms is more related to chaos than to quantum mechanics, so maybe there really isn't any link that requires God to give up some control over natural disasters if he wants to create beings that have free will.
So it is not a very well formulated arguement--just an idea that perhaps someone smarter than me could develop more concretely.
...maybe in order to allow creatures with consciousness and free will to evolve, God imbued matter with quantum mechanical uncertainty which necessarily entailed a certain limit to His ability to control completely and precisely when and where earthquakes and thunderstorms and lightning bolts occur. Thus, innocent people suffer.
Interesting, but would orthodox theologians agree? I doubt it (perhaps jh could clarify). There are a few religious thinkers (Geach, I believe) who have views similar to this, or limit the supposed Creator's omni-whatever--or perfection--in some sense. Others might say that implies the Creator is no longer....an all-powerful Creator, and thus monotheism is cast into doubt. Doesn't orthodoxy insist on intercession/miracles? Alas, I think they are mistaken, but that is the official line.
Hume, whatever one thinks of the scoundrel, discussed this issue in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (as have others): how does one know a Deity, supposing He exists...is montheistic, instead of manichean, polydeistic, etc?? Is he One or, are there One Thousand....That was pre-QM of course, but the points still hold for the most part (and Hume had at least some awareness of probability issues, ie frequentism). As do Hume's points on miracles--reality's not so uncertain to where angels or Mary appear, even when needed (like all over the 3rd world).
In regards to humans, however I don't see how some degree of uncertainty preserves "free will." How would uncertainty work,like physiologically, when Daisy and her friends are deciding on lunch, or even out shopping? Searle discusses this somewhere. He sort of suggests either way, determined, or undetermined, any arguments for pure "free will" are not great, biologically speaking. Yet...from the perspective of the agent, she certainly believes she has something an ability to choose--intention-- and I think we do, to some extent--humans, at least rational ones, aren't bots. It's something like compatibilism. We can't choose not to be hungry, or not to feel cold in the snow, or not to go to the lavatory, etc. except by drastic measures.
But maybe there exists some odd quantum Mind that is not presently detectable. I doubt it, but consciousness is odd.
If there is no uncertainty, if the world, including the biological world, is entirely Newtonian, deterministic, and if human beings are a part of the biological world, then how can there be free will?
If quantum mechanics introduces some uncertainty into the world, then it seems to me that it potentially creates a way to understand human beings as being a part of the biological world, subject to all of its laws, while still being able to make choices that can change the outcome of the world.
The human brain may be largely determined by chemical reactions, and neural pathways that get strengthened with use, which may explain why we get stuck in repetitive patterns of behavior that can be hard to break free from. But perhaps at the quantum level there are some things that happen in the brain that are not determined by chemistry. Perhaps when a person makes a decision a previously undetermined quantum state in his/her brain becomes determined.
I haven't addressed your comments about God's ability (or lack thereof) to intervene in the natural world. Maybe tomorrow.
hey what did i miss?
those little "this comment removed by author" blurbs
are just too intriguing
gosh and i should have waited one more minute before posting that last comment and then we could have had three comments in a row posted at 11:18
maybe if i hurry this one will be
ok, now back to my theological musings
i'm probably trying to make
too much out of quantum mechanics
i read somewhere that even neurons
are too big to really be affected
by quantum mechanics
but whether or not QM plays a role
in consciousness and the brain and free will
it does seem to make it plausible
to accept that our experience of free will
may actually have some basis in reality
rather than being a mere illusion
and if we can have free will
and can act in the world
and effect real changes
without violating the laws of nature
then maybe God can too
maybe God can act
maybe God does act
all the time
and maybe this action
is in harmony with the
physical laws that God set up
to govern the universe
maybe God can woo a person
toward a particular decision
without violating that person's
free will
maybe God can woo a subatomic particle
into a particular quantum state
without violating that particle's
free will
without violating the uncertainty principle
maybe God also occasionally acts
in ways that seem miraculous to us
because we don't understand
how did God do that?
i don't understand how Jesus walked on the water
but i like to believe that he really did
maybe as creator
he had a really good rapport
with all of those water molecules
and could coax them into
behaving in ways that they don't
normally behave on their own
maybe he can coax me too
into developing more compassion
than i would normally have on my own
that would be a miracle too
but this still doesn't answer the question
if God can act then
why doesn't God always act in the ways
that we would like him to act?
why doesn't he stop the earthquakes?
or make them happen somewhere else
away from where people live?
(although you could also ask
why don't we stop building cities
in places where there are earthquakes? the earthquakes were here first, after all)
or why didn't God send someone
with a heavy duty jack
to lift up the slab of concrete
that had that little girl
pinned by one leg?
(although again, maybe God was giving us human beings a chance to do that of our own free will)
(and whatever happened to that little girl? i never saw a follow up story on her)
i suppose i'm at a place
where i'm trying to learn
how to accept what is
and to work with things
the way they are
to accept the situations
in which God has placed me
whether they be pleasant
or unpleasant
to accept the fact
that God has created a world
that has earthquakes and plagues
and backs that get hurt
from shoveling snow
and hearts that swell with love
and to ask how he wants me
to live in that world
in practical terms
maybe there is not much difference
between a buddhist or an enlightened atheist
trying to learn
how to accept the universe as it is
and a christian trying to learn
how to accept God's will
and to cooperate with it
except for me
i like believing that there is Someone
toward whom this whole world
and my life is directed
one of the psalms says
"your builder will marry you"
i like believing that there is
a builder who made this world--
both the parts that i love
and the parts that i don't love yet--
and that this builder will
(and in christ already has)
unite himself with his creation
and when i can see clearly
when i have been united with him
i will love his entire creation
Well, Miss S, what did older clerics say about philo-theological disputes: something like, it is not meet to speak of the Deity, or words to that effect. And I admit to being guilty of that (mentioning...the name of the heretic D**** H***! ....scandalous)
Maybe your view of the Creator is correct.....for you. And jh's works for....jh! And even say...Ezra Pound's religion worked for him.
As long as faith doesn't become hysterical, hyper-dogmatic, or "enthusiastic" as Locke would have said--or result in violence (ala holy wars, christian, muslim, etc)-- I don't have a problem with it (and that's the First Amendment, more or less)--though I don't think rational theologians of whatever type have any knock-down argument which can prove the existence of ..a monotheistic Deus, or really resolve the problem of evil, or show a soul exists, etc.
i can show that the soul exists but i refuse to
no one can pry this knowledge from me
even though i know my arguments to be
as sound as anything known
When you call El Diablo, El Diablo, then maybe some reasonable people might take La Misa, paddy jh.
Start with like the Supreme Court, Schwarzenegger, Wall Street, Google,etc-- or Kirby O for that matter.
my husband makes the argument
and i think he has a good point
that we can be more certain that
the soul exists than just about
anything else
we can't prove it is immortal
but we know with greater certainty
that our own consciousness exists
than that the things we perceive
with our senses exist
you and jh may be figments
of my delusion
but if so there is still a me
a consciousness, a soul
that is having the delusion
but as to the other points
i agree
no knock-down arguments
that go beyond the realm
of personal experience
just human beings
trying to figure out
what we're doing here
i think people who go to mass are crazy
that's why we go
we know we're all crazy
crazy in love
crazy convinced in what we cannot really see
willing to follow a poem
we are crazy people
the oddest thing
everyone is really welcome
it might take some doing but you're all welcome
sometimes the best meals are difficult to get in on
as far as the mass goes i can only attest to my own need i find it difficult to extrapolate to the needs and consciousness of others
i know it has universal application when understood it is the thing for all matters
but there's no way i can convince anyone
we rarely speak of the devil
at baptism and once in a whle in a sermon but not very often
my sense is that 95% of all the people in the world are really good people trying to be as good as they can given their circumstances the 5% are perhaps tortured in some way tormented with something truly very damaged people...i still think these are good people whose lives have met with terrible misfortune
shit like that happens
is it the devil
is it failed and flawed humans doing
terrible things
god's mind is bigger than anything we can imagine
he of whom nothing greater can be concieved
he created nothing that is evil
jh
Our own consciousness may exist
But may be quite obliterated
via a cup of Stoli and Sunkist.
Empiricists, however hated
realized that our mental mists
could not be, like, delineated...
+ + +
Serio, I agree with Descartes' Cogito, but only insofar that he shows the primacy of consciousness --yet he failed to mention, like, the primacy of eating, drinking, fighting, er, working etc. That people think in some fashion (but they do many other things) does not prove they float in some platonic--or theological --abode, as Hobbes pointed out as well.
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