Off the wall question: If God flips a meta-physical coin in his meta-physical world, does he necessarily know how it is going to land?
Christianity says that people have souls and that those souls (for believers) will go to be with God when we die. For our souls to literally "be with God", they must be part of the meta-physical world in which he exists. This raises in interesting questions with respect to the ralationship between our physical and our meta-physical selves.
In many ways the virtual worlds created within some video games are analogous to the concept of God creating our universe. Let's consider two different styles of such games.
First, The SIMS.
One could view the creator of the popular game The SIMS as being "god" with respect to the realm in which they exist. He defined every aspect of their virtual world as well as defined their automaton driven behavior.
This scenario is very much like the concept of an omniscient, omnipotent god who created our physical universe. Since the creator knows everything about his virtual creations and the world in which they exist, they should in a sense be able to predict how a given simulation will play out. And by carefully setting up the initial conditions within that virtual world, they effectively pre-ordain everything that will happen once the simulation begins.
The virtual people go about their virtual lives doing virtual activities all in a prescribed and predictable manner.
Second, Everquest or World of Warcraft.
In this scenario the virtual world is constructed. Rules are put in place as to how things operate. But the actors are actually driven by beings that exist outside of the virtual world (i.e. in some meta-virtual one like our physical one). To the extent that the physical world people who are controlling the actions of the virtual world people have free will, so do their virtual world counterparts.
This is a distinctly different perspective than the one above. Here the actors within the virtual world do not have any pre-programmed behavior so the outcomes in the virtual world are not pre-ordained.
I would argue that a pure science perspective implies a universe or reality for us that is more like that of The SIMS in this case. The actors are created, initial conditions are established, and the whole thing is pretty much predictable from there on out.
I would argue that any religion that believes in a meta-physical soul of sorts operates in a manner somewhat similar to that of Everquest. Constraints and limits are placed on the operations within the virtual world, but the actors are somehow controlled by meta-virtual world beings.
I don't really have a point to this post other than to offer it up for your consideration and to see if it generates any additional discussion. It is late. I am rambling.
Good night.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Christianity says that people have souls and that those souls (for believers) will go to be with God when we die. For our souls to literally "be with God", they must be part of the meta-physical world in which he exists. This raises in interesting questions with respect to the ralationship between our physical and our meta-physical selves.
to energy. To provide light and heat through the fact that opposites attract.
The negative charge and the postive charge and the flow of energy. Like magnents that repel and attract.
Your question, "If God flips a metaphysical coin does he know how it will land."
First why would "God" flip a coin?
Second who or what is "God".
Why would "God" care how it landed?
If the bible is a parable, then the story of Adam and Eve is the story of opposites, male-female (energy) one created from a piece of the other.
The forbidden fruit is a choice, or the choices we make. God gives us the free will to chose. He does not have control over which way the coin flips, that is up to you. "God" doesn't care how the coin lands, or what choices you make.
That is our "free will". The energy you choose is yours to keep. Choose happiness.
...but don't feel bad, so do Islam and Judaism. Any philosophy that includes an omniscient omnipotent omnipresent creator god cannot logically allow for freewill. Demonstrating this is fairly simple.
Let us imagine a situation where you have a time machine allowing you to freely revist a moment in time.
You sit and watch as a man walks up to a stream. He is faced with a decision which he makes of his own free will: to continue on or go back. Seeing no dry way across he goes back.
You now jump in your time machine and go back one hour. You drag a log so that it crosses the stream at the location where the man will approach it. You wave to yourself and sit down to watch.
The man approaches and finding a way across decides to cross the stream.
Back to the time machine back an hour again. Laugh politely as your previous incarnations make a joke about it getting crowded in here. And then...
What? What do you do? Do you put the log where he can find it or remove it? By doing so you determine the man's actions because you already know how he responds to the give stimuli. Free will for the man is an illusion based on his ignorance of your power to control the scenario he finds himself in.
You know how the subject will behave under give circumstance. God (omniscient) knows how everyone will ever behave under every possible circumstance.
You have the power to control the circumstances and thereby determine his action. God (omnipotent) has the power to control every circumstance and thereby determine every action.
You have access (via the time machine) to the instance in question. God (omnipresent in time and space) has access to every instant everwhere.
The only question is if you choose to exercise your power by creating a scenario, meanwhile God (creator) has created the scenario by creating the universe, nothing happens in it that he did not choose to have happen
By having the power to create how everything starts and the infinite knowledge to know exactly how everey possible start ends up god precludes freewill. Which for a Christian I imagine means some uncomfortable issues. It means everything done has been done because god planned it. Lucifer's fall was god's choice. God set Judas and Caine up to fail. They are murderers because it was convenient to god's plan.
I need to think on it a bit and get back to you. I'm not sure that I completely agree with this logic but I can't immediately put my finger on why.
Part of my objection is the observation that even though God could consciously manipulate scenarios as you suggest that does not necessarily imply that he/she does.
I would argue that God himself must be inherently meta-physical in the sense that he cannot exist as part of the universe he created. Thus, god must be separate and apart from the physical universe as we know it.
Likewise with the angels. Here is a gap in my knowledge of Christianity. Did God create the Angels ... and therefore Lucifer? I don't recall hearing any such thing but I certainly could have missed it.
All I seem to recall is that God was God and the Angels worshipped him, and Lucifer was cast down for aspiring to replace God (or something along those lines).
So, if God didn't create Lucifer and the other Angels, then he cannot have pre-ordained their actions or activities. In that sense the Angels at least have just as much free will as God does, and they all presumably exist in some meta-physical world with respect to our physical universe.
So, while God may be omniscient and omnipotent with respect to the comings and goings within our own physical universe he isn't necessarily so with respect to his other worldly meta-physical universe.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Part of my objection is the observation that even though God could consciously manipulate scenarios as you suggest that does not necessarily imply that he/she does.
But they did. At least if you believe them to be a creator god they did. You could have an omniscient omnipotent omnipresent passivegod and still have freewill but once that god becomes active (and by creating the universe of course god was active) they have meddled with the universe such that free will becomes an illusion.
So, while God may be omniscient and omnipotent with respect to the comings and goings within our own physical universe he isn't necessarily so with respect to his other worldly meta-physical universe
God was supposed to have created the angels but your point here is interesting. However it would imply that only other metaphysical beings could have free will. Which means god would be off the hook for Lucifer's fall but not Caine's or Judas'.
Not to harp, but you're confusing your religions here. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, Catholic theology is based on the idea of and necessity of free will. It is only the Protestant faiths that get all wrapped up in an active, all-controlling, knows-what-color-my-socks-are version of God.* Just keep that in mind when you use the term Christianity. Not all Christians believe like you think they do. (And for the record, Catholic doctrine thinks Darwin's theory of evolution is just fine and should be taught in schools.)
For a very interesting take on the role of good, evil, God, Lucifer, angels, etc., I suggest Anne Rice's book Memnoch the Devil. It's a great read and very thought provoking. You don't need to have read any other of her books to understand Memnoch.
(*We could spend hours discussing the fine points of Catholic theology, but for the purposes of this discussion I think I've expressed the spirit and intent adequately. The Church's recently published Catecism is available to those who wish to delve deeper.)
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Unless I am severely misremembering my study of catholicism they do believe in an omniscient god. In fact they even believe in an infallible Pope. Now maybe they fudge it a bit but at the end of the day either god is omniscient or he is not.
The concept of infallibility of the Pope relates to his proclaimations about tenets of the faith, not about his personal attributes. It is an important distinction but one that might be hard to grasp. As a conduit of explanation of obscure theological points, he is assumed to be "correct" in his analyses. As a person, he is as fallible as the next man.
Omnicience is different from omnipotence. Here's what you said with regards to free will
You could have an omniscient omnipotent omnipresent passivegod and still have freewill but once that god becomes active (and by creating the universe of course god was active) they have meddled with the universe such that free will becomes an illusion.
God may be considered omnicient ("all knowing"), but free will still exists because in the Catholic faith, predestination does not exist. God may have ignited the big bang but he has not written the entire history of this planet. Men, through acts of free will, do so. We are not helpless actors on some grand stage. We create our own destiny.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
God may be considered omnicient ("all knowing"), but free will still exists because in the Catholic faith, predestination does not exist. God may have ignited the big bang but he has not written the entire history of this planet. Men, through acts of free will, do so. We are not helpless actors on some grand stage. We create our own destiny.
But that argument is simply a statement with no underlying logic. You claim freewill exists despite the apprent logical incompatibility of this claim with other claims you hold true (assuming you are Catholic).
In other words while I understand that Catholics believe in freewill I think they have simply not thought the matter through logically. Either their concept of god or their concept of freewill must be faulty. The two are mutually exclusive.
Of course there may be an error in my analysis in which case their views may in fact be internally consistent. But I need more than "because they say so" in order to see that it is my reasoning rather than theirs that is in error.
I've tried to demonstrate how, by creating the big bang, God did indeed choose every future action of every being in the universe. Can you show me where my argument is wrong?
nor do the major philosophers of the Catholic church. If you really want to get into it, check out people like Augustine - who strikes me as a terrible person (my bias) but a profound thinker and philosopher.
Consider it this way: if you pull out a treat for your dog, you can be certain your dog is going to eat it. Does that mean the dog was predestined/predetermined to eat it? Not really, even though you knew that would be the eventual result.
The question of omniscience/omnipotence/omnipresecence (the 3O god, as my colleagues refer to him) seems imcompatible with evil and free choice, but Augustine argues - slightly dishonestly, but bear with me - that evil doesn't exist at all. It's a turning away from God - a lack.
The reason I call that "slightly dishonest" is because that implies that God isn't 100% Omni. Apparently there are vaccuums that He doesn't fill - although it's not a present vaccuum so much as an act: as he says, a turning away.
Augustine argued this way because other Christian sects were trying to claim that evil was both a real and necessary force in the world: that the world we live in is really a balance of good and evil, blah blah blah (I don't want to get too off topic).
In fact, though you see a contradiction here, the Catholic view has never bothered me. It's the predestination side of Christianity that does: what good is redemption, supplication, philanthropy if it's all been decided beforehand. Even worse, it makes a farce out of life: you're just a cog that's going to come out the way He has decided.
If I ever rediscover religion (which I doubt), that's likely to be the last side I'd go to.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Consider it this way: if you pull out a treat for your dog, you can be certain your dog is going to eat it. Does that mean the dog was predestined/predetermined to eat it? Not really, even though you knew that would be the eventual result.
If you could really absolutely predict the dog's actions then yes I would say it was predestined by your choice of actions.
Put it this way: how can you say you have freewill if another has utter and absolutel control over what you do? We aren't talking about influence here but total control. They can select any of the possible results they want from you and bring about the circumstances that cause you to act that way.
What is freewill if not the ability to decide a thing for yourself in spite of the wishes of all around you?
The question of omniscience/omnipotence/omnipresecence (the 3O god, as my colleagues refer to him) seems imcompatible with evil and free choice, but Augustine argues - slightly dishonestly, but bear with me - that evil doesn't exist at all. It's a turning away from God - a lack.
This strikes me as shallow sophistry on the part of Augustine. He is stuck with an internally inconsistent religion and so rather than have the courage to say that something is wrong he fudges the rules. God is omniscient except when he isn't.
In fact, though you see a contradiction here, the Catholic view has never bothered me. It's the predestination side of Christianity that does: what good is redemption, supplication, philanthropy if it's all been decided beforehand. Even worse, it makes a farce out of life: you're just a cog that's going to come out the way He has decided.
Part of the problem though is that it is also the catholic view, they just don't realize it. Like an alcoholic claiming they don't have a problem, popes claim they do have freewill. The denial, and even their belief in it, is immaterial. The situation remains. Christianity (except fro some of the more esoteric subcults) excludes freewill.
But honey that little 20 something lady was sooo attractive, and sooo willing, my response was guaranteed by the situation, I just had no free will at all.......
Probably more actual fact than not, but it still won't get you off the hook.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
for one thing, the notion of the 3O God isn't born with Christianity - it takes a while to develop. Augustine, who comes a little later, is actually trying to develop a pretty sophisticated argument that God can be both omniscient and free will can exist, all at once. My bland distillation may come across as a sophistry, but his actual writings are rhetorically impressive. The Confessions are pretty short: you should give them a read (link )
I think you're running on an oversimplification of Christian theology here:
Put it this way: how can you say you have freewill if another has utter and absolutel control over what you do? We aren't talking about influence here but total control. They can select any of the possible results they want from you and bring about the circumstances that cause you to act that way.
Most Catholics would argue that God can but doesn't interfere. Actually, so would many Orthodox. It's the crux of Dosteovsky's argument in The Brothers Karamazov that God allows human beings free will - though he doesn't have to - because otherwise the notion of redemption and worship would be meaningless (link , although I re-translated part of this for clarity's sake):
You did not come down from the Cross when they shouted to You, mocking and reviling You, "Come down from the cross and we will believe that You are He." You did not come down, for again You would not enslave man by a miracle, and did crave faith given freely, not based on miracle. You craved for free love and not the base raptures of the slave before the might that has overawed him for ever.
Going back to the dog metaphor, I disagree with you 100%. Backing up a bit - knowing all the variables involve doesn't predestine a response: that's also the root of science. According to the scientific method, no matter how much you know the circumstances of an experiment, no matter how positive you are of the results, you always consider it a hypothesis: even laws are subject to change. The reason is that we as a limited species can never claim confidence in the results, but I think it's also important to consider this a metaphor for causality: even if we know what the results are going to be, the process has to play itself out on its own.
I'd read omniscience in the same way: knowing the results doesn't mean the process isn't playing itself out in its own terms.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
for one thing, the notion of the 3O God isn't born with Christianity - it takes a while to develop.
Are you sure about that? I thought the 3O concept pre-dated christianity having originated in Judaism and was subsequently absorbed into Christianity with most of the rest of the Judaic theology at the time.
Most Catholics would argue that God can but doesn't interfere.
But that requires you to ignore the ultimate interference: the creation.
Going back to the dog metaphor, I disagree with you 100%. Backing up a bit - knowing all the variables involve doesn't predestine a response: that's also the root of science. According to the scientific method, no matter how much you know the circumstances of an experiment, no matter how positive you are of the results, you always consider it a hypothesis: even laws are subject to change. The reason is that we as a limited species can never claim confidence in the results, but I think it's also important to consider this a metaphor for causality: even if we know what the results are going to be, the process has to play itself out on its own.
But that is where we diverge from God. He does know absolutely and with no question at all the results for every instance, or he is not omniscient. Omniscience is defined is having all possible knowledge, thus it is impossible for there to be anything any result an omniscient being does not know before hand, QED. Were we omniscient not only would science not need bother with hypotheses but we need not bother with science.
Science exists because we are aware of limited understanding and have sought to create a system by which to learn, as bias free as possible, the truths of the universe. Such an endeavor is meaningless to a being that inherently knows all of these truths.
Let me directly ask you this: how do you define freewill such that the absolute control of another over your actions does not violate it?
the God of Jewish scripture - the Old Testament - isn't any of the 3Os, especially in the earlier books. In fact, he isn't even the only God for a while; only later does the religion start to adopt the idea that he's the only real god, and the notion of Omni really doesn't come into play that much. There are hints of it in Job, but even that's a limited form: God seems to be all-powerful, but not all-knowing. 3O takes a long while to develop, and it's largely through the increasing abstraction of Christian philosophy. Borges made the point that God has been abstracted to the point of nothingness by now.
I recognize the unevenness of my comparison with science, but the segment I wanted to highlight is the last one:
even if we know what the results are going to be, the process has to play itself out on its own.
And that's true. Foreknowledge does not equal control. I'll give you an example: let's imagine we found a way to communicate faster than the speed of light. I could tell my friend in another universe exactly what I'm seeing here on my planet, so while he and his buddies watch my planet, they'll already know everything that's going to happen before it does. Granted, they don't have the power to interfere, but it's like watching a television show you taped the night before.
I don't see why this is a sticking point. That's why I can't answer your question about free will and total control: Catholics don't believe that God has total control over our decisions. Knowledge doesn't equal control: he's watching the tape he's already seen, but the actors still play the roles of their choosing.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
It was my earliest understanding that the whole "we are in a video game run from outside" thing was a Manichean invention, and thus the 3-O ideology an adoption of their thinking, but poking Jesus, and Judiasm in the appropriate boxes.
I realize that is gross oversimplification, but I find it interesting how the "video game" reality, arose and overcame the more here and now concepts that seem so much less dysfunctional for their societies.
You seem to have had a lot of deep studies in this area while mine have been more sketchy.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
the God of Jewish scripture - the Old Testament - isn't any of the 3Os, especially in the earlier books. In fact, he isn't even the only God for a while; only later does the religion start to adopt the idea that he's the only real god, and the notion of Omni really doesn't come into play that much. There are hints of it in Job, but even that's a limited form: God seems to be all-powerful, but not all-knowing. 3O takes a long while to develop, and it's largely through the increasing abstraction of Christian philosophy.
Interesting.
I recognize the unevenness of my comparison with science, but the segment I wanted to highlight is the last one:
even if we know what the results are going to be, the process has to play itself out on its own.
And that's true.
It is only true for us because our foreknowledge is imperfect. If we had true foreknowledge (omniscience) then events do not need to play themselves out because we in fact do know the result. Omniscience can never be wrong, by definition, and so actually doing the experiment is a waste of time in terms of learning.
I'll give you an example: let's imagine we found a way to communicate faster than the speed of light. I could tell my friend in another universe exactly what I'm seeing here on my planet, so while he and his buddies watch my planet, they'll already know everything that's going to happen before it does. Granted, they don't have the power to interfere, but it's like watching a television show you taped the night before.
By itself omniscience is not control, true. As I said the god has to have all four attributes: the knowledge, the power, the opportunity, and finally the actual act. But once those four come into play there is no possibility of any meaningful manner of freewill.
Again I ask you to define freewill for me. I can demonstrate to you a situation where I get total control in determining your actions (with the fictional conceit of a time machine) and yet you say you still have freewill, I'd like to know how you define the term that that is possible.
Knowledge doesn't equal control: he's watching the tape he's already seen, but the actors still play the roles of their choosing.
But god isn;t just watching the tape. He selected the script, chose the actors, and created the scenery. He isn;t just omniscient but he is also the creator. He selected the circumstances knowing at the time the inevitable results based on how he chose to start things. If he had wanted us to be blue skinned asexual amphibeans he would have changed the distribution of mass and energy at the big bang just slightly. Or altered any of dozens of physical quantities by whatever minute or gross amount needed to. He can do that because he knows absolutely the result of any given starting condition right down to the exact arrangement of atoms at the heat death of the universe. And because he knows, and because he has the position and power to choose any starting condition there is no single thing that happens in this universe that is not his will. His choice. Not ours. Our freewill is an illusion caused by our limited knowledge of what is, and was and how that has shaped the future.
Our freewill is an illusion caused by our limited knowledge of what is, and was and how that has shaped the future.
From a scientific, as opopsed to a religious, perspective I think that this sums the situation up quite well. This is the essence of the point I was trying to make!
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
It is only true for us because our foreknowledge is imperfect. If we had true foreknowledge (omniscience) then events do not need to play themselves out because we in fact do know the result. Omniscience can never be wrong, by definition, and so actually doing the experiment is a waste of time in terms of learning.
Actually no, and I think you contradict yourself here (sort of): The events do have to play themselves out, otherwise your foreknowledge would be wrong.
To use an example from literature, Oedipus kills his father not because he's bound to a fate predicted by an oracle at his birth, but because he lets his temper get the best of him while passing his (unbenknownst to him) father on the road. The Greeks had no trouble balancing foreknowledge with a notion of free will.
If I have time when I get back later tonight, I'll actually go rummage through and pull up my worn old copy of Augustine, before I bastardize him any more than I already have. Suffice to say that part of his argument has to do with linking free will to temporality - which is only a small part of God. In other words, time - and everything which is bound by time - is not eternal. God lives in a state of absolute simultanaeity, so his foreknowledge is not one of stacking the deck at the Bang (as deists would believe) but of full knowledge and presence at every moment of time, all at once. Causality, therefore, is something that only mortal creatures can experience, which is why the process of decision-making is so messily bound up in our experience.
Blech, I'm going to have to dig up the relevant text.
This is a great exercise, though: thanks. As an atheist, it's not so often I have to mount a defense/explanation/apologia for Christian theology... lol
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Actually no, and I think you contradict yourself here (sort of): The events do have to play themselves out, otherwise your foreknowledge would be wrong.
I don't see how you can say that. Any prediction made by an omniscient source is automatically true/will happen assuming the conditions of the prediction are met. An omniscient god can look at a firecraker and tell you exactly how loud the bang will be if it is lit under a given set of circumstances. In fact they can tell you how loud it will be under every possible set of circumstances (assuming you have time enough to listen to all the permutations). And they cannot be wrong about any one of them because they are omniscient.
To use an example from literature, Oedipus kills his father not because he's bound to a fate predicted by an oracle at his birth, but because he lets his temper get the best of him while passing his (unbenknownst to him) father on the road. The Greeks had no trouble balancing foreknowledge with a notion of free will.
But look at the differences here: the oracle in this case has no power to force Oedipus into a situation where he will get angry at his father. On the other hand God in that situation has in fact not only forseen that eventuality but every other eventuality that will come to pass depending on how they choose to start the universe, and ultimately they pick one. Everything after that is a function of God's will simply because he selected the outcome he wanted when he put the whole thing in motion.
In one scenario you are a world famous pop star, in another you are a hobo, in another you are a missionary in bora bora...and so on. But it isn't your choice even though it may seem that way. The result depends on outside factors that are entirely under his control.
God lives in a state of absolute simultanaeity, so his foreknowledge is not one of stacking the deck at the Bang (as deists would believe) but of full knowledge and presence at every moment of time, all at once.
WHile I agree that omnipresence pretty much requires this I don't see how it negates what I have said. Yes God experiences time as a synthesis rather than a line but the end result is the same.
On a side note this is another area I imagine must be hard for christians- their description of god is utterly alien and yet they always depict him as throughly human. The contrast is irreconcilable as far as I can see.
This is a great exercise, though: thanks.
I'm glad you are enjoying it, I hope it contiues to be useful. I'm enjoying it to, although work stupidity is putting a damper on my enjoyment of anything at the moment.
But look at the differences here: the oracle in this case has no power to force Oedipus into a situation where he will get angry at his father. On the other hand God in that situation has in fact not only forseen that eventuality but every other eventuality that will come to pass depending on how they choose to start the universe, and ultimately they pick one. Everything after that is a function of God's will simply because he selected the outcome he wanted when he put the whole thing in motion.
In one scenario you are a world famous pop star, in another you are a hobo, in another you are a missionary in bora bora...and so on. But it isn't your choice even though it may seem that way. The result depends on outside factors that are entirely under his control.
I think that we have two very interesting alternatives at play here between yourself and pico.
From a scientific perspective I have been assuming as you have that God has explicitly chosen the starting state at the big bang, and therefore having known the laws of the universe as he defined/understood them was, in effect, pre-ordaining every action of every particle and from the beginning to end of our universe.
This is based on one specific view of what it means to be omniscient. I think that pico is offering a different, but potentially equally valid, perspective.
Implicit in your argument is an assumption that God is omniscient not only for things related to our universe, but his meta-universe as well. And that when he created the universe he consciously selected the starting state at the big bang.
This goes back to my question about whether God could flip a meta-physical coin in his meta-physical universe and not know the outcome. In other words, is there any sense of random chance in Heaven even with respect to God?
If there is, then God certainly could have created the universe through the big bang but left the initial state up to the flip of a meta-physical coin in which case he, strictly speaking, has not pre-ordained the outcome of anything.
Next we must consider the omniscience of god w.r.t. the laws governing the universe. If he specifically selected and constructed every such law then by definition he would be able to immediately predict the resulting outcomes once the initial state was known and there would be no need to "let things play out". He would just know the result.
But what if God also left the specifics of the laws of the universe up to the flip of a meta-physical coin? I suppose in some sense once those too became known he would simply "know" the results. But this scenario also alludes to the concept that I think pico may be describing ... i.e. one in which even God has to let things "play out".
Assuming that the existence of God in his meta-phsyical universe transcends the existence of our own universe (which is not unreasonable), then the notion of omniscience described by pico has some meaning. God ends up being omniscent about what happens by virtue of having an existence that transcends our own (i.e. he exists simultaneously throughout our own concept of time) but even he has to wait to see what happens. Only after things completely play out is he omniscent w.r.t. our universe.
This is clearly a different notion of omniscience than what you (and I) have been assuming, but it to be an equally valid alternative interpretation as far as I can tell.
Are you following any of this? It is difficult to describe sometimes.
The bottom line, I think, comes down to whether you assume that God is omniscient w.r.t. just our universe, or is even omniscient regarding his own meta-physical one. In this latter case I would argue that random chance does not exist for God, but in the former it certainly could which could give rise to the scenario described above.
Why, you might ask, would God leave these things up to random chance? Well think about it. Being otherwise all knowing must be very boring indead. Perhaps he created the universe and let the initial conditions be random merely as a form of entertainment ... very much like playing "The Sims"! :-)
Actually, now that I am thinking about it, are we (or at least the programmer) not omniscent w.r.t. the "universe" that the Sims inhabit?
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
you're not kidding on that one. Especially for someone who doesn't believe in God to have to argue the Catholic side of the equation!
I think Catholics would argue that God's omniscience encompasses time, since time is only a minor part of God's timelessness. So He does know the way things will turn out, even if those things have to happen on their own. The alternative - that he sets the initial conditions and leaves some things to chance - seems like what the Deists proposed.
Personally, from my Godlessness perspective (the least of the sins I'm living in, I'm sure), I'm more sympathetic to what people have suggested upthread: the brain is a computer so stunningly complex that, even if it is all programmed to operate a certain way, we can't possibly grasp the programming. Hofstadter would take that a step further and argue that our programming language is inconsistent by nature, so that is what possibly gives us the ability to engage in what appears to be decision-making.
Although I prefer to believe in free will - even if I'm wrong - because otherwise notions of personal responsibility become arbitrary. Whatever the existentialist movement did or did not accomplish, they did try to make this point and reestablish the role of responsibility in/for everyday actions.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
OK, maybe I'm getting a better picture why you're confused about this.
Put it this way: how can you say you have freewill if another has utter and absolutel control over what you do? We aren't talking about influence here but total control. They can select any of the possible results they want from you and bring about the circumstances that cause you to act that way.
Catholics don't say that "another . . . can select any of the possible results they want from you and bring about the circumstances that cause you to act that way." God doesn't work that way. Instead, life provides you with options and you act based on your conscience.
You might argue that your interpretation is implied in the definition of the word "omnipotent" or "omniscient." Maybe, but the definition of "God" is more complex than just those few words.
Sounds like you and Augustine should spend some time together. He may have covered all of your questions in his tomes, 1,600 years ago. Or maybe Pico can explain better than I can. Philosophy is not my strong suit and I have to quit this for the day.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Catholics don't say that "another . . . can select any of the possible results they want from you and bring about the circumstances that cause you to act that way."
Ah, but they do say it when they say god is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent and created the universe. They just don't realize they said it. It is one of those unforseen consequences. You cannot have a 3O creator god without implicitly saying this, unless you can demonstrate an error in my argument above.
You might argue that your interpretation is implied in the definition of the word "omnipotent" or "omniscient." Maybe, but the definition of "God" is more complex than just those few words.
That doesn't matter, so long as the definition contains those four attributes I mention the end result is inescapable. Whatever else god is doesn't matter to the argument so long as he is also a creator and also omniscient et cetera.
You define omniscient as having all possible knowledge, thereby implying that not all knowledge is possible. It is completely rational to believe that an omnipotent god can create a universe in which future events are not 100% predictable, and thus knowledge of the future does not need to be included in omniscient knowledge. Such a universe would indeed allow for an omipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent god, and free will.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
You define omniscient as having all possible knowledge, thereby implying that not all knowledge is possible.
Well in this case "impossible" knowledge is what we would call false. And yes it is impossible for an omniscient god to "know" such things.
It is completely rational to believe that an omnipotent god can create a universe in which future events are not 100% predictable, and thus knowledge of the future does not need to be included in omniscient knowledge.
But as before god is not a linear entity in time, there are no surprises for it. It views the universe from every moment simultaneously. Absolutely everything is 100% predictable to it or it cannot be both omniscient and omnipresent.
Actually now that I think of it there is one scenario in which you could have those four attributes and still have freewill. That is if we do in fact live in an irrational universe. Since this is a rational argument it only holds true if the initial assumptions are true and if the underlying logical operations are valid. I have to give credit to Pico, I wouldn't have thought of that if not for his exploration of the meaning of rationality.
Before the "creation event" there was no time, so there was no future to know. At the moment god created the universe, all became clear and known to him throughout time, but what became known to him was the result of our free will acting on the universe just created. So yes, this god knows everything that will happen, but that is only because, from god's point of view, it has already happened.
Taking god out of the picture for a moment... I know that the Patriots beat the Jets last weekend. Because I know it now does not make it predestined then.
God just has a more expansive "now" then I do, but what god knows now does not require predestiny as the events occur.
You may say, but god would have known all before the creation event, because he is omniscient. But no, there was nothing to know before the event, so not knowing that does not preclude omniscience. God knew all once time was created, but once time was created, everything had already happened, from god's point of view.
Of course, I am pretty much making this up as I go along. I don't actually believe in a 3O god, so it isn't easy for me to come up with these arguments!
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
Before the "creation event" there was no time, so there was no future to know.
God still existed and still acted. The creation story is written as if time existed in some sense before god creates everything. While we can chalk this up to the limited perceptions of the authors we still have a situation of god acting before creation. And even before time existed God would have to know what would happen when he created it, or he is not omniscient.
At the moment god created the universe, all became clear and known to him throughout time, but what became known to him was the result of our free will acting on the universe just created.
That requires us to say that god was not omniscient before the creation.
I know that the Patriots beat the Jets last weekend. Because I know it now does not make it predestined then.
But again omniscience is not the only factor. There are four attributes involved: the three O's and an action. If you knew how to fix the game so that the Jets would win, and it was within your power to do so, and you were in the right place to do so, and you did act, then the Jet's winning or losing is predetermined. You decided whether or not to let them win, to make them win, and acted accordingly.
But no, there was nothing to know before the event, so not knowing that does not preclude omniscience.
Of course there was something to know. There was the answer to "what happens if I create space time?" If god cannot answer that question then he is not omniscient. Just as God has to know the answer to the question "What happens if I create Adam" before he actually creates him.
There are four attributes involved: the three O's and an action. If you knew how to fix the game so that the Jets would win, and it was within your power to do so, and you were in the right place to do so, and you did act, then the Jet's winning or losing is predetermined. You decided whether or not to let them win, to make them win, and acted accordingly.
I think what we're running into here are two separate problems, not only for Christian theology, but also for our understanding of human beings (which you allude to elsewhere).
The first is omnipotence, which hasn't been addressed much directly. The key difference between your discussion of the Jet's game and ours is this phrase: "and you did act". That entirely differentiates your version from ours: God did act. Catholics would argue that God created the universe and all the conditions of the context, but human beings still have the ability to navigate themselves through that universe. God knows how we'll do it, but it's still our decision and responsibility to make those choices, just like knowing the result of the Jet's game from yesterday doesn't predetermine its results (because God stands outside of time, all football games are known to him as if watching from afterwards). But Catholics would argue that setting the conditions doesn't precondition the actors, insofar as free will is a more or less independent factor.
Which brings us to free will, and where the bigger sticking point is. Does the context predetermine the choicemaking abilities of the actors involved? This isn't just a problem for Catholics or Christians: this is the fundamental crisis of 20th century psychology, history, sociology, and beyond. To what extent are human beings responsible for their actions, when so many of their decisions can be attributed to biology, income level, education level, environmental factors, etc.? If so many of these factors can be explained, what right does Justice have to punish/exult people for acting in a way that seems almost preconditioned? On the other hand, if we treat actions as preconditioned, to what extent are we avoiding our responsibilities as choicemakers?
So it seems like God is not the only one whose position is compromised here.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Catholics would argue that God created the universe and all the conditions of the context, but human beings still have the ability to navigate themselves through that universe. God knows how we'll do it, but it's still our decision and responsibility to make those choices,
I really don't get how you can say this. Go back to my initial example-
1) do you agree that the time traveler has complete control over the subject's actions (at least his action during the observed decision)?
2) if so, do you agree that this complete control represents an automatic negation of the subject having freewill in any meaningful sense?
3) if so, then how does that situation vary form god's position?
If you can tell me where in this chain you disagree with me maybe we can make more head way.
Does the context predetermine the choicemaking abilities of the actors involved?
I would say no, but with an important caveat: if the context is determined by an actor who knows the result of your action based on the context then yes.
Here's how I say that: any given decision you make will be influenced by untold millions of little bits of context. For human beings while we may strongly influence by using various psychological levers we cannot ever truly control because the range of permutations is simply outside of our ability to consider much less know. But if someone did somehow know what contexts lead to what decision and they can create any context they want and they do, then I don't see how any conclusion is possible but that you are a puppet on their string. They decide what action you will take, not you. They decide. You think you decided but really you were just responding in the way they knew you would respond. That is control. And control is antithetical to freewill.
Damn Pico, you're not just good, you're real good. If I were in Michigan I'd audit your classes.
Does the context predetermine the choicemaking abilities of the actors involved? This isn't just a problem for Catholics or Christians: this is the fundamental crisis of 20th century psychology, history, sociology, and beyond. To what extent are human beings responsible for their actions, when so many of their decisions can be attributed to biology, income level, education level, environmental factors, etc.? If so many of these factors can be explained, what right does Justice have to punish/exult people for acting in a way that seems almost preconditioned? On the other hand, if we treat actions as preconditioned, to what extent are we avoiding our responsibilities as choicemakers?
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
While this discussion has gone beyond my ability to provide the detail you're looking for, there's a small mischaracterization your last post.
The creation story is written as if time existed in some sense before god creates everything.
Catholics do not interpret the creation story literally. God did not really create the world in seven days, nor was Eve really created from Adam's rib. Those stories (as are many others from the Old Testament) are allegories, not literal truth.
I was serious about reading St Augustine. You've obviously spent some time thinking about this and might find the logic that's eluding you there.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
...From some time spent at the Catholic answers forum I do know that at least some self described Catholics take it as literal but I'll take your word for it that that is not the doctrinal position.
Catholics who believe in the literal word of Genesis, and none of them were priests or clergy. The vast majority, including the Popes, teach the figurative version.
One of the reasons for this is that one of the most powerful Catholic sects - the Jesuits - are, for all their faults, heavy proponents of science, research, and education.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
If God is who most religions claim him to be, all mighty, all powerful and ALL knowing, nothing could possibly be beyond his understanding. Lets turn the tables, does God have free will?
An interesting question... I'd have to think about it. Off hand I'd say no as a technicality. If we are defining freewill as the ability to make decisions independent of outside influence and god doesn't really make decisions as we understand it then the term probably becomes meaningless in regards to him. But I'd need to think about it more.
I'm not attempting to argue the logic of the belief. If that's what you want, there's a 600+ page Catechism you can peruse at your leisure, as well as numerous apologists whose paragraphs you can explore. I am simply correcting an incorrect assumption on your part about Catholicism and free will.
I don't see how this logically conflicts with anything, but that may be because I don't really, um, care. The world we inhabit----not just the physical, the whole enchilada----is not logical, nor are people generally (in my experience).
I just didn't want you walking around thinking that the outcome of the Reformation was just some nail holes in a church door. There are significant theological differences between Catholicism and the Protestant faiths. Most of what one sees and hears as "religion" is a Protestant version.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
I certainly understand that Catholic doctrine says that they have freewill, I just don't see how they can justify this belief.
Ultimately they can believe whatever they want, one of the perks of faith, but I strenuously object to your contention that the world is not rational. It is, painfully so. People are often not, but the physical processes of the universe march on in lockstep hard rationality.
Ironically I'm listening to Rush, "Freewill," at the moment.
quantum physics disagrees with you on that one. Rationalism is predicated on the notion that A + B = C, and if all outside variables are known, A + B will always = C. Certain functions of quantum mechanics operate randomly, backwards in time, and - for lack of a better word - irrationally.
It may be that we'll discover deeper causes that will change that belief, but so far, all indications are that sometimes, God does play dice with the universe.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Not really. Quantum is still extremely rational. It is just counter-intuitive a lot of the time, but those aren't the same thing. Our intuition tells us how we think the world works and has developed based on our experience witht he world. It is not too surpriseing, and hardly irrational, that this understanding of the world breaks down when trying to predict situations that are vastly outside of our experience, as both Quantum and Relativity are.
It sounds like you're running into a tautology, by saying that anything natural is, by definition, rational.
Rational = a human process of quantifying and qualifying experience. It doesn't exist in the natural world. I'm saying quantum is "irrational" because it runs counter to our mechanisms for quantifying and qualifying.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
It sounds like you're running into a tautology, by saying that anything natural is, by definition, rational.
Rational means it is internally consistent. That no part of the whole violates any other part of the whole. We can furthermore go on to require rational arguments to agree with the facts such as they are. Intuition then is often counter-rational. Quantum is not.
Consider the idea that a cannon ball will fall faster than a tennis ball. This idea is very intuitive, and yet it is not rational in either the sense of fitting with the rest of our physical understanding of the universe nor is it rational in the sense of fitting with the facts (if you were to try the experiment).
In order to 'judge' something like that, you'd have to define the consistency in human terms - and that, in and of itself, becomes a process of human organization, not reflection of the natural state.
That's why it's a tautology: the natural world is internally consistent because it is. It can't not be. If it were otherwise, that state would be still be internally consistent simply by being. Donuts raining down from the sky are internally consistent in a system in which donuts raining down from the sky are a natural phenomenon. If a tennis ball fell slower than a bowling ball, that would be internally consistent, too - because that's how things would be.
The problem comes when we try to establish rules for understanding it. Right or wrong, our systems for understanding are always slightly misleading (Hofstadter gets into this a little in Godel, Escher, Bach, when he notes that large-scale human thought systems are either inconsistent or incomplete, but cannot be neither).
What I'm arguing is that randomness can occur in quantum mechanics, and that makes inconsistency a constant in our universe. It's not a well-oiled machine at all.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
In order to 'judge' something like that, you'd have to define the consistency in human terms
I don't see that that is true. A computer can be programed to evaluate the consistency of a series of statements and yet it has no humanity, merely a series of logic functi
Comments :
it almost seems like
you guys need another philosophy thread. If you need me to substitute this one with a fresh one (with a link to the old) just tell me.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Yeh, start a couple if you can
Suggested topics; Ethics and morality, Philosophy in everyday life, Ancient Philosophy, the philosophy of science, free will continued
Off the wall thoughts...
Off the wall question: If God flips a meta-physical coin in his meta-physical world, does he necessarily know how it is going to land?
Christianity says that people have souls and that those souls (for believers) will go to be with God when we die. For our souls to literally "be with God", they must be part of the meta-physical world in which he exists. This raises in interesting questions with respect to the ralationship between our physical and our meta-physical selves.
In many ways the virtual worlds created within some video games are analogous to the concept of God creating our universe. Let's consider two different styles of such games.
First, The SIMS.
One could view the creator of the popular game The SIMS as being "god" with respect to the realm in which they exist. He defined every aspect of their virtual world as well as defined their automaton driven behavior.
This scenario is very much like the concept of an omniscient, omnipotent god who created our physical universe. Since the creator knows everything about his virtual creations and the world in which they exist, they should in a sense be able to predict how a given simulation will play out. And by carefully setting up the initial conditions within that virtual world, they effectively pre-ordain everything that will happen once the simulation begins.
The virtual people go about their virtual lives doing virtual activities all in a prescribed and predictable manner.
Second, Everquest or World of Warcraft.
In this scenario the virtual world is constructed. Rules are put in place as to how things operate. But the actors are actually driven by beings that exist outside of the virtual world (i.e. in some meta-virtual one like our physical one). To the extent that the physical world people who are controlling the actions of the virtual world people have free will, so do their virtual world counterparts.
This is a distinctly different perspective than the one above. Here the actors within the virtual world do not have any pre-programmed behavior so the outcomes in the virtual world are not pre-ordained.
I would argue that a pure science perspective implies a universe or reality for us that is more like that of The SIMS in this case. The actors are created, initial conditions are established, and the whole thing is pretty much predictable from there on out.
I would argue that any religion that believes in a meta-physical soul of sorts operates in a manner somewhat similar to that of Everquest. Constraints and limits are placed on the operations within the virtual world, but the actors are somehow controlled by meta-virtual world beings.
I don't really have a point to this post other than to offer it up for your consideration and to see if it generates any additional discussion. It is late. I am rambling.
Good night.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Christianity says that
Zarathustra explores the Biblical origins of the human soul evolving from animal to psyche to life force.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
Can you just boil this down
to energy. To provide light and heat through the fact that opposites attract.
The negative charge and the postive charge and the flow of energy. Like magnents that repel and attract.
Your question, "If God flips a metaphysical coin does he know how it will land."
First why would "God" flip a coin?
Second who or what is "God".
Why would "God" care how it landed?
If the bible is a parable, then the story of Adam and Eve is the story of opposites, male-female (energy) one created from a piece of the other.
The forbidden fruit is a choice, or the choices we make. God gives us the free will to chose. He does not have control over which way the coin flips, that is up to you. "God" doesn't care how the coin lands, or what choices you make.
That is our "free will". The energy you choose is yours to keep. Choose happiness.
It is the economy, stupid.
Christianity precludes freewill...
...but don't feel bad, so do Islam and Judaism. Any philosophy that includes an omniscient omnipotent omnipresent creator god cannot logically allow for freewill. Demonstrating this is fairly simple.
Let us imagine a situation where you have a time machine allowing you to freely revist a moment in time.
You sit and watch as a man walks up to a stream. He is faced with a decision which he makes of his own free will: to continue on or go back. Seeing no dry way across he goes back.
You now jump in your time machine and go back one hour. You drag a log so that it crosses the stream at the location where the man will approach it. You wave to yourself and sit down to watch.
The man approaches and finding a way across decides to cross the stream.
Back to the time machine back an hour again. Laugh politely as your previous incarnations make a joke about it getting crowded in here. And then...
What? What do you do? Do you put the log where he can find it or remove it? By doing so you determine the man's actions because you already know how he responds to the give stimuli. Free will for the man is an illusion based on his ignorance of your power to control the scenario he finds himself in.
You know how the subject will behave under give circumstance. God (omniscient) knows how everyone will ever behave under every possible circumstance.
You have the power to control the circumstances and thereby determine his action. God (omnipotent) has the power to control every circumstance and thereby determine every action.
You have access (via the time machine) to the instance in question. God (omnipresent in time and space) has access to every instant everwhere.
The only question is if you choose to exercise your power by creating a scenario, meanwhile God (creator) has created the scenario by creating the universe, nothing happens in it that he did not choose to have happen
By having the power to create how everything starts and the infinite knowledge to know exactly how everey possible start ends up god precludes freewill. Which for a Christian I imagine means some uncomfortable issues. It means everything done has been done because god planned it. Lucifer's fall was god's choice. God set Judas and Caine up to fail. They are murderers because it was convenient to god's plan.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
This is an interesting post.
I need to think on it a bit and get back to you. I'm not sure that I completely agree with this logic but I can't immediately put my finger on why.
Part of my objection is the observation that even though God could consciously manipulate scenarios as you suggest that does not necessarily imply that he/she does.
I would argue that God himself must be inherently meta-physical in the sense that he cannot exist as part of the universe he created. Thus, god must be separate and apart from the physical universe as we know it.
Likewise with the angels. Here is a gap in my knowledge of Christianity. Did God create the Angels ... and therefore Lucifer? I don't recall hearing any such thing but I certainly could have missed it.
All I seem to recall is that God was God and the Angels worshipped him, and Lucifer was cast down for aspiring to replace God (or something along those lines).
So, if God didn't create Lucifer and the other Angels, then he cannot have pre-ordained their actions or activities. In that sense the Angels at least have just as much free will as God does, and they all presumably exist in some meta-physical world with respect to our physical universe.
So, while God may be omniscient and omnipotent with respect to the comings and goings within our own physical universe he isn't necessarily so with respect to his other worldly meta-physical universe.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
the creation...
But they did. At least if you believe them to be a creator god they did. You could have an omniscient omnipotent omnipresent passivegod and still have freewill but once that god becomes active (and by creating the universe of course god was active) they have meddled with the universe such that free will becomes an illusion.
God was supposed to have created the angels but your point here is interesting. However it would imply that only other metaphysical beings could have free will. Which means god would be off the hook for Lucifer's fall but not Caine's or Judas'.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Freewill
Not to harp, but you're confusing your religions here. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, Catholic theology is based on the idea of and necessity of free will. It is only the Protestant faiths that get all wrapped up in an active, all-controlling, knows-what-color-my-socks-are version of God.* Just keep that in mind when you use the term Christianity. Not all Christians believe like you think they do. (And for the record, Catholic doctrine thinks Darwin's theory of evolution is just fine and should be taught in schools.)
For a very interesting take on the role of good, evil, God, Lucifer, angels, etc., I suggest Anne Rice's book Memnoch the Devil. It's a great read and very thought provoking. You don't need to have read any other of her books to understand Memnoch.
(*We could spend hours discussing the fine points of Catholic theology, but for the purposes of this discussion I think I've expressed the spirit and intent adequately. The Church's recently published Catecism is available to those who wish to delve deeper.)
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
How so?
Unless I am severely misremembering my study of catholicism they do believe in an omniscient god. In fact they even believe in an infallible Pope. Now maybe they fudge it a bit but at the end of the day either god is omniscient or he is not.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Infallibility
The concept of infallibility of the Pope relates to his proclaimations about tenets of the faith, not about his personal attributes. It is an important distinction but one that might be hard to grasp. As a conduit of explanation of obscure theological points, he is assumed to be "correct" in his analyses. As a person, he is as fallible as the next man.
Omnicience is different from omnipotence. Here's what you said with regards to free will
God may be considered omnicient ("all knowing"), but free will still exists because in the Catholic faith, predestination does not exist. God may have ignited the big bang but he has not written the entire history of this planet. Men, through acts of free will, do so. We are not helpless actors on some grand stage. We create our own destiny.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Faith vs Reason
But that argument is simply a statement with no underlying logic. You claim freewill exists despite the apprent logical incompatibility of this claim with other claims you hold true (assuming you are Catholic).
In other words while I understand that Catholics believe in freewill I think they have simply not thought the matter through logically. Either their concept of god or their concept of freewill must be faulty. The two are mutually exclusive.
Of course there may be an error in my analysis in which case their views may in fact be internally consistent. But I need more than "because they say so" in order to see that it is my reasoning rather than theirs that is in error.
I've tried to demonstrate how, by creating the big bang, God did indeed choose every future action of every being in the universe. Can you show me where my argument is wrong?
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Not sure I agree with that,
nor do the major philosophers of the Catholic church. If you really want to get into it, check out people like Augustine - who strikes me as a terrible person (my bias) but a profound thinker and philosopher.
Consider it this way: if you pull out a treat for your dog, you can be certain your dog is going to eat it. Does that mean the dog was predestined/predetermined to eat it? Not really, even though you knew that would be the eventual result.
The question of omniscience/omnipotence/omnipresecence (the 3O god, as my colleagues refer to him) seems imcompatible with evil and free choice, but Augustine argues - slightly dishonestly, but bear with me - that evil doesn't exist at all. It's a turning away from God - a lack.
The reason I call that "slightly dishonest" is because that implies that God isn't 100% Omni. Apparently there are vaccuums that He doesn't fill - although it's not a present vaccuum so much as an act: as he says, a turning away.
Augustine argued this way because other Christian sects were trying to claim that evil was both a real and necessary force in the world: that the world we live in is really a balance of good and evil, blah blah blah (I don't want to get too off topic).
In fact, though you see a contradiction here, the Catholic view has never bothered me. It's the predestination side of Christianity that does: what good is redemption, supplication, philanthropy if it's all been decided beforehand. Even worse, it makes a farce out of life: you're just a cog that's going to come out the way He has decided.
If I ever rediscover religion (which I doubt), that's likely to be the last side I'd go to.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Consider it this way: if you
If you could really absolutely predict the dog's actions then yes I would say it was predestined by your choice of actions.
Put it this way: how can you say you have freewill if another has utter and absolutel control over what you do? We aren't talking about influence here but total control. They can select any of the possible results they want from you and bring about the circumstances that cause you to act that way.
What is freewill if not the ability to decide a thing for yourself in spite of the wishes of all around you?
This strikes me as shallow sophistry on the part of Augustine. He is stuck with an internally inconsistent religion and so rather than have the courage to say that something is wrong he fudges the rules. God is omniscient except when he isn't.
Part of the problem though is that it is also the catholic view, they just don't realize it. Like an alcoholic claiming they don't have a problem, popes claim they do have freewill. The denial, and even their belief in it, is immaterial. The situation remains. Christianity (except fro some of the more esoteric subcults) excludes freewill.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
The perfect alibi
But honey that little 20 something lady was sooo attractive, and sooo willing, my response was guaranteed by the situation, I just had no free will at all.......
Probably more actual fact than not, but it still won't get you off the hook.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
A little ahistorical:
for one thing, the notion of the 3O God isn't born with Christianity - it takes a while to develop. Augustine, who comes a little later, is actually trying to develop a pretty sophisticated argument that God can be both omniscient and free will can exist, all at once. My bland distillation may come across as a sophistry, but his actual writings are rhetorically impressive. The Confessions are pretty short: you should give them a read (link
)
I think you're running on an oversimplification of Christian theology here:
Most Catholics would argue that God can but doesn't interfere. Actually, so would many Orthodox. It's the crux of Dosteovsky's argument in The Brothers Karamazov that God allows human beings free will - though he doesn't have to - because otherwise the notion of redemption and worship would be meaningless (link
, although I re-translated part of this for clarity's sake):
Going back to the dog metaphor, I disagree with you 100%. Backing up a bit - knowing all the variables involve doesn't predestine a response: that's also the root of science. According to the scientific method, no matter how much you know the circumstances of an experiment, no matter how positive you are of the results, you always consider it a hypothesis: even laws are subject to change. The reason is that we as a limited species can never claim confidence in the results, but I think it's also important to consider this a metaphor for causality: even if we know what the results are going to be, the process has to play itself out on its own.
I'd read omniscience in the same way: knowing the results doesn't mean the process isn't playing itself out in its own terms.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
for one thing, the notion of
Are you sure about that? I thought the 3O concept pre-dated christianity having originated in Judaism and was subsequently absorbed into Christianity with most of the rest of the Judaic theology at the time.
But that requires you to ignore the ultimate interference: the creation.
But that is where we diverge from God. He does know absolutely and with no question at all the results for every instance, or he is not omniscient. Omniscience is defined is having all possible knowledge, thus it is impossible for there to be anything any result an omniscient being does not know before hand, QED. Were we omniscient not only would science not need bother with hypotheses but we need not bother with science.
Science exists because we are aware of limited understanding and have sought to create a system by which to learn, as bias free as possible, the truths of the universe. Such an endeavor is meaningless to a being that inherently knows all of these truths.
Let me directly ask you this: how do you define freewill such that the absolute control of another over your actions does not violate it?
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Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Some clarification:
the God of Jewish scripture - the Old Testament - isn't any of the 3Os, especially in the earlier books. In fact, he isn't even the only God for a while; only later does the religion start to adopt the idea that he's the only real god, and the notion of Omni really doesn't come into play that much. There are hints of it in Job, but even that's a limited form: God seems to be all-powerful, but not all-knowing. 3O takes a long while to develop, and it's largely through the increasing abstraction of Christian philosophy. Borges made the point that God has been abstracted to the point of nothingness by now.
I recognize the unevenness of my comparison with science, but the segment I wanted to highlight is the last one:
And that's true. Foreknowledge does not equal control. I'll give you an example: let's imagine we found a way to communicate faster than the speed of light. I could tell my friend in another universe exactly what I'm seeing here on my planet, so while he and his buddies watch my planet, they'll already know everything that's going to happen before it does. Granted, they don't have the power to interfere, but it's like watching a television show you taped the night before.
I don't see why this is a sticking point. That's why I can't answer your question about free will and total control: Catholics don't believe that God has total control over our decisions. Knowledge doesn't equal control: he's watching the tape he's already seen, but the actors still play the roles of their choosing.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
At what point do the Manicheans influence?
It was my earliest understanding that the whole "we are in a video game run from outside" thing was a Manichean invention, and thus the 3-O ideology an adoption of their thinking, but poking Jesus, and Judiasm in the appropriate boxes.
I realize that is gross oversimplification, but I find it interesting how the "video game" reality, arose and overcame the more here and now concepts that seem so much less dysfunctional for their societies.
You seem to have had a lot of deep studies in this area while mine have been more sketchy.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Hrrrm...
Interesting.
It is only true for us because our foreknowledge is imperfect. If we had true foreknowledge (omniscience) then events do not need to play themselves out because we in fact do know the result. Omniscience can never be wrong, by definition, and so actually doing the experiment is a waste of time in terms of learning.
By itself omniscience is not control, true. As I said the god has to have all four attributes: the knowledge, the power, the opportunity, and finally the actual act. But once those four come into play there is no possibility of any meaningful manner of freewill.
Again I ask you to define freewill for me. I can demonstrate to you a situation where I get total control in determining your actions (with the fictional conceit of a time machine) and yet you say you still have freewill, I'd like to know how you define the term that that is possible.
But god isn;t just watching the tape. He selected the script, chose the actors, and created the scenery. He isn;t just omniscient but he is also the creator. He selected the circumstances knowing at the time the inevitable results based on how he chose to start things. If he had wanted us to be blue skinned asexual amphibeans he would have changed the distribution of mass and energy at the big bang just slightly. Or altered any of dozens of physical quantities by whatever minute or gross amount needed to. He can do that because he knows absolutely the result of any given starting condition right down to the exact arrangement of atoms at the heat death of the universe. And because he knows, and because he has the position and power to choose any starting condition there is no single thing that happens in this universe that is not his will. His choice. Not ours. Our freewill is an illusion caused by our limited knowledge of what is, and was and how that has shaped the future.
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Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Nice concise summation.
From a scientific, as opopsed to a religious, perspective I think that this sums the situation up quite well. This is the essence of the point I was trying to make!
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Pretzel logic, here:
Actually no, and I think you contradict yourself here (sort of): The events do have to play themselves out, otherwise your foreknowledge would be wrong.
To use an example from literature, Oedipus kills his father not because he's bound to a fate predicted by an oracle at his birth, but because he lets his temper get the best of him while passing his (unbenknownst to him) father on the road. The Greeks had no trouble balancing foreknowledge with a notion of free will.
If I have time when I get back later tonight, I'll actually go rummage through and pull up my worn old copy of Augustine, before I bastardize him any more than I already have. Suffice to say that part of his argument has to do with linking free will to temporality - which is only a small part of God. In other words, time - and everything which is bound by time - is not eternal. God lives in a state of absolute simultanaeity, so his foreknowledge is not one of stacking the deck at the Bang (as deists would believe) but of full knowledge and presence at every moment of time, all at once. Causality, therefore, is something that only mortal creatures can experience, which is why the process of decision-making is so messily bound up in our experience.
Blech, I'm going to have to dig up the relevant text.
This is a great exercise, though: thanks. As an atheist, it's not so often I have to mount a defense/explanation/apologia for Christian theology... lol
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Double post. -nt.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
And a triple post. blech! -nt.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I don't see how this follows...
I don't see how you can say that. Any prediction made by an omniscient source is automatically true/will happen assuming the conditions of the prediction are met. An omniscient god can look at a firecraker and tell you exactly how loud the bang will be if it is lit under a given set of circumstances. In fact they can tell you how loud it will be under every possible set of circumstances (assuming you have time enough to listen to all the permutations). And they cannot be wrong about any one of them because they are omniscient.
But look at the differences here: the oracle in this case has no power to force Oedipus into a situation where he will get angry at his father. On the other hand God in that situation has in fact not only forseen that eventuality but every other eventuality that will come to pass depending on how they choose to start the universe, and ultimately they pick one. Everything after that is a function of God's will simply because he selected the outcome he wanted when he put the whole thing in motion.
In one scenario you are a world famous pop star, in another you are a hobo, in another you are a missionary in bora bora...and so on. But it isn't your choice even though it may seem that way. The result depends on outside factors that are entirely under his control.
WHile I agree that omnipresence pretty much requires this I don't see how it negates what I have said. Yes God experiences time as a synthesis rather than a line but the end result is the same.
On a side note this is another area I imagine must be hard for christians- their description of god is utterly alien and yet they always depict him as throughly human. The contrast is irreconcilable as far as I can see.
I'm glad you are enjoying it, I hope it contiues to be useful. I'm enjoying it to, although work stupidity is putting a damper on my enjoyment of anything at the moment.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
This is a very interesting thread.
I think that we have two very interesting alternatives at play here between yourself and pico.
From a scientific perspective I have been assuming as you have that God has explicitly chosen the starting state at the big bang, and therefore having known the laws of the universe as he defined/understood them was, in effect, pre-ordaining every action of every particle and from the beginning to end of our universe.
This is based on one specific view of what it means to be omniscient. I think that pico is offering a different, but potentially equally valid, perspective.
Implicit in your argument is an assumption that God is omniscient not only for things related to our universe, but his meta-universe as well. And that when he created the universe he consciously selected the starting state at the big bang.
This goes back to my question about whether God could flip a meta-physical coin in his meta-physical universe and not know the outcome. In other words, is there any sense of random chance in Heaven even with respect to God?
If there is, then God certainly could have created the universe through the big bang but left the initial state up to the flip of a meta-physical coin in which case he, strictly speaking, has not pre-ordained the outcome of anything.
Next we must consider the omniscience of god w.r.t. the laws governing the universe. If he specifically selected and constructed every such law then by definition he would be able to immediately predict the resulting outcomes once the initial state was known and there would be no need to "let things play out". He would just know the result.
But what if God also left the specifics of the laws of the universe up to the flip of a meta-physical coin? I suppose in some sense once those too became known he would simply "know" the results. But this scenario also alludes to the concept that I think pico may be describing ... i.e. one in which even God has to let things "play out".
Assuming that the existence of God in his meta-phsyical universe transcends the existence of our own universe (which is not unreasonable), then the notion of omniscience described by pico has some meaning. God ends up being omniscent about what happens by virtue of having an existence that transcends our own (i.e. he exists simultaneously throughout our own concept of time) but even he has to wait to see what happens. Only after things completely play out is he omniscent w.r.t. our universe.
This is clearly a different notion of omniscience than what you (and I) have been assuming, but it to be an equally valid alternative interpretation as far as I can tell.
Are you following any of this? It is difficult to describe sometimes.
The bottom line, I think, comes down to whether you assume that God is omniscient w.r.t. just our universe, or is even omniscient regarding his own meta-physical one. In this latter case I would argue that random chance does not exist for God, but in the former it certainly could which could give rise to the scenario described above.
Why, you might ask, would God leave these things up to random chance? Well think about it. Being otherwise all knowing must be very boring indead. Perhaps he created the universe and let the initial conditions be random merely as a form of entertainment ... very much like playing "The Sims"! :-)
Actually, now that I am thinking about it, are we (or at least the programmer) not omniscent w.r.t. the "universe" that the Sims inhabit?
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
It IS difficult to describe;
you're not kidding on that one. Especially for someone who doesn't believe in God to have to argue the Catholic side of the equation!
I think Catholics would argue that God's omniscience encompasses time, since time is only a minor part of God's timelessness. So He does know the way things will turn out, even if those things have to happen on their own. The alternative - that he sets the initial conditions and leaves some things to chance - seems like what the Deists proposed.
Personally, from my Godlessness perspective (the least of the sins I'm living in, I'm sure), I'm more sympathetic to what people have suggested upthread: the brain is a computer so stunningly complex that, even if it is all programmed to operate a certain way, we can't possibly grasp the programming. Hofstadter would take that a step further and argue that our programming language is inconsistent by nature, so that is what possibly gives us the ability to engage in what appears to be decision-making.
Although I prefer to believe in free will - even if I'm wrong - because otherwise notions of personal responsibility become arbitrary. Whatever the existentialist movement did or did not accomplish, they did try to make this point and reestablish the role of responsibility in/for everyday actions.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
A final attempt
OK, maybe I'm getting a better picture why you're confused about this.
Catholics don't say that "another . . . can select any of the possible results they want from you and bring about the circumstances that cause you to act that way." God doesn't work that way. Instead, life provides you with options and you act based on your conscience.
You might argue that your interpretation is implied in the definition of the word "omnipotent" or "omniscient." Maybe, but the definition of "God" is more complex than just those few words.
Sounds like you and Augustine should spend some time together. He may have covered all of your questions in his tomes, 1,600 years ago. Or maybe Pico can explain better than I can. Philosophy is not my strong suit and I have to quit this for the day.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Unforseen consequences
Ah, but they do say it when they say god is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent and created the universe. They just don't realize they said it. It is one of those unforseen consequences. You cannot have a 3O creator god without implicitly saying this, unless you can demonstrate an error in my argument above.
That doesn't matter, so long as the definition contains those four attributes I mention the end result is inescapable. Whatever else god is doesn't matter to the argument so long as he is also a creator and also omniscient et cetera.
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Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Your own definition provides the error in your argument
You define omniscient as having all possible knowledge, thereby implying that not all knowledge is possible. It is completely rational to believe that an omnipotent god can create a universe in which future events are not 100% predictable, and thus knowledge of the future does not need to be included in omniscient knowledge. Such a universe would indeed allow for an omipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent god, and free will.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
A new name!
Welcome!
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
You define omniscient as
Well in this case "impossible" knowledge is what we would call false. And yes it is impossible for an omniscient god to "know" such things.
But as before god is not a linear entity in time, there are no surprises for it. It views the universe from every moment simultaneously. Absolutely everything is 100% predictable to it or it cannot be both omniscient and omnipresent.
Actually now that I think of it there is one scenario in which you could have those four attributes and still have freewill. That is if we do in fact live in an irrational universe. Since this is a rational argument it only holds true if the initial assumptions are true and if the underlying logical operations are valid. I have to give credit to Pico, I wouldn't have thought of that if not for his exploration of the meaning of rationality.
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Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
How about this then
Before the "creation event" there was no time, so there was no future to know. At the moment god created the universe, all became clear and known to him throughout time, but what became known to him was the result of our free will acting on the universe just created. So yes, this god knows everything that will happen, but that is only because, from god's point of view, it has already happened.
Taking god out of the picture for a moment... I know that the Patriots beat the Jets last weekend. Because I know it now does not make it predestined then.
God just has a more expansive "now" then I do, but what god knows now does not require predestiny as the events occur.
You may say, but god would have known all before the creation event, because he is omniscient. But no, there was nothing to know before the event, so not knowing that does not preclude omniscience. God knew all once time was created, but once time was created, everything had already happened, from god's point of view.
Of course, I am pretty much making this up as I go along. I don't actually believe in a 3O god, so it isn't easy for me to come up with these arguments!
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
Yes, But... (tm)
God still existed and still acted. The creation story is written as if time existed in some sense before god creates everything. While we can chalk this up to the limited perceptions of the authors we still have a situation of god acting before creation. And even before time existed God would have to know what would happen when he created it, or he is not omniscient.
That requires us to say that god was not omniscient before the creation.
But again omniscience is not the only factor. There are four attributes involved: the three O's and an action. If you knew how to fix the game so that the Jets would win, and it was within your power to do so, and you were in the right place to do so, and you did act, then the Jet's winning or losing is predetermined. You decided whether or not to let them win, to make them win, and acted accordingly.
Of course there was something to know. There was the answer to "what happens if I create space time?" If god cannot answer that question then he is not omniscient. Just as God has to know the answer to the question "What happens if I create Adam" before he actually creates him.
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Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
a few responses:
I think what we're running into here are two separate problems, not only for Christian theology, but also for our understanding of human beings (which you allude to elsewhere).
The first is omnipotence, which hasn't been addressed much directly. The key difference between your discussion of the Jet's game and ours is this phrase: "and you did act". That entirely differentiates your version from ours: God did act. Catholics would argue that God created the universe and all the conditions of the context, but human beings still have the ability to navigate themselves through that universe. God knows how we'll do it, but it's still our decision and responsibility to make those choices, just like knowing the result of the Jet's game from yesterday doesn't predetermine its results (because God stands outside of time, all football games are known to him as if watching from afterwards). But Catholics would argue that setting the conditions doesn't precondition the actors, insofar as free will is a more or less independent factor.
Which brings us to free will, and where the bigger sticking point is. Does the context predetermine the choicemaking abilities of the actors involved? This isn't just a problem for Catholics or Christians: this is the fundamental crisis of 20th century psychology, history, sociology, and beyond. To what extent are human beings responsible for their actions, when so many of their decisions can be attributed to biology, income level, education level, environmental factors, etc.? If so many of these factors can be explained, what right does Justice have to punish/exult people for acting in a way that seems almost preconditioned? On the other hand, if we treat actions as preconditioned, to what extent are we avoiding our responsibilities as choicemakers?
So it seems like God is not the only one whose position is compromised here.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Catholics would argue that
I really don't get how you can say this. Go back to my initial example-
1) do you agree that the time traveler has complete control over the subject's actions (at least his action during the observed decision)?
2) if so, do you agree that this complete control represents an automatic negation of the subject having freewill in any meaningful sense?
3) if so, then how does that situation vary form god's position?
If you can tell me where in this chain you disagree with me maybe we can make more head way.
I would say no, but with an important caveat: if the context is determined by an actor who knows the result of your action based on the context then yes.
Here's how I say that: any given decision you make will be influenced by untold millions of little bits of context. For human beings while we may strongly influence by using various psychological levers we cannot ever truly control because the range of permutations is simply outside of our ability to consider much less know. But if someone did somehow know what contexts lead to what decision and they can create any context they want and they do, then I don't see how any conclusion is possible but that you are a puppet on their string. They decide what action you will take, not you. They decide. You think you decided but really you were just responding in the way they knew you would respond. That is control. And control is antithetical to freewill.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Wow
Damn Pico, you're not just good, you're real good. If I were in Michigan I'd audit your classes.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Another minor correction
While this discussion has gone beyond my ability to provide the detail you're looking for, there's a small mischaracterization your last post.
Catholics do not interpret the creation story literally. God did not really create the world in seven days, nor was Eve really created from Adam's rib. Those stories (as are many others from the Old Testament) are allegories, not literal truth.
I was serious about reading St Augustine. You've obviously spent some time thinking about this and might find the logic that's eluding you there.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Literal genesis...
...From some time spent at the Catholic answers forum I do know that at least some self described Catholics take it as literal but I'll take your word for it that that is not the doctrinal position.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I've known very few
Catholics who believe in the literal word of Genesis, and none of them were priests or clergy. The vast majority, including the Popes, teach the figurative version.
One of the reasons for this is that one of the most powerful Catholic sects - the Jesuits - are, for all their faults, heavy proponents of science, research, and education.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Link to Doctrine
Who'd have thought -- here's a link to the Catechism
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm
It's probably a better source than a forum ;}
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Surely
If God is who most religions claim him to be, all mighty, all powerful and ALL knowing, nothing could possibly be beyond his understanding. Lets turn the tables, does God have free will?
Lets turn the tables, does
An interesting question... I'd have to think about it. Off hand I'd say no as a technicality. If we are defining freewill as the ability to make decisions independent of outside influence and god doesn't really make decisions as we understand it then the term probably becomes meaningless in regards to him. But I'd need to think about it more.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Oooh
you're good. I would've had to spend ages looking that up.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Ha, well
I did teach Augustine last year, so it's still fresh on my brain. I hope I'm not misrepresenting him, at is is!
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Logic vs Explanation
I'm not attempting to argue the logic of the belief. If that's what you want, there's a 600+ page Catechism you can peruse at your leisure, as well as numerous apologists whose paragraphs you can explore. I am simply correcting an incorrect assumption on your part about Catholicism and free will.
I don't see how this logically conflicts with anything, but that may be because I don't really, um, care. The world we inhabit----not just the physical, the whole enchilada----is not logical, nor are people generally (in my experience).
I just didn't want you walking around thinking that the outcome of the Reformation was just some nail holes in a church door. There are significant theological differences between Catholicism and the Protestant faiths. Most of what one sees and hears as "religion" is a Protestant version.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Catholicism
I certainly understand that Catholic doctrine says that they have freewill, I just don't see how they can justify this belief.
Ultimately they can believe whatever they want, one of the perks of faith, but I strenuously object to your contention that the world is not rational. It is, painfully so. People are often not, but the physical processes of the universe march on in lockstep hard rationality.
Ironically I'm listening to Rush, "Freewill," at the moment.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Eh...
quantum physics disagrees with you on that one. Rationalism is predicated on the notion that A + B = C, and if all outside variables are known, A + B will always = C. Certain functions of quantum mechanics operate randomly, backwards in time, and - for lack of a better word - irrationally.
It may be that we'll discover deeper causes that will change that belief, but so far, all indications are that sometimes, God does play dice with the universe.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
quantum physics disagrees
Not really. Quantum is still extremely rational. It is just counter-intuitive a lot of the time, but those aren't the same thing. Our intuition tells us how we think the world works and has developed based on our experience witht he world. It is not too surpriseing, and hardly irrational, that this understanding of the world breaks down when trying to predict situations that are vastly outside of our experience, as both Quantum and Relativity are.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
How are you defining "rational"?
It sounds like you're running into a tautology, by saying that anything natural is, by definition, rational.
Rational = a human process of quantifying and qualifying experience. It doesn't exist in the natural world. I'm saying quantum is "irrational" because it runs counter to our mechanisms for quantifying and qualifying.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Rationality
Rational means it is internally consistent. That no part of the whole violates any other part of the whole. We can furthermore go on to require rational arguments to agree with the facts such as they are. Intuition then is often counter-rational. Quantum is not.
Consider the idea that a cannon ball will fall faster than a tennis ball. This idea is very intuitive, and yet it is not rational in either the sense of fitting with the rest of our physical understanding of the universe nor is it rational in the sense of fitting with the facts (if you were to try the experiment).
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Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
What do you mean by this?
In order to 'judge' something like that, you'd have to define the consistency in human terms - and that, in and of itself, becomes a process of human organization, not reflection of the natural state.
That's why it's a tautology: the natural world is internally consistent because it is. It can't not be. If it were otherwise, that state would be still be internally consistent simply by being. Donuts raining down from the sky are internally consistent in a system in which donuts raining down from the sky are a natural phenomenon. If a tennis ball fell slower than a bowling ball, that would be internally consistent, too - because that's how things would be.
The problem comes when we try to establish rules for understanding it. Right or wrong, our systems for understanding are always slightly misleading (Hofstadter gets into this a little in Godel, Escher, Bach, when he notes that large-scale human thought systems are either inconsistent or incomplete, but cannot be neither).
What I'm arguing is that randomness can occur in quantum mechanics, and that makes inconsistency a constant in our universe. It's not a well-oiled machine at all.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
In order to 'judge'
I don't see that that is true. A computer can be programed to evaluate the consistency of a series of statements and yet it has no humanity, merely a series of logic functi