Gibberish of the day!

NativeJovian · Post by **NativeJovian** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 7:15 pm

Except when the kid says "I'm done with my homework and all my chores are done, what should I do now?" and the parents say "whatever you want, just don't get into trouble". Limited choice does not mean no choice.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 7:24 pm

NativeJovian wrote:Except when the kid says "I'm done with my homework and all my chores are done, what should I do now?" and the parents say "whatever you want, just don't get into trouble". Limited choice does not mean no choice.

But he literally can't say that and have it have any meaning. Because whatever it is you do, the parent is still watching and actively poised to interfere with any action or thought it decides to.

The one thing that an omniscient being can't do is let you go play unsupervised. It already knows what you're going to do, and you only get to do it because it allowed that option specifically knowing that was the option you were going to take.

You will only actually make one set of choices, one each moment. And an Omniscient being knows what all of them are going to be. And an omnipotent being can change any or all of them. Indeed, if the omnipotent being has ever done anything it has changed the universe in such a way that ultimately you are going to make the decisions you are going to, and it has implicitly given the green light to those particular choices and no others.

You, NJ, are making no fucking sense at all. Something can't be omniscient and omnipotent and still not culpable for everything that happens.

-Username17

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:32 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Something can't be omniscient and omnipotent and still not culpable for everything that happens.

With great power...

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:48 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Something can't be omniscient and omnipotent and still not culpable for everything that happens.

Scenario: There is a guy, guy A, pointing a gun at a second guy, guy B, ready to shoot him. There is a third guy, guy C, who is watching this all happen, and who could stop guy A from shooting guy B with minimal effort, but he decides to take no action and guy A shoots guy B. Who is culpable for guy B's death, how much, and why?

I ask not because I don't know what Frank's answer will be, but because I'm curious if anyone here will disagree with him.

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:57 am

Your analogy is not analogous the actual scenario according to most theists.

If a god (Omnipotent and Omniscient) came walking along and found the universe already existing, then we have no problem of free will as long as that god leaves us alone, and your analogy's obvious conclusion (Person C is innocent) is correct.

If that god created the universe, then it knows exactly how the universe will develop in response to each and every minuscule decision it makes while creating the universe.

So, to fix your analogy, before the shooting, Person C sent Person A down a path that he knew to 100% certainty, because of how well he knows the world and Person B, would result in Person A shooting Person B, unless someone interferes.

I think it's obvious that Person C is at fault here. It might be jointly shared with Person A (although if there's a large power differential between them, it probably wouldn't be), but Person C is certainly in no position of moral superiority over Person A.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 8:19 am

FrankTrollman wrote: But he literally can't say that and have it have any meaning. Because whatever it is you do, the parent is still watching and actively poised to interfere with any action or thought it decides to.

You can say God has responsibility for everything, but honestly, you can't say there's no free will simply because someone else can kill you or turn your into a zombie.

Free will isn't about power to affect the world, it's about power to decide. Even if your decision is rendered null and void, you still made a decision. A computer has no free will because all it can do is follow a predefined script. A person on the other hand can make choices, even if those choices end in failure, it's still free will.

Also even if God can stop you, you're still affecting the world because you're forcing God to intervene and stop you, so you're affecting an omnipotent being into taking action. If you never tried to do it, he'd have never stopped you.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 8:46 am

RC wrote:You can say God has responsibility for everything

Stop right there, because you just conceded the point.

An Omniscient, Omnipotent being must necessarily know (Omniscience) and cause (Omnipotence) every event that ever happens. Definitionally.

Is a choice an event?

If so, YHWH necessarily knows what it is going to be and is the cause of it. End.

-Username17

Falgund · Post by **Falgund** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 10:22 am

Gelare wrote:Scenario: There is a guy, guy A, pointing a gun at a second guy, guy B, ready to shoot him. There is a third guy, guy C, who is watching this all happen, and who could stop guy A from shooting guy B with minimal effort, but he decides to take no action and guy A shoots guy B. Who is culpable for guy B's death, how much, and why?

I agree with IGTN explanation, except that even in the case where C did not set A into motion, both A and C are culpable, because C could have prevented it.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:37 pm

Also, RC's example allows the crime to be prevented with "minimal" effort, while the Omnipotent example calls for infinitesimal effort, or possibly no effort at all, depending on how you visualize these things.

For humans, there's a difference between action and non-action. We have a physical body hat has to be moved around, expending energy, and a physical brain that can only think about so much at once. That's why a lot of behavior that is lauded, like say donating to soup kitchens, is not obligatory.

But for someone who could obtain and send food instantaneously with a thought? I'm pretty sue we WOULD hold that person liable for what happens.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:38 pm

Just because someone knows what you're going to do, doesn't mean you don't make a choice. They could just know you, your surroundings, and your personality well enough to know how you will act given a set of choices. I've seen this in a DM many times. Now, obviously, the DM isn't omniscient, and an omniscient being doesn't need to know these things to know what you're going to do, but the point is that a being can know what you're going to do, and you can still make a choice.

On the other hand, an example, the Matrix and it's Oracle. She knows pretty much everything, including how to position people as needed for the cosmic storyline. When ViralSmith eats her eyes, he is omniscient, however he can't see beyond certain things because even as a freed program he still doesn't fully understand choice.

I'm not sure where I'm going with that, but it came to mind.

But yes, an omniscient being is culpable for evil, even though people have free will. The bastard who pulls of the Xanatos Gambit to get god to intervene has cold absurdium in his sack and my respect.

Supposedly, we were "given free will so as to choose to do good." or rather "the freedom to choose good." Mostly because, also supposedly, Satan is the "true ruler" of "this world" and so christian thought is that if we were without free will, we'd do only evil, as the lord of our surroundings is evil. Christianity, of course, defines evil as anything which goes against god, so everything from masturbation to murder to potted plants (god didn't intend for plants to grow indoors!).
This would be, as it so happens, why I consider myself evil, society at large tends to use this definition, so I'm perfectly comfortable with it.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:56 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: An Omniscient, Omnipotent being must necessarily know (Omniscience) and cause (Omnipotence) every event that ever happens. Definitionally.

I said God is partly responsible for everything, not that he actively causes it.

Being able to prevent something and actively causing it are two different things. Lets go back to your analogy about the parent watching the child. If the child happens to go play with the red blocks, the parent may allow that to happen, but he certainly didn't cause it, the child actively chose to do that.

Now, you can argue that omniscience rules out free will, simply because it means that humans follow a predictable script like a computer and are slaves to biochemical laws that ultimately govern what we're going to ultimately choose. The idea that you choose is just an illusion. That argument I'm okay with. You could even argue that god ends up causing everything because he was the creator of humanity and knew how things were going to turn out. So when he first supposedly created Adam or an ape or whatever, he knew how things were going to turned out, and the indirectly caused you to do what you're going to today because he knew the outcome of all the centuries.

And if you're arguing that, then that's fine.

However, what I don't agree with is that simply having an omnipotent being means that free will can't exist on some weird metaphysical bullshit that the being *could* have intervened, therefore he stops you from being able to make a choice by his mere existence and everything that happens occurs solely because of this omnipotent being. That's just crap, because it's mixing up power with choice. Free will isn't about being able to make choices that matter. It's about being able to make choices at all.

Ultimately anyone can take away someone's free will by killing them. When you were a baby, you were completely helpless to hundreds if not thousands of people who totally could have killed you without you being able to do a thing about it. And that would have prevented every single other action you'd have taken. Every choice you're making now is therefore the result of humans deciding not to strangle the life out of your as an infant and dozens of humans deciding not to shoot you in the face when you were a teenager. It was the result of your organs not failing due to bad DNA, something you had no choice in.

At some point in all our lives, we are all powerless to stop others from taking away our life and therefore our free will. Now I can go off claiming my life is meaningless because I might have died back then. But that didn't happen and the fact that it might have happened means precisely dick if it didn't actually happen. We survived and we can make choices. We might die tomorrow, and at that point we'll stop having free will, but we're alive right now and shit that might happen in the future or could have happened in the past has no impact on us being able to make choices now.

Now you're saying that basically an omnipotent being merely existing fucks that all up. Even if that being does nothing at all and just sits on his hands, it's impossible to have free will. Even though the universe would unfold the exact same way whether the being existed or not (because he chooses to do nothing), it somehow makes it so people can't make choices.

That just doesn't make sense to me.

Whether you want to call it god or physics, the universe is bigger and more powerful than we are. We ultimately can be stopped by events beyond our control regardless of what we choose to do. But that still doesn't mean we can't choose.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 1:30 pm

NB. I was away to RPI for the Homecoming / Reunion and the hotel internet access wasn’t working for me.

Crissa wrote:I think atheists say religious people are nutcases in the same way you might say someone acting upon instructions from an invisible friend is a nutcase.

Hey, leave Adam’s Smith’s economic theories out of this religious discussion, OK?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 1:32 pm

Well actually, we totally stole Free will by disobeying god, not that he didn't know we were going to. (Except of course in the story he obviously didn't because God didn't mean omniscient for many many centuries afterword.)

After all, before that point, just like in heaven we are incapable of doing evil, IE no free will, or we never had free will in the beginning, which is what's actually true + god no existing.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 4:47 pm

tzor wrote:Hey, leave Adam’s Smith’s economic theories out of this religious discussion, OK?

Adam Smith's economic theories form capitalist religion.

Anyway, here's a question relating to free will: if part of Utilitarianism is the belief that the ends justify the means, does this mean that intent should not be judged?

I have a really hard time with the idea that I should be equally angry with a friend regardless of whether she hits me accidentally or intentionally. Sure, intent is difficult to judge. Never the less, I would treat an obvious attack quite differently than what could have been accidental.

violence in the media · Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:02 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote: Now, you can argue that omniscience rules out free will, simply because it means that humans follow a predictable script like a computer and are slaves to biochemical laws that ultimately govern what we're going to ultimately choose. The idea that you choose is just an illusion. That argument I'm okay with. You could even argue that god ends up causing everything because he was the creator of humanity and knew how things were going to turn out. So when he first supposedly created Adam or an ape or whatever, he knew how things were going to turned out, and the indirectly caused you to do what you're going to today because he knew the outcome of all the centuries.

That's pretty much what the argument is. You're ultimately not "choosing" anything. The fact that an omnipotent and omniscient god ALSO has veto power is related, but only applicable if you were somehow able to elect to do something that it didn't know about, set in motion, and expressly allow 15 billion years ago.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:10 pm

Most religious people I know have a hard-on for the phrase "God made everything." Hypothetical situation:
1) I make a bomb.
2) I take the bomb to New York and set the timer for 10 days.
3) I leave new york.

Did the bomb kill people, or did I kill people? God totally made you knowing every single move you would ever make because he is "all knowing." God "knew" that you were going to do X just like I "knew" that the bomb would go off. I had the power to not make the bomb or to make it in such a way that it doesn't kill everyone. I didn't.

So really, who bombed New York? The bomb? Me? God?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:12 pm

Catharz wrote:Anyway, here's a question relating to free will: if part of Utilitarianism is the belief that the ends justify the means, does this mean that intent should not be judged?

Depends on the type of Utilitarian you are and how far you want to calculate "the ends."

The actual harm caused by your friend hitting you is identical whether it was intentional or accidental. But then of course, you punishing your friend is actually just a form of harm as well - two wrongs don't make a right. The reason you punish your friend is not to make things "right" because you can't do that. You punish because being in a world where harmful actions get punished makes people in the future do less things to harm other people.

Accidents will happen of course, and people don't really want to commit them. Really, one needs only the barest of punishments available for accidents to encourage people to be as careful as they are going to get. Intentional attacks, on the other hand, are pretty much entirely avoidable, so they warrant a greater response to discourage them in the future.

TL;DR: Under most developed Utilitarian thought, the expected reaction to a deliberate or accidental strike will be different even though the recognized harm (and thus the value of the action) is identical. This is because the response due to an action is based on the future effects that response is likely to have, rather than an objective evaluation of the action that drew the response.

Responses are actions and are evaluated the same as any other.

-Username17

NativeJovian · Post by **NativeJovian** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 10:37 pm

ubernoob wrote:Did the bomb kill people, or did I kill people?

Can the bomb decide to not kill people? If yes, then it's the bomb's fault. Otherwise yours. In reality, people can decide not to be dicks. If they decide to be dicks, then that's not God's fault -- except in as much as he allowed it to happen (which, given that the alternative is a lack of free will entirely, I'm honestly willing to give him a pass).

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 10:41 pm

violence in the media wrote:
RandomCasualty2 wrote: Now, you can argue that omniscience rules out free will, simply because it means that humans follow a predictable script like a computer and are slaves to biochemical laws that ultimately govern what we're going to ultimately choose. The idea that you choose is just an illusion. That argument I'm okay with. You could even argue that god ends up causing everything because he was the creator of humanity and knew how things were going to turn out. So when he first supposedly created Adam or an ape or whatever, he knew how things were going to turned out, and the indirectly caused you to do what you're going to today because he knew the outcome of all the centuries.
That's pretty much what the argument is. You're ultimately not "choosing" anything. The fact that an omnipotent and omniscient god ALSO has veto power is related, but only applicable if you were somehow able to elect to do something that it didn't know about, set in motion, and expressly allow 15 billion years ago.

Well no. Veto power really has nothing to do with it. Because being capable of being vetoed is a matter of personal power, not a matter of choice or free will.

There are thousands of people right now who could have vetoed everything you did in your life by strangling you when you were an infant. But they didn't do that, so it's irrelevant.

Remember, you don't have to be able to execute your choice, only make it. Free will really doesn't have a power component to it. Otherwise you're getting into how much minimum power you need before you can have free will. Do rich people have more free will than poor people? How about paralyzed people versus people that can walk? etc.

But again, that's not even what free will is about, and people seem to be confusing that.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 10:51 pm

NativeJovian wrote:
ubernoob wrote:Did the bomb kill people, or did I kill people?
Can the bomb decide to not kill people? If yes, then it's the bomb's fault. Otherwise yours. In reality, people can decide not to be dicks. If they decide to be dicks, then that's not God's fault -- except in as much as he allowed it to happen (which, given that the alternative is a lack of free will entirely, I'm honestly willing to give him a pass).

You can't decide not to do anything. Everything you do is a output from a process with inputs. And god made the inputs and the process. He of course made you so that you could only have one set of outputs.

NativeJovian · Post by **NativeJovian** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 11:42 pm

Kaelik wrote:You can't decide not to do anything. Everything you do is a output from a process with inputs. And god made the inputs and the process. He of course made you so that you could only have one set of outputs.

Then I don't have free will, and the entire conversation (which stems from the argument that evil exists because God allows humanity free will) is pointless.

You can't have a conversation on ethics in the absence of free will. If there's no free will, then nothing I do is my fault, because I didn't have a choice.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 12:17 am

NativeJovian wrote:You can't have a conversation on ethics in the absence of free will. If there's no free will, then nothing I do is my fault, because I didn't have a choice.

Hardly.

Even if we humans are completely deterministic automatons, we have enough complexity to consider ethics, and as such humans are moral agents regardless of the presence or absence of "free will". Our actions can be informed by moral philosophy, and our intents can be framed in those contexts. That means those actions and intents (and whatever else) can still be ascribed moral value, which can still be applied to the human in question.

Really, free will is a silly thought puzzle that philosophers and theologians play with that only matters if you have a being who can actually see the future and gives that information to people impacted by it (and even then, it only matters for that particular decision). If there is no ability to observe the future, or the being who can observe the future doesn't tell us about it, the existence or absence of free will doesn't matter for ethical discussions. At all.

NativeJovian · Post by **NativeJovian** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 12:40 am

What the fuck?

Ethics is about choices. You choose one thing because it's right, over another thing that benefits you more. If you cannot make a choice, there cannot be any ethics.

Falling to the ground after you jump off a cliff is not an ethical action. Nor is it unethical. Ethics literally has nothing to say on the subject of whether or not you should fall after you jump off cliffs. Because it's not a choice; it happens whether we want to or not, and there's nothing we can do about it. The laws of physics are "things that happen", not "things that are right and good" (or "things that are wrong and evil"). No choice, thus no morality, no ethics.

If I point a gun at someone and pull the trigger with the full intention of killing that person, but I miss, did I do something morally good by not killing? How about morally neutral, "acceptable", but not "good"? How about if I miss because someone else stops me? They tackle me as I'm pulling the trigger and my shot goes wide. What's the moral value of my action now?

The entire idea of "right" and "wrong" necessitates willful action. Without free will, willful action cannot exist. Without that, morality and ethics cannot exist.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 1:12 am

NativeJovian wrote:The entire idea of "right" and "wrong" necessitates willful action. Without free will, willful action cannot exist. Without that, morality and ethics cannot exist.

No. That's stupid. You can have choice without free will. It's easy. My laptop can make choices and it's a totally deterministic device. It's probably stupider than the least complex organism with an honest-to-entropy nervous system on the planet. It isn't a moral agent because it doesn't have self-awareness.

But humans do. And humans are. We can predict the future, albeit only a probable future, and we can analyze what our decisions are and how we come to them. It's called metacognition. Thinking about thinking. And as far as anybody of any knowledge in the related fields can tell, all that necessarily requires is enough hardware and software to pull it off, regardless of any question about predestination or free will.

And that's seriously all you need to have a moral agent. That's all you need for morals and ethics to mean something. There is no measurable difference between a universe where we have free will and one where we don't, presuming all past events are identical. And that means that your lovely little talk of free will may as well be random noise.

Moreover, free will doesn't even factor into your examples provided. They're all about intent and actions. Which are potentially measurable qualities and have nothing to do with predestination or free will.

violence in the media · Tue Oct 06, 2009 2:43 am

RandomCasualty2 wrote: Well no. Veto power really has nothing to do with it. Because being capable of being vetoed is a matter of personal power, not a matter of choice or free will.

There are thousands of people right now who could have vetoed everything you did in your life by strangling you when you were an infant. But they didn't do that, so it's irrelevant.

That we're having this conversation is evidence that none of them did and, by extension, never could have in the first place. Also, you're focusing god's veto power as an on-the-spot correction.

"Lo! Though shalt not decide to rape that donkey THIS day!"

I'm thinking of this in terms of billions of years ago (or six thousand, whatever) when god was supposedly rubbing particles together and laying the groundwork for everything. You never got to decide to be an astronaut because god already knew every "decision" you were going to be faced with, what "choices" you were going to make, and all the factors that contributed to your ultimate "selections". Think of the history of everything as god's massive domino project, where some of the dominoes hurtle through the cosmos for millennia before they crash through your roof.

Remember, you don't have to be able to execute your choice, only make it. Free will really doesn't have a power component to it. Otherwise you're getting into how much minimum power you need before you can have free will. Do rich people have more free will than poor people? How about paralyzed people versus people that can walk? etc.

But again, that's not even what free will is about, and people seem to be confusing that.

The only power that matters is the power to control the choice, not the execution. Have you ever been in a situation where someone asked you why you didn't do X, and your response was, "I didn't even think of that?" An option you're unaware of, one that you don't select, and one that doesn't exist are all remarkably similar.