Seeing Things Differently -DanP the apologist excuse.

[honorentheos]

I think we’re going in circles.

Regards,
MG

Yeah. Now we need to agree its because we are limited to the programing we brought to the engagement with any iota of objective reality being largely a ball in the game rather than the playing field. Care to meet me on that point?

[MG 2.0]

Ah, and it all comes down to this does it?

I have engaged the evidence and found it wanting.

And I do have free will.

Regards,
MG

How would you know you aren't just claiming your left hand pointed at an apple because you like red when your subconscious saw the equivalent of an apple?

We have actual evidence this occurs, MG. There are whole fields of neuroscience engaged in the subjects involved. The idea we are engaging the world with highly executive decision making is pretty outdated.

CoPilot:

Recent research has continued to explore the implications of split-brain studies on our understanding of consciousness and free will. While some argue that these patients have divided perception but undivided consciousness, others suggest that the notion of a single, unified will might be an oversimplification of a more nuanced reality. The current consensus is that the body of evidence is insufficient to definitively answer questions about the unity of consciousness or the nature of free will in split-brain patients, and that future studies are needed to further our understanding.

I’m not going to place all my ‘own’ eggs (determining whether or not I have free will) in the basket of research that needs ‘future study’.

Not that it isn’t extremely interesting.

We are really going the rounds on this thread, aren’t we? I think I’ve exhausted most of my interest in continuing on but will check back to see if there is anything else that really peaks my interest.

It would be interesting to see what others have to say. I would especially be interested in hearing from anyone who has thought about free will extensively and has reasoned out why they think free will is ‘a thing’ worth entertaining.

Later. It’s been fun thus far.

Regards,
MG

[honorentheos]

How would you know you aren't just claiming your left hand pointed at an apple because you like red when your subconscious saw the equivalent of an apple?

We have actual evidence this occurs, MG. There are whole fields of neuroscience engaged in the subjects involved. The idea we are engaging the world with highly executive decision making is pretty outdated.

CoPilot:

Recent research has continued to explore the implications of split-brain studies on our understanding of consciousness and free will. While some argue that these patients have divided perception but undivided consciousness, others suggest that the notion of a single, unified will might be an oversimplification of a more nuanced reality. The current consensus is that the body of evidence is insufficient to definitively answer questions about the unity of consciousness or the nature of free will in split-brain patients, and that future studies are needed to further our understanding.

I’m not going to place all my ‘own’ eggs (determining whether or not I have free will) in the basket of research that needs ‘future study’.

Hilarious. You just put all your eggs in the same basket you arrived with them in, a result every one of us could predict.

You don't have free will. You are lying to yourself by claiming the left hand is pointing at your favorite color.

[honorentheos]

Me: Hey copilot, is there anything you can say with certainty without a caveat?

Copilot: Certainly! There are some fundamental truths and mathematical facts that can be stated with certainty. Here are a few examples:

Mathematical Constants:
The value of π (pi) is approximately 3.14159.
Euler’s number (e) is approximately 2.71828.
The square root of 2 (√2) is an irrational number approximately equal to 1.41421.

Basic Arithmetic:
The sum of any number and zero is the number itself: a+0=a.
The product of any number and one is the number itself: a⋅1=a.

Geometry:
The sum of the angles in any triangle is always 180 degrees.
The area of a circle with radius (r) is given by the formula: A=πr2.

Physics:
Newton’s second law of motion states that the force acting on an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by its acceleration: F=ma.

Logic:
The law of excluded middle states that for any proposition (P), either (P) is true or its negation (\neg P) is true.

Remember, while these statements are certain within their respective contexts, there are many other areas where uncertainty exists. Science, philosophy, and human experience often involve shades of gray rather than absolute certainty.

Me: lol

[Gadianton]

Let's go back to your denial that your God needs saving, after it was pointed out to you that free will and omniscience are incompatible.

On Thu May 16, 2024 8:53 pm, on this very thread:

viewtopic.php?p=2861994#p2861994

MG was expounding upon the doctrines of the kingdom using A.I.. Please read the above post near the bottom.

Some other similarities with Mormon God (referring to God that is comfortable for you).

Mormons and traditional Christians believe in a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

We have much in common with our Christian brothers and sisters. More so, I might say, than you might have in common with either traditional Christians or LDS Christians.

And now within the last couple of hours, MG has a new position:

That is, that God cannot know that beyond which it is within the realm of free agents to know.

If we say that God has absolute power then we end up with the idea that God can simply make a perfect world in which people always do the right thing because God makes them that way.

In essence, no free will.

But that’s not the world we live in.

He's a heck of a gymnast.

[MG 2.0]

Hilarious.

OK.

Again, I’m interested in reading what others have to say in support of free will being ‘a thing’. I think it has been rather clear that there are folks that don’t believe in free will and have their reasons for taking this view.

There is a continuing debate on these matters. Anyone out there want to argue for free will and the agency of man either from a secular or religious perspective?

I think I’ve done my time.

And I know what my left hand doeth. And my right.

Good to see you around honor.

Back later.

Regards,
MG

[honorentheos]

And I know what my left hand doeth. And my right.

Until you can acknowledge you don't but only believe you do, the claims you show up with are proven hollow.

Anyway, take care MG and enjoy the holiday. I hope it's full of family and fun for you.

[honorentheos]

We are, for better or worse, really unable to differentiate between a indeterministic universe and one where we simply cannot comprehend all of the variables involved. I think the story around the formal discovery of chaos theory sheds some light on the problem:

Edward Lorenz, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the official discoverer of chaos theory. He first observed the phenomenon as early as 1961 and, as a matter of irony, he discovered by chance what would be called later the chaos theory, in 1963,18 while making calculations with uncontrolled approximations aiming at predicting the weather. The anecdote is of interest: making the same calculation rounding with 3-digit rather than 6-digit numbers did not provide the same solutions; indeed, in nonlinear systems, multiplications during iterative processes amplify differences in an exponential manner. By the way, this occurs when using computers, due to the limitation of these machines which truncate numbers, and therefore the accuracy of calculations.

Lorenz considered, as did many mathematicians of his time, that a small variation at the start of a calculation would Induce a small difference In the result, of the order of magnitude of the initial variation. This was obviously not the case, and all scientists are now familiar with this fact. In order to explain how important sensitivity the to initial conditions was, Philip Merilees, the meteorologist who organized the 1972 conference session where Lorenz presented his result, chose himself the title of Lorenz's talk, a title that became famous: “Predictability: does the flap of a butterfly's wing in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” 19 This title has been cited and modified in many articles, as humorously reviewed by Nicolas Witkowski.20 Lorenz had rediscovered the chaotic behavior of a nonlinear system, that of the weather, but the term chaos theory was only later given to the phenomenon by the mathematician James A. Yorke, in 1975.21
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3202497/

The idea that a computer calculation in the days of punch cards revealed that rounding at what were assumed to be almost insignificant decimal places led to wide differences was revolutionary.

And in the case of our internal decision making, it's very, very difficult to know what inputs under what conditions are most influential. But I think it's clear that what we see as an act of will is the flapping wings of past butterflies in the circumstances of the moment.

What does that mean? I think that's a far more interesting question than if we have "free will". The trouble here is so many butterflies have flapped up a storm of resistance to the idea will must be tied to accountability or else God something something.

[malkie]

There are plenty of religious traditions that believe in predestination, the idea that God already knows or has chosen those who will ultimately be saved. These traditions also suggest that we will all be accountable for our actions, whether they were predetermined or not.

Very true. It's also worth mentioning that Mormon theology contradicts itself. The belief in libertarian free-will is not compatible with the Mormon belief that God knows the future. God knowing the future requires determinism. Mormons try to get around the problem of predestination by the doctrine of "foreordination"; a person may be "foreordained" to do a great thing, but fail to rise to the occasion. This is its own incoherent rat's nest -- how many successor prophets did God have for the restoration, maybe 30 others failed and Joseph stepped up? Now multiply that problem by hundreds of trillions of trillions for all other work God has planned -- yet it also doesn't solve the problem of God knowing the future. God knowing that 29 would fail until Joseph succeeded still requires determinism for God to be able to know it.

Would they all have to have been named "Joseph"?

[Physics Guy]

“Chaos theory” seems to be a real term—it’s the title of the relevant Wikipedia article—but I’ve never heard anyone who actually works on chaos use those words together. It sounds weird.

Chaos is to physics roughly what irrationality is to numbers. Most numbers are irrational; rational numbers are infinitely rare exceptions, among numbers in general, but happen to be wildly overrepresented among numbers that humans understand and use. In the same way, pretty much everything that happens in the real world is at least technically chaotic, but humans focus often on rare cases that are, to sufficiently good approximation for our purposes, non-chaotic (“integrable”).

Like almost every shocking recent discovery that gets reported as such in popular media, chaos is neither shocking nor recent. A lot was known about it in the 19th century. Chaos is simply the default scenario in which convenient simplifications do not occur.

It’s true that numerical solutions of differential equations with modern computers have more recently let people articulate some positive statements about chaotic dynamics, instead of just saying what is no longer true in the chaotic case. There are interesting things to say, but they are quite technical. The basic features of sensitive dependence on initial conditions, in contrast, sound dramatic but are quite old news, and should not be presented as any recent revelations from computers.