God can write straight with crooked lines.

[MG 2.0]

However, one of my reasons for being here is to try to keep my mind active, taking advantage of the fact that I have some experience and knowledge of Mormonism. Some folks may find my arguments not too great - and that's OK - but I often find that responses are edifying, and give me the opportunity to either adjust my thinking or try to sharpen the argument. Either is OK by me. Sometimes, unfortunately, I fail to follow the details of others' comments, but I also have learned to accept that this is almost inevitable.

It's better than playing computer games.

I think we are more or less on the same page for participation. We get older. Keeping our mind active through participation on a board like this is not a waste of time. Except in some situations.

Regards,
MG

[Limnor]

Of course, if Marcus is right and you are simply here to troll, then I just wasted five minutes of my own time. Though it was kind of fun, so maybe “wasted” is the wrong term here as well

Sometimes I wonder about wasting time here.

However, one of my reasons for being here is to try to keep my mind active, taking advantage of the fact that I have some experience and knowledge of Mormonism. Some folks may find my arguments not too great - and that's OK - but I often find that responses are edifying, and give me the opportunity to either adjust my thinking or try to sharpen the argument. Either is OK by me. Sometimes, unfortunately, I fail to follow the details of others' comments, but I also have learned to accept that this is almost inevitable.

It's better than playing computer games.

It’s interesting that you say this. Just yesterday I was thinking about this “why.”

Short list so far:

IHQ forces you to clarify ontology. Gad’s provocations force you to refine coherence. MG’s models force you to test internal consistency. Malkie’s definitions force you to examine scope.

My own goals include understanding better the above, and trying to prevent God from being reduced to institutional authority, arbitrary command, psychological placebo, moral relativism, and cult logic.

This is a change from my original goal which was to talk about a book. I think there is value here in discussing the others things however.

[Limnor]

Of course, if Marcus is right and you are simply here to troll, then I just wasted five minutes of my own time. Though it was kind of fun, so maybe “wasted” is the wrong term here as well

I think you should come to your own determinations from the conversations we've had. Relying on someone else to then draw your conclusions might be unwise. Can you trust them?

You have been here long enough to trust some more than others...for reasons of your own.

Regards,
MG

Sure I think about all of this.

[Marcus]

Of course, if Marcus is right and you are simply here to troll, then I just wasted five minutes of my own time. Though it was kind of fun, so maybe “wasted” is the wrong term here as well

I think you should come to your own determinations from the conversations we've had. Relying on someone else to then draw your conclusions might be unwise. Can you trust them?

You have been here long enough to trust some more than others...for reasons of your own....

Mentalgymnast isn't paying attention at all if he thinks Limnor isn't drawing his own conclusions.

But it does open up an interesting point, as to whether some religions encourage or even allow members to think for themselves. I think mentalgymnast inadvertently opens the door to ask whether being a Mormon these days limits the independent thinking a member is allowed to (openly) engage in. Notwithstanding mentalgymnast's recent AI posts (which have introduced some truly bizarre "beliefs" in support of his trolling) I think there is considerable pressure to support all religious things Mormon and to disparage as less valuable all things non-Mormon.

[Limnor]

Mentalgymnast isn't paying attention at all if he thinks Limnor isn't drawing his own conclusions.

I find it mildly surreal to be receiving counsel on judging character from MG, the same person who has spent several pages (decades?) alternating between defending ambiguity as necessary and embracing absolute certainty about the errors of alternative conclusions.

[Gadianton]

Those examples assumes that the outcome is the net positive. And it removes the idea of agency. Take Nephi and Laban. Nephi kills Laban because he, Nephi, thinks he knows what the ultimate outcome of Laban’s life is going to be, and what the impact of that life will be on his, Nephi’s, people and ancestors over time. In other words, Laban isn’t given the opportunity to exercise his agency. Now if Laban’s life was so mapped out as to render the notion of agency and choice etc irrelevant, then that undercuts the whole purpose for the Plan of Salvation/Happiness/Covenant Path.

The Laban example completely refutes the notion that God writes straight from crooked lines because it shows we are just acting out parts of a fully scripted play. We are in the same position as gamers playing EA Sports FIFA soccer games - they think they’re in control of the outcome of the game, but they’re merely facilitating a pre determined outcome dressed up to look like they are controlling it. Or at least that’s the implication from the justification of the murder of Laban.

Well, they could be a net positive, I doubt that they are but the point isn't whether they end up negative or positive, but the criteria that is assumed for the meaning of morality. Positive or negative, Nephi took a typical consequentialist position from the 19th century as a given. If the right act is determined by the greatest material benefit, then it calls into question God's role in morality period. And you are right, it renders agency useless, utilitarians don't factor "free will" or personal psychology into acting rightly. If I give significantly to the poor, it doesn't matter if I feel compelled to, or did it freely, or did it for notoriety, it was the right thing to do because it helped people, period.

But you're getting deeper into the free will problem -- I was just thinking about base criteria for moral statements, but you are also right that God's foreknowledge, or Nephi's foreknowledge as a prophet, presents a huge problem for the free will defense. First of all, "free will" as in contra-causal freedom, which is what Mormonism and Plantinga believe in, is not even a coherent concept. But let's say we go with it. Well, making free will a criteria for good goes right against the definition of God, because how is God going to know what billions of complete free agents are going to do?

The answer is "middle knowledge". Middle knowledge says that agents are totally free, but yet God knows the outcome of all free agents. But that's just a stipulation, there's no reason to believe such a thing is possible. The mere fact that the future is known seems to directly imply that the choices to get there are constrained. It's more mental cartwheels to find a way out of it.

[malkie]

Of course, if Marcus is right and you are simply here to troll, then I just wasted five minutes of my own time. Though it was kind of fun, so maybe “wasted” is the wrong term here as well

I think you should come to your own determinations from the conversations we've had. Relying on someone else to then draw your conclusions might be unwise. Can you trust them?

You have been here long enough to trust some more than others...for reasons of your own....

Mentalgymnast isn't paying attention at all if he thinks Limnor isn't drawing his own conclusions.

But it does open up an interesting point, as to whether some religions encourage or even allow members to think for themselves. I think mentalgymnast inadvertently opens the door to ask whether being a Mormon these days limits the independent thinking a member is allowed to (openly) engage in. Notwithstanding mentalgymnast's recent AI posts (which have introduced some truly bizarre "beliefs" in support of his trolling) I think there is considerable pressure to support all religious things Mormon and to disparage as less valuable all things non-Mormon.

Qui accuse, ...

[Limnor]

The answer is "middle knowledge". Middle knowledge says that agents are totally free, but yet God knows the outcome of all free agents. But that's just a stipulation, there's no reason to believe such a thing is possible. The mere fact that the future is known seems to directly imply that the choices to get there are constrained. It's more mental cartwheels to find a way out of it.

Gad—where does this view land?: God knowing what I will choose does not remove the choice, because knowledge does not cause it.

Really I mean what tradition. Also interested in your comments about that view if you are willing.

[Gadianton]

I think there is considerable pressure to support all religious things Mormon and to disparage as less valuable all things non-Mormon

Says it all. You can tell when someone toes the party line and someone doesn't. Saying that you're open to all ideas but look, wow, they all point to Christ! The Mormon version! Isn't believable at all. But then, it's just carelessness. There could be sneakier ways to sound credible to outsiders but with no intention of questioning anything at all. But even those are relatively easy to spot. It's not hard to tell when someone is sacrificing a pawn.

[Gadianton]

Gad—where does this view land?: God knowing what I will choose does not remove the choice, because knowledge does not cause it.

I'm no expert on all the positions, it's probably compatible with middle knowledge and other positions. It's easier to work with Leibniz's model. Here are all the possible worlds containing the free creature called Peter: Peter denies Jesus, he doesn't deny Jesus, he picks up a chainsaw sitting on the ground and goes TCM on everybody. Peter doesn't do anything until God chooses A.

Sounds an awful lot like God "chose" what Peter would do, to me. If not, how does the situation look if Peter were predestined? Here are the same list of choices I could force the creature Peter to make. He doesn't make any of them until God chooses A. What was different? We just say in one he was free and the other he wasn't.

If I were smart enough I could observe all the forces within a volcano and know it's going to erupt tomorrow. I didn't cause it, but it's still determined, and that's how I can know what it will do. What does it even mean to say you know what an acausal thingy will do in the future? You can't predict it because it's not a determined system. Maybe you time travel and then report the future state? Well, there's too much ambiguity on what it means to "know" something magically like this, because the end result appears to be that Peter is bound to the future state.

Most of the ambiguity is in the idea of "free will" itself, which is a vacuous idea. It's one we relate to because in any moment, we fell like we have choice. It makes perfect sense in terms of our experience, but in terms of a descriptive framework, it's pretty nonsensical. What does it mean that you're free? In all possible worlds, there are an infinite variety of things I could do. But there are an infinite variety of positions the orange on my desk could be in also. How am I more free than the orange? We can divide the world into logical possibility and physical possibility. The orange could logically fall up from my desk but that's not physically possible. It's not physically possible that I'll solve all outstanding problems in math tomorrow. Is it physically possible for someone with severe mental illness to choose to act totally normal for a week? One of Hume's famous points was, how does a person with free will, to do whatever they want, have character? Character is a regularity or predictable quality. Of course, all science evidence says you feel the choice after you've made it. Evidence aside, hypothetically what could it mean? Does it mean random?