romansh

You are on a sticky wicket here Thormas. Regardless of whether time is real or not, it could be an illusion ... not as it seems. In relativistic terms it could flow in either direction. It is our apparent increasing entropy that gives time an apparent flow, though at a quantum level its direction seems to be an average. On a more pragmatic basis ... our feeling of now is at least a few tens of milliseconds in the past ... and this is in the common or garden sense you are using the word.

Yes ... the US should have open borders ... to let poor Americans out of the madness they have recently elected.

I can't help thinking animals don't have complicated concepts like 'more' - as opposed to more food or more stroking, more sleep in the case of my cat. For me I go with the complicated concept of 'enough' at least when it comes to the experience of existence.

Pain and suffering self created? I thought evolution imbued with this capability? Society, experiences, genetics etc shape us and our suffering. Whether I have the tools or not to avoid this suffering (if indeed this is our goal?) is a matter of luck.

Life for me is an illusion. When I die I fully expect it to be like before I was born. And here some clarification of it is required. If by it we the universe is continuing to unfold, then yes it will be the same. If by it we mean our consciousness, I don't hold any great expectations. Imagine we die in some dreamless sleep, why should I expect to wake up? We live in our actions and in the consequence expected and unexpected consequence. Somebody had a nice Alan Watt's animation about consequences. Why would it be any different for animals? Here we are chasing some duality of mind and matter.

As a stepping stone perhaps. But there are many flavours of religion. But think of people that get stuck in a pattern of thought eg those that withhold life saving interventions to their children. We don't choose our stepping stones ... we find ourselves moving towards them. Again it really does depend on what we mean by religion. If it is a recognition that we are connected to the "universe" then most religions would not qualify as religions in this sense.

Depends on where you put the emphasis in "General". I remember in my university days hitching to London and being picked up by a born again Christian. He claimed he had been a drug addict (I believed him) and that one day coming out of trip on train Jesus had come to him and changed his life forever. From my perspective he had swapped one dependency to a less harmful one. Which of course is fine. I am all for harm reduction. This why I am all for Sophisticated Theology®. Basically it is or can be a gateway out of the more harmful forms of religion. The etymology of the word religion comes from the Latin "to reconnect" (at least this is the most commonly accepted one - Oxford Dictionary, and therefore right). The question is, reconnect to what? For some it is God, one another, society, faith, church - whatever. For me it is the universe. So if we take a no free will look at positive and negative the question seems a little human.

Yes; but I suspect there is a risk. In The God Delusion Dawkins describes an atheist that regularly went to his CoE church. The explanation went along the lines to keep solidarity with tribe.

Just to be clear Joseph I did not describe anyone as ignorant nor did I say anyone's belief was ignorant.

I don't think so. I have no evidence of inspiration that is somehow not a product of my brain which chemistry and physics. Please feel free to share your evidence.

Here's my take Paul. There is only one reality "out" there. It's like the metaphor of blindfolded monks feeling an elephant. But it is even more complex than that. The blindfolded monks and elephant are one. So it is a little bit like a mathematical set that contains itself. Could be problematic. It's not so much that reality has shades of grey, it is more that any model (religion, dogma, law whatever) we use to describe that reality does not quite fit; so we can end up taking a nuanced approach to the model we are imposing on the universe or we can say are model is carved in stone and take a black and white stance. And even this model I am proposing might have holes in it. Hence the debate and dialogue forum ... we can test our ideas models from different viewpoints etc.

Three days and I'll be back.

Well it might be humour thormas, but it is humorously avoiding the point Been snowing here.

I went back through all your posts in this thread to before Christmas Burl. You did not pose a single question; based the use of a question mark.

No not at all. What is evident from your reply (and that of others) is that those of us who believe in free will are totally oblivious of all the subliminal outside of us ... eg pheromones. We are also seem to be denying eons of evolutionary development. eg when we start courting do we respond to the widened pupils of our potential loved ones. I know when I first started courting my wife, my hormonal system was on a different regulatory pathway compared to when I was not courting. well my apologies it should have read: God like - We can make choices - independent of our biases, education, experiences, evolution, environment and the universe in general?

Please provide a link - because I missed where your provided the evidence? Unless you mean this? With exception supposed revelation, are all the attributes listed not based in chemistry and physics?

Show your working Burl. What is your evidence that it is not chemistry and physics?

So what ... no one is denying there are a lot of causes and we can't really identify the proximate causes. And ... Not knowing how to test a hypothesis does mean the hypothesis is not valid. Think Avogadro when he hypothesized. Also science does not prove stuff. I wonder why we keep getting this wrong. Perhaps - but just claiming that we can make choices of independent of cause without evidence is what exactly? I asked you this question: Would you care to have a go at it - thanks

You well may like the idea thormas. God like - We can make choices - independent of our biases, education, experiences, environment, evolution and the universe in general.

Joseph ... I do understand the power of words. I also realize we are all ignorant in some respect. In a free will sense, I am totally ignorant (or perhaps unaware) of the chemistry that is me on a moment basis. While I have been made aware that it [chemistry] is there and it is what underpins the lively discussions that go in what passes as my mind. I don't get a sense that anyone is uneducated here. So they are not ignorant in that sense. I think most are quite thoughtful in the academic sense, so they are not ignorant in that sense. Do we know all? Definitely not, So we are ignorant in that sense. Ignorance is not a sin,

Asserting it as un-nuanced does not make it so Burl. You claim mankind is not completely dependent chemistry and physics of making decisions. Fine, Can you give example of how a decision might be made independent of physics and chemistry? I am awaiting you nuanced and non procrustean thinking Burl.

We are mini first cause generators (in a God like fashion) if we have free will. As to the big bang etc. Irrelevant to the whether I have free will as I type up this reply. The causal mesh just has to extend to before my conception for us to worry about not having free will.

Read what I wrote thormas. Your opinion is not a considered ignorance. But the way we come to the opinion that our choices are free. Free from genetics, prior experience, the food we eat, the chemistry of our decision making. How deliberately are you avoiding this part of the topic? I was going to say we reify our consciousness and ignore the strings that form our choices opinions whatever. But reify is not strong enough. We deify our experience. We literally become Gods ... little first cause generators. This is a position I find difficult to believe.

So what you are saying is you don't know how Frankl dealt with the simple conundrum of cause and effect in free will. Frankl apparently observed different people dealt with the horrendous situation they found themselves in. Yes people make choices even in a concentration camp. But to claim (and I am sure Frankl would not) that these choices are somehow independent of the underlying chemistry (and physics) is nonsense. People deal differently with hunger, deprivation and shock. What evidence do we have that the attitudes people chose were not a result of prior cause?

Well with respect to Paul ... some opinions are based on a fair amount of thought, evidence, research, logic. Others (in the cased of free will) are derived from a considered ignorance and just an appeal to our perceptions. Some opinions are just assertions.