"If you know not, then you can say not that it's linear." - this is a classic appeal to ignorance.
An appeal to ignorance is commonly used to defend unfalsifiable claims (like bigfootspacealiens).
Here's the problem.
There are only two possible options.
(EITHER)
(1) your thoughts (and actions) are contextual (caused by previous experiences, including your biology).
(OR)
(2) your thoughts (and actions) are random (uncaused by any previous experiences).
If you pick #1, then your thoughts (and actions) relate to your memory and the world around you (contextual). This means your thoughts (and actions) are potentially USEFUL TO YOU AND OR OTHERS.
If you pick #2, then your thoughts (and actions) don't necessarily relate to anything at all. And as a matter of fact, statistically, it would be extremely unlikely that any RANDOM thought or action would be even remotely or incidentally USEFUL TO YOU AND OR OTHERS.
Now you might try to mix the two options, some caused, some uncaused, and that's fine.
Your useful thoughts and actions MUST BE CAUSED.
YOur "free" thoughts and actions are TAUTOLOGICALLY COUNTERPRODUCTIVE (99.999% of the time).
SOURCE CONVO
The Standard Argument Against Free Will (TSAAFW)
Posts
Total:
116
wrong
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@3RU7AL
Your dichotomy is false.
(2) your thoughts (and actions) are random (uncaused by any previous experiences).
Just because thoughts may be uncaused by any previous experiences, does not necessarily make them random.
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@3RU7AL
Free will does not actually imply random, because free will always operates in a set of circumstances. Random would imply a disregard for circumstances in action.
Choice is not random.
It is a fact that our experience is largely one of choices. If we deny that we are making choices, we have made ourselves into slaves. Into robots.
That isn't what it means to be human. Part of being truly human is to accept responsibility for our actions and embrace the suffering that is required to live virtuously
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@ethang5
Please explain to me the difference between uncaused and random.Just because thoughts may be uncaused by any previous experiences, does not necessarily make them random.
Perhaps you can provide an example of something that is uncaused and not random.
Perhaps you can provide an example of something that is random and not uncaused.
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@Dr.Franklin
wrong
Please explain.
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@Mopac
Random would imply a disregard for circumstances in action.Choice is not random.
I agree 100%
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@Mopac
That isn't what it means to be human.
A robot can still be responsible for its actions.
In the same way a dog can still be responsible for its actions.
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@3RU7AL
Please explain to me the difference between uncaused and random.
I can program my computer to flash a light randomly, but the flashes are not uncaused.
Perhaps you can provide an example of something that is uncaused and not random.
God is uncaused and not random.
Perhaps you can provide an example of something that is random and not uncaused.
The flashing lights on my computer. Semantics is fun no?
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@ethang5
I can program my computer to flash a light randomly, but the flashes are not uncaused.
Computers can only generate pseudo random light flashes.
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@ethang5
Please explain your definition of "god" to the best of your ability.God is uncaused and not random.
164 days later
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@ethang5
God is uncaused and not random.
Please explain your definition of "god" to the best of your ability.
Very strange way of putting it.
A simpler way of putting it is that it is already accepted that Libertarianism is incompatible with determinism but indeterminism doesn't help Libertarianism either because indeterminism means that we can't determine our own actions. Libertarianism would require a sort of ultimate SELF-determinism rather than merely an absence of OTHER-determinism.
And a person whose actions are ultimately self-determined is a person who would have to be the cause of themselves infinitely. An infinite regress would happen of a sort even problematic for God because it's disputed whether actual infinites are even metaphysically possible at all let alone possible for mere human beings.
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@3RU7AL
..."Please explain your definition of "god" to the best of your ability."...
The best of his ability is lame, at best. :--(
"G"od = "U"niverse and the italized is specific to metaphysical-1 below in the Cosmic Trinity: most wholistically comprehensive set
1} metaphysical-1 aka spirit-1, is mind/intellect/concepts ex concepts of mind, intellect, concepts, Space, God, Universe, TIme,iDogs Cats, toyota's etc.
---------------conceptual line-of-demarcation-------------------------------------------------------
2} metaphysical-2, macro-infinite non-occupied Space that surrounds/embraces the following,
3} finite, occupied space Universe aka God and Uni--V--erse aka spirit-2, 3 and 4 as follows
......3a} spirit-2 is fermions and bosons ergo quantised and quantified, Observed Time and directly associated with a sine-wave patterned /\/\/\/ frequency, that collectively accumulate as atoms, molecules, planets etc,
......3b} metaphysical-3 aka spirit-3, Gravity ---speculativly positive shaped Space ( ) associated with outer geodesic of a torus,
.......3c} metaphysical-4 aka spirit-4, Dark Energy ---speculatively negative shaped Space )( associated with inner geodesic of a torus.
Uni-- = contractive { mass-attractive/contractive } Gravity ( )
--V-- =inversions from outer peak of positive and inner of negative curvature f torus ergo (><)(><), and these two sets of inversion result in a sine-wave pattern inside the tube of torus that is numerical signified as 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 etc and happens to coincide with not a sine-wave frequency pattern of reality, but trinity of quarks, electrons and neutrinos aka fermionic matter,
--erse = Dark Energy { disspersive/dissasociative } aka negative shaped )( geodesisc of torus
i = ego aka metaphysical-1 along with mind/intellect/concepts i.e concept of self ergo outside of beyond ---tho not spatially, as is non-occupied Space-- the torus (>*<) i (>*<),
* * = bilateral consciousness with human female being the most complex entity of Universe --barring sets of one or more women or men ex a whole planet of humans is of course more complex than a single woman.
Unlike many around here, I actually like to follow a rational, logical common sense pathway to truth, that, is based on observation and speculative intuition.
Please explain to me the difference between uncaused and random.
I can program my computer to flash a light randomly, but the flashes are not uncaused.
Computers can only generate pseudo random light flashes.
What is "pseudo random"? Random is having no set pattern, occurring unpredictably. Uncaused is having no precipitator. A computer can be programmed to behave truly randomly. Today's AI is what makes this possible.
God is uncaused and not random.
Please explain your definition of "god" to the best of your ability.
My definition of God is irrelevant to my argument that He is uncaused. Maybe you meant to ask me, "How is God uncaused?" My purpose was to show you the difference between "random" and "uncaused". I do not care to go into yet another argument of " Does God exist?" With a materialist.
I've differentiated between "random" and "uncaused", if you disagree, say why using logic. Definitions of God are just diversions from the topic. I have not asked you for definitions of "random" and "uncaused". Do you know why? Because I am sincere and am assuming you are also sincerely using the common Orthodox meanings of those words.
Your dichotomy is false.
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@ethang5
@3RU7AL
An uncaused GOD is an impossibility, so therefore false within the context of an uncaused GOD
An ongoing GOD principle is an ongoing possibility, but this just conveniently allows us to avoid the impossible.....Just as theists such as Mr Ethan always conveniently don't feel the need to define an imaginary GOD.
Ans something that is programmed is therefore not random, no matter how random it might appear to be.
And by our very nature we are all materialists.
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@ethang5
@zedvictor4
And something that is programmed is therefore not random, no matter how random it might appear to be.
100%
The most "random" a computer can manage is lava-lamps.
I'm not kidding, the world's most prestigious cyber-security firms use lava-lamps to generate their pseudo-random seeds.
Now do you believe the movement of lava-lamp is "uncaused"?
Do you believe a lava-lamp has FREEWILL??
No, it's just wax and water and heat. It's just a highly complex system that makes it VERY difficult to predict.
IT IS NOT TRULY-RANDOM.
UNPREDICTABILITY =/= FREEWILL
UNPREDICTABILITY =/= RANDOM
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@ethang5
..."I do not care to go into yet another argument of " Does God exist?" With a materialist."...
Does anyone here no what a materialist is? Or what that has do with God/Universe?
No? I didnt think so. Just mumbo jumbo to evade the facts that it is all mumbo jumbo coming from the materialist finger tips of ethang5. Old news.
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@zedvictor4
.."Ans something that is programmed is therefore not random, no matter how random it might appear to be."..
Yay! FInally were getting some more rational, logical common sense out of you. About time. its been hard as pulling wisdom teeth without pain killer. ;--)
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@3RU7AL
@zedvictor4
@ebuc
@Z
An uncaused GOD is an impossibility,...
I am aware your fingers can type these words, what I want to see is the logic that formed them.
Just as theists such as Mr Ethan always conveniently don't feel the need to define an imaginary GOD.
I define terms when it is necessary for my argument, I do not allow diversions every time an atheist defaults to his God obsession. When the topic is God, I will supply a definition.
...something that is programmed is therefore not random, no matter how random it might appear to be.
Atheist with article again. Your word "something" above, to what does it refer? The random values are NOT what is programmed, the system that generates them are. But your statement equivocates on what "something" refers to, seeming to refer to what is generated instead of what does the generation.
I will accept that the poverty of you knowledge about computer technology and the meaning of "random" is what accounts for your inability to understand. And as your understanding is not necessary for my argument to be true, I remain satisfied.
...by our very nature we are all materialists.
We were born materialists, we can become other things. Learning and growth are the enemies of stagnation and bias.
@B
Now do you believe the movement of lava-lamp is "uncaused"?
No. I believe the movement of a lava-lamp is random. The definition of random would help you.
Do you believe a lava-lamp has FREEWILL??
No. Perhaps you should explain what free will has to do with our current argument.
UNPREDICTABILITY =/= FREEWILL
No one has said it did.
UNPREDICTABILITY =/= RANDOM
Unpredictability is bound up in the definition of "random". Please look it up. You really need to define your terms.
@E
Does anyone here no what a materialist is? Or what that has do with God/we?
Brutal brought it up. Ask him.
Just mumbo jumbo to evade the facts that it is all mumbo jumbo coming from the materialist finger tips of ethang5.
Ethan is not a materialist. Your poor reading comprehension has caused you to stumble again.
FInally were getting some more rational, logical common sense out of you. About time. its been hard as pulling wisdom teeth without pain killer. ;--)
Note Zed, when you commit a logical fallacy, our genius calls it "rational, logical common sense". An easy way to determine if you've been logical is to see if Cube agrees with you. If he has, your argument needs to go back into the oven.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "random" as "Having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomness#:~:text=Individual%20random%20events%20are%20by,%22trials%22)%20is%20predictable.&text=In%20statistics%2C%20a%20random%20variable,outcome%20of%20an%20event%20space.
In the common parlance, randomness is the apparent lack of pattern or predictability in events. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Individual random events are by definition unpredictable, but since they often follow a probability distribution, the frequency of different outcomes over numerous events (or "trials") is predictable.
Randomness Is Unpredictability
Article in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
I propose that randomness is to be understood as a special case of the epistemic concept of the unpredictability of a process. This proposal arguably captures the intuitive desiderata for the concept of randomness;
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@ethang5
> Unpredictability is bound up in the definition of "random". Please look it up. You really need to define your terms.
ran•dom răn′dəm
- adj.Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective: synonym: chance.
The weather was once thought to be "unpredictable" (Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective).
And as it turns out, our inability to predict the weather was simply a function of our lack of understanding.
Weather patterns are the result of highly complex patterns of cause and effect (just like lava-lamps).
RANDOM =/= FREEWILL
NON-RANDOM = DETERMINISM (CAUSE AND EFFECT)
Apparent unpredictability is not a sufficient definition of RANDOM.
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@3RU7AL
The weather was once thought to be "unpredictable"...
How is that pertinent?
And as it turns out, our inability to predict the weather was simply a function of our lack of understanding.
Again, how is this pertinent?
RANDOM =/= FREEWILL
Again. No one has claimed that "random" = "freewill". Please address the rebuttals given to you and stop countering claims no one has made. You are being irrational.
Apparent unpredictability is not a sufficient definition of RANDOM.
Don't be dishonest. I gave the definition of random. I said, "Unpredictability is bound up in the definition of "random". " I did not say it was the definition of random.
Wikipedia agrees - In the common parlance, randomness is the apparent lack of pattern or predictability in events.
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science agrees - ...randomness is to be understood as a special case of the epistemic concept of the unpredictability.
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@ethang5
Why are you insisting on a colloquial definition of RANDOM, if not in defense of FREEWILL?
Are you accusing yourself of being "off-topic"?
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@ethang5
..."Ethan is not a materialist. Your poor reading comprehension has caused you to stumble again."..
You have no idea what the word "materialist" means aergo you have no idea if your are one or not nd you are the person who brought the word into conversation. Ethangs walks in fear of truth.
ethang = meaningless mumbo jumbo
Universe = God = occupied space. My ego is not afraid of truth ergo I post it. Your ego fears truth.
All occupied space is cause > effect > resultant. Old news.
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@3RU7AL
Why are you insisting on a colloquial definition of RANDOM,...
I am not. I gave you the orthodox and classical definition of "random" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Please resist the urge to be dishonest.
...if not in defense of FREEWILL?
You are attempting to use an incorrect definition of "random" to invalidate free will. Before we van discuss free will, we must first dispense with your fallacious use of "random".
Are you accusing yourself of being "off-topic"?
Lol. It's like the only way you know to debate is by smarmy deflection. Stop dodging questions and address the points put to you.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "random" as "Having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard."
Unpredictability is implied in the definition of "random". Thus, your dichotomy is false. And you still have not told us what "pseudo random" is.
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@ebuc
..."Ethan is not a materialist. Your poor reading comprehension has caused you to stumble again."..
You have no idea what the word "materialist" means
How do you know? I mentioned that materialists were wrong and you stupidly thought I was advocating materialism. And when I point out your poor reading comprehension, you inexplicably conclude that I don't know what the word means.
My ego is not afraid of truth ergo I post it. Your ego fears truth.
OK genius. You keep posting your gibberish. But for the love of god, try to improve your dismal reading comprehension.
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@ethang5
So simply and logically explain how your particular uncaused GOD is a possibility.
In fact GOD is just an utterance, representative of an imagination or an hypothesis relating to an imagination of something....So explain something from nothing and thereby explain your particular GOD.
A 2000 year old mythology does not explain this phenomenon....It is simply the basis of one particular ongoing hypothesis.
Learning and growth are the enemies of stagnation and bias.
We grew and we were conditioned and we became stagnant and biased....It's generally the nature of the machine and it's onboard computer.
You and I are essentially the same...Just slightly different programming, resulting in slightly different biased data sequences, that's all.
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@ethang5
> And you still have not told us what "pseudo random" is.
It's certainly no secret.
A pseudorandom process produces predictable outcomes given information which is typically difficult to acquire; absent such information, pseudorandom sequences of numbers exhibit apparent statistical randomness.
In general, a random process generates unpredictable outcomes: for any single event any particular outcome cannot be predicted in advance given available information. For example, consider an unbiased coin which on any given flip is either heads or tails: on a single flip no outcome is certain. Recording 1,000 flips in a logbook provides a sequence of pseudorandom outcomes: in possession of the logbook each historical outcome is known for certain; however, a person without the logbook sees only a random string of heads and tails.
To generate random numbers that can never be predicted by any observer requires a causally non-deterministic process where events are not fully determined by observable or well understood prior states (e.g., whether a photon is emitted by an atom in any given nanosecond). Due to the physical impossibility of acquiring sufficient information to predict the outcome of such an event, its outcomes are guaranteed to appear random to all.
Randomness is therefore a condition which holds of a sequence relative to the information available to the predictor, with pseudorandomness indicating that information sufficient to predict the next outcome may be acquired by the predictor under some circumstances. The most prominent example is the pseudorandom number generators used by digital computers in which knowing a starting "seed" number produces an entirely predictable string of numbers which are unpredictable without it. [**]
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@ethang5
> Unpredictability is implied in the definition of "random".
Yes, yes, of course it is.
HOWeVer, there are a great many things that are clearly predictable to those with the tools and experience to predict them AND unpredictable to the novice.
Like a game of billiards.
Nobody believes billiard balls have "free will".
And yet, most people find that they are unable to predict exactly how the movement of their arm will set off a chain of events that leads a specific ball into a specific pocket.
And at the same time, we know that some experienced players are able to predict this chain of events with shocking accuracy.
APPARENT UNPREDICTABILITY =/= RANDOM
APPARENT UNPREDICTABILITY = PSEUDO RANDOM
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@ethang5
..."How do you know?"
Because Ive read many of your posts and you have no idea what you mean say words like "materialist", God etc ,
Cause { action } > effect { reaction } > resultant that, cannot always been found.
Home onwer who knows nothing about wiring looks in service panel and sees disorganized mess ---especially in days prior to 80's--- and calls electrician.
electrician find the order after 2, 5 10 or so minutes.
Humans will never quanize gravity and may never quantify gravity ergo humans will never find the ultra-micro cause and effect lines-of-relationship associated with gravity