Richard Dawkins on omniscience & omnipotence

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
41

Hello Mutcer.
As a believer in freewill, you are proving as closed to facts as Christians.

— The cause of a choice which I freely make is my brain. If it’s not my brain, then what caused that choice?
O- We agree. But is your brain your choice? Your brain is the cause of your choice, fine, but as a cause it has an effect, not several, otherwise it is not the cause, but one of sevral, each for different effects. If your brain is the cause of your actions then your actions were not in doubt, not free, not multiple choice, but were inevitable effects of the cause. You had no choice. There was no choice. One cause, your brain, led to one effect, your action, even ifto you, it all seemed as if it was all uncertain up to the moment you “made” a choice.

— If my freely made choices were an illusion and not reality, I wouldn’t know it. But I’m over 99.99999% sure they’re reality.
O- Just as many are 99.99999% sure God exist.

— If “state of your brain” encompasses freely made choices, then the state of one’s brain includes choices. Please define “state of your brain”.
O- the brain determined your actions, which in turn seemed like choices to you, but you did not determined your brain. You, and even the illusion of a choice, are effects of your brain. A given state determines a given effect, so there is no inclusion of choice, only the subjective illusion of choice.

— I don’t know what you mean by “will”, but when I make choices, they are freely made such that I have the freedom to choose either A or B up until the time the choice is made.
O- “I”? You already said that YOUR BRAIN is the CAUSE. Why do you insist on bringing around this “I make” or “I have”? We are talking about causes, and what you have said is that your brain is the cause. The subjective, this “I”, is another effect of your brain. The activity of which are only illusions, as it is not a cause but an effect.

— 2+2 being equal to 4 and not equal to 13 is static in time.
O- So are the laws of nature that govern the material you call “brain”.

— My choices aren’t.
O- Scientifically incorrect.

— They move from an unmade state to a made state. Before the A/B choice is made, I still can freely choose either A or B.
O- It seems that way to you, but this is an illusion.

— If you feel such a choice is not made freely, then what mechanism is it that I use to freely make such a choice?
O- “You” use no mechanism. You are an effect of conditions that precede your subjective idea that there is a “you”. You are not even a cause. You are the subjective effect of a material effect.

42

Every entity is represented by a concept. But not every concept represents an actual entity.
To be “actual”/“real”, the entity must have affect upon the universe.

43

Mutcer, if you want you can respond to
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=179555#p2324093

especially the direct and indirect cause question, but responses to other parts are welcome.

44

God is fundamentally logical and so by nature does not contradict itself. Contradiction is a logical mistake which doesn’t exist in reality, God is reality. Your proposition is nonsense, unintelligible gibberish.

God is a concept. God is not an entity. God is the being of every entity.

Again, in principle no contradiction can exist within God’s nature because of God’s ultimate perfection. Therefore, your proposition is self-contradictory nonsense.

45

Facts and theories are two different things. While I might reject certain theories - such as the existence of Bigfoot or the tooth fairy - I don’t reject facts - such as the presence of my computer in front of me or the waves crashing on the coastline which I see first hand periodically.

My brain is my brain. A choice is something I do with my brain. Asking if my brain is my choice is like asking if my car is tires rotating and gears shifting.

Not every cause has only one effect. In the case of my brain, there are plenty of effects. Where/how did you get the idea that each cause can have only one effect?

Incorrect. The cause of me being able to make free will choices is my brain. If it is not my brain, then what is it?

But they have not had first hand encounters with God, while myself and you - not to mention every Christian - has had first hand experience with exercising freely made choices.

Please guide me to an unbiased scientific study which shows we are automatons without the ability to make free choices - and then I will move from believing what you just said is 100% BS.

Once again, the brain is the cause. The indirect effect is the choice and the direct effect is the ability to make the choice.

Guide me to an unbiased scientific study which shows we are automatons.

Again, guide me to an unbiased scientific study which shows we are automatons.

46

Hello Mutcer,

— My brain is my brain.
O- Understood. The question is what is your mind. We can do test of your brain. But where is your mind? Or is it just a funny name to what happens in your brain? Is the mind just another word for soul, and likewise, in your view, if you were consistent, another myth?

— A choice is something I do with my brain.
O- You do nothing. Do you remember everything? Have you lost ever a pair of keys? Do thoughts keep you up at night? These are common occurences for many people, expected because there is no soul, no contiguous experience, but simply chemical states of your brain that are beyond your control. It is affected and by rule, it affects “you”, the “I”, subjective experience. It is not what you do to your brain but what your brain does to you. Of course you can affect the chemical balance of your brain by what you put in your blood, but then the effects are not a choice, and that is my point, that whichever the state of the brain, the mind follows. Drink and it changes your behaviour, and determines the character of your choices. Even if they remain subjectively “choices”, the remain the inevitable result, effect, of a brain state.

— Asking if my brain is my choice is like asking if my car is tires rotating and gears shifting.
O- That is a perfect narration of the myth I speak of. People like you think that subjective experience is objective, when it pertains to the self. You see your body as a car and your mind/soul, which is the height of ridiculousness for someone that is a supposed atheist, which you equate with your brain, drives it. Your brain is your body, however. You conceive it as a car in need of a driver, but any driver would only be an effect of the car, like an on-board computer.

— Not every cause has only one effect. In the case of my brain, there are plenty of effects.
O- Sure. Now, is the number of effects random or determined?

— Incorrect. The cause of me being able to make free will choices is my brain. If it is not my brain, then what is it?
O- Pleading like a theist for the existence of Intelligent Designer. What they demand for the Universe, you demand for your self. It suffers from the assumption that there IS something in your question to answer. There is no freewill, no choices, other than in their subjective experience. It is what you imagine there to be, not what is actually is. Should I answer a Christian “Who” created the universe? Such assumptions go beyond what is necessary for an explanation of why there is something or why you behaved in a certain way.

— But they have not had first hand encounters with God, while myself and you - not to mention every Christian - has had first hand experience with exercising freely made choices.
O- Everyday they face the world, they face what in their minds is the work of God. In your choices all you face is the work of what you think is your will. Your will, in itself, makes no sensory appearance. And yet, for both Christians and Mutcer, what is not seen, but felt, has to exist.

— Please guide me to an unbiased scientific study which shows we are automatons without the ability to make free choices - and then I will move from believing what you just said is 100% BS.
O- Funny that you have to qualify the character of research. You acknowledge then the existence of biased scientific study? We do what we subjectively wish to do. But our subjective itself is the result of a brain that is outside of what we do. It does us, we don’t do it.

— Guide me to an unbiased scientific study which shows we are automatons.
O- Automatons have no subjective experience we are aware of. That however simply adds the illusion of choice to an experienced self. It does not cause the objective existence of a random event, or brain state.

47

Oh and Mutcer, if you want references check out Sam Harris and his book on free will. You know that guy right? He’s the one making many of the questions you raise about God. He’s far more consistent in staying true to the standard he used on religion.
Richard Dawkins can only make an emotional appeal to this belief. Can you scientifically demonstrate a choice? It would be equivalent to demonstrating something unrecognized to exist by the presupposition on which it operates.

48

The mind is a function of the brain. It appears to be a word (some may find it a funny name) to describe what happens in your brain.
[i]

mind [mahynd] Show IPA
noun
1.
(in a human or other conscious being) the element, part, substance, or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc.: the processes of the human mind.
2.
Psychology . the totality of conscious and unconscious mental processes and activities.
3.
intellect or understanding, as distinguished from the faculties of feeling and willing; intelligence.
4.
a particular instance of the intellect or intelligence, as in a person.
5.
a person considered with reference to intellectual power: the greatest minds of the twentieth century.
[/i]

Not true. I am consciously aware of the choices I make.

Agreed.

You’re going off on a tangent. You asked if my brain is my choice - and I responded with an analogy to show how silly that question is.

Seems more like it would typically be random. It also depends if you’re talking about direct effect or indirect effect.
Cause: Hurricane
Effect: Wind & Rain

Cause: Wind & Rain
Effects: Damaged cars, coastal piers torn to shreds, power lines down, etc.

I’m not sure I quite understand what you’re getting at. But what is clear is you haven’t identified something other than my brain as what you think is the cause of me being able to make free will choices. Or is it possible we’re not on the same page as to what “cause” means?

When you say “they”, are you referring to Christians or to all people?

If God is a fancy word to describe what happens in our minds, then you’re coming from a Pantheistic view. Are you a Pantheist?

No surprise here. There obviously is no scientific study which shows we are automatons without the ability to make free choices. It appears to be nothing more than a theory of yours.

Once again, no surprise. I’m not asking what an automaton is or experiences. I’m asking for you to guide me to a scientific study. As you haven’t, I can safely assume that there is no scientific study which shows we are simply automatons.

49

I’m very familiar with who Sam Harris is and in what ways he differs from Richard Dawkins.

50

That’s an illusion of choice, a quale. How can your ‘choices’ not be caused by the matter in your body all of the actions of which are determined by internal and external causes, like everything else. Causes that go back all the way to the big bang. Everything you have ever done, you had to do. There were, of course, moments where it felt like you were choosing, but the result was determined long before you were born.

51

Hello Mutcer,

— The mind is a function of the brain. It appears to be a word (some may find it a funny name) to describe what happens in your brain.
O- A function of your brain is precisely how I see it. The difference is that I see the brain as determined by it’s electro-chemical value, thus, what your brain does, it’s functions and “actions” are likewise slaves to the necessary effects that visit such and such state of the brain at a given time and it is not the choice of one one of the “functions” to determine what, according to your view, produces it.

— Not true. I am consciously aware of the choices I make.
O- My dear Christian are you infallible? Isn’t it possible that this is an illusion? And isn’t it an illusion simply because of what else you assume unquestionably and scientifically about the universe and it’s forces? You already said that the mind is a product, pretty much, of the brain, so what happens in your mind, the illusion of choice included, is all determined, not a choice. It is an effect to state of your brain. That doesn’t make you an automaton, because an automaton does not have a subjective, nor the ability to be wrong about his freedom as a direct consequence.

— You’re going off on a tangent. You asked if my brain is my choice - and I responded with an analogy to show how silly that question is.
O- “A bad analogy, Mutcer” is my response.

— Seems more like it would typically be random. It also depends if you’re talking about direct effect or indirect effect.
Cause: Hurricane
Effect: Wind & Rain
Cause: Wind & Rain
Effects: Damaged cars, coastal piers torn to shreds, power lines down, etc.

O- Nothing random about the effects of a hurricane. The debri field is determined. We may not know ALL of the variants (which is why we need controlled enviroments to conuct accurate scientific research), but if we did, while complicated, we could predict where and how extensive the damage would be. Not knowing however is not the equivalent of freedom, OR evidence of randomness. Something unexpected happens and we simply looked at what might have been left unaccounted for.

— I’m not sure I quite understand what you’re getting at.
O- That you are inconsistent. That the standard you apply to the Christian you avoid for yourself.

— But what is clear is you haven’t identified something other than my brain
O- Never in question. This is what we agree on. You are an effect of your brain.

— …as what you think is the cause of me being able to make free will choices.
O- Your brain is not the cause of your ability, but of the illusion that yopu have this ability. The fact be granted that the brain IS the Cause, disqualifies the possibility that the ability of self-determination, which is what freewill amounts to, exist. Your question is flawed. I cannot identify what by your assumptions does not exist. Might as well ask me to identify God for you.

— When you say “they”, are you referring to Christians or to all people?
O- Do you know what ALL people think? What ALL people feel? Let’s concentrate here to you and then we may extrapolate to the human race. For right now it seems that you and the Christian are living in wish-fulfilling illusions.

— If God is a fancy word to describe what happens in our minds, then you’re coming from a Pantheistic view. Are you a Pantheist?
Your comprehension is limited, but at least you ask questions. Mutcer, what I wrote had NOTHING to do with God as a description of what happens in our minds but as an example about how our minds can be certain of what you patently say does not exist. If they can be wrong about the existence of God, can’t you be wrong about the existence of freewill?

— Once again, no surprise. I’m not asking what an automaton is or experiences. I’m asking for you to guide me to a scientific study. As you haven’t, I can safely assume that there is no scientific study which shows we are simply automatons.
O- Mutcer you are asking me for a defense for something I haven’t proposed. WE ARE NOT AUTOMATONS. But not being an automaton is not the same as saying that we are self-determined. I don’t need studies but your own assumptions, your own standard of truth. You agree that the mind is an effect, a function, what happens in your brain. It is not the cause of itself, and can only be what your brain can produce. You resist this and insist regardless about your ability to choose, which I tell you is an illusion and not an experience of what is actually happening in your brain. Your choices are a consequence of your brain, therefore determined by your brain even under the illusion of self-determination.