Joe's musing about free will and God.

[Ruminator]

Sorry Flint, I guess I was reading you wrong then.
It has seemed like in your posts you only allow for us to have inescapable thought processes and responses. No allowance for free will choices in a physically dimensioned only universe.

In what way does your thinking differ from fatalism?

For myself, I can't accept a concept of a Creator that doesn't allow for all that His/Her creation is, and that SHe not be separate from it as its creator.
Within our own beings we see a capacity for emotions, and the desire for enjoyment/ relationship that would need to be in the Creator as well.
An "in all, and all of everything being the creation/creator" model of a guiding force/God playing Hide and Seek with Himself doesn't add up to a full enough explanation for me.
It leaves major things unaddressed for me like that S/He would have created a reasoning, logically thinking being(us) with the capacity for meaningful relationship(love), and we can't experience relationship with our creator because S/He's playing Hide and Seek with Him/Herself?

For me, because S/He created us with the mental reasoning capacities that we have, and the abilities for relationship, its only a logical conclusion that our creator provide a means for such relationship.
So in looking around I ask myself, "Out of the various options/ explanations that appear to exist, how many are logical, reasonable, answer all of the necessary requirements, and has evidence that it follows the scientific natural laws that we in our capacity can discern.
And like you said, as time goes on, we will continue to learn more, and better understand more fully the real truth of reality.

I readily agree with your comment "the machinery of the universe is so many billions of times more complex than we will ever be able to understand".
Shoot, we have barely scratched the surface of the basic four dimensions that we so far can experiment in and study. And in quantum physics they have identified a necessity for there actually to be more than a dozen dimensions that exist.
But I disagree with you about our level of significance in the scheme of everything. From my studying, we likely have a very significant place in this universe from the scientific evidence that I've found exists.*

I also agree with you about our cognitive reasoning including assumptions that will at times be wrong. But your conclusion, "We aren't reliable witnesses to our own experience." goes beyond the logical conclusion that can be stated from the observation.
Certainly we aren't always reliable witnesses to our own experiences, but much of the time we will be.

"In a definition of the universe inclusive enough to include the so-called supernatural (actually just parts of nature yet to be understood by our own pea-sized human brains)"
Very well stated. If man could someday fully understand all of the ways the Christian God(should S/He actually exist) performed all of the miracles, and acts of creating all that exists; in every step there would be a reasonable, logical, deductive, scientifically repeatable explanation.

"I can't imagine any other definition of God that wouldn't be a major downgrade. Either he's EVERYTHING or he's just another bureaucrat."

Like I said, this definition of God is too small, at least on the face of it.
You may though have an ability to allow for this God concept to create time, and to preexist time in what we call eternity, or something like it.

This is very interesting to me, I love thinking about, studying, and discussing such.
Its a life journey discovering the true nature of reality isn't it? But I love the adventure of it.

[Flint]

I find two fundamental problems with your reasoning:

Originally Posted by Ruminator

...
I can't accept...

#1 Reality doesn't care what you can accept.

Originally Posted by Ruminator

...
From my studying, we likely have a very significant place in this universe from the scientific evidence that I've found exists.*
...

#2 According to the best scientific evidence available to ants, ants will conclude that ants have a very significant place in the universe.

[Number 2 Pencil]

Originally Posted by Flint

#2 According to the best scientific evidence available to ants, ants will conclude that ants have a very significant place in the universe.

The approach I am going to take here is probably the opposite of the ones in my above posts

Could consciousness somehow be important to the universe?

Haven't scientists found that by observing fundamental physics experiments, they themselves 'force' the universe to choose between the possible results. Their tests seems to show that quantum physics situations that go unobserved remain in a state of probability rather than having a fixed solution. If that is the case, then the universe really does need someone with consciousness to observe it in order to somehow cause it to become what it is, otherwise it would be a fuzzy blob of vagueness with no definition.

(yes, this is sort of the opposite of what I had said earlier, but it seems both positions though more or less opposite are totally unprovable. So this idea might be true and the other thing I said about parallel universes might be bunk. Which would be better?)

[Ruminator]

Accepting or rejecting a line of reasoning isn't a part of the reasoning, but rather a judgment of its plausibilty.

Reality doesn't care what you can accept.

- Obviously true for each of us.
Your linking my quote with your statement is an ungrounded leap.

According to the best scientific evidence available to ants, ants will conclude that ants have a very significant place in the universe.

- cute, prove it.

[Flint]

...
So in looking around I ask myself, "Out of the various options/ explanations that appear to exist, how many are logical, reasonable, answer all of the necessary requirements, and has evidence that it follows the scientific natural laws that we in our capacity can discern.
...

Sorry, it appears from what you've said that the options/explanations you are willing to consider are those which meet the extremely specific conditions you've pre-decided must be satisfied, i.e. an emotional relationship God/dess which doesn't play "hide and seek" with him/herself; right?