Joe's musing about free will and God.

Ruminator · 09-13-2008, 12:25 AM

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In this way of understanding, God is the sum total off all the deterministic, Newtonian interactions between particles, all the pre-determined, set in stone, can't be changed chemical reactions, all the non-magical things that are happening in a specific way that is simply too complicated for us to understand; and when you add it all up, there is an emergence, the creation of a massive pattern that acts like an intelligence. God is just...everything. And since everything behaves a certain way, you get a certain God.

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So, I'm not even sure God has a free will

I agree Flint, with your Fatalist definition of reality and "God", S/He wouldn't have a free will.

Flint · 09-13-2008, 01:10 AM

More like determinism than fatalism; but the important thing is that the machinery of the universe is so many billions of times more complex than we will ever be able to understand that we never need to worry about simple, low-level subroutines like human free will.

Do you know why optical illusions work? Because our brains are designed to assume. We aren't reliable witnesses to our own experience. The proportions of a baby's face causes a release of oxytocin. It doesn't mean that babies aren't cute, just because we know this. It isn't a threat to our humanity to admit that we are simply another part of the physical universe.

And I don't find it disrespectful to God to say that he's just the program running on a giant, universe-sized computer. 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), 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.

09-13-2008, 01:10 AM	#2
Flint Snowflake Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Dystopia Posts: 13,136	More like determinism than fatalism; but the important thing is that the machinery of the universe is so many billions of times more complex than we will ever be able to understand that we never need to worry about simple, low-level subroutines like human free will. Do you know why optical illusions work? Because our brains are designed to assume. We aren't reliable witnesses to our own experience. The proportions of a baby's face causes a release of oxytocin. It doesn't mean that babies aren't cute, just because we know this. It isn't a threat to our humanity to admit that we are simply another part of the physical universe. And I don't find it disrespectful to God to say that he's just the program running on a giant, universe-sized computer. 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), 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. __________________ **************** There's a level of facility that everyone needs to accomplish, and from there it's a matter of deciding for yourself how important ultra-facility is to your expression. ... I found, like Joseph Campbell said, if you just follow whatever gives you a little joy or excitement or awe, then you're on the right track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terry Bozzio** Last edited by Flint; 09-13-2008 at 01:18 AM.

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