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Um, mysterious mechanical force innate to the universe/will of a god = kind of the same thing to me.
No, because one would be deterministic and one not.
I don't understand 'deterministic' - what is it please?
Gods/mechanical, to me means that everything is 'alive' (for a given value of alive) and that gods are people's personification of that... kind of. I've never really articulated what/how I believe before, it's quite good fun.
Actually, things are 'alive' - they have electrical charges don't they (like us and other animals)? And scientists say now that the observer can alter the outcome of an experiment by the way s/he thinks about the result (ie positive or negative).
And scientists say now
Now? Albert might have issues with that...
Ok, "scientists have said for a long time" - is that better?
Determinism means that something is predictable. Meaning, you can look at all the variables and predict what will happen in the future if you have enough data and know all the rules. It also means that if you rewind everything and set it up again, it'll do the same thing again.
So the movement of planets in the solar system is deterministic in that we can predict in advance what'll be happening.
The movement of balls on a pool table after the break should be deterministic because it follows simple rules, but tiny variations in initial positions get amplified so much so quickly that you don't know where the balls will go - you don't have accurate enough data to begin with. And if you re-set the balls, you can never get them exactly the same again and you'll get a different result. That's the definition of a chaotic system.. a bit like the weather systems in the atmosphere too.
Relating to people, we are sometimes deterministic, and sometimes not. For example, I bought my house shortly before the crash, which was perhaps a bad idea. But if you took me back to 2007, I'd have the same information to work with, the same values and experience, so I'd probly make the same decision again. However, some other decisions might be part of some random event in my brain that would be different if we repeated the whole thing.
If there is a god with free will, he might make a snap decision on something and alter the course of events... If however there's some kind of machine following simple laws, then given the same initial conditions the outcome woudl be the same.
I have to take issue with the 'things being alive' assertion though 🙂
Things have molecules and atoms (pardon my very sketchy knowledge here - I was so bad at chemistry they used to let me draw in classes) - and molecules and atoms have electrical charges. So do we. Or do we have a 'soul' too? Something else that is not tangible?
Ummmm.. electricity isn't life. Things can have charge, but they aren't alive. If you rub a balloon on your head you give it charge so it'll stick to the wall - but it doesn't come to life!
Life is hard to define, but the criteria include such things as self-sustaining behaviour, growth, the ability to reproduce and a few others.
Or do we have a 'soul'
What is a "soul"?
What is a "soul"?
Something my weak, pathetic, gutless line manager appears to be devoid of.
Do you have one, then? What colour is it?
I don't see evidence of any mechanism that allows anyone to "choose" a destiny. The history of the macro universe emerges deterministically as effect follows cause ad infinitum, with no need for free-will, human spirit, gods or other nonsense.
Or does it?
What colour is a magnetic field?
Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there, bonehead!
Buzz - does God play dice with the universe?
Some events on a sub-atomic scale are entirely random. If you take five radioactive nuclei and wait five minutes, three of them might decay. If you turn back time and do it again, none of them might.
So that effect could carry over to the macroscopic universe. If you started the solar system again, the gas cloud might condense into 6 planets, all too hot or cold for life...
"might be part of some random event in my brain "
What does that then? A quantum event? How does that interact with the electro-chemistry of your thought processing? No one has yet explained how this is feasible.
So if you're convinced we have "free will", is it some unkwown quantum effect, or a supernatural effect?
We can say that the measurable repeatability of cause and effects is such that God doesn't seem to be interfering, at least when we're looking. So this suggests that maybe God doesn't exist because God does not seem necessary for the universe to behave as we've seen it repeatably behave since we started looking.
If you follow the Bible, God interfered a lot back then. Sending the Christ seems a big interference!
This is all very deep. I need cheesecake.
"If you turn back time and do it again, none of them might."
You cannot do this experiment so you cannot know the result, only guess it. In fact I argue that you will get an identical result.
A similar experiment, not involving time travel 😉 does produces a distribution of outcomes. Who knows why quantum level behaviour is like this?
But what I really want to know is: how does quantum-level behaviour affect the macro physical world in such a way that it makes us "decide" our destiny?
molgrips - Member
What colour is a magnetic field?Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there, bonehead!
Really? Gosh, you are clever. Clever enough to take me literally and not recognise the general point behind the metaphor. As usual. As I believe I've said previously about your responses.
I assume, however, that a magnetic field can be detected with instrumentation? You'd think, with all the history of burrowing into the stuff of existence WAY beyond atomic structure, the "soul" would have showed up on the radar by now.
... the monitor edit to the above indicating that your epithet is apparently allowable where mine was not, I'll just restrict myself to letting you imagine what my rejoinder was... Think of a vertical mouth.
