Extreme Atheism - leads to a Proxy God by default.

Baldeee
What is the logic you are using and believe in anyhow...?

 

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I feel you are heading in the right direction..( with the above)
For example:
Co-determinism is totally deterministic, includes self determination and freewill and asserts that no in-determinism is present.
BUT the most important thing to bear in mind is that it is totally deterministic. Just not of the fatalistic pre-determinism kind.
No need for a proxy God or any God for that matter....
The co-determining human is just as related to the universe as he is related to the ground he is standing on...but that is more about co-dependency than co-determinism

 

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If someone establishes, as Cap did, that they are talking about something explicitly in the singular sense (" the same process"), they are indirectly but clearly introducing, even if only for the sake of rejecting, the plural sense.
My contribution is simply one of suggesting it makes zero difference to the question at hand, regardless whether you talk about it either sense (or in the sense of being integrated or separated, which were also explicitly introduced by Cap).
IOW all this horsing about with variables that one may or may not accept bears zero consequence on the question that he is, as yet, unable to ckearly answer.

 

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If it has no bearing on the question, and noone else has raised the issue, why did you bother doing so (which only subsequently resulted in Capracus asking, by way of clarification, about being isolated, integrated or whatever)? Red herring, no? So the only horsing about is being done by you. And by association now me in addressing your dressage.
And Capracus has answered the question quite clearly. He said no freedom.

 

Sure, but each such chain of events, if they do not interact at any stage, are non-existent to each other. If they do interact at any stage then they are in effect the same system. Whether we want to speculate on the existence of any unrelated system would be similar to speculating on a theory of Many Worlds, with each having their own deterministic system etc.

 

Agrees

 

An autonomous man sitting on a beach for example is interacting constantly. Air, water, temp, gravity, light, em radiation etc etc.
What interactions that he is some how excluding do you have in mind?

 

I am, but you're patently not, not that you seem to have half the understanding necessary, nor an ounce of honesty when it comes to debating the issue.
This thread is testament to both.

I am using classical deductive logic.
What logic do you use, when you actually get round to employing any?
And do you not have any confidence in the conclusions of your logic (although to be honest, given the fallacious way you employ logic when you do... that wouldn't be a surprise).

What kind of determinism is it utilising, then?
Just saying that it is not the "fatalistic pre-determination" kind is not an answer.

Nor is that.
Saying that what it does away with, while not actually providing any detail, is simply selling snake oil.
So please, detail what type of determinism you are employing?
Or is this more smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that you're basically just trolling?

So the same determination that everyone else is considering, as expected.

And yet another unexplained bit of nonsense, is it?

I'll come back to this thread as and when something interesting pops up, which given your dominance of the posting is probably not going to be any time soon.

 

Not really. Though people like Lawrence Krauss would probably disagree.

"Natural deterministic laws" (that phrase sounds like an item of metaphysical belief) that seemingly make everything that happens in the entire universe, everywhere and everywhen, contingent on and determined by the initial state of the universe at the very beginning, along with the "natural deterministic laws" set down at the same origin event, and hence on "how the universe arose". Hence dependent on God (see your own "remit of God" remark above).

Everything that happens, on every planet of every star in every galaxy, at any point in time, would seem to be (on this metaphysical theory) to be determined by that initial origin/creation event. Down to the precise text that the idiot high-school kid if thumbing into her cell-phone.

If we go with that idea, we end up with QQ's "proxy God by default" don't we? It's basically the old arguments of natural theology warmed over once again.

And in my opinion it's almost certainly bullshit. I don't think the universe operates that way.

 

Why God? Why not Potential?

God can never be defined other than as an "unknowable" supernatural entity. There is no evidence of any kind which can lead to a deductive answer, other than a metaphysical address. It's useless to discuss a God in terms of our universal reality.

Moreover, every god that was ever assumed to exist has been replaced by a natural physics. Doesn't that tell us something?

OTOH, Potential is a whole different beast and has many known qualifications and quantifications. All of them pertinent to the question of emergent reality.

The very generic definition of potential is "that which may become reality".
IMO, an excellent starting point for discussion of origins, no?

Let's get real, shall we? (this patient, considerate indulgence of mythology is beginning to bore me)

 

If it doesn't then surely there is no "proxy-God".
God is nothing if not the creator of the universe.

The cause of that original event, if there even was one (determinism doesn't require it, btw), is outside the remit of determinism.
As for determinism being a metaphysical belief, it is certainly metaphysical, yes.
Are people not allowed to hold metaphysical belief unless they're labelled "God" or "proxy-God"?
If so then everybody believes in something at the fundamental level.
And the argument concludes that everybody therefore believes in a "proxy-God".
Whether that is self, universe, God etc.

So, given that determinism does not require a creation, is really nothing more than saying that the universe obeys laws, what is the "proxy-God"?

If one wishes to start with an initial condition, yes, but determinism per se does not require it.

No, we don't.
We end up with basically saying the universe exists and operates according to Laws in a consistent manner.
If one believes the universe is indeterministic, you end up with the universe existing and operating according to Laws in a consistently inconsistent manner (e.g. probabilistic) but you're still left with a "proxy-God".
If you believe the (physical) universe is either deterministic or indeterminstic then you have a "proxy-God", even if you're not sure which it is.
If you believe the (physical) universe is neither deterministic nor indeterministic then you probably don't know what a binary proposition is.

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So, it seems that irrespective of what you believe you are left believing in this "proxy-God".
It has thus lost all value and purpose to claim that one believes in it.
Also bear in mind that any compatibilist, if they believe the universe to be deterministic, is still a fatalist in the sense that they accept the universe operates according to its rules, and can not escape them.
Their compatibilism is in finding some working notion of freedom within the will and for a mechanism to ensure moral responsibility, but it doesn't alter the fatalistic flavourings of their position.
But even weaker than fatalism, if one simply accepts that the universe has a power over us (e.g. an asteroid can wipe us out in an instant), this would seem sufficient for this thread to conclude that this is acceptance of a "proxy-God".

Nice appeal to consequence and personal incredulity.

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How do you think the universe operates?
On some type of substance dualism?
Serious question, before you worry that I'm being facetious.

 

I've long considered myself a compatibilist, but I think that I'm drifting away from it towards a free-willist sort of incompatibilism.

The reason for my doing that is that I'm increasingly inclined to distinguish between causation and determinism. I'm willing to entertain the metaphysical idea that every event has a cause, certainly as a heuristic principle if nothing else, a principle that directs us to seek explanations. But I'm less convinced that the precise details of every physical state are precisely determined by the precise details of temporally prior physical states. Quantum mechanics seems to illustrate this on the microscale. Micro quantum events can be said to have causes that don't precisely determine their effects. If we expand probabilistic causation to the universe as a whole, then determinism falls apart.

By the initial origin event that determined the initial state of the universe and the physical "laws" that describe/control its subsequent evolution through time. According to determinism, everything that happens, anywhere in the universe at any point in time, can be traced back to and was totally determined by that initial creation event.

That's pop "deism". Historically, Deism is a theological position that questions/rejects revealed theology while accepting natural theology. And determinism seems to arguably be (perhaps without realizing it) a modern warmed-over version of the historical first-cause and design arguments. (I don't want to put words into QQ's mouth, but that seems to me to be what he's basically arguing.)

God would presumably be whatever is responsible for the initial creation event. (Creator, Source, Architect... we're all aware of the imagery that history has given that idea.) God would be whatever established the initial state of the universe at t = 0 and specified the "laws" that describe how the universe evolves from there. If we accept determinist metaphysics (which I'm increasingly disinclined to do), then those two things determine everything else in the universe today, including the precise words that the high-school kid texts into her cell-phone. Not just here, but on every exoplanet in every galaxy.

 

I think the word "extreme" has people confused.

There is the extremity of extreme biking, or, extreme couponing; the latter phrase is actually the title of a television show that ran in the states. By this definition of, people undertake particular activities otherwise deemed acceptable in such manners that we judge deviant, excessive, or otherwise extraordinarily extraordinary.

There is also the political extremity that leads to terrorism and other problems, such as right-wing extremism. Certainly, the prior definition can be applied in some manner, but instead of an unfortunate subtext, the implications seem more sinister.

This difference leads back toward how differently my post looked at the idea of "extreme atheism" than your version seems to.

First, though, a point on some other noise in this thread. American crazy is purely American. Think of it this way: That white guy in handcuffs you're speculating about? If he was black, he wouldn't be in handcuffs, he would be dead. If he was black, he would be called a terrorist or extremist or gang-banger, not mentally ill. Also, once upon a time we used to denounce competency defenses as excuses. It is because time has proven the point, in our society, that the terrorism most likely to hurt us is white, Christianist, American zealotry, that we should, these days, consider competency more seriously.

Also, on this subject, a grim consideration: Five years after I finished high school, Soundgarden released a song that was nearly an anthem for my generation, called, "Blow Up the Outside World"↱. It didn't stand out that way at the time; rather, it seemed a really cool song from a band that really didn't want to record a mandatory power ballad. But Columbine, twenty years ago today, gave that song particular meaning for me. When I was in high school, we were not immune to antisocial fantasy, like burn it all down, or, as such, blow up the outside world. Colloquially, my class seemed to know better than to bring that stuff in with us. That is, sure, blow up the outside world, but in my corner of the world we didn't actually do it and always knew we wouldn't. Over the course of those twenty years we Americans struggled to make Columbine about psycho teenagers instead of the class struggle of history. And it happened over and over again, and egregiously; the issue set with me after an incident in which a bullied tribal kid in a tribal school had written a bunch of stuff in a notebook someone saw and reported, and afterword it was clear to me nobody was going to consider the point of his behavior and psychological condition being reactionary. If you recall the, "It Gets Better" campaign, and brief focus on bullying in American culture, that was the most publicly I've seen Americans try to take on the issue, and, yes, of course they did it wrong. Remember, I sometimes make a point that the only reason we won the Gay Fray is because white men were among the winners; the point wouldn't work if it wasn't so consistently reinforced in our society. That is, homosexuals got, for the sake of white men being present among them, what American women and people of color never get. And we made it stick; when it was our turn in the mass shooting derby, our American society stood for us. Men gun down women for not handing out phone numbers to whoever asks, and we can't have the discussion without stopping to dissect what she did wrong. My point being we didn't really try a large-scale discussion on bullying until the empowement majority felt it could complain of being bullied. That is to say, in the end, our discussion on bullying spent far too much time and effort on comforting bullies.

Similarly, we experienced a phenomenon in the U.S. called glass escalator. It's not that society suddenly rolled and started supporting women to the detriment of men. Rather, when certain jobs went away, the men who had them waited for their return. Meanwhile, as society moved along over the course of decades, and women found more and more places in the workforce, it also happened that healthcare and insurance jobs opened up all over the place, including where these other jobs had been. The men, waiting on union labor jobs to return and reinvigorate, did not pursue office work with lesser compensation than what they had on the factory line. Statistically, women took these new jobs in transcription, coding, and billing, among other aspects of healthcare and insurance. As the sector continued to grow, and the factory jobs stayed gone, many men apparently drew the distinction themselves: These health office jobs were women's work.

Stop: Time-out.

At this point in our story, the men waiting on factory jobs are outnumbered and outskilled in the healthcare and insurance sectors.

Also, and very, very importantly: It is true, we are in this question considering standards such as "women's work", which says something.

Now, I said factory jobs. These actually include the Rust Belt jobs that play so heavily into the analysis of eighty thousand voters in three states being the difference between American presidents in a year when the lesser overall total wins the state-by-state outcome.

And that point is relevant because, again, as we witnessed in the 2016 election and heard before, during, and after, what we really need to do is pander to the bullies, as such. And there are counterarguments, but the most prominent would be invested in a weird, internationally popular argument that finds dubious sympathy in American society but has no real idea what goes on in this country; there are reasons it largely reads as rightist and conspiracist.

Part of what happened in the Rust Belt, for instance, is that narratives arose blaming women for oppressing men. Yes, really. This is part of the argument about how men are the real victims of sexism. The problem, of course, is that if we accept that premise even for the sake of argument in any given moment, the obvious response is that they did it to themselves.

Great. The men whose feelings are hurt by the fact that a woman got a job they wouldn't apply for are going to respond just how when told these years of personal distress and even anguish are self-inflicted for their own psychomoral failure and insufficiency?

I can't tell you precisely what is up with the suspect you are considering, but I will note a particular generalization about the sort of dissatisfaction we hear from privileged classes in American society: There is a way of things by which even that suspect would have expected to benefit, which is either no longer in effect or collapsing before our eyes. It's hard to explain, but to use an example that keeps pinging me: There was a bit, not so long ago, about men with dating profiles including fishing photos. And there really is something about it, and you do start to wonder about the time you realize that one handsome-ish guy holding up the trout seems to have taken off his shirt, picked up the fish, and walked into the river while wearing khaki trousers in order to pose for the camera. The joke about these images is that they are provider photos: "I will bring you fish, and many orgasms." It's like, great, food and fucking, that's different from the last guy, how. But in this old, traditionalistic way of things, you needn't be the handsome-ish man who lifts weights when not standing in the river with a fish in order to expect certain privilege, or to benefit by the traditional way of things.

And maybe starting points come into it; maybe upbringing has something to do with it, because part of the difference is how anyone deals with existential disappointment. In the question of competency, why would he be noncompetent? At some point, this becomes a very important distinction.

What part of the problem is conditioning, and to what degree can we argue operant conditioning? Consider a point I sometimes make about the American electorate: The 2010 election, the Tea Party midterm, was the first with broad empowerment of a certain demographic bloc essentially born into and raised within an epistemic circle of antisocial belief; that is, even the courts betrayed democracy in 1993, by this outlook, so pretty much everything going on these last twenty-six years is illegitimate. That is, we now deal with a large bloc of a particular generation of voters raised to believe the system they vote for is fundamentally illegitimate.

I can't speak for this particular suspect, nor for the difference between what he learned and what is up with the brain he learns and feels and decides with.

Extreme 1: The philosophy student so microparses his Universe in seeking objective truth and reality as to unanchor his sanity.

Extreme 2: A man is angry at the existential betrayal his society has shown him, and is lashing out.

The first is akin to what I perceive in your discussion of extreme atheism. The second is, like my earlier consideration↑, more about aesthetics and satisfaction. The one is dysfunction that can be selfish; the other is selfish to the point of dysfunction.

In either case, it is not a kind picture of extremity or extremism. Meanwhile, the suspect's family is Catholic, and if the book he wrote is atheistic, nobody would know because there aren't any good previews of the text, we get tumbleweeds for substantive reviews, and the jacket copy is even more useless than usual.

Also, remember your audience in terms of this community; all you've accomplished is offending atheists. The word "extreme" did that. Considering Lamparello as such only compounds your sin in their eyes.

 

Even if the past is infinite, without any temporal origin, there presumably is still a reason why an infinite expanse of time exists at all, why the states of the universe at each instant are what they are, and why the evolution of those states is subject to particular so-called "laws of physics". Natural theology wouldn't have any problem labelling those reasons "God". It's just the age-old first-cause and design arguments in new guise.

It's not a matter of "allowed". It's a question of where a particular line of argument delivers us.

Sure, natural theology wouldn't have any problem agreeing in calling the ultimate Source for reality "God", whatever it happens to be.

The thing with determinism is that it makes everything that subsequently happens into the work of that 'God'. My choice to brew a cup of coffee this morning wasn't my choice, it was really God's choice.

I'm not going to concede you that.

The Source or Designer of those "laws". Whatever explains their existence and why they are what they are and not something else.

Except that the "proxy-God" is no longer controlling everything that happens and isn't jerking people around like puppets. Every event that takes place in the universe isn't merely a function of the universe's initial conditions.

Or maybe it isn't a binary proposition at all. Perhaps there's some confusion, ambiguity or other problem built into how the words 'deterministic' and 'indeterministic' are being used and understood.

Yes, I think that the arguments of natural theology work (as well as they have ever worked, my attitude to them is agnostic) whether or not one is a determinist. Most of the people who have employed them throughout history weren't determinists in the Sciforums-style.

The thing with determinism is that it seemingly shoves the explanation for everything back to the universe's ultimate Source, making everything that happens into the work of God.

That's one of the reasons why I'm inching towards making a stronger distinction between determined and caused.

Only for the determinist, who attributes everything including asteroid orbits to the initial conditions of the universe and to the "laws" describing the universe's subsequent evolution.

If one holds instead that the universe evolves indeterministically and unpredictably subsequent to its initial unknown origin, then we need not attribute everything that happens today to its origin events. (Which may indeed require a proxy-God surrogate of some sort. At least if one accepts the arguments of natural theology. My own view is that they basically just point to fundamental metaphysical mysteries that I'm in no position to solve. Hence my agnosticism, regarding natural theology.)

No,no,no,no. I wasn't trying to convince you of anything. I was just trying to communicate what my own position is. I don't believe that they universe operates in a deterministic fashion.

Unpredictably, especially as time-scales extend. I'm inclined to think of it in terms of chaotic dynamics, where even the most infinitesimal differences in initial conditions can lead to systems evolving in very different directions as time goes on. Quantum effects might arguably supply the infinitesimal differences if quantum systems only evolve probabilistically.

No,no,no. Not even close.

In my view mind isn't a thing, a kind of stuff, but rather actions that my nervous system performs as an information processing system. Admittedly, I'm not quite sure what to make of the metaphysics of information. But I'm inclined to treat it monistically, as continuous and one with the physical world.

 

This will be controversial, but that will be due to my inability to present it in purely scientific terms.
Please indulge any obscure statements and allow me to explain if certain propositions are not presented with sufficient clarity.

They don't. That was not required. The whole thing began as a state of complete chaotic energy and energetic potentials, independent of any prior state, other than pure energy.

I agree, but at that scale quantum mechanics (fields) are probabilistic, albeit still deterministic.

I disagree there. This assumes such a state still exists, but as far as we know a state of pure probabilistic chaos existed only for a very small moment before determinism emerged and patterns began to form such as dynamic fields, which are still probabilistic (dynamically chaotic), but produce physical objects with specific mathematical deterministic potentials (values and functions). From that point on the deterministic mathematical values and functions introduced greater and greater precision in deterministic results, expressed as physical patterns.

I see an evolving hierarchical system from a simple chaotic cause and effect at the very subtle levels into a purely determinstic mathematical orderings of values and functions, eventually yielding physical reality as we experience it.

IMO, determinism is an evolving function, just as everything else! Note that determinism produces both positive and negative effects.
2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy) is a deterministic function.

The only real question is what was before the BB and if we can say with certainty that before the BB the energetic potential for the BB existed in some form. All we need to establish is a natural imperative (the energetic potential) which converted pre-BB state into chaotic BB and its subsequent emerging deterministic universal values and functions.

This has nothing to do with the concept of God with assumes much more than needs be.
Intelligence? Why? Things cannot happen without a motivated God? Why not?

If what I posit here is woo, then adding the assumption of a God makes the whole thing pure and utter fantasy..

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Interesting post Bells... thanks..

anything else you would like to add...??

 

Just ran across this little tid-bit;

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-wild...e-time-is-just-a-product-of-quantum-mechanics

Determinism?

p.s. this seems to be compatible with CDT (causal dynamical triangulation)

 

Sure, but in doing that you've moved away from determinism, and fatalism, leading to that but to any philosophy at all.
And that's my point, not necessarily that one cant argue the case for fatalism being a belief in such a "proxy God" but that any philosophy at all can be similarly argued.
And as such, this thread is simply baiting, insulting, and so poorly thought out by someone with an agenda to cover up their personal incredulity in an issue they clearly have no chance of fully comprehending.

Sure, and your line of argument leads all philosophies to a "proxy-God".
I'm not saying that is wrong, it just shows to me that the "proxy-God" is simply a pointless concept, and when coupled with the agenda of the original author....

And the ultimate source has nothing to do with determinism, indeterminism, or anything in between.
It is a separate matter entirely, just one conflated by the starter of the thread in an attempt to insult and provoke.

And indeterminism makes it the work of the ‘God‘ of randomness.
Still no freedom, just a different mechanism.
Only if one espouses a dualistic approach can one move away from such a view, yet dualism is, at least to me, a case of wishful thinking.
An argument from ignorance etc.

Okay.
Either the universe began or it didn't.
Either the universe is deterministic or it isn't.
The two seem unrelated to me.
On what basis do you think that a deterministic universe has have a beginning?
Or do you think that all universes do?

Ad if the universe is indeterministic the same applies.
The "laws" would be different, but they would still be laws.
Or you have complete randomness - an unviable universe.
Thus again we must surely conclude that this "proxy God" is nothing to do with determinism.

In a probabilistic universe it is, albeit probabilistically so.
There is still no freedom in how an effect results from a cause, just a random result according to the probability function.
That is the key point.
The path my not be as linearly determined, but it is still not free.
One can be a fatalist while adhering to indeterministic... the "everything is random within a probability function" philosophy.
Fatalism is, at heart, the recognition of lack of non-trivial freedom in the way the universe works.

Given the lack of understanding the author of this thread has exhibited, confusion is quite likely.
Hopefully those not so afflicted can rise above it and reach consensus.

Indeed.
But this thread isn't about natural theology.
It was a thread to denigrate, to disparage, views that the thread creator is incapable of grasping.
Some grasp and can debate coherently their points of disagreement.
Others simply... well, this thread is testament.

As does any metaphysics that relies on consistent application of "laws", whether deterministic or not.
Limiting your criticism to determinism is unwarranted.

Sure, but any criticism of "determined" philosophies is as valid of "caused" philosophies, as the key issue is the non-trivial freedom (or lack thereof) within the mechanism.
E.g. a probabilistic universe has no more non-trivial freedom than a deterministic one; it just requires the added random roll of a die.

The only difference is that in one case you have a predetermined course of events, and in the other it is random.
Either way there is no non-trivial freedom afforded the individual.
Whether I know up front that a die roll will result in a 4, or whether it will result in a number between 1 and 6, the result is out of the hands of the person experiencing it.
With regard the "proxy-God" there is no difference other than the detail of the mechanisms by which the universe operates.

My point is that more the just the deterministic philosophy can be argued to believe in a "proxy-God", to the extent that it is pretty much meaningless to talk in such terms, and is really just an agenda-driven term to denigrate and provoke, in this case specifically the determinist fraternity.

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Don't worry, I didn't think you were trying to convince.
Personally I'm not a determinist either.
I tend more toward the probabilistic universe, but I am aligned with the lack of non-trivial freedom.

Then welcome to the realm of "proxy-God".

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Yeah, I pretty much knew that from what you've just said.

Aye.
I concur, and to me information is just a delayed feedback loop of previous experience.
Or something like that.
We, as pretty complex beasts, have taken it to an extreme (there's that word used in a non-insulting way, so it impossible, it seems) but I think that's fundamentally how I'd view it.