Philosophy discussion

Mark, I really tried to express my take on free will, but I just can't.

I just joined the group because Duffy’s updates from this group keep me intrigued and I can’t respond to anything without joining. Thanks a lot mate.

@Mark - I think your view is what’s called Compatibilism ie you believe determinism is not logically incompatible with free will – as opposed to Incompatibilism that says determinism is logically incompatible with free will. I tend towards being an Incompatibilist but I’m not a hard determinist. I tend to think determinism is not true and free will is true.

Having said that, my primary reason for believing in free will is my immediate experience of having free will, and of being able to make decisions and seeing that I have some causal control related to those decisions etc. I don’t see the proposition that I could be having some grand delusion as a sound counter argument. Nobody has proven that I am having an illusion and that I should doubt my cognitive faculties - all the arguments for and against free will only speak to possible worlds, ie they don’t prove there is no free will in the actual world regardless of whether they can be shown to be valid arguments. So to say free will is an illusion only concedes that free will is more obvious than the arguments against it – particularly when those making the proposition are under the same illusion along with the rest of humanity.

As I am already satisfied I have a real world experience of free will the question of whether free will is compatible with determinism is purely an academic exercise in logic. I am quite happy to entertain arguments against free will and determine whether they are internally consistent because even if some of those arguments are valid – and I think some are, that does not compel me to accept them as sound arguments such that I must deny my cognitive faculties. Rather I think it fun to examine how many of the different arguments can I hold consistently with my assumption of free will. For example, my belief in free will means I can be either a compatibilist or an incompatibilist (just not at the same time). I can possibly believe in determinism and free will but I can’t be a hard determinist.

I think there are good arguments to show Logical determinism and Epistemic determination are invalid but I haven’t looked as closely at whether various forms of Causal determinism can be shown to be valid or invalid.

I’m currently trying to find a way to say Duffy made me write more than I really wanted to that is consistent with my view on free will

We should not despise Mark's thought experiment, which often turn up in the literature on Free Will / Determinism. In T J Mawson's book for example. The earliest I've seen it is in Jeans' Physics and Philosophy of 1942, where Jeans imagines not the same person rewound back in time, but two identical people in parallel worlds. (Jeans, incidentally, was no philosopher.)

I think the thought experiment is not useful as an argument for or against free will, but as an illustration of the difficulty of defining it.

As Mark explained, his rewound individual would have his memory rewound too. But it's interesting to think what his perception of the action of others would be if his memory was not rewound. So the Bill Murray character in Groundhog Day doesn't accuse those around him of lacking free will, while Myron Castleman in the brilliant short film 12:01 PM does. ("I'm the only one that can change anything".)

You can usually find 12:01 PM on youtube, if you haven't seen it.

David Sven wrote: "I just joined the group because Duffy’s updates from this group keep me intrigued and I can’t respond to anything without joining. Thanks a lot mate.

@Mark - I think your view is what’s called Co..."

David,

highly intriguing. I had no idea these schools of thought existed but have now done extensive research on them (I read two wikipedia articles) and would agree with you. It does look indeed as if my view is similar to that held by "compatibilists" (if that is a word). I was fascinated to find a quote by Schopenhauer, in which he (apparently famously) asserts that "man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills". That seems to encapsulate the essence of my argument. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

As I said in my contributions above, I think this means that a self-aware agent is able to execute "free will", but that there are natural constraints imposed on the degree of freedom that the adjective denotes. In every decision we make, choices are open to us. We cannot absolve ourselves from responsibility for any consequences these choices entail. But every set of circumstances will "urge" one and only one natural decision we would make in that set of circumstances.

So what, we might ask. What is the point of this rather pedantic sophistry? I think it may, if we choose (no pun) to understand this in a certain way, ensure that we do not get "too big for our shoes", that we remain modest in the interpretation of human capacity, and that we remember that our actions, albeit performed by self-aware agents, are uniquely driven by circumstances. Driven, but not forced!

So I guess this interpretation might enable human agents to accept responsibility for their own actions, and at the same time remain "humble" about their ability to do so.

You know, in theory. I would certainly not claim that I am anywhere near these twin goals.

Martin wrote: "We should not despise Mark's thought experiment, which often turn up in the literature on Free Will / Determinism. In T J Mawson's book for example. The earliest I've seen it is in Jeans' Physics a..."

Martin,

thank you very much - as in my response to David, I had no idea that versions of my experiment had been used by philosophers before. I still like my thought experiment. It helped me develop the view I described in my response to David, although I understand that it may seem intuitive to some, but not to others.

You are raising a hugely interesting issue in your third paragraph. I have been thinking about this, too, and I think this may open up some intriguing theoretical ideas. I should love to chat with you more about these in future.

I'm going to give a slightly less flippant answer to Mark's question about my own stance on the subject.

The purely rational part of me buys into Hume's arguments about causation. Since there is no rational basis for asserting the existence of a cause, there can't be any rational basis for determinism.

Furthermore, it seems to me that there is one area where I do have the direct impression of a cause, and that is in the strong exercise of my own will. When willing something to happen, I can convince myself that I see the cause of an event, and not simply their co-incidence. Thus, it strikes me as supremely ironic that people with an empirical bent would be so stongly seduced by the ideas of determinism.

So much for the rational side of me. The irrational part of me insists upon two unshakeable articles of faith: 1) Every observable event has a cause; and 2) I, and other people, make choices for which we are responsible. Of course, these two tenets are almost certainly contradictory, at least in principal, but we are talking about my irrational side, and I believe that everyone holds at least several contradictory beliefs. On an ordinary day, its not a big deal.

Mark wrote: "I still like my thought experiment. It helped me develop the view I described in my response to David, although I understand that it may seem intuitive to some, but not to others."

You might also like to look into "Modal Logic." Your thought experiment involved "possible worlds" and modal logic uses possible worlds as a tool for distinguishing between modal states like possibility, probability and necessity.

Though I have some quibbles with the accuracy of some elements in your experiment I actually agree with the gist of what I think you are saying.

I will get the identical brand of coffee, at exactly the same time, in exactly the same way. I still theoretically could choose to get tea, but I would not.

In other words the probability of you choosing tea is 100% - but it does not follow that not choosing tea is impossible. Probability and impossibility are two different modal states. Introducing unpredictability in quantum states might effect the probability of certain outcomes given certain conditions - but it doesn't make that outcome more or less possible.

My only gripe here would be that this only means one of the conditions for free will is met - ie other outcomes are possible (even in a world where quantum states are predictable). I have an an ant's nest in the middle of my yard - but I can conceive of possible worlds where the ants built nests in different parts of my yards given different conditions - it still doesn't follow that ants have free will even though possibly they could have built the nest in different locations.

I have read through all 230 posts! (It took me a long time ...)

My guess is that Tyler knew this thread would go on forever, as does the debate itself. I have done a kind-of analysis of the first 125 posts, to see which way opinions lie. Actually this analysis should not be taken too seriously, as it is often difficult to say that a post supports the determinist or freewill position, and indeed it is frequently not easy to understand certain posts at all. But here it is.

D indicates a post in favour of determinism,
L a post in favour of free will ("liberationism"),
C a post in favour of the compatibilism idea,
A a post that develops or challenges someone else's idea ("argumentative")
M a post from Tyler, keeping things in focus and on the rails ("moderating")

You get,

L:23, D:30; C:8; A:46; M:18

So there are 30 D posts against 23 L posts.

In reading the entire thread, I judged D posts to be greatly in excess of L posts, but that is not actually the case: D posts just tend to be longer. That is not after all so surprising. A detter (determinist) has a theory of how human actions are caused, and can develop it at length. A libber (liberationist, or believer in free will), follows the idea that we are simply conscious of making choices, and that requires little further development in long arguments.

Most of the arguing was done on the ground established by the detters. Here the libbers were at a disdvantage, in that they were like football teams playing away from home. Actually, arguing against detter assumptions doesn't make you a libber necessarily, hence the large A post count. I judged all Duffy's posts to be really A posts.

Duffy wrote: "The purely rational part of me buys into Hume's arguments about causation. Since there is no rational basis for asserting the existence of a cause, there can't be any rational basis for determinism."

Duffy, it is not your irrational side that argues for the existence of cause and effect. That is your rational side. It would be highly odd for somebody to assert that events can occur without a cause. As you mention Hume, he would certainly agree: "I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that something could arise without a cause", he wrote in one of his letters. (J.Y.T. Greig, ed., The Letters of David Hume, 2 vols. New York 1983. 1:187)

P.S. - I would love to pretend that I read all of these, but have to admit shamefully that I found the reference in the wikipedia article on Hume. :-)

David Sven wrote: "Your thought experiment involved "possible worlds" "

My thought experiment is simply a memoryless version of Groundhog Day. And my point on free will is precisely that its quality cannot be the free will decision displayed by Bill Murray's character.

Since you mention probabilities, I think we need to analyse the dynamics by reference to conditional probabilities. Illustratively, the idea I tried to express in my thought experiement (clearly badly though), in the language of probabilites, looks like this:

I make decision D given that the universe is in state X with probability P(D|X).

P(D|X) = P(D∩X)/P(X)
=>
P(D∩X) = P(X) P(D|X)

We live in a random universe, hence P(X)=k, where 0 < k < 1. The conditional probability is 1, in accordance with my hypothesis that we would make one, and only one, natural decision in a given set of circumstances.

Hence

P(D∩X) = k

This means that the joint probability of the universe being in state X and an individual making decision D is smaller than 1 (ie uncertain) but not driven by the free will decision but by random particle fluctuations.

This view, I believe, is more plausible than a view that we can do what we want, that we are unbound by the laws of nature. If indeed, we were, we would need to assume that X and D are independent events, which (after very little algebra) leads to the odd conclusion that P(X)=P(D), ie that my free will is exactly synchronous with random particle fluctuations, and hence not free. In other words, if I make the assumption of independence, I arrive at a paradox.

Now, I am not claiming that I have conclusively shown anything here. All I had in mind was to communicate my views, and why I think they are plausible, in a way different from my ill-fated thought experiment.

Mark wrote: "Duffy wrote: "The purely rational part of me buys into Hume's arguments about causation. Since there is no rational basis for asserting the existence of a cause, there can't be any rational basis f..."

I disagree. Hume argued that causality had no basis in reason. If he hadn't been so persuasive with this argument, he might never have awoken Kant, and that surely would have saved me a lot of headaches. Rather, he said that our holding onto the idea of causality was a matter of human custom and habit. This doesn't at all contradict the quote from your letter. Hume would freely admit that he was very much a creature of custom and habit. So he could both say that everything that arises has a cause, and say that there is no basis in reason for the existence of a cause.

@Mark - I'm not too sure on the form of your argument but essentially I think you are attempting to say that the uncertainty in the universe allows for different results given the same set of preconditions - and so some measure of free will is possible - or at least it might go some way to explain why I feel like I have free will.

To me, the probability of future events is irrelevant to free will. I could do your ground hog day 100 times over and get exactly the same result every time(which is what I suspect would happen) and it would still not prove that I didn't choose the same result 100 times. Probability and possibility are too different model states.

Whatever I end up doing in the future, it seems I'm not prevented from conceiving multiple possible future decisions I might make. Hence the term "Future contingents."

But that still says nothing of whether my decisions are causally determined.

Ok I'll have a crack at a thought experiment. I don't know if it's been done before or some version of it.
As I said before, my rationale for believing in free will is my immediate experience of being able to make decisions seems more obvious than the arguments against. But it might be that I am under some grand delusion causally generated by electro/chemical reaction in my brains. So I set up the following test

I am in one room and another person is in adjacent room with a slot between rooms.
Both of us are seated at a table with four large cards laid out and labelled 1 through 4.
The test involves choosing a card, recording the choice on a piece of paper and then repeating 4 times. ie 5 choices. There are no restrictions at this point on what we must choose.

So - before I make my choice I decide I am going choose in sequential order lowest number to highest.
I find that having made the decision prior it seems I have no problems choosing from one to four. The question at this point is -
If my will is causally determined by physical processes in my brain, how am I able to follow through with my initial decision to choose in sequential order - it seems to me that my initial decision was no decision at all but causally determined - and likewise my subsequent actions are equally causally determined. Why should they match up? And what is my 5th choice causally determined to be? Must I start again from card one? Or do I go backwards to card three?
Now, as all my choices and decisions are occurring solely in my head I might conclude the whole experiment so far is part of a set of causally determined factors and my decisions and subsequent choices are still all causally determined including my decision to submit to the experiment.

And then I and the person conducting the same experiment next door swap our results sheets so that we can see what choices the other person made.
The task now is to see if I am able to redo the experiment making the same choices that somebody causally unrelated to myself (the person next door) made.

If my will is not free and totally the result of random and mundane electro/chemical reactions in my brain - then it seems to me that I should be incapable of replicating the choices made by someone causally unrelated to myself except as a total fluke. I am simply not free to do so. Yet it seems that I am perfectly capable of making choices or following exactly instructions assigned to me by people causally unrelated to myself.

So it seems my rationale for believing in free will is not strictly limited to what my own cognitive faculties are telling me.

Edit:

Then again - perhaps the whole experiment including the other participant is also a figment of my imagination. So if I want to maintain a denial of free will maybe I am not able to limit the loss of my cognitive faculties to just free will. What about my ability to reason or my ability to choose true/false values about propositions?

David Sven wrote: "To me, the probability of future events is irrelevant to free will. I could do your ground hog day 100 times over and get exactly the same result every time(which is what I suspect would happen) and it would still not prove that I didn't choose the same result 100 times."

David, i was just developing a reasoning based on probabilities because you introduced it in your comment. You do not need to follow the maths, or my thought experiment, because I think we're there!

You are entirely correct. You could do the GH day 100 times over and you would get the same result 100 times precisely because you would choose to do the same thing 100 times over. You would use your free will, and you would make the same decision.

That is exactly what I meant to convey, and that is what (i think) Schopenhauer meant when he said "man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills".

Mark wrote: ""man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills". "

I'm not sure thats any different to just saying there is no freewill.

Can he do something he doesn't want to do?

Latest physics prove out at this time a determist view with a limited free will. You may be able to know were the atom is have to predicte were the electron will be as what you see is past and to comprehend it is nano seconds past past. In a sense you may know but never be able to be certain. Except on a leap of faith.

There is a branch off of many religions (particularly Christianity) that suggests God is similar to a watchmaker, in that he created the world but does not "wind it", and that he has no direct effect upon the world he created. Instead he oversees, and from there people argue whether he hears prayers or helps provide strength, does nothing, etc.

I'm pretty sure it's called Deism. The point is, a god and freewill don't necessarily clash. What are your thoughts on this?

I think (at this point) that there could never be free will. Instinct and desires restrain ourselves from becoming entirely free willed. However, because of desires, we create an meaning for ourselves in the universe, a goal for us to follow. And instinct, the one that protects us from the and helps to create our sense of logic.
If you think about it, without our instinct and desires, we couldn't create the logic that of which we use to create both the ideas/questions/answers of our understanding of the universe and creating the concept of free will. Which now we question it.

I hope that made sense to everyone. I might of misdirected the concept I was trying to explain.

Derek wrote: "There is a branch off of many religions (particularly Christianity) that suggests God is similar to a watchmaker, in that he created the world but does not "wind it", and that he has no direct effe..."

I think a moral action can only be made if there is a choice, or the moral agent believes there is a choice. If there is no choice, or the "moral agent" believes there not to be, no moral action is possible. Indeed, I am tempted to argue that an agent is not a "moral agent" if no choice is believed to exist, since in that case, personal actions are driven by dynamics that are thought to be immutable, and inexorable. In a purely deterministic universe, no moral action would therefore be possible.

Real-world examples include the Nuremberg trials, in which the idea that "we were only following orders" revealed itself to have been a bit of an issue, or Charles Manson, who famously alleged that "God told him to do it".

So I think that sentience and self-awareness impose a great burden, and we are only able to carry it if we think that we have a choice not to. Indeed, "think" is the operative word. It makes no difference whether we actually have free will or think that we do.

If you like, we can now inject the concept of a deity into this framework. Deities are not all alike. Some are omnipotent (like the Christian deity "God"), some have more focussed tasks (like the Germanic deity "Thor", for example), some are on their own, others come in groups, and some, as you say, create stuff and then sit back and watch.

But for any deity to be "fit for purpose", I would argue, it needs to interact with the believer in some way. Otherwise it could not guide, explain, or comfort. And, oddly, if the believer did not think there was free will, they would not need a deity in the first place. Only choice, or the idea of it, creates the uncertainty that creates deities. And only free will, or the postulation of it, allows "sin" as a key concept of theology to exist.

I think therefore that religions need a concept of free will. If we all thought that we are constantly moved around by an omnipotent deity like puppets on a string, there would be no need, indeed no possibility, to act responsibly, or morally.

And just as the idea that our will is free is sufficient to create the burden of ethical conduct, the idea that it is not free can to open the door to dehumanising atrocities. As demonstrated by Charles Manson. Or the chaps at the Nuremberg trial.

To answer your question, gods need free will to exist. I think anyway.

Mark wrote: "Derek wrote: "There is a branch off of many religions (particularly Christianity) that suggests God is similar to a watchmaker, in that he created the world but does not "wind it", and that he has ..."

Thank you for clearing that up, I hadn't thought about it that way before.

Would you say that blaming actions on predeteremined choice of another being is a negative aspect of what religion can be? Are there any positive aspects to not believing free will, whether free will exists or not?

Whether there is free will of everything is controlled by chemical reactions withing my brain, it feels like I have free will, and I am compelled by the necessity to live as if I have moral agency to live as if I have free will. Even if neuroscience some day definitively establishes that free will is just a persistent illusion, none of that would change for me.

How powerful do you think instict is in the human body? People have been shown to repress it, but still, we are "hard-wired" to survive.

Do you think morals can overcome instict in a dangerous situation?

Ha! All one has to do to sense the power of instinct is try to hold their hand in a frying pan after turning the burner on under it.

But it appears that humans and indeed all social animals have evolved to generally hold to certain things that underpin acting morally. Even wolves, for instance, exhibit behaviors that suggest a sense of fairness, compassion, empathy and forgiveness. Social animals of all sorts are more apt to survive if they behave in such a fashion that they maintain their place in the social order or their group.

There is a good article on this principle called Homo Virtuous by Kate Douglas (feature editor of New Scientist 10.11.2012) where she puts the case that we have an evolved conscience capable of good and evil but certainly the theme is that being virtuous is good for the Darwinian survival of the fittest. She finishes with "Evolution has made us both altruistic and selfish -good and evil. It's impossible for us, says Edward O'Brien "If virtue was the only evolutionary force we would be angelic robots" - clearly this issue is relevant to Mark's point that God would not have created "angelic robots" as there would be no purpose in doing so - life is meant to be interesting, unpredictable (even chaotic!) - not pre determined and boring.

Mixing free will and religion always leads me back to Aquinas and his comparison of the immortal and the eternal. That pretty much kills free will.

Yes, I read a good part of "Providence : Chance and Freedom (Passage 30)" and he does seem to lean to determinism to some extent yet there are some tantalizing sections which make me wonder eg "...future events are not known in themselves-because they do not yet exist- but can be predicted from their causes: with certainty if their causes totally determine them ..." but later " ...Aristotle identified the root of might or might not be in what we do with deliberation which is concerned with as yet undetermined means to a goal. For as Aristotle says when the means are already determined there is no role for deliberation." He also refers to God standing outside time and knowing what is knowable which includes the future. Thus if the future was not knowable then Aquinas's determinism would fail. What is interesting is that they way he writes the statements suggests he is qualifying his determinism with this requirement of knowledge of all things knowable.

Bear in mind that if there is a omniscient God then he knows everything that is going to happen in the future, and thus he has no free will to change it, in which case he cannot be omnipotent.

I read Aquinas' description of the eternal slightly differently. It isn't so much that God is outside of time, as God's point of reference is beyond our comprehension. Imagine the now, the moment that you are currently experiencing. It isn't yet the past, because you don't have to remember it. It isn't the future, because you aren't predicting it. In this way, we experience our lives one now after another. Like the frames of a movie reel. To Aquinas an immortal god simply experinced an infinitely long movie. The eternal experiences the entire movie at once, like looking through all the frames layered one upon another. So Aquinas' eternal God is experiencing all of history now. At the same moment, he is creating man, and giving the law to Moses, and cracking open the seals. Aquinas' God isn't predicting the future, he is watching it.

I get the feeling that Aquinas was a conflicted compatabilist. His world view required that man must be free. If for no other reason than so that God can justly damn us for our sins. However his concept of the eternal is so strong, that it is hard to see how we ever really had a choice.

A fascinating discussion! Perhaps I could make my own modest contribution?

We make thousands of choices every day. What socks shall I wear? Which pair will be most comfortable and go best with my trousers? What tie will go best with my jacket? What will be the most enjoyable starter on the menu for lunch?

If we make the ‘wrong’ choice, we may have uncomfortable feet; or we may be embarrassed if our socks clash with our trousers, or our tie with our jacket. Or we may not have a very enjoyable lunch. The CONSEQUENCES of the wrong choice cannot properly be described as ‘moral’. The wrong choice of socks may cause us discomfort or dent our egos. The wrong choice of starter may diminish the pleasure we get from lunch.

But then there is another category of choice that raises more fundamental issues. I find an envelope stuffed with a thousand dollars in cash, and I’m short of money. The envelope has a name on it. Should I simply pocket the cash and discard the envelope? That would certainly help pay off the credit card debt. Or should I hand the envelope over to the police? Suddenly other factors come into play. The thought of keeping the money knowing that it must belong to someone else causes a sense of guilt - he may need it as much or more than I do; and it does belong to him. On the other hand, it would certainly be nice to have the money.

Or I’m away at a conference. I’ve just called the wife/husband and children to say goodnight. I bump into someone, and the sparks fly. The opportunity arises to indulge the passion and have a pleasurable evening. But the prospect causes a sense of guilt as I imagine the wife/husband tucking up the children.

At this stage, the human capacity for reason goes into overdrive. It seeks to find justification for indulging the prospect of physical pleasure – the wife/husband will never find out, so what ‘harm’ could it do? Reason attempts to silence the voice that speaks of the guilt that the betrayal will cause.

In such cases, the consequences of our choices are what we would call moral. We can choose to apply reason to justify indulging our primitive instincts – the pleasure of having the money or an illicit affair; or we can apply reason to service the moral “voice” that tells us that it would be wrong.

‘Wrong’ is then simply reason in the service of our primitive instincts; and ‘right’ is reason in service of morality. There is no doubt that as human beings we have ‘programmed’ into our brains basic primitive instincts for reproduction, survival, security etc, and these instincts are fired by the prospect of pleasure, or the fear of pain. We also have an ability to reason – there is no doubt about that. And now neuroscience suggests that the human brain is also ‘programmed’ with what the IVF pioneer Sir Robert Winston calls a “morality module” – and I call a neurological moral network.

So when we talk of ‘free-will’ in a moral context, perhaps we are simply talking about making a choice between applying reason to justify servicing the demands of our primitive instincts, in violation of what our “morality module” tells us is wrong by generating a sense of guilt; or applying reason to resist the demands of our primitive instincts, and ‘obeying’ the promptings of our “morality module”.

And the most remarkable thing is that we find a perfect explanation of this conflict between servicing our primitive instincts, or servicing morality, in the story of Adam and Eve in Chapter 3 of Genesis. It is the story of the awakening of the “morality module” in the first of the human species who experienced it.

Joseph BH McMillan

Would you say that blaming actions on predeteremined choice of another being is a negative aspect of what religion can be?

I'd say a tendency to blame circumstances for something bad that happens to you is never a good strategy, because you allow the reins to be taken out of your hands. Once you blame circumstance, you sort of "absolve yourself" of responsibility, and then you cannot change things for yourself.

Blaming things on the action of somebody else is similar. Blaming things on the presumed pre-determined action of somebody else is probably crossing the line that divides mental sanity from whatever lies beyond that line. But this type of assertion is not the preserve of religion, I dont think - people hold unreasonable views for all sorts of reasons, and they would quote all sorts of influences as justificiation.

Are there any positive aspects to not believing free will, whether free will exists or not?

I would say no. An extreme view that everything is pre-determined naturally appears to contradict a picture of the "self" that you develop as a self-aware individual. I do not think humans like the idea that they are controlled by external circumstances over which they have no potential control. And as I said earlier, I think such a view even interferes with a process during which we develop into mature, and well-balanced, individuals.

But there is a version of this idea that I sometimes hear, an idea that seems to comfort people in a similar way that religions do. It is the idea that "everything happens for a reason". This concept is normally invoked when bad things happen to you - it is a device that allows you to focus on the future, and fight resentment. If it does that, who am I to quibble...

Walking with paradoxes! - that is what makes philosophy interesting - I agree with James's point about the paradox of omniscience and indeed the reason why I thought Aquinas had qualified the statement about knowledge was because in another passage in his writings there was a similar qualification which I can quote to you:

“God is called omniscient because he knows everything knowable; false things not knowable he does not know” Summa Contra Gentiles 1.50,53

That is, if you exclude things you cannot know (like an impossible future - or the answer to an unsolvable maths problem or ......) then omniscience is not possible. Note I am expanding the meaning of "false things" but I think Aquinas might still have agreed - it probably did not matter to him as long as he retained his "qualified omniscience" or everyday person's definition of "omniscience".

(Also thank you J for that clarification - yes, that explains the writing well - I can see the paradox with that line of thinking though because you can never get to infinity - so God could not have read the future that way)

RJ

Well, Aquinas himself certainly seems to have been quite a knowledgeable guy. He knew exactly what his (omnipotent, omniscient, ubiquitous, infinite) deity knew and did not know.

Did it ever occur to anybody that this is odd? All these mortal men, being able to define precisely the attributes of their deities...

Yes, I agree it is odd. We can only conceptualize God through reason, logic, and now that Stephen Hawking is using science to deny God , others too must be allowed to use science in this quest! (I like to use maths also). Mark, taking your earlier statement of the panacea for bad things happening I do not support the statement - "everything happens for a reason". Taking disease, deformity or say genocide I cannot believe some excruciating tests were put in train for some and not others (what purpose is served by Alzheimers?). This suggests to me an evolutionary process carved out of chaos with randomness not pre determined events as the key driver - biologists state they need randomness in a feedback loop with the environment for 'evolutionary design' to occur. In my own philosophical work I have postulated that knowledge (or lack of it) is the key determinant to evolution and events and have concluded that it is impossible to make a perfect human being (ie disease free) because first (intuitively) there will be a myriad of unsolvable biological equations to solve if you set out to design a perfect human (because the solutions are infinite) and second "knowledge of infinite human designs (ie solutions) is not possible". Thus pre determination would require knowledge of infinite outcomes in this biological example and I believe this also applies to any attempt to pre determine future events for specific outcomes. This seems consistent with the Pope's recent comment in relation to evolution ie "God is not a magician" which implies that God works through mathematics and science (I think Leibniz thought this way also) - Einstein also said “God does not care about our mathematical difficulties.He integrates empirically.” (!)

RJ,

I think people use this adage ("everything happens for a reason") in a loose way to comfort themselves when "bad" things happen. In my experience, it is applied to serious, but not existential threats, eg you lose your job, you are being sued, you are forced to move house. Like I said, I believe it is a device designed to help you in times of need, rather than a fully institutionalised belief system or philosophy. I have never heard this applied to "good" things, for example, like "I won the lottery - oh well i suppose everything happens for a reason...".

I mentioned the statement as an example of a device that deliberately severs the link between you and things going on around you, so it can be seen as an example where people may wish to invoke determinism to protect themselves. I do not live my life like this personally, but was just making the point that who am I to condemn something people make up for themselves if it helps them live a good life?

May I ask you something else, though, RJ. You say we can "only conceptualise God through reason, logic, ... science". I was surprised that you should say this. The concept of a deity is a non-falsifiable statement, it cannot be proven or disproven. All the faculties you mentioned are precisely the ones that are not qualified to make statements about the nature of a personal, or institutional, faith. Indeed, I even believe it does religion a disservice to invoke these categories as viable benchmarks.

The nature of religion is spiritual, and in that quality it answers a human need. It is no more a weakness of religion that it cannot be "experienced" with the tools of science, or reason, than it is a weakness of science that its answers do not "reveal themselves" by an inexplicable process. I find the ongoing debate about science vs religion is entirely missing the point.

Ok i am off - anybody else need the soapbox? :-)

Yes, that is a useful insight on the "it happened for a reason" principle. On the science vs religion issue I suppose the use of the word "can only" to conceptualize God unfairly excluded religious belief which obviously has a very big place in the world and so yes religion also can be used to conceptualize God. I was not addressing religion but am speaking really about theology which may or may not include religion. Now that people such as Professor Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins have used science to put proofs (or 'cases') against the existence of God (or people such as Professor Paul Davies have put scientific proofs for the existence of God) they have expanded the scope of theology to include science which I believe makes theology much more interesting. (nb. I believe logic and reason were always used in theology.) On the issue of statements about a deity being non falsifiable this may be true but I find both religious and non religious people are interested in the case for or against existence of God so they can judge whether they enter religion or not (or stay in it). Many people I have met are not religious because bad things happen but if you accept the hypothesis I put earlier on why bad things exist or happen (or rather cannot be prevented) then this obstacle to being religious disappears and people can then make their own judgments on the remaining factors for and against existence of God.

RJ,

many thanks for responding. My confusion is beginning to clear up a little. I agree that theology and faith are different things.

Theology has indeed used analytical methods to explore the internal structure of a belief system (eg the justification of the "triune" principle in Christianity), the theological position of religious writers (compare, eg, John's "messianic secret" with Mark's rather straightforward writing), text structure and history (any form of bible exegesis) etc. If conducted in that way, theology is indeed a scholarly discipline, and it often branches over into philosophy, or social sciences.

But faith transcends scholarly methodology - again, I think if it did not, the implications for deities would be dire, if you think about it. If a deity's existence could be proven of disproven using the tools of logic, science, or scholarship, it would follow that deities are simply natural phenomena. Sure, just like emotions (love etc) may be explainable in a scientific sense as states generated by hormones (for example), spirituality may be explained in a similar way, but that is still missing the point, I think. I do not want to sound naive, but it seems to me that there is more to love (or hate) than a clinical explanation of a biological process. I am guessing, certainly hoping, that deities and faith mean more to believers that could be explained by science or scholarship.

Messrs Hawking and Dawkins are both embarrassing themselves miserably when they are talking about "God", the Christian deity. I have always felt that Hawking lets himself down when he triumphantly points out that "therefore, God cannot exist". But at least he has other things to say, that are of interest, while Mr Dawkins has not (or at least not any more). I do not know the works of Paul Davies so cannot speak for (well, against...) him.

Finally, I just cannot understand why some believers care so much about proving the existence of their deities to non-believers, or non-believers proving the non-existence of deities to believers. Why do they bother? Do believers and non-believers alike really have so little confidence in the validity of their respective world views that they measure the tenets of each by the benchmarks of the other?

You have probably sensed by now that I do structure my world without reference to deities, RJ. But I never had an issue with religions, or the concept of deities. I only have an issue when religions try to justify themselves with the methods of science, or science tries to devalue religions with the same methods. I believe these efforts diminish both disciplines.

P.S. - deities are non-falsifiable concepts. That is a simple fact. But it is also no more than a fact - it is not criticism, or praise. It simply states that the statement "Xenu traversed the universe and fused the immortal spirits of his people with those of humans" cannot be proven or disproven. It may seem implausible to those who do not believe in Scientology, but the benchmark of reason simply does not apply.

Rt and Mark, I think you both make some good points.

I like to look at the issue from the perspective of our own children.

None of us want to see our children hurt, or worse killed. One way to protect them would be to keep them locked up in a room so that they would not be exposed to any danger, and give them whatever they may want to make them ‘happy’. But that would deny them the freedom to explore and experience the world.

So we give them the freedom to discover things for themselves, and we do our best to warn them of the dangers and how to avoid them. But when we ‘let them go’, we know that they may end up being seriously injured or even killed – but that does not mean that we do not love them and do not care. In effect, we recognize that life is not just about staying alive. It is about freedom to experience the world and discover ourselves.

That puts freedom as a moral principle which even surpasses the preservation of life itself.

But freedom is not just a moral prerogative. Freedom is also the fundamental principle of the quantum laws of physics. And we are a manifestation of those laws.

That is why the physicist and TV personality, Michio Kaku, says this: “In a quantum play, the actors suddenly throw away the script and act on their own. The puppets cut their strings. Free will has been established.” Except, I argue that it is not the puppets who cut their strings, but God – just as we do with our children. Furthermore, throwing away the script (the quantum laws) is in fact written into the script itself. It is the principle of freedom.

So it seems to me that the debate about determinism v free-will in human behavior really comes down to the question of the deterministic world of Classical physics v the freedom inherent in quantum physics. And human beings are a manifestation of the latter, with only the physical characteristics of the former.
Joseph BH McMillan

Joseph,

you made some really excellent points, and your metaphor of "children" is indeed evocative. I have long thought that deities fulfill a function for believers that is very similar to parental guidance. Again, my take on this would be that if it helps people to lead a good, well-balanced, and fulfilled life, a religious belief system has delivered a benefit. From my personal (note pesonal!) viewpoint, deities are an adult version of imagined friends, but to a believer his deity is of course real. People on both sides of the secular-religious divide just have to accept that those two world-views cannot be reconciled, and do not have to be reconciled. Proponents of both views can still have engaging and fruitful debates about things, but the concept of a deity is no more debateable than personal tastes.

But back to free will - from a religious angle, your "deistic" viewpoint makes sense to me, and takes some wind out of the sails of the theodicy debate. From a secular angle, I find your point about randomness interesting. When i try to analyse free will (you can look up my comment history on this thread, if you can be bothered...), I also use randomness to get closer to the concept.

But "free will" remains a difficult subject, even then. Imagine yourself in an experiment controlled by some researchers. You are Bill Murray in a memoryless version of Groundhog Day. You relive the same day thousands of times. In such a universe, quantum-randomness would be removed. You would still exert free will, but you would make the same decision every time!

Now let's say the researchers switch quantum-randomness back on. You would now perhaps make different decisions, as your relived days start being subtly different from each other. But you would still be urged to make one, and only one, free will decision every time.

Now let's say the researchers switch randomness off, and memory on. Now you are exactly like Bill Murray in the actual movie! Now all your days are exactly the same, but you can remember what you did "yesterday", and consciously decide to do something else. Only this type of free will decision, i would argue, would be strongly free. The quality of the others, and these are unfortunately those that are open to us in real life, are less free.

Mark, I think I get your point.

But perhaps Feynmen's "sum over paths" equations mitigate against that?

Your reference to switching off and on reminds me of the delayed-choice experiments. But they show that even if the detector is switched on and off randomly, particles still know whether the detector will be switched on or off when they arrive, and adopt the right state. But that, it seems to me, does not establish determinism. Rather, it indicates that the particles have a "premonition" (as Brian Greene calls it) of what the future environment will look like when they arrive.

In other words, although they are 'free' to adopt any path, they 'know' what the 'right' path is. But they can only 'know' what that path is if it is 'communicated'to them, and they can only be compelled to take that path by a "conscious outside observer" (as Steven Weinberg calls it.)

That shows, I believe, that if freedom is the fundamental principle of physics and morality, then the need for an outside observer is essential. Only the Lawmaker can compel obedience to the law.

Hopefully that makes some sense. Sorry, it's been a long day.

Joseph BH McMillan

(This sounds like quantum entanglement which may merely indicate 2 particles are linked in another dimension? ) Curiously, an extract from Wikipaedia on the De Broglie-Bohm theory reads:
The de Broglie–Bohm theory is explicitly nonlocal: the velocity of any one particle depends on the value of the guiding equation, which depends on the configuration of the entire universe. Because the known laws of physics are all local, and because nonlocal interactions combined with relativity lead to causal paradoxes, many physicists find this unacceptable.

The theory is deterministic...."

(I assume this means that equations like Schrodinger's equation give a probabilistic prediction of the wave behaviour of the particle( I call this a limited determinism) which is not the precise deterministic decision making of Bill Murray in Mark's thought experiment).

Mark's thought experiment seeks to turn off quantum mechanics and thereby adopt what I assume is a reductionist (materialist) viewpoint that on the 'memoryless' Groundhog Day Bill Murray will make the same decision thousands of times. However, even assuming that quantum mechanics is turned off there is another possibility that may remove precise determinism from Bill Murray's decisions. This is the fact that bodily fluids are subjected to turbulence. On page 161-162 of Philip Ball’s book “Flow” (2009) he discusses the turbulent flow of liquids : ‘…- the principles governing the flow are actually remarkably straightforward. We simply apply Newton’s Laws of Motion throughout the fluid which describe how the fluid’s velocity changes in proportion to the forces that act on it. The problem is we can’t solve these equations ...This means that we generally cannot predict anything about how the flow will evolve or where the particles carried within it will be at any point of time.” Does not this mean that if you take the reductionist position that it is only the brain that makes the decision (ie brain = mind) then the decision arises from a 'chaotic brain soup' every time using some limited ordering of chaotic fluids (perhaps chaotic neural patterns to push the analogy)? If so, then just like we have the probabilistic determinism of quantum mechanics so too we only get to a probabilistic determinism of Bill Murray's decision each time on Groundhog Day - ie probably a similar decision each time but perhaps not the same decision ie limited determinism.

Appeals to chaos theory or quantum uncertainty don't work to rescue free will, though. If those forces are in control of what my brain decides, I'm even less in control of my brain than I might be if purely deterministic chemical reactions were the root of my thoughts. At least that's what I think.

I remain a compatibilist for reasons previously stated.

James is correct in respect to quantum theory and free will. Random actions are mindless and therefore do not represent a conscious choice.

As for "Groundhog Day", whether Bill remembers or not is irrelevant. If he remembers his past, the creation and effects of those memories fall completely within the power of nomological determinism.

Rt, Mark, James.
James, I agree that chaos theory is deterministic. Contrary to popular perception, the theory does not state that order arises out of chaos. What it does is explain “how a state of a system at an initial time determines the state of a system at all later times.” However, there is no evidence that “the origin of disorder in chaotic mechanical systems is a consequence of” quantum uncertainties. (John Madox, What Remains to be Discovered) As Madox says, chaos would be more properly called “deterministic chaos.”

But for the reasons set out below, I do not agree that quantum uncertainties eliminate free-will in human behaviour.

RT, No I’m not referring to quantum entanglement (which refers to the fact that every particle has a partner particle which imitates its behaviour even if it is on the far side of the universe. That seems to show that information is transferred between them instantly, and certainly considerably faster than the speed of light.)

I’m referring to the basic properties of particles defined by probability and observation. (Apologies if this is simply outlining what everyone knows)

The probability element relates to the fact that until a particle is observed it is in a wave-like state. It can adopt any of an infinite number of states. As Michio Kaku (Parallel Worlds) says, “the quantum theory is based on the idea that there is a probability that all possible events … might occur.” Only when the particle is observed will it assume a particular state, and then be more like a tiny grain of sand – as we would imagine a particle to be.

The basic experiment involves three elements: a particle (eg electron or photon) is fired through a splitter (with two slits) at a particle detector. If the detector is switched off, the particle will exhibit an interference pattern showing that it is in a wave-like state. But if the detector is switched on, the particle will appear as a dot, indicating that it is in a particle-like state.

But if the experiment is modified, the results are quite peculiar. The detector can be modified to switch on and off at random (thus hopefully excluding the detector operator as an observer). This is called a delayed-choice experiment. The results show that even where the detector is switched off when the particle is fired at it, so the particle should remain in a wave-like state, but the detector randomly turns on after the particle has passed through the splitter, the particle appears as a point indicating that it is in a particle-like state. The particle seems to know whether the detector will be on or off when it arrives, even though the detector is off when the particle is fired. This prompted Brian Greene (The Fabric of the Cosmos) to say that the particle appears to have a “premonition” of what it “will encounter farther downstream, and acts accordingly.”

These experiments show that particles are ‘free’ to adopt any of an infinite number of probable states. But they need to be observed in order to transform from their wave-like state to a particle-like state. And at any time before the actual observation is made, the ‘decision’ of the particle to adopt a particular state can be undone. Without adopting a particle-like state, the universe could not exist. But since we did not exist at the first moments of the universe, or indeed before, in order to do the observing, where did the observation come from?

This dilemma prompted Steven Weinberg (Dreams of a Final Theory) to suggest that scientists need a “quantum mechanical model” that shows how, by a series of repeated interactions between something representing a “conscious observer”, with “individual systems, the wave function of the combine system evolves with certainty to a final wave function, in which the observer has become convinced that the probabilities of the individual measurements (observations) are what are prescribed in the Copenhagen interpretation.” As I’m sure you will all agree, what Weinberg is proposing is a “model” that explains how the quantum world of physics transformed into the Classical world of Newtonian physics. And that explanation has to explain where the observations would have come from.

Weinberg acknowledges that these quantum phenomena would have been crucial in the early stages of the universe. As Sakharov says, our very existence depends on “an irreversible effect that established an excess of matter over antimatter” at an early stage of the universe. But the “irreversible effect” had to apply not just to an excess of matter over antimatter, but to all of the six numbers which Martin Rees says had to be “finely tuned” in order for life and the universe to exist. (Martin Rees, Just Six Numbers)

And that leaves two crucial issues. First, if particles are free to choose from an infinite number of probable paths, how did they all choose the path that leads to the Classical world of physics that gives us a predictable and deterministic physical system that is the universe? And secondly, what or who then did the observing in order to establish the “irreversible effect” which would ensure that the predictability of the Classical world could not be undone?

In respect of the former, Michio Kaku notes that physicists realise that if we could somehow control or manipulate the probabilities we could perform feats “that would be indistinguishable from magic.” But that would require something or something to do the manipulating. Einstein believed that particles were ‘programmed’ to adopt the path that leads to the Classical world when they are observed, although he didn’t explain where he thought the observation came from. From that, Einstein concluded that the ‘free will’ inherent in particle behaviour was actually illusionary – it only existed until such time as an observation was made, and then it HAD to adopt the 'right' path.

Richard Feynman’s “sum over paths” equations partially validate Einstein’s position. Feynman’s equations show that of all the probably paths (states) a particle could adopt, the most probable path is the path that leads to the Classical world. But it is not the only path, and particles do not inevitably choose that path. And in any event, they remain in a state of limbo until they are observed, and that would have been crucial in the early stages of the universe.

Of course, if Einstein had been right, then that would have meant that quantum principles were in reality deterministic. That would have confirmed his belief that human actions were likewise deterministic, because the fundamental principle of the law would have been deterministic. In other words, if the basis of the law prohibits freedom, then the subject of the law could not have any characteristic of freedom. But that is not what the evidence shows. The evidence shows that the fundamental principle of the law is freedom – particles are free to adopt any of a multitude to paths. And it is this principle that forms the basis of the symmetries that are the “very foundation from which [all other] laws spring”. (Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos)

It is this fundamental principle of the laws that govern the universe that then morphed into the Classical laws which created the deterministic, predictable world that was essential for the creation of life. But once life was created, the principle of freedom re-emerged and manifest itself in the human capacity for moral judgment. In other words, the physical human structure of body and brain is entirely deterministic in that it develops in the same way in all human beings, with only slight variations. However, although the physical system that determines that the human brain operates by way of chemical reactions may be deterministic, the actual ‘wiring’ of the brain causes those chemical reactions to ‘reclaim’ the freedom that is the foundation of the law that governs the universe – the principle of freedom.

So if we return to consider the kind of model envisaged by Weinberg, there is only one place we can find it. And that is in the first Chapter of Genesis. There we find all the ‘missing’ elements explained – and we do not need to look for some obscure or abstruse interpretation to find them.

The words are clear. “And God said, let there be light”. The original matter of the universe was ‘compelled’ to adopt the path that leads to the Classical laws. Then there is the doing of what was instructed to be done – “and there was light”. That is like the particle being fired at the detector. Then we have the observation; “And God saw the light, that it was good.” The observation creates the “irreversible effect” that ensures that the process cannot be undone. And this initial account of the first moments of creation is identical to what we know so far about how the universe got started.

We then see at each stage of the creation story the same process taking place which perfectly fits Weinberg’s suggested model – repeated interactions between the conscious outside observer with the individual systems as the process unfolds. The observations in the initial three Days also take place at precisely the moments that are crucial to ensure that Rees’ six numbers are “finely tuned”. Day Four confirms that by that stage the Classical laws were fully in place by referring to the predictability of the physical universe – “let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.”

And the account culminates in an explanation of how the basis of the law, freedom, re-emerges in the final manifestation of the laws of the universe – a human organism with a capacity for moral judgment.

I can see little doubt that human beings have free will. And the function of that free will is to choose between servicing our primitive instincts, or servicing the “moral law” that is imprinted into the human brain as a neurological moral network. And the fact that human beings have a capacity for moral judgment is an expression of the moral content of the fundamental laws of physics.

Apologies for the length of this comment.

Joseph BH McMillan

Joseph wrote: "Rt, Mark, James.
James, I agree that chaos theory is deterministic. Contrary to popular perception, the theory does not state that order arises out of chaos. What it does is explain “how a state of..."

The free will of mindless particles proves the existence of God?

Your argument simply alters determinism into predestination. Free will is still in question.

I think we all agree then with Nobel prize winner and quantum physicist Max Born when he said: "I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy".
So in summary the apparent determinacy of classical space compared to the indeterminacy of quantum space would produce free will if decisions were made through quantum processes by our consciousness ie as you say "through the actual 'wiring' of the brain ( decisions flow through the wiring using the quantum processes operating the consciousness). A landmark work on consciousness was done by cardiologist Dr Pim van Lommel MD whose work on the science of near death experiences was published in the Lancet and is contained in his book "Consciousness beyond Life -the science of the near-death experience". In that book Dr van Lommel believes the consciousness operates through quantum processes. As observation is a key ingredient now in the quantum world Dr van Lommel favours physicist Stapp who combined James, Heisenberg and von Neumann who see the mind - brain connection problem as one in physics and says: "(Stapp) calls quantum laws fundamental "psycho-physical" laws and with this he explains the causal effect of consciousness on neural processes.... von Neumann states 'Consciousness creates reality' Observation is not a passive registration in our consciousness but is rather an active creation by our consciousness. This model by Stapp and von Neumann also retains the possibility of free will." (If you consider the consciousness is what we are 'observing' in this discussion then this indeed is consistent with the Copenhagen Interpretation ie the observer observes from the classic world and the consciousness is in the quantum world.)

On the "ahead of its time" aspects of Genesis I have lost the book I had with those interesting parallels. The just 6 numbers topic leads to the fascinating topic of multiple universes or the multiverse which physicist Hugh Everett proposed as an improvement to the Copenhagen Interpretation and which now has been stretched to explain the 6 number 'anthropic conundrum'.

J, I'm not sure I understand your first comment. I think you have conflated my remark about Chaos Theory (see James' comment) with what I say thereafter.

But for the most part, I agree with your second comment.

But the multiverse theory doesn't get rid of the difficulty of an observation. It's like a multi-lottery: instead of multiplying the number of entries into a single lottery, it simply multiplies the number of lotteries, then proclaims that our numbers will come up in one of them. They won't, unless a draw is made.

Joseph BH McMillan

Joseph, what I originally said was, "Appeals to chaos theory or quantum uncertainty don't work to rescue free will, though."

It's true that even the wild eventual chaos seen in complex dynamical systems disturbed by multiple strange attractors is ultimately deterministic. But it isn't of much value since one would have to know so much about the initial conditions and have such enormous processing power to calculate how the system would behave over time that actually running such a calculation in unimaginably far removed from our current reach. Here's a short YouTube movie showing truly complex dynamical systems and the butterfly effect: href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0gDL...

Quantum tunneling, radioactive decay and such appear to be entirely stochastic. But deterministic or non-deterministic, all I was saying it that neither will salvage free will from the growing body of neuroscience that shows that thoughts form in our brains before our conscious portion of mind is even aware of their existence. Let's be very clear. I did not say, as you seem to be suggesting, "But for the reasons set out below, I do not agree that quantum uncertainties eliminate free-will in human behavior."

In fact, I ended my short spiel by clearly stating that I am currently unpersuaded to give up on compatabilism. I think the jury is still out on the free-will question.

You also said, "As I’m sure you will all agree, what Weinberg is proposing is a "model" that explains how the quantum world of physics transformed into the Classical world of Newtonian physics. And that explanation has to explain where the observations would have come from." No, I won't agree. I don't know what Weinberg is saying in his model, but I take exception to the notion that an observer is required to get from the pure Quantum state that likely prevailed immediately after the Big Bang to classical physics at the Macro scale. Quantum mechanics is still fully operational today, and so is classical physics even though all the building blocks of macro matter, energy, and spacetime are made up of things at the quantum level. We do not need quadrillions of tiny detectors to make my desk and computer take physical form. No observer is required, because molecules, atoms, and their component particles work just fine while they remain in indeterminacy. I don't need all their waveforms collapsed before all the things that are in quantum superposition within my desk and computer take physical form and can be used by me.

James, I note what you say, and agree that quantum phenomena and Classical phenomena work side by side. If that were not the case, we could not have discovered anything about quantum mechanics. But perhaps it is your conscious presence that gives the desk and computer physical form. I expect many a respected physicist would say that.

You seem to suggest that the question of the observational element in quantum physics is fully resolved.

Physicists like Brian Greene, however, say this: “Physicists have expended much effort in trying to explain natures ruse – to figure out precisely how the fundamental laws of quantum physics morph into the classical laws that are so successful at explaining common experience – in essence, to figure out how the atomic and subatomic shed their magical weirdness when they combine to form macroscopic objects.”

As I’m sure you are probably aware, the latest effort (April 2014) comes from Max Tegmark with his book Our Mathematical Universe. He claims that mathematics does not represent reality but that it IS reality. According to him, human beings are thus nothing more than a “self-aware mathematical substructure”. That being so, he argues, the universe only came into ‘existence’ when human beings acquired self-awareness and began to observe the universe.

Like many other physicists, what he seems to be attempting to do is explain how the observational element of quantum physics transforms into the Classical world that creates the reality we see all around us.

Regarding Weinberg’s proposed model, I think that is precisely what he is saying. But he does say, however, that “I admit to some discomfort in working all my life in a theoretical framework that no one fully understands. And we really do need to understand quantum mechanics better in quantum cosmology, the application of quantum mechanics to the whole universe, where no outside observer is even imaginable. … No one today knows even the rules for applying quantum mechanics in this context.”

That seems to make it clear that he recognizes the need to explain the observational element of quantum physics in respect of the creation of the Classical world. But he is wrong that an outside observer is unimaginable – the author/s of Genesis imagined just such an observer.

Joseph BH McMillan

If I may, I’d like to make one further comment.

If there is such a thing as free will, then it must relate in some way or the other to the origins of the universe.

Here is a quote that refers to that issue: “... At the briefest instant following creation all the matter of the universe was concentrated in a very small place, no larger than a grain of mustard. The matter at this time was very thin, so intangible, that it did not have real substance. It did have, however, a potential to gain substance and form and to become tangible matter. From the initial concentration of this intangible substance in its minute location, the substance expanded, expanding the universe as it did so. As the expansion progressed, a change in the substance occurred. This initially thin noncorporeal substance took on the tangible aspects of matter as we know it. From this initial act of creation, from this etherieally thin pseudosubstance, everything that has existed, or will ever exist, was, is, and will be formed.”

That was the Jewish Scholar Nahmanides some 700 years before the scientific concept of expansion, or cosmological inflation, was proposed by Alan Guth and Henry Tye in the late 1970’s. And Nahmanides was commenting on Chapter 1 of Genesis. He could hardly have been trying to fit his translation of Genesis with the science.

And on consciousness and observation, here is the great Jewish philosopher Philo (writing at about the time of Christ), again on the question of Genesis: “Does he [Moses] not here manifestly set before us incorporeal ideas perceptible only by the intellect, which have been appointed to be as seals of the perfected works, perceptible by the outward senses. For before the earth was green, he says that this same thing, verdure, existed in the nature of things, and before the grass sprang up in the field, there was grass though it was not visible. And we must understand in the case of everything else which is decided on by the external senses, there were elder forms and motions previously existing, according to which the things which were created were fashioned and measured out. … When [God] had determined to create this visible world, [He] previously formed that one which is perceptible only by the intellect, in order that so using an incorporeal model formed as far as possible on the image of God, he might then make this corporeal world, a younger likeness of the elder creation, which should embrace as many different genera perceptible to the external senses, as the other world contains of those which are visible only to the intellect.”

I think these perceptions of the meaning of Genesis, from people who were writing centuries before modern science had any conception of these concepts, casts the insight of the author/s of Genesis in a remarkable light.

Joseph BH McMillan