What is a decision in phoodoo world?

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This is a thread to allow discussions about how those lucky enough to have free will make decisions.

As materialism doesn’t explain squat, this thread is a place for explanations from those that presumably have them.

And if they can’t provide them, well, this will be a short thread.

So do phoodoo, mung, WJM et al care to provide your explanations of how decisions are actually made?

2,199 thoughts on “What is a decision in phoodoo world?”

  2. Richardthughes:
    phoodoo,

    http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2008/03/godwins-darwin.html

    “Like a creationist, Hitler asserts fixity of kinds:

    “The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger.” – Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi.

    Like a creationist, Hitler claims that God made man:

    “For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties.” – Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. x.

    Like a creationist, Hitler affirms that humans existed “from the very beginning”, and could not have evolved from apes:

    “From where do we get the right to believe, that from the very beginning Man was not what he is today? Looking at Nature tells us, that in the realm of plants and animals changes and developments happen. But nowhere inside a kind shows such a development as the breadth of the jump , as Man must supposedly have made, if he has developed from an ape-like state to what he is today.” – Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Tabletalk (Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier).

    Like a creationist, Hitler believes that man was made in God’s image, and in the expulsion from Eden:

    “Whoever would dare to raise a profane hand against that highest image of God among His creatures would sin against the bountiful Creator of this marvel and would collaborate in the expulsion from Paradise.” – Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol ii, ch. i.

    Like a creationist, Hitler believes that:

    “God … sent [us] into this world with the commission to struggle for our daily bread.” – Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol ii, ch. xiv.

    Like a creationist, Hitler claims Jesus as his inspiration:

    “My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them.” – Adolf Hitler, speech, April 12 1922, published in My New Order.

    Like a creationist, Hitler despises secular schooling:

    “Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people.” – Adolf Hitler, Speech, April 26, 1933.

    Hitler even goes so far as to claim that Creationism is what sets humans apart from the animals:

    “The most marvelous proof of the superiority of Man, which puts man ahead of the animals, is the fact that he understands that there must be a Creator.” – Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Tabletalk (Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier).

    Hitler does not mention evolution explicitly anywhere in Mein Kampf. However, after declaring the fixity of the fox, goose, and tiger, as quoted above, he goes on to talk of differences within species:

    “[T]he various degrees of structural strength and active power, in the intelligence, efficiency, endurance, etc., with which the individual specimens are endowed.” Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi.

    So, like a creationist, there is some evolution he is prepared to concede — evolution within species, or “microevolution”, to which people like Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe have no objection. It is on the basis of the one part of evolutionary theory which creationists accept that Hitler tried to find a scientific basis for his racism and his program of eugenics.

    Ergo, Hitler did not base his eugenic and genocidal policies on evolutionary theory, but rather on views that are very similar to those held by most creationists and many ID supporters.”

    Good stuff, Richard. Thanks for posting that.

  3. walto: knowing that something will happen doesn’t make anything happen

    I know I should probably look up those papers, but in the mean time… OK, knowing that something will happen doesn’t “make” anything happen, but if it doesn’t happen, the knowledge isn’t there. Doesn’t perfect foreknowledge imply full blown determinism?

  5. walto: Yes.Leibniz discusses that at some length.Ryle has a great paper on it. IIRC, Plantinga and Van Inwagen.Many others too.And it makes sense: knowing that something will happen doesn’t make anything happen.

    Here’s the problem I have with such musings: they tend to forget (or gloss over, or hand wave) that such omni-deities don’t simply know in the past that certain events will take place in some future, but rather that such omni-deities have actually already experienced the events across time. Such entities would have experienced everything that could possibly and did actually take place within some time bubble the instant that bubble came into existence. It’s not simply that an omniscient entity would be a “casual observer” of the time-space reality;its very existence would encompass that reality as well.

    As such, how could there be more than one outcome for any event and how could any outcome ever be other than what that entity experienced?

  6. dazz: I know I should probably look up those papers, but in the mean time… OK, knowing that something will happen doesn’t “make” anything happen, but if it doesn’t happen, the knowledge isn’t there. Doesn’t perfect foreknowledge imply full blown determinism?

    Kind of. I mean, the sort of means we consider reliable sources of knowledge are cause-and-effect type stuff. But the philosophers who deny that note that that connection isn’t conceptual. That just means that we can imagine (e.g.) somebody always being right in predictions of the future because of some weirdness in her hypothalamus or something. Neither she nor we may know how she does it, but if she’s always right, we’d start to say she knows things but that (obviously science fiction) story doesn’t give us any additional evidence of determinism.

    What about non-sci-fi? Earlier, in this thread or the other decision one, Richard posted a pic distinguishing fatalism from determinism. Fatalism is the picture that “it was to be” that if it’s true now that I will cough just before getting into bed next Thursday night, that it’s my fate, that I have no choice, maybe that the ancient course of causes and effects make me do it. But whether due to determinism or not, I MUST do it. The truth now, makes it happen.

    But obviously the truth now isn’t making anything happen. And so somebody knowing it now couldn’t make it happen either. You may be right that its kind of silly to talk about anybody knowing anything about the future who is not getting the info through past knowledge of causes and effects. That seems right to me too. But it’s still the case that knowledge of the future doesn’t REQUIRE determinism. It requires truth, justification (or tracking or reliability or evidence or warrant or something) and belief. Not determinism.

  7. Robin: such omni-deities don’t simply know in the past that certain events will take place in some future, but rather that such omni-deities have actually already experienced the events across time. Such entities would have experienced everything that could possibly and did actually take place within some time bubble the instant that bubble came into existence. It’s not simply that an omniscient entity would be a “casual observer” of the time-space reality;its very existence would encompass that reality as well.

    Where do you get that stuff? Why must “omni-deities” experience “everythin that could possibly and did take place within some time bubble the instant that bubble came into existence”? Is that in some manufacturers’ manual in the Guaranty section?

  8. walto,

    Thanks, found the picture and it makes sense. Seems to me the crux of the matter is not whether omniscience implies determinism, but whether it nullifies free will

  9. I just wanted to add to my response to dazz that I’m probably more latitudinarian about knowledge of the future than a lot of people (and a lot of people that have thought about this more than I have). I mean, many people will say that no one can know that I haven’t won some 50-million ticket lottery after purchasing one ticket until the thing’s been conducted. They’d say the belief, the truth, and the horrible odds are insufficient, because, you know, it’s POSSIBLE that I’ve got the winning ticket in spite of everything. So I don’t REALLY KNOW. I don’t actually buy that, myself. But I don’t think there’s a consensus on that issue. If there is, I’m probably an outlier.

    Fuck ’em.

  11. phoodoo,
    It’s clear what you do and don’t want to talk about. As such this thread has served it’s purpose in the desired way.

  13. walto: Where do you get that stuff?Why must “omni-deities” experience “everythin that could possibly and did take place within some time bubble the instant that bubble came into existence”? Is that in some manufacturers’ manual in the Guaranty section?

    Because THAT’S what “omni” means and was the original intent of the early Christian (and for that matter Islamic) writers and leaders.

    omni-
    combining form
    Popularity: Bottom 40% of words
    Simple Definition of omni-

    : all : in all ways, places, etc. : without limits

    Full Definition:

    : all : universally <omnidirectional>

    From the Latin Omnis:

    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/omnis

    Omni-deities were a radical concept when they were first concocted by in the 3rd to 5th centuries (and maybe even before that; my history on such only goes back so far) and they were a direct conceptual counter to the polytheistic pantheonic gods of folks like the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Sumerians, and so forth. Monotheism didn’t just introduce the concept of the one king-god, but rather the ALL CREATOR. This entity doesn’t just create everything a la the creation myth stories, but also exists across and beyond time and space. It is Aristotle’s Prime Mover; the First Cause. And so on and so forth…

    So, how exactly could something be the very essence of “ALL” and “Without Limits” and “Universal”, but not actually a part of said ALL? What would that even mean?

    But that, as I’ve shown, creates some unavoidable implications.

  14. Robin: So, how exactly could something be the very essence of “ALL” and “Without Limits” and “Universal”, but not actually experience it? What would that even mean?

    What would it mean for an omniscient being to experience?

    What we casually mean by experience requires time, and time would be static for an omniscient being.

  15. Robin: But let’s consider that for a moment anyway. Somehow (magic) something (timeless/omnipotent) that has/does existed/exists across all time…that has, in an instant of its own existence, experienced/become aware of all that would ever occur within some bubble of time…drops into that time bubble and…what?

    Actually, time is a result of the Incarnation. In order to create a material universe the incarnation had to occur, of course there is a bit of the effect preceding the cause, but revelation. Apologies fm if I have got that wrong.

  17. newton: That foreknowledge and free will are compatible

    I don’t claim to know much of the history of philosophy on this topic (or any other one for that matter), but according to this all those theories present serious problems

  18. dazz: I don’t claim to know much of the history of philosophy on this topic (or any other one for that matter), but according to this all those theories present serious problems

    The minds that have been wasted making up shit to support and specially plead for an ungrounded thing that doesn’t exist. This is why we don’t have flying cars yet.

  19. dazz: How would that work in your imagination? If god knows you’ll pick cereal for breakfast, can you freely choose to have bread toasts or anything else other than cereal? Note that timelessness doesn’t solve the problem, because your decisions are still time bound.

    He knows what you will freely choose, he knows what random number will come up.It does require an assumption that set of knowledge is timeless, your choice while free can be known before you choose because it can be known after you choose. This is not universal ,IDists reject that the TE designer can know the outcome of evolution without putting a thumb on the scales

    Omniscience is different in kind as well as degree if I recall the argument

  21. walto: Yes. Leibniz discusses that at some length. Ryle has a great paper on it. IIRC, Plantinga and Van Inwagen. Many others too. And it makes sense: knowing that something will happen doesn’t make anything happen.

    I did sleep thru a class about Leibniz once

  22. Richardthughes: The minds that have been wasted making up shit to support and specially plead for an ungrounded thing that doesn’t exist. This is why we don’t have flying cars yet.

    Unless it is true

  23. petrushka: What would it mean for an omniscient being to experience?

    Exactly! That’s one of those unfortunate implications!

    Clearly an omni-deity could never have any sort of “learning curve” or “character development.” It is what it is. So it’s not like such an entity would ever wake up one day (wake up one day? Why would it ever sleep?) and say, “hmmm…I wonder…” Nope. Couldn’t happen. Nor could “I think I’ll…” HAHAHA! No. There would never be such a thing as “considering” for such an entity. Never any choice or decision. It’s already there.

    But that’s the thing about the people who invented such entities – they couldn’t shake the anthropomorphic concepts and baggage from all the cultural theistic representations that came before. Heck, they probably couldn’t shake their own. After all, people want deities they can relate to.

    And so we have folks like FMM et al now who think that such entities could be both “present” and “universal” at the same time and fail to understand why such entities couldn’t be either. They envision deities who can “hear their prayers” while existing eternally outside time. I just shake my head…

    What we casually mean by experience requires time, and time would be static for an omniscient being.

    Bingo! Maybe a few others will begin to catch on…

  25. newton: Actually, time is a result of the Incarnation. In order to create a material universe the incarnation had to occur, of course there is a bit of the effect preceding the cause, but revelation. Apologies fm if I have got that wrong.

    Yeah…well, admittedly I’m setting aside the contradiction of some entity “do something” “outside time.” But one has to simply accept some silliness for the sake of argument if one is even going to try to examine the implications at all.

    The bottom line, no matter what implications one chooses to examine, is that omni-entities cannot possibly exist in any sense. Thor…meh…the jury’s still out…

  26. dazz: I know I should probably look up those papers,

    There’s a very nice paper by Gilbert Ryle on fatalism v. determinism that, AFAIK only appears in his book Dilemmas. I used an excerpt in a class I taught, though, which, if I can find, I’d be happy to email anybody who PMs me their address.

  27. newton: He knows what you will freely choose, he knows what random number will come up.It does require an assumption that set of knowledge is timeless, your choice while free can be known before you choose because it can be known after you choose. This is not universal,IDists reject that the TE designer can know the outcome of evolution without putting a thumb on the scales

    Right. Exactly. That all seems right to me incidentally, except, as dazz suggested, it’s hard for us mere mortals to understand just HOW one might know anything about the future without depending on pretty regular causes and effects.

  29. Robin: So, how exactly could something be the very essence of “ALL” and “Without Limits” and “Universal”, but not actually a part of said ALL?

    I’d actually expect that which is “the very essence of “All” and “Without Limits” and “Universal” to not be a part of said ALL. Like the set of basketballs made in New Jersey is not itself a basketball made in New Jersey. And if there is a property which is “the very essence” of every NJ basketball, that wouldn’t be a basketball either.

    I will add that actually realizing that “omni” meant all some years before reading your post today has not helped me understand your remarks about time bubbles. 🙁

  32. newton: He knows what you will freely choose, he knows what random number will come up.It does require an assumption that set of knowledge is timeless, your choice while free can be knownbefore you choose because it can be known after you choose. This is not universal,IDists reject that the TE designer can know the outcome of evolution without putting a thumb on the scales

    Omniscience is different in kind as well as degree if I recall the argument

    That doesn’t make any sense to me. The (silly) breakfast example of the incompatibility seems unexplained by this “He knows what you will freely choose” thing.

    your choice while free can be known before you choose because it can be known after you choose

    But knowledge of the past is determined by actualized facts without affecting the decision. If God knows I decided to have cereal for breakfast, He can’t “know” I decided to have something else. Doesn’t work the same way with knowledge of the future. Seems to me the only way around this is to reject A-theory of time, but I may very well talking out of my rear end

  33. walto: Right.Exactly.That all seems right to me incidentally, except, as dazz suggested, it’s hard for us mere mortals to understand just HOW one might know anything about the future without depending on pretty regular causes and effects.

    That’d be awesome if it’s not too much trouble. Let me pm you my e-mail address. Or perhaps I can see if I can google it

  34. newton: He knows what you will freely choose, he knows what random number will come up.It does require an assumption that set of knowledge is timeless, your choice while free can be knownbefore you choose because it can be known after you choose. This is not universal,IDists reject that the TE designer can know the outcome of evolution without putting a thumb on the scales

    Omniscience is different in kind as well as degree if I recall the argument

    I just find the argument to be a total disingenuous cop out on the part of apologists and theistic philosophers. “Uhh…wait…if God is the Omni-Everything deity that created everything, then He’s the Omnicidal Author of Evil! Ooooh…that’s bad! Sooo…let’s see if there’s a way around this… OH OHHH!! If He just knows everything, but…you know…isn’t actually involved in anyway, then…like…He’s not actually responsible for anything and…like…there can still be free will and stuff. Cuz…like…He can know the outcome of all things, but…like…not influence anything. Yeah!!! That’ll work!! Umm…but…what about Him being the ALL CREATOR and omnipotent and all that…? SHHHHH!”

    rolls eyes

    It’s the ultimate example of wanting your cake and eating it too.

  35. I have since age 11 or 12 considered myself a pantheist. Wiki defines that as:

    “Pantheism is the belief that all of reality is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god.”

    I find the word god in that context to be vacuous. It adds nothing to the concept of existence.

    Due to a experience during twilight sleep surgery at age 10 I have considered consciousness to be god’s thoughts. Perhaps existence is a Boltzmann Brain. I don’t think of this as a religious idea, and I don’t connect it to any organized religion. It’s just my way of thinking about existence.

    There’s a lot of pressure to have opinions about religion. I really don’t have any emotional attachment to my ideas. They are idle daydreams.

  36. walto: I’d actually expect that which is “the very essence of “All” and “Without Limits” and “Universal” to not be a part of said ALL.Like the set of basketballs made in New Jersey is not itself a basketball made in New Jersey. And if there is a property which is “the very essence” of every NJ basketball, that wouldn’t be a basketball either.

    The problem with such analogies is that basketballs (and mathematical set illustrations) are not omni anything.

    It’s really not just a simple substitution. Omni things have no constraints by definition. There’s no boundary; they are both representative and the set at the same time. God and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

    That such is a complete contradiction in terms is what makes such a concept utterly ridiculous. But then, folks like FMM embrace it without a second thought. Likely because they give it no second thought…

    I will add that actually realizing that “omni” meant all some years before reading your post today has not helped me understand your remarks about time bubbles.

    I freely admit that my attempts to illustrate the issues are not perfect by any stretch. See my response to Dazz above on that subject. I don’t think there’s any way to fully relate the issues using concepts like “time” “space” “reality” “existence” and so forth.

    Consider this: anything “outside time” would be static, right? If such a thing could even be said to “exist” in any sense of the term, said thing would be constant and unchanging. Tag on to that all knowledge of all that is of any/all time-space “realities” that do in fact exist. If that is the case, then said thing could not “know” any “possibilities” or “probabilities”. Why? Because if/when a possibility/probability ever became realized in some space-time “reality”, the all knowing thing “outside time” would have to change (or at least, what it “knows” would have to change.) Right? And that can’t happen to something “outside time”. So, either it’s knowledge is fixed and all outcomes within space-time “realities” are fixed as well or…

  37. I think it’s basically a puzzle. As nothing is omniscient or omnipotent it doesn’t much matter to anything, but the point is that the direction is from stuff to knowing stuff rather than the other way round. The knowing doesn’t cause anything because that’s not how knowing works. We can only know things if they are true, but the knowing doesn’t make them true.

    Now the question is, is there something that prevents an omnipotent thing from being able to create something that is not determined? If not, God could create something free. If so, what is it that prevents this? Is it impossible for a universe to be created that is undetermined?

    That, of course, brings in the problem of evil. Something omnibenevolent will only create free people if that’s nicer for all concerned. Being a smarty s/he would have to know that goodness is maximized by making free people–even when knowing they’ll do awful things.

  39. walto: Interesting post. But what if we take intentionality to be the mark of the mental? Surely some animals will…cogitate…then, no? And, if so, it’d be wrong to deny it?

    My big project these days is to characterize degrees of intentionality, such that it makes sense to predicate some forms of intentionality to non-linguistic animals but not others.

    But I wouldn’t want to insist on “intentionality as the mark of the mental” per se, since that seems to leave sensations out. Sensations are non-intentional (surely!) but mental (they are states of consciousness!). I think that philosophers who defended the identity thesis put their attention on pains, aches, etc. because it seemed more promising to handle sensations than to handle intentionality. Intentionality has long been the stumbling block to naturalism — Fodor, Dretske, and Millikan notwithstanding.

  41. walto: I admit that I have problems with eternity, timelessness, and the like. My imaginative compass is not vast.

    Incidentally, that made writing a dissertation on Spinoza kind of a big challenge. I’m glad that thing’s not digitally stored anywhere.

  42. walto: How much does the pressure in my bike tires weigh? How about the information displayed by the tire gauge–how much does that weigh?

    Pressure is itself a measurement.
    On the other hand information is notoriously hard to measure objectively.

    The air in your tires is materiel and the information displayed by the tire gauge is not.

    but you knew that

    peace

  43. walto:
    I think it’s basically a puzzle.As nothing is omniscient or omnipotent it doesn’t much matter to anything, but the point is that the direction is from stuff to knowing stuff rather than the other way round.The knowing doesn’t cause anything because that’s not how knowing works.We can know things if they are true, but the knowing doesn’t make them true.

    Here’s the problem with your description as I see it: it’s just another version of the Powerful Creator Dude in a Tower somewhere who can step back from his creation that he knows pretty much everything about and admire it from afar.

    But thing is, an omni-deity would have no way to step back. There can be no “back”. There can be no “up”, “down”, “back”, “forth”, or even “then”, or “now” or any other dimensional concept a human can come up with. An omni-diety is just “there” and “there” is everywhere at all time.

    Now the question is, is there something that prevents an omnipotent thing from being able to create something that is not determined?If not, God could create something free.If so, what is it that prevents this?Is it impossible for a universe could have been undetermined?

    That, of course, brings in the problem of evil.Something omnibenevolent will only create free people if that’s nicer for all concerned.Being a smarty s/he would have to know that goodness is maximized by making free people–even when knowing they’ll do awful things.

    What would “nicer” or “better” or even “good” mean in relation to an omni-deity? If an omni-deity could create a universe, why couldn’t it create an infinite number of universes? Omni-deities are not constrained by resources or time or…whatever, so it’s not like there’s even a question. An omni-deity could even create one universe, destroy it, recreate it, destroy it, recreate it…ad nauseum…all before getting its first cup of coffee. So really…”problem of evil” is no problem; It creates a universe with no evil and all happy organisms. And then ‘poof’, creates whatever else. Again and again and again…

    None of them would be “nicer” or “better” or whatever to any other because any/all of them would be exactly what the omni-deity did (note…not “wanted”; omni-deities can’t “want” or “desire” things.)

  45. Patrick: Here’s one article. There are others.

    I don’t think you quite understand the point. 😉

    Patrick: One thing I’ve noticed reading through this thread is that neither you nor phoodoo have actually defined what you mean by “decision”. Do you have an operational definition that doesn’t beg the question?

    When you say beg the question what you mean is actually define the term.

    Decide: to choose between one possibility or another:

    that is what the word means

    Definitional debates are settled by definitions. And by definition materialism can not accommodate decisions because matter can not choose

    peace

  47. Robin: And so we have folks like FMM et al now who think that such entities could be both “present” and “universal” at the same time and fail to understand why such entities couldn’t be either. They envision deities who can “hear their prayers” while existing eternally outside time. I just shake my head…

    That is because you don’t understand the Trinity and the incarnation

    peace

  48. walto: Right.Exactly.That all seems right to me incidentally, except, as dazz suggested, it’s hard for us mere mortals to understand just HOW one might know anything about the future without depending on pretty regular causes and effects.

    Since I cannot even wrap my mind around the vastness of the West Texas sky , it seems unlikely I could comprehend the ramifications of omniscience.

  50. newton: Actually, time is a result of the Incarnation. In order to create a material universe the incarnation had to occur, of course there is a bit of the effect preceding the cause, but revelation. Apologies fm if I have got that wrong.

    Well you are close but you fail to account for the fact that “preceding” requires temporality and therefore is nonsensical from the perspective of an atemporal God.

    peace

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