What is a decision in phoodoo world?

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?

  1. Kantian Naturalist: Every event has multifarious entangled causes that would take an infinite mind to discern.

    I’d broadly agree with that. But there are philosophers still arguing for a regression of cause (Ed Feser is my prime example) who justify their “ground of being” arguments by being convinced there is a continuum of causes for all that we see radiating out from the “first uncaused cause”. It’s so Nineteenth-century! What amazes me is Jerry Coyne conceding that quantum indeterminacy might have some impact on strict determinism rather than dispensing with determinism altogether. I did like the phrase “mesh of causation” but maybe it is better to talk of a “web of causation”.

    What we specify as “the” cause of an event is what we are interested in controlling, predicting, or or preventing.

    Simplifying the model to facilitate testing is a sound approach.

  2. keiths: Constantly yammering about revelation, but unable to explain how you can determine whether a revelation is real or imagined.

    the answer of course is revelation. Your inability to understand or even acknowledge that an answer has been given is quite telling

    peace

  3. John Harshman: Would you care to try to give me an answer I can understand as meaning something?

    you would need to elaborate about what in my answers you find to be insufficient. Communication is a two way street

    peace

  4. newton: so when I decide to buy chocolate ice cream it is that same mechanism created the universe? Plastic or paper, incarnation?

    No, as I made clear when you asked how the immaterial interacted with the materiel the ‘mechanism’ was whatever is necessary.

    What is required to choose a grocery bag is not the same thing required to create ex nihilo. But in both cases what ever needs to happen happens

    peace

  5. fifthmonarchyman: What is required to choose a grocery bag is not the same thing required to create ex nihilo. But in both cases what ever needs to happen happens

    That seems a bit vague. I might, from a realist’s point of view, suggest there is no creation ex nihilo in our universe. Things don’t come into or out of existence. The total of matter and energy in the universe doesn’t change – only the assemblages change.

    I’m trying to visualise creating ex nihilo. Pouring wine from an empty jug would work for me.

  6. Alan Fox: I might, from a realist’s point of view, suggest there is no creation ex nihilo in our universe.

    You might but then you would have to explain the reason why our universe exists.

    Good luck with that 😉

    peace

  7. Alan Fox: That seems a bit vague.

    I think this is important, When discussing processes that are non algorithmic the history will be necessarily vague.

    It’s impossible to give a step by step account of something that is not a step by step process

    peace

  8. fifthmonarchyman: You might but then you would have to explain the reason why our universe exists.

    Not sure about “have to” but I’d only need to do that if I was sure the universe hasn’t always existed. I see there are cosmologists who have theorized on a “Big Bounce” rather than a “Big Bang”.

  9. Alan Fox: Not sure about “have to” but I’d only need to do that if I was sure the universe hasn’t always existed.

    No, even if the universe always existed you would need to explain why it rather than nothing existed.

    Now you could I suppose fall back on “I don’t know and I don’t care” but that is not a very scientific attitude

    peace

  10. Kantian Naturalist:

    CharlieM:
    If someone dives into a lake to save a drowning man, this may or may not be a free decision. It would all depend on their motives. If they are doing it for the glory then I would not call it a free act. If the motive comes wholly from within without any external influence then I would say it is free.

    That looks to me like a confusion between liberty and virtue. Surely those must be different, if vice is a result of liberty (perhaps a misformed or mis-informed one).

    The person who saves a drowning person but acts from a desire for glory — though I think the case is too fanciful to aid us in doing good philosophy — would be someone who is acting freely but wrongly. (Yet they might be willing to risk their lives, so in that sense they are courageous.) The wrongness lies in taking something that is not morally relevant — say, fueling their own narcissism — and treating something of moral importance — saving a life — as a means to an end.

    In that sense this person has taken morality itself as a means to an end, rather than recognizing that being moral is intrinsically valuable. By saving the drowning man in order to be famous, she has missed the point of morality.

    Someone can act in a moral way without it being a free act. A narcissistic person is a slave to their vanity. Having an unconditional love for the deed makes it a free act.

    You can be act morally without acting in freedom but you cannot be free and act in an immoral way.

  11. CharlieM: Someone can act in a moral way without it being a free act. A narcissistic person is a slave to their vanity. Having an unconditional love for the deed makes it a free act.

    You can be act morally without acting in freedom but you cannot be free and act in an immoral way.

    amen

    peace

  12. fifthmonarchyman: No, even if the universe always existed you would need to explain why it rather than nothing existed.

    Not sure about that but…

    Now you could I suppose fall back on “I don’t know and I don’t care” but that is not a very scientific attitude.

    Sure there’s a long list of things I don’t know and there are issues that interest me less than others. It’s probably a matter of consequences. I could ask myself “what are the consequences of not knowing about the origin of the universe” and I could ask myself “what are the consequences in believing an incorrect explanation for the origin of the universe”. The problem is there is still lively argument among cosmologists on scientific explanations so not knowing seems to be the only option, currently.

  13. This is shallit at his unwitting best.

    Well we do understand that computers are designed by humans so if we want to understand how a computer works, we just need to ask the computer designers how they made the hardware and how they wrote the software and why they designed both they way they did.

    So to follow Shallits superb logic, we can also do the same with the brain. In order to truly understand the brain, we need to ask the brain designer how he made the hardward and how he made the sofware and why he designed the hardware and the software of the brain the way he did.

    Its sounds like intelligent design all the way down.

    Okay, you can shut down this thread now.

    Problem solved.

    shallit:
    When you understand how decisions are made inside a computer, you might be on the way to understanding how decisions are made inside a brain.

  14. keiths:

    CharlieM:
    No. To do one’s duty is to follow a standard given from without.

    Not if the duty is self-imposed. Do you regard it as a free act in that case?

    To me if something is self-imposed it means that there is inner conflict. For example someone is in difficulty, the lifeguard doesn’t want to attempt a rescue because a shark has been spotted. But s(he) dives in anyway despite h(is)er misgivings. S(he) is acting morally but not freely. They may think to themselves, “I don’t want to be doing this but my duty compels me do do it”.

  15. fifthmonarchyman: the answer of course is revelation. Your inability to understand or even acknowledge that an answer has been given is quite telling

    I think YOU should understand by now that that is not the sort of answer (responsive or not) that is likely be very useful to anybody. It is like saying in response to a question about what causes some event that the event is “self-caused.” I agree that it’s an answer. But since it’s an answer depending on a circle–the very definition of a petito principii fallacy– it doesn’t exactly move the discussion forward.

    One wonders what you think the point is of these little tete-a-tetes. It’s just endless repetition at this point, no? I guess you must enjoy it. But really.

    I’m curious, FMM. Have you ever convinced anybody of anything, anywhere?

  16. fifthmonarchyman: You can be act morally without acting in freedom but you cannot be free and act in an immoral way.

    amen

    Would either of you testifiers here care to explain why a “free act” cannot be immoral? Thanks.

  17. Alan Fox: I’m persuaded by the idea of emergent properties.

    You want evidence for the existence of a God, but you are willing to accept “emergence”?

    Does emergence even have ANY meaning other than, something happened that we can’t explain?

    Seems to me materialists have replaced God of the Gaps with Emergence of the Gaps.

  18. phoodoo: You want evidence for the existence of a God…

    I never demand but I’m up for anything, really. 🙂

    It was simply Newton asking more-or-less the same question that has occurred to me often when involved in discussions about ID. How does the (immaterial) “designer” design?

    …but you are willing to accept “emergence”?

    Well, it’s intriguing. Start with a proton, add an electron and you have hydrogen. Increase number of protons and at each increase of one (plus electrons and neutrons) you have one of the ninety-odd naturally occurring elements found on Earth.

    Does emergence even have ANY meaning other than, something happened that we can’t explain?

    Well, like all science, it starts with observation of what there is and attempts to model those observations. Models evolve in the light of new observations and experimental results.

    Seems to me materialists have replaced God of the Gaps with Emergence of the Gaps.

    Seems to me those looking for religious explanations from scientists are bound to be as disappointed as scientists might be if they looked for scientific explanations from religion.

  19. Alan Fox: I never demand but I’m up for anything, really.

    It was simply Newton asking more-or-less the same question that has occurred to me often when involved in discussions about ID. How does the (immaterial) “designer” design?

    Well, it’s intriguing. Start with a proton, add an electron and you have hydrogen. Increase number of protons and at each increase of one (plus electrons and neutrons) you have one of the ninety-odd naturally occurring elements found on Earth.

    Well, like all science, it starts with observation of what there is and attempts to model those observations. Models evolve in the light of new observations and experimental results.

    Seems to me those looking for religious explanations from scientists are bound to be as disappointed as scientists might be if they looked for scientific explanations from religion.

    Frankly, I think when materialists claim they want evidence for a God, before they will believe it, that is essentially a lie. Because what kind of evidence can you think of, that wouldn’t actually qualify as proof? Something that says, well it could be because of a God would suffice? Like what?

    Lawrence Krauss said, well, if he wrote it in the sky in big letters one day, I AM REAL, then he might start to believe? Oh that would do it for you Lawrence would it? Or maybe you might say, well, someone wrote that, we just don’t know who, right? So that still wouldn’t be the “evidence” you need would it?

    So I am pretty sure there is NOTHING that would qualify as evidence other than downright materializing of a God that would work. The Big bang apparently doesn’t qualify. Nor do the consistency of the laws of physics. Consciousness doesn’t qualify for the materialists. Life from on-life what do either.

    So what could possibly, EVER, qualify as evidence? I am guessing your list is pretty darn short.

  20. phoodoo,

    I think that depends on your definition of “God,” phoodoo. If, in order to be God, something must have not only created the world, but be omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good, then it’s a tough row to hoe. If you add in all the Jesus stuff too, it’s even tougher. So when you ask what evidence is needed for proof, you need to tell us specifically what it is that you’re attempting to prove.

  21. Re “emergence”: I think you’re right that it’s basically an admission of ignorance. But that’s not the same thing as saying “God did it,” is it? I’d think you theists would be the first to insist that the latter is a much bigger deal. With big claims come big responsibilities.

    ETA: And, incidentally, just saying “Revelation” is not going to cut it.

  22. walto: Would either of you testifiers here care to explain why a “free act” cannot be immoral?Thanks.

    Pick any act you consider to be immoral and explain in what way you think it could be free. In other words discuss the possible motives for the act.

  23. walto,

    I am not picky, any God you wish.

    What would be evidence for that God, that wouldn’t also be considered essentially flat out proof?

  24. walto: Re “emergence”: I think you’re right that it’s basically an admission of ignorance.

    Perhaps, but Mendeleev was able to use his periodic table to predict the properties of eight (I think) elements before their discovery.

  25. CharlieM: Someone can act in a moral way without it being a free act. A narcissistic person is a slave to their vanity. Having an unconditional love for the deed makes it a free act.

    You can be act morally without acting in freedom but you cannot be free and act in an immoral way.

    Really? You’re denying that someone can intentionally and freely chose what they know to be wrong?

    I don’t know about that. I think that depends on how one thinks about what knowing does.

    Could someone know that what they were doing was wrong but not care, and therefore freely and intentionally do it?

  26. fifthmonarchyman: You throw out the word ‘supernatural’ in scare quotes but you don’t bother to define what you mean by the word.

    I put it in scare-quotes for two reasons: firstly, because it is trivially true that ‘the supernatural’ and ‘the natural’ are defined in terms of each other, so neither term means anything without further explication. Secondly, because there are as many different versions of ‘the supernatural’ as there are of ‘the natural’ and I didn’t want to commit myself to any of them.

    Reasons themselves are supernatural but I would bet that when you use the term here you mean only to exclude straw-man deitys and demigods that no one actually believes in.

    Firstly, a lot of people actually do believe in those ‘straw-man deities’. Just ask the regulars at a conservative evangelical congregation anywhere in the Deep South or Midwest.

    Secondly, if you want to insist that “reasons are supernatural”, then there’s an argumentative burden on you to show that — just as there’s an argumentative burden on me to show that reasons are natural.

    I’ll take up my responsibility in the parallel thread. This one is all for you. What do you mean by “supernatural”, such that reasons and decisions are among the things that are supernatural?

    Why is that? Why not interact with an actual position?

    I might ask the same of you, rather than attack a caricatured version of “materialism”.

  27. phoodoo: So what could possibly, EVER, qualify as evidence? I am guessing your list is pretty darn short.

    I think answers to these sorts of hypothetical questions are unreliable. What people claim they would do in unique or unusual scenarios may not turn out to be what they do faced with the situation in reality. I struggle to imagine what a “revelation” might need to be. It would be cute if God decided to talk to me in the way Neale Donald Walsch claims God talked to him. And he hasn’t been locked up as a loonie!

  28. Alan Fox,

    But Alan, this is certainly not the first time you have heard this sentiment from the world of the non-believers. This is what EVERY atheist, so called scientific truther claims. That the reason they don’t believe in God is because they just need some evidence. From Krauss to Penn Jillette to Michael Shermer, to Dawkins, to Hitchens, they all claim the same thing. Its the one refrain that unites all atheists, give me some evidence.

    So have none of them, have not you, or Walto or KN or anyone ever stopped to think what evidence they would imagine as possible?

    Isn’t this a huge gaping hole in the logic of the atheist, they want evidence, but surely don’t ask them to ever say what that means?

  29. phoodoo:
    Alan Fox,

    But Alan, this is certainly not the first time you have heard this sentiment from the world of the non-believers. This is what EVERY atheist, so called scientific truther claims.That the reason they don’t believe in God is because they just need some evidence.From Krauss to Penn Jillette to Michael Shermer, to Dawkins, to Hitchens, they all claim the same thing.Its the one refrain that unites all atheists, give me some evidence.

    You, and the people you mention, are making a different point from me. I think they are asking for substantiation of claims about particular deities, such as the Catholic God or the Southern Baptist God and deities that to me seem to have the common quality of being invented by human imagination.

    So have none of them, have not you, or Walto or KN or anyone ever stopped to think what evidence they would imagine as possible?

    I already said voices in my head would be likely very convincing to me, especially if they made sense. They might not be convincing evidence for anyone else. I doubt very much Neale Walsch has been conversing with God.

    Isn’t this a huge gaping hole in the logic of the atheist, they want evidence, but surely don’t ask them to ever say what that means?

    I doubt logic would convince me about God. The whole concept seems bound to the emotions.

  30. Phoodoo

    How about if God spoke to everyone as a voice in their head with a consistent message. That would work, perhaps, even for me! 🙂

    ETA might be a really powerful evil demon though.

  31. phoodoo:
    So I am pretty sure there is NOTHING that would qualify as evidence other than downright materializing of a God that would work. The Big bang apparently doesn’t qualify. Nor do the consistency of the laws of physics. Consciousness doesn’t qualify for the materialists. Life from on-life what do either.

    Everyone who has cancer being cured in one day would work for me, faith would do the rest.

    Then of course which God would be an issue

  32. Alan Fox,

    You have never wondered if any of your thoughts are God trying to communicate with you?

    It seems instead what you want is a loud booming voice, that is so clear, so unambiguous, it could only be interpreted as essential proof.

  33. newton,

    So you are saying that if everyone in the world who had cancer was suddenly cured in one day, that might make you consider it was from a God? You wouldn’t really be sure, but you would start to consider it, is that it? You still might have doubts though?

  34. phoodoo: It seems instead what you want is a loud booming voice, that is so clear, so unambiguous, it could only be interpreted as essential proof.

    Unambiguous seems good

  35. phoodoo:
    Alan Fox,

    You have never wondered if any of your thoughts are God trying to communicate with you?

    Never struck me, so far. It always seems like my own voice in my head.

    It seems instead what you want is a loud booming voice, that is so clear, so unambiguous, it could only be interpreted as essential proof.

    As I said, I find hypothetical situations unhelpful. But I don’t think it would matter so much about the volume as much as the content (and that it was unequivocally not my own voice).

  36. phoodoo, Mung, fifth, CharlieM, Steve:

    Can any of you explain how decision making works in terms of immaterial entities and/or forces?

  37. phoodoo: So you are saying that if everyone in the world who had cancer was suddenly cured in one day, that might make you consider it was from a God? You wouldn’t really be sure, but you would start to consider it, is that it? You still might have doubts though?

    It would be evidence of God that would be convincing to me but I think faith is always required for beings with finite knowledge.

  38. So Newton is saying that if every person on the planet who had cancer, suddenly were all cured in one day, it still might be reasonable for some people to doubt there is a God that performs miracles.

    I find that interesting.

  39. And Alan is saying, if he heard voices in his head, and the content seemed believable, he wouldn’t think he had schizophrenia, he would believe it is likely God.

  40. phoodoo:
    So Newton is saying that if every person on the planet who had cancer, suddenly were all cured in one day, it still might be reasonable for some people to doubt there is a God that performs miracles.

    I find that interesting.

    I’m not sure it would work for me. A God that can cure cancer overnight can also not inflict such apparent random suffering across humanity: not to mention famine, disease, poverty, insecurity, war.

  41. Alan Fox: Never struck me, so far. It always seems like my own voice in my head.

    I chat with someone who does hear voices, including the voice of god.
    Auditory hallucinations aren’t all that rare. John Nash had them.

  42. phoodoo:
    And Alan is saying, if he heard voices in his head, and the content seemed believable, he wouldn’t think he had schizophrenia, he would believe it is likely God.

    But who else would believe me? Depends on the message I could relay, perhaps. I could ask God why there is famine, disease, poverty, war. Maybe there’s an explanation that people need to hear.

    I told you I’m not good with hypotheticals. 😉

  43. petrushka: I chat with someone who does hear voices, including the voice of god.
    Auditory hallucinations aren’t all that rare.

    And, I imagine, utterly convincing to the one hearing the voices.

  44. CharlieM: Pick any act you consider to be immoral and explain in what way you think it could be free. In other words discuss the possible motives for the act.

    I’m sorry but will that somehow answer the question I asked you? Can’t you just tell me what you were trying to say?

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