AI will make religion obsolete soon?

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 9, 2015

Artificial Intelligence, News}

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Within our lifetimes, according to Daily Dot’s Dylan Love:

Neal VanDeRee, officiator at the Church of Perpetual Life: I believe that it is inevitable that the arrival of a superintelligence is bound to happen, and when looking at the current course of AI, this should be within our lifetime. I would imagine that it could very nearly replicate life as we know it now, but without pain, suffering, and death.

Naturally, time will tell.

Lincoln Cannon: For practical and moral reasons, I trust in our opportunity and capacity as a human civilization, to evolve intentionally into compassionate superintelligence. I don’t think it’s inevitable, and I do think there are serious risks. But I do trust it’s possible, particularly if we put aside passive, escapist, and nihilistic attitudes about our future and work to mitigate the risks while pursuing the opportunities.

What about sin?

John Messerly: Thinkers disagree about this. [Founder of the Transhumanist political party] Zoltan Istvan thinks that we will inevitably try to control SIs and teach them our ways, which may include teaching them about our gods. Christopher J. Benek, co-founder and chair of the Christian Transhumanist Association, thinks that AI, by possibly eradicating poverty, war, and disease, might lead humans to becoming more holy. But other Christian thinkers believe AIs are machines without souls and cannot be saved.

Of course, like most philosophers, I don’t believe in souls, and the only way for there to be a good future is if we save ourselves. No gods will save us because there are no gods—unless we become gods. More.

Become gods? Been tried. See also: sin 😉

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Comments

JimFit @ 8
There was no physical tree for God to put there, its an allegorical story..
I would tend to agree but you’ll find plenty of Christians, some here, who’ll give you an argument on that. What they don’t like about the allegorical interpretation is that allegories are open to interpretation. They don’t want interpretation, they want certainty.
He designed their bodies not their choices. God created us out of unconditional love, He doesn’t ask anything from us, our mistakes are ours and the consequences come from our actions, paradise is the result of our actions, God doesn’t put us in Hell or in Paradise, we do this because Hell and Paradise are inside us.
An eternal, necessary being, such as God is presumed to be, is entirely self-sufficient. He is not contingent or dependant on anything outside Himself. As such, He has no need - and, hence, no reason - to create any other creatures in order to have a loving relationship with them.Seversky_{August 12, 2015
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Mapou, I also am a software engineer. Your claim that computers are not Turing machines is like someone, claiming to be a biologist, stating that cats are not mammals. The fact that the concept of the Turing machine is not used in day-to-day development in no way alters this. You claim to be a Christian, and to study the Scriptures. Yet you believe in the pagan deities of several extinct cultures, and then have the audacity to accuse others of adhering to illogical doctrines of men. And I observe that in spite of whatever amounts of time you have spent studying the scriptures, your understanding of them is shockingly sophomoric. Seriously, if you think that Genesis' report that God regretted making man is a QED against omniscience, you fail at elementary logic. But then, you, being not omniscient, claim to know enough about how omniscience should work so as to feel justified in concluding that it's impossible; if the inherent self-contradiction of that position does not make you burn with shame, then your grasp of logic lacks an opposable thumb.EvilSnack_{August 11, 2015
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@Seversky
If God didn’t want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of good and evil, why put the tree there in the first place?
There was no physical tree for God to put there, its an allegorical story..The fruit of knowledge translates to the sweetness of knowing, its an expression, you can see that knowledge was described as something sweet aka as something good but also as something with consequences and these consequences didn't came from God but from humans, when humans obtained this kind of knowledge, the innocence was destroyed and as a result they lost paradise. The paradise isn't a beautiful place inside space and time (what is beautiful is subjective by the way), the paradise is when you are peacefull, without worries or doubts.
He also created Adam and Eve. A perfect God doesn’t make mistakes. If they behaved in a certain way, that is how He designed them to behave, that is how He intended them to behave, that is how He knew they would behave?
He designed their bodies not their choices. God created us out of unconditional love, He doesn't ask anything from us, our mistakes are ours and the consequences come from our actions, paradise is the result of our actions, God doesn't put us in Hell or in Paradise, we do this because Hell and Paradise are inside us.
And even if it was an offense against His law, while it might be just to punish the offenders, how is it just to punish their descendants? In perpetuity?
No one was punished, we can return to paradise if we renounce egoistical materialism and embrace unconditional love.JimFit_{August 11, 2015
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Mapou: And what makes you think context is something that is beyond mechanical computation? A model or representation of a phenomenon also includes the contexts.
Consciousness and rationality — specifically meaning — is interwoven with context at the most fundamental level. Consciousness’ ability to be, to choose and control and to look at something through a context — all at the same time — is beyond mechanical computation IMO. The following text by E. F. Kelly seems to support my view:
I must also acknowledge here that I myself initially embraced the computational theory practically without reservation. It certainly seemed an enormous step forward at the time. Fellow graduate students likely remember my oft-repeated attempts to assure them that the CTM would soon solve this or that fundamental problem in psychology. But all was not well. Any scheme based on atomization of meaning would necessarily fail to capture what to me had become the most characteristic property of word-meaning, a felt Gestalt quality or wholeness, at a level of generality that naturally supports extensions of usage into an indefinite variety—indeed whole families—of novel but appropriate contexts. The existing proposals could only represent the content of a general term such as “line” by some sample of its possible particularizations, and in so doing rendered themselves systematically unable to distinguish between metaphorical truth and literal falsehood. The importance of incorporating more general knowledge of the world into language-processing models, for example, had already begun to be recognized, and new formal devices were being introduced to represent what the computer needed to know (what we ourselves know) about various sorts of “typical” situations it might encounter. But it seemed clear to me that all of these knowledge-representation devices, such as “frames” (Minsky, 1975), “scripts” (Schank & Colby, 1973), and “schemata” (Neisser, 1976), suffered essentially the same problems I had identified in the Katz and Fodor account of word meaning. Specifically, they required the possible scenarios of application to be spelled out in advance, in great but necessarily incomplete detail, and as a result ended up being “brittle,” intolerant of even minor departures from the preprogrammed expectations. [Edward F. Kelly, Irreducible Mind, ch. 1]
Box_{August 11, 2015
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Mapou: Okay. I’m out of this discussion. I can’t deal with this orgy of infantile logic anymore.
Why not point out where I go wrong?
Mapou: It has to be the work of the devil. LOL. Goodbye and stay away from me, por favor.
You forgot to mention that you say all this as a Christian.Box_{August 11, 2015
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Mapou #57,
Mapou: The brain does all the work, IMO, including giving the spirit/soul important things to pay attention to.
So the brain decides what is important. And the brain is controlled by uncomprehending unaware blind particles in motion, right? How could that possibly work?
Mapou: The spirit simply makes the final decisions on what to attend to and directs motor behavior.
Making "final decisions" based on WHAT? According to you the spirit doesn’t think. Without thinking one cannot understand anything. So, how does one make “final decisions” without thinking?
Mapou: It’s a master-slave, yin-yang relationship.
An “un-thinking-master” – “controlled-by-blind-forces-slave” relationship? How does this relationship work? Why would the brain listen to this stupid master? And why would this master have anything to say if he cannot think nor understand?
Mapou: If our spirit did any learning whatsoever, we would be able to explain how it does it. We can’t.
This statement doesn’t make any sense to me. For me it’s obvious that my spirit is learning. But I’m not bound by the belief that I — my spirit — cannot think.Box_{August 11, 2015
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Box:
Mapou: if God can see all past, present and future, there is no free will. It’s already determined.
Why is it already determined? You seem to hold that God must determine the future if God sees the future. It doesn’t follow. Or, just like Goodusername, you may think that there is no set of possibilities to choose from. Again, that doesn’t follow from God seeing us choose.
Okay. I'm out of this discussion. I can't deal with this orgy of infantile logic anymore. It has to be the work of the devil. LOL. Goodbye and stay away from me, por favor.Mapou_{August 11, 2015
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Goodusername, Anthropic, Mapou.
Goodusername: From our perspective, the future is not yet known, but that isn’t the same as saying it isn’t determined.
I hold that the future isn’t determined yet. God doesn’t see the future in a crystal ball today. He sees the future at the moment it happens.
Goodusername: When I was speaking of a “set of possibilities” I meant “actual real possibilities.”
Me too.
Goodusername: If God knew before I was born that I would choose the red wine, was anything else really in the “set of possibilities”?
Yes. Why not? Explain the difficulty here, because I don’t get it. God having an outside-time-perspective doesn’t change the fact that you have a free choice to make from a set of possibilities. God watches you making a free choice on 20 march 2039 from a real set of possibilities. What am I missing here?
Anthropic: (…) the notion that God exists outside of time shouldn’t be hard to understand, as evidenced by the Big Bang, the behavior of light, and repeated scriptural references. If God does exist outside of time as the great I AM, then He is perfectly able to see past, present, and future simultaneously without necessarily dictating them.
Exactly. Seeing doesn’t imply causing.
Mapou: if God can see all past, present and future, there is no free will. It’s already determined.
Why is it already determined? You seem to hold that God must determine the future if God sees the future. It doesn’t follow. Or, just like Goodusername, you may think that there is no set of possibilities to choose from. Again, that doesn’t follow from God seeing us choose.Box_{August 11, 2015
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anthropic, the point is that, if God can see all past, present and future, there is no free will. It's already determined. But since there is free will, God cannot see all past, present and future. It's one or the other. There is no getting around this. It's trivial logic and no one has to be a propeller head in order to understand it. Besides, the entire concept of God existing outside of time is nonsense. It means nothing. This is especially true since the Biblical Yahweh calls himself the ancient of time (days).Mapou_{August 10, 2015
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Mapou 61 I said that the notion that God exists outside of time shouldn't be hard to understand, as evidenced by the Big Bang, the behavior of light, and repeated scriptural references. If God does exist outside of time as the great I AM, then He is perfectly able to see past,present, and future simultaneously without necessarily dictating them. Again, for a self-proclaimed Christian this should be easy to understand. Jesus died for all our sins, those in the past, those in the present, and those in the future. Handwaving about "strawmen", "nonsense", and "throwing stuff against the wall" is not an impressive response. Given that, I too see no reason for further discussion on this topic.anthropic_{August 10, 2015
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anthropic @60, First off, you did not address my objection to your nonsense. Second, you are just throwing stuff at the wall, stuff that you made up or read somewhere (probably from BA77), stuff that is essentially gobbledygook because it means absolutely nothing. See you around.Mapou_{August 10, 2015
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Mapou 53 "Your argument makes no sense whatsoever because it uses a straw man, an assumption that nobody is making. Read your comment again. But then again, maybe you were joking, in which case the humor went over my head. Knowing the end of a movie after watching it is not the same as knowing the end of a movie before the actors were even born. Omniscience means knowing everything from the start." ============================================================= I'm afraid the joke's on you, Mapou. For God, the great self-proclaimed "I AM", past, present and future are one. He exists timelessly and hence His knowledge is not subject to the constraints you assert. This shouldn't be so hard to understand. Whatever began the Big Bang also created space-time, matter-energy. Thus, it must be something outside of space-time and matter-energy. Heck, time doesn't pass for light, so why would time bind the One who proclaimed, "Let there be light!" (Genesis 1:3) in the Old Testament and "I AM the light of the world" (John 8:12) in the New Testament.anthropic_{August 10, 2015
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correction: "The emergence of modern science was associated with a repudiation of the rationalism of Greek philosophers who pronounced on how the world should behave, with insufficient attention to finding out how the how the world in fact did behave." Henry Schaefer - Quoted at 26:49 minute mark of the following video: The Theological Roots of Modern Science - Henry Schaefer - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqgM1JYILNcbornagain77_{August 10, 2015
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"The emergence of modern science with a repudiation of the rationalism of Greek philosophers who pronounced on how the world should behave, with insufficient attention to finding out how the how the world in fact did behave." Henry Schaefer - Quoted at 23:35 minute mark of the following video: The Theological Roots of Modern Science - Henry Schaefer - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqgM1JYILNc
And as to 'finding out how the how the world in fact does behave', and contrary to what some people have 'pronounced' as to how the world should behave in this thread thus far, as far as science can tell us God is indeed omniscient in knowledge. This 'omniscience inference' for God is warranted by noting that a quantum wave state of a single photon is mathematically defined as infinite information:
Explaining Information Transfer in Quantum Teleportation: Armond Duwell †‡ University of Pittsburgh Excerpt: In contrast to a classical bit, the description of a (photon) qubit requires an infinite amount of information. The amount of information is infinite because two real numbers are required in the expansion of the state vector of a two state quantum system (Jozsa 1997, 1) http://www.cas.umt.edu/phil/faculty/duwell/DuwellPSA2K.pdf Wave function Excerpt "wave functions form an abstract vector space",,, This vector space is infinite-dimensional, because there is no finite set of functions which can be added together in various combinations to create every possible function. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function#Wave_functions_as_an_abstract_vector_space Quantum Computing – Stanford Encyclopedia Excerpt: Theoretically, a single qubit can store an infinite amount of information, yet when measured (and thus collapsing the Quantum Wave state) it yields only the classical result (0 or 1),,, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-quantcomp/#2.1
Thus every time we observe, (i.e. collapse a quantum wave of), a single photon we are actually seeing just a single bit of information that was originally created from a very specific set of infinite information that was known by the consciousness that preceded material reality. i.e. information that was known only by the infinite Mind of omniscient God!
Job 38:19-20 “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?”
As well, and also as far as science can tell us, man is completely free, i.e. undetermined, in his choices that he makes in quantum experiments.
Loophole-free Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment via quantum steering - April 2012 Tests of the predictions of quantum mechanics for entangled systems have provided increasing evidence against local realistic theories. However, there still remains the crucial challenge of simultaneously closing all major loopholes - the locality, freedom-of-choice, and detection loopholes - in a single experiment. An important sub-class of local realistic theories can be tested with the concept of "steering". The term steering was introduced by Schrodinger in 1935 for the fact that entanglement would seem to allow an experimenter to remotely steer the state of a distant system as in the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) argument. Einstein called this "spooky action at a distance". EPR-Steering has recently been rigorously formulated as a quantum information task opening it up to new experimental tests. Here, we present the first loophole-free demonstration of EPR-steering by violating three-setting quadratic steering inequality, tested with polarization entangled photons shared between two distant laboratories. Our experiment demonstrates this effect while simultaneously closing all loopholes: both the locality loophole and a specific form of the freedom-of-choice loophole are closed by having a large separation of the parties and using fast quantum random number generators, and the fair-sampling loophole is closed by having high overall detection efficiency. Thereby, we exclude - for the first time loophole-free - an important class of local realistic theories considered by EPR. As well as its foundational importance, loop-hole-free steering also allows the distribution of quantum entanglement secure from an untrusted party. http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.0760 also see post 28 for reference to "Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past – April 23, 2012"
Thus, as far as empirical science itself can tell us right now, God is omniscient in his knowledge and we also have completely undetermined free will. Please note that this not me pronouncing my beliefs as to whether God is omniscient or as to whether we have free will. This is what the scientific evidence itself is saying, not me. Though some may adamantly claim that God's omniscience and our free will is an irreconcilable contradiction, yet as Keller clearly pointed out in the video I referenced earlier, God's omniscience and our free will is only an 'apparent contradiction' and is not an irreconcilable contradiction as some seem to believe in this thread:
Does God Control Everything – Tim Keller – (God’s sovereignty and our free will, how do they mesh?) – video (12:00 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQ6ld8dn7I
Verse and Music:
Job 38: 4-21 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years! Laura Story - Keeper Of The Stars (Official Live Video) www.youtube.com/watch?v=krRQGGu898k
bornagain77_{August 10, 2015
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Box:
Mapou: To understand a phenomenon is to have a representation (model) of it in memory and to be able to make accurate predictions regarding the phenomenon, based on the model.
To understand something is to place something in a context. When we look at something without being able to place it in a context we understand zero. Very broad contexts are “space” and “time” — things get really difficult to understand for us when something doesn’t fit these basic contexts. Of course there are countless more specified contexts.
And what makes you think context is something that is beyond mechanical computation? A model or representation of a phenomenon also includes the contexts.
Mapou: But the rest of the brain does not learn like the cerebellum. Unlike the cerebellum, it needs no supervision because it can learn on its own. It can learn patterns and sequences; it can make accurate predictions and it can adapt.
If the brain learns ‘on its own’ independent of the “I” — independent of consciousness — then there is no UNITY. You don’t seem to be able to grasp that important objection to your yin-yang schizophrenia. If my brain decides to go left when I want to to go right then there is a insurmountable problem. And if you say that the brain does all the thinking on its own — purely driven by uncomprehending unaware blind particles in motion — without any conscious intervention / control then rationality is a non-starter.
The brain does all the work, IMO, including giving the spirit/soul important things to pay attention to. The spirit simply makes the final decisions on what to attend to and directs motor behavior. It's a master-slave, yin-yang relationship. If our spirit did any learning whatsoever, we would be able to explain how it does it. We can't. It is possible to design a computer that is conditioned to pay attention to certain goals. As an example, I believe that animals have no spirits and they are just intelligent but unconscious meat machines that are genetically conditioned to seek certain goals (eat, sleep, procreate, etc.). I believe that our intelligent machines can do the same and more because we can condition them to pursue any goal we want them to.
This is the point where you leave the thread as per usual. Okay fine, go ahead.
I almost did. LOL. I admit that I'm mentally ill but to use that against me during a debate is an ad hominem. Unless you have a very high disregard for my point of view, which would be understandable. But we would be wasting our times.Mapou_{August 10, 2015
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box,
Only for the person with the outside-time-perspective. From our perspective the future is not yet determined.
From our perspective, the future is not yet known, but that isn't the same as saying it isn't determined.
Suppose that God sees ‘today’ that on 20 march 2039 you will choose from a set of possibilities a glass of red wine. Why would that fact prevent the existence of a set of possibilities for you to choose from at that distant date? And why would there suddenly be a set of possibilities if God wouldn’t be able to see it? Why is there even a relationship between God’s ability to see the future and a set of possibilities and free will?
Language can sometimes be difficult in these discussions (and is probably one of the issues in our last discussion). If I think I'm throwing a 12 sided die and it's really an 8 sided die, than throwing a 9 or 10 seem like possibilities from my perspective - but are they really? My ignorance doesn't make rolling a 10 an actual possibility. When I was speaking of a "set of possibilities" I meant "actual real possibilities." If God knew before I was born that I would choose the red wine, was anything else really in the "set of possibilities"? This is why time travel, psychics, or an omniscient God all have implications on the existence of free will.goodusername_{August 10, 2015
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Smidlee:
Omniscience would conflict with free will only if there is only one path which future must follow.
I'll let you think about it some more and figure out on your own why this is not omniscience. Omniscience is impossible without a deterministic future.Mapou_{August 10, 2015
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"Omniscience means knowing everything from the start.' This would including multiple paths. I believe one of the things revealed to us by God will be revealing His prefect will for our lives while we continue to choose our own way. Omniscience would conflict with free will only if there is only one path which future must follow. I think Dr.Who has a interesting way of dealing with this , some points are fixed while others can cause the future to go in a different path. For example I believe Judas could have been the apostles to the gentiles instead of Paul or maybe they could work as a team was God perfect will for their lives. This is what Mordecai told Esther , that God will find someone to deliver His people if she refused to act but her family would likely be destroyed.Smidlee_{August 10, 2015
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anthropic:
So if I watch a movie and hence know the ending, the ending is determined? Really? The director, actors, producer had no choices? No other endings were possible? Perhaps there are some good arguments for the proposition that God’s omniscience is incompatible with free will. This sure isn’t one of them.
Your argument makes no sense whatsoever because it uses a straw man, an assumption that nobody is making. Read your comment again. But then again, maybe you were joking, in which case the humor went over my head. Knowing the end of a movie after watching it is not the same as knowing the end of a movie before the actors were even born. Omniscience means knowing everything from the start.Mapou_{August 10, 2015
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Good 48 "If the future is already known – than it is already determined. I.e.there is no “will be”. It has to do with what one means by “choice”. If it means to choose from a set of possibilities, than there’s a problem. If the future is known, than there was never a “set a possibilities”. The “set of possibilities” is illusory. There was always only the single possibility. ============================================================ So if I watch a movie and hence know the ending, the ending is determined? Really? The director, actors, producer had no choices? No other endings were possible? Perhaps there are some good arguments for the proposition that God's omniscience is incompatible with free will. This sure isn't one of them.anthropic_{August 10, 2015
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Goodusername: If the future is already known – than it is already determined. I.e. there is no “will be”.
Only for the person with the outside-time-perspective. From our perspective the future is not yet determined. We still have to determine the future with our free choices.
Goodusername: It has to do with what one means by “choice”. If it means to choose from a set of possibilities, than there’s a problem. If the future is known, than there was never a “set a possibilities”.
Suppose that God sees ‘today’ that on 20 march 2039 you will choose from a set of possibilities a glass of red wine. Why would that fact prevent the existence of a set of possibilities for you to choose from at that distant date? And why would there suddenly be a set of possibilities if God wouldn’t be able to see it? Why is there even a relationship between God’s ability to see the future and a set of possibilities and free will? There isn’t even a connection if we define free will as unpredictable. I argue that God doesn’t have to predict your free choice on 20 march 2039, He only has to watch you do it.Box_{August 10, 2015
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No. Religion is not dying. The secular folks want to believe that it is happening. The Western world is heading towards secularism but it is only going to last for a while. Artificial intelligence is over hyped. It is like those eternal flying cars that we were all supposed to be flying. Are there flying cars? Yes. Who uses them? nobody. The future belongs to religion because religion provides a meaning to your existence. Secularism doesn't answer anything. It is too simple. The most secular continent today is Europe. In 25 years, it will be semi Muslim and it will resemble the Middle East in another 50 years. Secularism is a silly fantasy. If life has no objective meaning, then why bother living? Why go to Africa and help those poor folks if evil is an illusion? Most Europeans are practical atheists and their future isn't bright at all. They are simply not breeding and they are slowly going extinct. http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/10/29/inenglish/1414592775_914701.html?rel=rosEPcornucopian_{August 10, 2015
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Mapou,
Mapou: To understand a phenomenon is to have a representation (model) of it in memory and to be able to make accurate predictions regarding the phenomenon, based on the model.
To understand something is to place something in a context. When we look at something without being able to place it in a context we understand zero. Very broad contexts are "space" and "time" — things get really difficult to understand for us when something doesn't fit these basic contexts. Of course there are countless more specified contexts.
Mapou: But the rest of the brain does not learn like the cerebellum. Unlike the cerebellum, it needs no supervision because it can learn on its own. It can learn patterns and sequences; it can make accurate predictions and it can adapt.
If the brain learns 'on its own' independent of the "I" — independent of consciousness — then there is no UNITY. You don't seem to be able to grasp that important objection to your yin-yang schizophrenia. If my brain decides to go left when I want to to go right then there is a insurmountable problem. And if you say that the brain does all the thinking on its own — purely driven by uncomprehending unaware blind particles in motion — without any conscious intervention / control then rationality is a non-starter. This is the point where you leave the thread as per usual. Okay fine, go ahead.Box_{August 10, 2015
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box,
Yes, but I argue that the future is — will be — determined by our free choices. Just like the past is — has been — determined by our free choices. Suppose a being who can look in the future as easily as in the past. How is that incompatible with free choice?
If the future is already known - than it is already determined. I.e.there is no "will be". It has to do with what one means by "choice". If it means to choose from a set of possibilities, than there's a problem. If the future is known, than there was never a "set a possibilities". The "set of possibilities" is illusory. There was always only the single possibility. That's generally what's meant when some philosophers/scientists say that "free will is an illusion". Everybody agrees that it feels like we have free will. But are we really making choices?
In my opinion, unpredictability has little or nothing to do with free will. Free will implies that an action stems from within a person. IOW the free action doesn’t trace back to a cause external to the actor. Secondly, a choice is free when it is done consciously — with knowledge of the consequences.
With that understanding of free will it arguably could exist, but it also sounds like you'd have no issue with free will co-existing with materialism as well. (I think this is the 'compatibilist' definition of free will, if I understand it correctly.)
This is not your claim, but just for the record: omnipotence doesn’t imply ‘causing everything’. God can choose not to intervene, although He can.
Well, many would argue that only a God that either isn't omnipotent and/or isn't omniscient would ever need to intervene. (Because it implies that he either didn't do things right at Creation or that something occurred that he didn't anticipate.) (For the record, I believe that free will probably exists; although there are issues with it that I don't have good answers for.)
BTW it’s a pity you left the other thread. Our discussion there is an important one.
Sorry about that, the discussion didn't seem to be going anywhere. Just back and forth on what's a "thing". I'm not sure but you seemed to be arguing that a thing can't be composed of things. I believe that there are many things that require the combination of other things.goodusername_{August 10, 2015
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Mapou: I believe that Yahweh is an immense but united civilization with a peculiar organization
Although some of the details differ between our views, I have come to this conclusion as well. It would be interesting to know how you came to that conclusion. But this is not the place.mike1962_{August 10, 2015
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mike1962:
Mapou: So? Did I say otherwise? He also said “I and the Father are ONE” and “let them be ONE with us as we are ONE together”. I see no Trinity in the picture. I see yin and yang, I see duality, I see master-servant, that’s what I see.
Moreover, given the Greek verb, the “oneness” is a unity of individuals, not an absolute numerical one. Clunky perhaps, but the best rendering into English would be, “I and my father, we are (esmen) one.”
Thanks for that clarification. As a student of Biblical metaphors, I have come to understand that the God of the Bible is a Yin-Yang God represented by the Father-Son duality. But I do not believe for a second that God is just two united individuals. Many passages in the Bible have led me to conclude that the Father-Son union actually consists of billions of individuals. This is why God is called Yahweh of hosts, for example. I believe that Yahweh is an immense but united civilization with a peculiar organization: they are divided into two distinct but opposite camps: the rulers on one side and the servants on the other side. But, unlike human political systems, both servants and rulers love each other and trust each other completely. They act as ONE. This is why I believe that, when Jesus died on the cross, it was not just one individual who died for humanity but the entire servant side of God consisting of billions of individual Gods. It was a sacrifice of epic proportions, to say the least. This is why ritual sacrifice is such an important metaphor in the old testament. One man's opinion, always.Mapou_{August 10, 2015
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Box:
Mapou: intelligence is a mechanical phenomenon. Why? Because it deals with causes and effects.
That is an utterly unhelpful criterion. A doorbell deals with causes and effects. How about “understanding” as a criterion for intelligence? Now explain to me in what way a computer understands anything. Explain to me in what way there is a person who understands anything — in the context of AI. And explain in what way something is understood.
To understand a phenomenon is to have a representation (model) of it in memory and to be able to make accurate predictions regarding the phenomenon, based on the model.
Also I would like to read your comments on Searle’s Chinese Room Argument.
Searle is correct, of course. Did you know that there is huge chunk of your brain that acts exactly like Searle's Chinese room? It's called the cerebellum and it is responsible for various automatic functions such as walking, maintaining posture, balance, etc. You could not function without it because you would not be able to stand up while talking. Guess what? The cerebellum acts automatically without you being conscious of its actions. It does so by blindly following rules that it is taught as the brain learns. The cerebellum is trained by the conscious part of the brain. It is essentially a parrot mechanism. But the rest of the brain does not learn like the cerebellum. Unlike the cerebellum, it needs no supervision because it can learn on its own. It can learn patterns and sequences; it can make accurate predictions and it can adapt. We can do the same with a machine. Does this mean that our machines will be conscious? Of course not. But I can foresee a great danger in this. I foresee that people will confuse the uncanny understanding of things around them that robots will have with consciousness. In addition, given that intelligence is goal-driven and that robots will be motivated to behave a certain way, people will confuse their reactions with conscious emotions. People will have to be properly educated in how intelligence actually works.Mapou_{August 10, 2015
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Goodusername #41,
Goodusername: I agree that knowing doesn’t mean the same as causing something – but it does, in principle, mean that the future is determined.
Yes, but I argue that the future is — will be — determined by our free choices. Just like the past is — has been — determined by our free choices. Suppose a being who can look in the future as easily as in the past. How is that incompatible with free choice?
Goodusername: Again, it goes to the definition of “choice”. I haven’t chosen what to have for dinner yet, and it “feels” like there are several real possibilities. If the future is known than it’s already determined what I’ll have for dinner. Such “choice” is therefore an illusion.
It is determined by your free choice what you will have for dinner. Suppose that God — from an outside of time perspective — can see you choosing from the menu. What is the problem? Why would your free choice be an illusion?
Goodusername: One neednt invoke God to run into this problem. Many philosophers claim, for the same reason, that if time travel is possible than free will doesn’t exist. But they aren’t claiming the the time travelers themselves caused anything. Hawking references this in A Brief History of Time: “The reason we say that humans have free will is because we can’t predict what they will do. However, if the human then goes off in a rocket ship and comes back before he or she set off, we will be able to predict what he or she will do because it will be part of recorded history. Thus, in that situation, the time traveler would have no free will.”
In my opinion, unpredictability has little or nothing to do with free will. Free will implies that an action stems from within a person. IOW the free action doesn’t trace back to a cause external to the actor. Secondly, a choice is free when it is done consciously — with knowledge of the consequences.
Goodusername: In the case of God, however, I would say that if he is omnipotent and omniscient than he did cause, well, everything.
This is not your claim, but just for the record: omnipotence doesn’t imply ‘causing everything’. God can choose not to intervene, although He can.
Goodusername: He created with perfect knowledge of what the results would be, and so if he wanted things to be different than he would have just created things differently in the beginning. But as I said, that’s a completely separate issue.
You have a point here. --- // BTW it’s a pity you left the other thread. Our discussion there is an important one.Box_{August 10, 2015
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BA77:
Actually Mapou, I disagree with you for very principled reasons,
No you don't. You are a dogmatist.
but, I find you impossible to reason with.
Yeah, well. Life goes on.
That is why I no longer respond to your arguments of ‘truth is now established by mapou’s personal declaration’ any longer. It simply is a waste of my time.
I think I argue with logic on my side, not just with personal opinions. The logic of omniscience is fatally flawed and the atheists are correct to point it out. IMO, you are doing the work of the Devil, causing intelligent people to doubt God on the basis of your illogical doctrines. So by all means, do not respond to my comments.Mapou_{August 10, 2015
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Dr JDD @35, Here's what I believe. I believe that all one needs to do in order to be saved is to believe that God died for your sins and will give you eternal life. That's all.Mapou_{August 10, 2015
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