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Woo Denial
- Thread starter Panthera tigris FC
- Start date
It can be,sure.dukeos said:
The scientific method,mathematics,the Western 'age of reason/enlightenment',theories of ethics not based upon on the Bible,socio-economic theories (eg captilism,socialism,marxism),our westminster system,our legal system (the 'social contract',.rawls theory of justice etc),more recemntly the rise of equality for minorities.
Good thread this one. I just caught up about 6 pages of it. Strangely I find myself agreeing with all participants on different points.
On the causality/freewill debate my defence of free will is the fact that humans can create. We can come up with completely original ideas and make them a physical reality. To me this shows that we humans can be the original causes ourselves and thus are not slaves to causality. This incidently also demonstrates that humans have a soul - a non-physical cause of all the electrical activity in our brain.
I have had the odd experience of 'woo' myself (outside of my faith). Premonitions, a ghost and a UFO - seen by myself and a friend. I'm not particularly unusual so surely these experiences must be commonplace? Not that that proves anything but surely it indicates the liklihood of some of these experiences being real?
On the causality/freewill debate my defence of free will is the fact that humans can create. We can come up with completely original ideas and make them a physical reality. To me this shows that we humans can be the original causes ourselves and thus are not slaves to causality. This incidently also demonstrates that humans have a soul - a non-physical cause of all the electrical activity in our brain.
I have had the odd experience of 'woo' myself (outside of my faith). Premonitions, a ghost and a UFO - seen by myself and a friend. I'm not particularly unusual so surely these experiences must be commonplace? Not that that proves anything but surely it indicates the liklihood of some of these experiences being real?
evo said:
Which of course begs the question. What do you think of the 'original thoughts' idea? I can't see how these can be brought into existance by cause and effect.
Thoughts are caused,like everything else.Djevv said:
if thoughts were uncaused or 'original' they could exist without a brain. That notion makes no sense to me.
It is implying that it is possible that before their were sentient beings,there was still thinking,or thoughts.
evo said:
Ok, perhaps I will explain a little more. Lets take the wheel for example. The first wheel came into existance from the thoughts of a person. Yes possibly the wheel's inventor may have been inspired by watching something in nature, but the ultimate cause of a wheel coming to exist was the thoughts of a person. So then the thoughts caused the wheel but could not be forced on the thinker by an outside agency that I am aware of. So then we can say that the wheel has a non-physical cause, independent of previous cause and effect.
This implies to me that thought or 'soul' is the originator of brain activity. So yes, thoughts are therefore independent of the physical individual.
Yes,I understood the point you making--but it is trivial. Every event is a discrete and a 'new' event.If I scratch my ass right now it is the first time my arse has been scratched in this space and time.It is unique, or new.Djevv said:
It is still caused.It caused by the blood rushing through your brain,you heart pumping,previous thoughts you have related but not exactly about "wheels" and so forth.
What about the thinkers body? Doesn't that physicallty exist,didn't the brain cause the thought?
If we remove all the physical "what" is doing the original thinking?
So when does this "soul" enter your body? At conception,at birth,when you were 1;when? And where was it before then?
evo said:
It is not hard to argue this way. I think your reply was trivial rather than the point. I can perhaps think of 100 sufficient reasons for you scratching your arse but none for an original thought. I am using it as an example of an uncaused event. To be frank your whole idea about everything being predetermined is incorrect as well. The universe is full of completely random events whose outcome cannot be predicted. You cannot predict the outcome of a dice roll by knowing simply knowing the original conditions. To me that implies freedom of will as well.
evo said:
One does not need to understand a phenomenon to postulate it's existance.
Anyway let me ask you a question, as beings are we physical or non-physical?
evo said:
What existed before the big bang occured and the universe as we know it was created?
If woo is that which has not been scientifically proven, then everything we are is woo. Our very existance is woo. If you cannot prove where the universe is, then you can't prove us. Of course that's the opinion of others. I believe I'm here, even if I don't how, where and why.
Disco08 said:
Given the definition of woo, it would appear that all religion is woo.
Why isn't your brain a cause of a thought?Djevv said:
All thoughts are original--just because some are more mundane than others doesn't mean they aren't new.You haven't thought this through,in my view.
Give me an example of a completely random and uncaused event.
. Sure you can if you have access to all the causes.A dice throw works purely on "billiard ball" causation--Newtonian Physics.
.Well if you're working with a faulty premise thats hardly suprising.What are you saying,the thrower wills the result of a dice throw?
Fine.But at least give me your reasoning.Original thoughts don't demonstrate souls,hopefully you have something more.
You would have to define the question a bit better.I'm not a materialist if that is what you are asking.
The brain is a means of communication between the soul and the body IMO. So the soul causes the thought which triggers a response in the body.evo said:
Some thoughts have causes that are easily tied down, like the mossie that bit you on the bum, causing your brain to think I'd 'like to scratch that' etc. The kind of thinking I am talking about does not have a direct cause, but is an action of the will combined with some sort of precursor thoughts. I really don't think there are any direct causes which will inevitably produce thoughts which result in the invention of of the wheel. To me this indicates free will is a reality which as you said previously logically indicates a soul.
evo said:
All I'm saying is that there are somethings in the universe that are inherently unpredictable. You can't predict the results even if you know all the preconditions. The dice will follow the laws of newtonian physics yes, but i'm fairly certain you could throw the dice exactly the same way and get random results. You seem to be saying that randomness is an illusion. The best example of a completely random process is the genetic make-up of a child. As for uncaused, well, again I think that original thoughts - creativity - is impossible without a free will.
The only reason I mention will is that my point is that our lives are not predetermined.
evo said:
I am just throwing a few ideas out there for discussion really. Just some ideas that have come out of reading the thread. My point here is that thoughts, personality and will are not material things - which seems to me to be the kind of thing a soul is.
Thats fine But unpredictable and uncaused are different beasts.Djevv said:
If it follows the laws of newtonian physics then it is theoretically predictable;caused. Why do you continue to argue this point?
You must understand Newtonian physics,you are a science teacher.It is based around causation.Why would you be 'fairly certain' a repeatable experiment exactly the same would throw out different results?
If what you were saying were true it would make the pursuit of science meaningless.
That is exactly what i am saying.
You must be familiar with Einsteins famous quote:"God doesn't play dice". What did you think that meant?
I've never actually used the word predetermined.
I believe our lives are determined,like everything else.
evo said:
I'm interested in the current discussion and the idea of randomness. Being from an IT background, computers cannot generate random numbers on their own. All computer generated 'random' numbers are calculated from a seed number. As long as you know the seed number and the formula used, the sequence in entirely predictable. To get around this, often the time and date is used as a seed. So the numbers you get are determined by the date and time you choose to generate them.
Of course, that is a very simplified example with only one predetermined condition but it does show that 'random' may not exist at all. Something may appear to be random, but not so once all underlying conditions are known, Exactly as evo says.
Back to the quote. You say our lives are determined. I'm a little unsure of what you're saying considering that you've also said that you've never used the word predetermined. In this context , it's difficult for me to distinguish between the two. Either way, it would imply that the future is entirely predicable as long as you know every single underlying condition. And if our lives are determined and predictable, then isn't that the same as predetermined?
I avoid the term predetermined mainly because it conjurs up in people the idea of fatalism.1eyedtiger said:
Yes.I am saying that is the world we live in.
But they are only theoretically predictable.In actuality we never know the full causes that go into our decisions,so therefore the decisions seem like "ours".
The upshot of the realisation is not to make people unhappy,or fatal but to to point to the fact ultimately there is no real "you"
evo said:I avoid the term predetermined mainly because it conjurs up in people the idea of fatalism.
Yes.I am saying that is the world we live in.
But they are only theoretically predictable.In actuality we never know the full causes that go into our decisions,so therefore the decisions seem like "ours".
The upshot of the realisation is not to make people unhappy,or fatal but to to point to the fact ultimately there is no real "you"
I myself am a little uncomfortable with the idea that my entire life is predictable but since there would have to be thousands, if not millions of conditions that every factor of my life depends upon and it would be impossible to know them all and make an accurate prediction, I prefer to see my life as being unpredictable and random even if it isn't. Like you said, you don't want to be fatalistic over it.
I suppose the idea of the real me comes down to my belief in the soul. I don't believe that genetics and DNA alone can account for the fact that every one of us is different, particularly personality wise. You could apply your idea of determined onto the soul as well but since we don't know even know if the soul exists or not, I like to see that as being the random factor. Even if it's not really.
