A lot to respond to, but the knot cut is that it's obvious difficult me for me to construct the alternative that I don't belive in as perspective conparision for what I do.
Obviously I don't believe that only the physical is reality, but to make that claim without also making a supernatural or at least preternatural doesn't seem reasonable. Any argument that essentially says "but it has to or nothing works" hits the same problems that I have with a secular universe to befin with.
I'm a determination not because I think perfect knowledge is possible, but because reality is independent of knowledge. We as humanity have claimed to have completed possibly knowledge repeatedly and then summilary been proved wrong. Over and over. That leads me to believe that while we can't know the substance perfectly, it doesn't change that it already IS and has always been.
The sun shined at the exact intensity both before and after it was assigned its proper place in astronomy. And every atom had a precise position and velocity in The Begining regardless of our inability to measure that. Unless something outside that system acts, those results are precise based on the interactions within that closed system. There's no randomness there. And nothing that couldn't be predicted with perfect information.
So taking free will onto that, it's either a result of those processes in which case it is also predictable and thus "not free" OR something outside that system COULD make those predictions and somehow didnt. Which comes to the same thing.
Again, outside ive that model, I've no idea what free will even means.
Assuming it isn't a by product of physical process, which seems to be where your aiming with emergent concepts creating emergenct concepts, I still have two problems.
#1 they still have a physical zero point where they started if they aren't super natural to begin with.
2 if they are "divine" rather than physical they're either predictable or they aren't. Both options aren't "free."
Outside of that, we get into stuff that's so epistemological I don't know if it even serves to say more than "I believe" this or that. How do you define "real" why does that matter and what constitutes distinctions between real things.
I believe justice exists because the Supreme being defined it the same way he defined the atomic weight of Hydrogen. There's not debating either philosophically because both are reality that exists.
Anything that can't be defined as precisely as the atomic weight of Hydrogen doesn't exist in any meaningful sense. And I don't me to say you have to be able to define it, just that it has an objective definition at that level of certainty.
What societies DO or do not do seems irrelevent to me I'm defining those realities, unless you define moral along utilitarian lines, which is fine but A. Isnt what I hold to, B. Is one choice among many that can't be proved. And C. (This is the big one) demands that other belief systems kowtow to it for it to exist, while pretending not to do that.
Liberalism MUST triumph over all. That's built into its premise, if something else becomes more practical, or a society is bless by their God for arbitrary reasons, that society tramples a liberal one. And the belief in that ideal creates more motivated conqourers than one that believs in utilitarianism. Because utilitarianism doesn't allow you to choose the king of ashes option. And when ashes comes something else grows out of it. All of that is true whether the God in question exists or not.
For my part, the God I follow has decreed my behavior regardless of whether it leads to me winning or not. It's not about winning or losing, but about doing assigned duty unto death.
A lot to respond to, but the knot cut is that it's obvious difficult me for me to construct the alternative that I don't belive in as perspective conparision for what I do.
Obviously I don't believe that only the physical is reality, but to make that claim without also making a supernatural or at least preternatural doesn't seem reasonable. Any argument that essentially says "but it has to or nothing works" hits the same problems that I have with a secular universe to befin with.
I'm a determination not because I think perfect knowledge is possible, but because reality is independent of knowledge. We as humanity have claimed to have completed possibly knowledge repeatedly and then summilary been proved wrong. Over and over. That leads me to believe that while we can't know the substance perfectly, it doesn't change that it already IS and has always been.
The sun shined at the exact intensity both before and after it was assigned its proper place in astronomy. And every atom had a precise position and velocity in The Begining regardless of our inability to measure that. Unless something outside that system acts, those results are precise based on the interactions within that closed system. There's no randomness there. And nothing that couldn't be predicted with perfect information.
So taking free will onto that, it's either a result of those processes in which case it is also predictable and thus "not free" OR something outside that system COULD make those predictions and somehow didnt. Which comes to the same thing.
Again, outside ive that model, I've no idea what free will even means.
Assuming it isn't a by product of physical process, which seems to be where your aiming with emergent concepts creating emergenct concepts, I still have two problems.
#1 they still have a physical zero point where they started if they aren't super natural to begin with.
2 if they are "divine" rather than physical they're either predictable or they aren't. Both options aren't "free."
Outside of that, we get into stuff that's so epistemological I don't know if it even serves to say more than "I believe" this or that. How do you define "real" why does that matter and what constitutes distinctions between real things.
I believe justice exists because the Supreme being defined it the same way he defined the atomic weight of Hydrogen. There's not debating either philosophically because both are reality that exists.
Anything that can't be defined as precisely as the atomic weight of Hydrogen doesn't exist in any meaningful sense. And I don't me to say you have to be able to define it, just that it has an objective definition at that level of certainty.
What societies DO or do not do seems irrelevent to me I'm defining those realities, unless you define moral along utilitarian lines, which is fine but A. Isnt what I hold to, B. Is one choice among many that can't be proved. And C. (This is the big one) demands that other belief systems kowtow to it for it to exist, while pretending not to do that.
Liberalism MUST triumph over all. That's built into its premise, if something else becomes more practical, or a society is bless by their God for arbitrary reasons, that society tramples a liberal one. And the belief in that ideal creates more motivated conqourers than one that believs in utilitarianism. Because utilitarianism doesn't allow you to choose the king of ashes option. And when ashes comes something else grows out of it. All of that is true whether the God in question exists or not.
For my part, the God I follow has decreed my behavior regardless of whether it leads to me winning or not. It's not about winning or losing, but about doing assigned duty unto death.