Gaia lets emulations run although they involve immense suffering. Laurinda comments:
"'Gaia isn't cruel. The universe often is, and she didn't create it. She's seeking something better than blind chance can make.'"
-PART TWO, VII, p. 182.
Thus, Gaia resembles the Time Patrol:
"'In a reality forever liable to chaos, the Patrol is the stabilizing element, holding time to a single course... A cosmos of random changes must be senseless, ultimately self-destructive. In it could be no freedom."
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, July 1991), PART SIX, 1990 A. D., p. 435.
When Christian asks:
"'Does Gaia let this go on?'"
-Genesis, p. 180
- Laurinda replies:
"'She must. Humans must have free will. Otherwise they're puppets.'"
-ibid.
Invading armies must be free to rape. This is true for Gaia because she emulates historical human beings whereas a hypothetical omnipotent creator of those human beings would have been able to create them without any motivation to commit rape. They would then have been not puppets but free agents spontaneously treating their fellow human beings with respect.
Plato existed in this milieu. Since he was born in 428/427 BCE and died in 348/347 BCE, that gives us some idea of possible dates for Laurinda's and Christian's visit.
18 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Again, I have to disagree, because I believe Original Sin and the fall of mankind is where we find the beginnings of such evils as rape. So, yes, I believe in free will. And that has to include at least the chance or possibility of doing bad things.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
A completely benevolent and honest man is physically capable of acting uncompassionately and dishonestly but always freely acts both compassionately and honestly. An omnipotent creator could have created all men to be completely benevolent and honest. This would not have made them puppets. It would have made them completely benevolent and honest men.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
With respect, I disagree. The scenario you outlined would still mean these beings would not be tested, faced with the choice of obeying or disobeying God. I believe that is what God does with all rational beings, physical or non-corporeal.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
They would be tested and would obey.
People are most predictable when acting freely. If a man is fundamentally honest and we know him well, then we confidently predict that every free choice he makes will be an honest one. Past events have brought about/caused the existence of this honest man. Thus, his free choices have been caused. They are free because they are unconstrained. The only alternative to causality is randomness and a random event cannot have any moral significance.
Paul.
NB: reproductive "interests" differ sharply between the sexes, in evolutionary terms.
A male can father a -lot- of children; thousands, in fact.
Genetic investigation has shown a lot of 'bottlenecks' in the Y-chromosome lines of descent -- episodes when one male or a small related group father enormous numbers of children.
10% of Asia is descended from Genghis Khan/Temujin. Moulay Ismail, ruler of Morocco in the late 17th-earth 18th century, had somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 living offspring when he died.
And throughout history there were smaller-scale versions of this.
We're all the descendants of those guys.
Conversely, a woman's potential offspring are far, far less numerous -- 13/14 is the upper limit, and even that's a distinct threat to her health.
So she has a bigger investment in each one.
A good deal of the interaction between the sexes in any human culture is attributable to this.
Paul: nobody is 100% consistent in their behaviors.
To mention one of the "lesser Genghis" types, Charles II of England had 11 children that we know of who lived to adulthood; most of them produced substantial families of their own.
But his wife had none (she was unable to conceive, apparently) and none of his many mistresses had more than 3.
Nearly a fifth of the population of England in Charles' reign had no children at all.
No one is 100% consistent but we confidently predict that a Gandhian saint who lives and breathes his philosophy will not reflexively lash out and kick a dog that bites him whereas an aggressive drunk with a short fuse will.
When we consider "free will" of creatures in relation to a hypothetical omnipotent, omniscient creator, the creatures will be 100% knowable/predictable to omniscience. An omnipotent creator will not only know but have created every single motivation and impulse within the psyche of the creature. So the creator will bear responsibility for every action of the creature like an author with his characters.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: I still disagree. I believe, as a matter of divine revelation, that the First Man was created good--and was given a test involving a real choice, a real temptation, and given every opportunity to not fail that test, and still did.
Mr, Stirling: I love these short essays you give us! But, I am not sure you are right about Charles II's wife. My understanding is Queen Katherine of Portugal conceived several times but miscarried all of them.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But that is very Fundamentalist. A First Man created good and given a choice? CS Lewis believed that. The author of a book of nineteenth century American Catholic apologetics that I read believed it. But surely the evidence is that humanity evolved and that the earliest human beings were concerned with survival within the natural environment where they were surrounded by predators. They were not in a Paradisal state where their survival was guaranteed and they could concern themselves with a moral choice - presented directly to them by their creator?
But, philosophically: in this context, the meaning of "good" includes "motivated to obey his creator." "Every opportunity" includes the moral strength and will power to resist any temptation. It is entirely up to the creator whether anything that is presented as a temptation can in fact tempt the individual concerned. There are certain acts that I cannot be tempted to do because I find them repugnant. A creator would be entirely in control of what a first man found attractive/tempting and what he found repugnant/unthinkable. Only if the creator made the man such that the attractiveness of disobedience was greater than the strength of his will to resist the temptation would the man disobey. A creator who is both omnipotent and omniscient is by definition in control of everything that happens including every action of his creatures. They act freely in the sense that they are unconstrained. Their actions come from them. They come from their creator.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree, because Catholic Christianity IS fundamentalist in the TRUE sense sense of that word. Also, you are discussing evolution in what I believe is an erroneously materialist way. I'll quote a brief explanation of the Catholic view of evolution from page 136 of Fr. John Hardon's POCKET CATHOLIC DICTIONARY (Image/Doubleday: 1980, 1985): "EVOLUTION. The theory that something was or is in a state of necessary development. Materialistic evolution assumes the eternal existence of uncreated matter and then explains the emergence of all living creatures, of plants, animals, and human beings, both body and soul, through a natural evolutionary process. This is contrary to Christian revelation. Theistic evolution is compatible with Christianity provided it postulates the special divine providence as regards the human body and the separate creation of each human soul." And Fr. Hardon gave a much longer discussion of evolution in his book THE CATHOLIC CATECHISM. Additionally, the late St. John Paul II declared in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in, I think 1996, that so much evidence had accumulated supporting evolution that it could no longer be thought merely a theory.
Additionally, again, I believe the miracles recorded at Lourdes can be most simply explained as acts of divine intervention, and is thus evidence the supernatural is real. You are free to attempt finding strained, convoluted, complicated materialistic explanations for them, of course.
And I stand by what I said about the Catholic view of free will. On some matters no agreement is going to be possible.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I accept a materialist account of evolution by mutation and natural selection. Occam's Razor.
I will not attempt to find strained, convoluted or complicated explanations of phenomena that have not been explained yet.
When I choose an item from a menu, I am conscious that I was not constrained to choose it and in that sense could have chosen otherwise but this is compatible with my having been caused to choose that particular item. Alternatively, the choice might result from a random neural interaction in my brain. Either way, I am free if unconstrained but not in the absolute sense dictated by the traditional notion of free will. God, if He exists, controls causes and random (to us) events.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I believe in THEISTIC evolution, which can also make use of mutation and natural selection. Fr. Gregor Mendel's pioneering work in genetics comes to mind.
I think many people who deny or ignore what are, to me and many others, the obvious implications of Lourdes do so because they don't want to be forced to think it's at least possible materialism is not true.
Amusing, but I don't think most of us engage in philosophical analyses of restaurant menus! But, I believe what is most likely to be true, because of quantum mechanics, is not materialism, but "probabilism" (if that is a real word). That is, we are more likely to choose some items from that menu over others. I am more likely to freely choose item A instead of item B. And I believe God WANTS us to make free choices.
Ad astra! Sean
SEan,
I have many grounds for thinking that materialism is true and that theism is not. Let's just discuss reasons, not accuse others of intellectual dishonesty.
Materialism is the philosophical theory that being determines consciousness, indeed became conscious. It can include probabilism.
Free choice is lack of constraint. What else can it be?
Paul.
Sean,
Do Catholic theologians rely so heavily on Lourdes in polemics?
All of your language is loaded. People "deny" or "ignore"? Some people acknowledge an as yet unexplained phenomenon. Implications are obvious? Only to those who find theistic belief coherent in the first place. (Yes, I know you do but it is necessary to engage in dialogue with people who don't.)
Restaurant menus are exactly the kind of example that analytic philosophers analyse when discussing free will. You COULD have chosen A or B in the sense that no one forced you to choose C but that is fully compatible with previous events having caused you to choose C. The sense of a free choice and of having been able to choose otherwise is fully compatible with causal determinism or with a random element in your choice. Mike tells me that there are experiments in which neurologists detecting brain processes are able to state in advance which of two or more options the subject will choose.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Apologies for my use of loaded language. I don't see how that can be entirely avoided when it comes to fundamental issues.
I simply don't believe in materialism for many reasons. One being that my thoughts, despite originating in a physical brain, are not material. I can have a thought about eating some ice cream, but a thought is not material.
We can agree, at least, that free choice means lack of constraint.
Catholic theologians have discussed miracles, but my discussion of them, and Lourdes, here is entirely my own fault! Because I believe the events recorded there, like a dying man instantaneously cured after being placed in the waters, are most simply explained as divine interventions. And thus contradicts materialism.
Back to restaurant menus. Sometimes, instead of either A or B, I have chosen C, simply to try something different. So I can imagine the subjects of the experiments you mentioned doing precisely that--and thus increasing uncertainty in what the results of those experiments will be. Meaning I remain unconvinced of materialism.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But the biggest problem here is what is meant by "materialism." And, before that, what is meant by "a thought is not material"? A subjectively experienced mental state is qualitatively different from an objectively observed cerebral state. With this I certainly agree. The attempt to understand or explain the relationship between the subjective and the objective is called the mind-body problem and (I think) is the central problem of all philosophy. It is certainly a central problem. Only a mechanical materialist maintains that a mental state is simply identical with or reducible to a cerebral state. A dialectical materialist acknowledges that quantitative changes become qualitative changes. A quantitative change of temperature causes a qualitative change from liquid to gas. A quantitative change of wavelength causes a qualitative change of colour. Naturally selected organismic sensitivity to environmental alterations quantitatively increased until it was qualitatively changed into conscious sensation. If it is acknowledged that thoughts originate in a physical brain, that is all that is required by dialectical materialism.
Instant cures are most simply explained as divine interventions only if it is already agreed that there is a divine to intervene.
The experimenters apparently predict the choice, whichever choice is made.
Paul.
I usually say that sensitivity is "qualitatively transformed" into conscious sensation. Consciousness is a property of an organism but is qualitatively different from those directly observable and measurable properties that we usually call "physical." Neurons can be described without attributing consciousness to them but we infer consciousness from behaviour and we know what consciousness is because we are conscious. "We know consciousness" means "we are conscious of consciousness." Consciousness is indefinable. It is an emergent quality of being.
We don't need to define it because we directly experience it, i.e., we are directly conscious of it.
Post a Comment