Comments on: Am I a Physicalist?

By: Clark

Clark — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:52:56 +0000

To add, I think that in classical “absolutist” Christianity that God has the power to make something he can’t know. Indeed that is necessary if God can create free will. The Calvinists, who reject LFW also reject that he can do this. Although this to me points to a certain ambiguity in the meaning of omnipotence regarding as logical omnipotence.

Interestingly I have a post coming out hopefully later today that is half finished responding to an Evangelical philosopher critic of Mormonism on this very point.

By: Clark

Clark — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:44:42 +0000

That’s a very different question – but perhaps not that applicable to most Mormons since we reject creation ex nihilo and thus classic senses of omnipotence.

By: Michael Dorfman

Michael Dorfman — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:54:19 +0000

Leaving free will out of the equation for the moment: suppose I flip a coin, and it comes up “heads”. Is that chance, or did God cause it to come up heads? If it is chance, did God know in advance it would be heads? Is there any meaningful way to speak about “chance” or “randomness” if one believes in a (reasonably) omnipotent and omniscient God?

By: Blake

Blake — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:18:08 +0000

Clark: “Now the only states that randomness can pick are those not accessable to LFW ”

I have no idea what this could mean. How could randomness pick anything since the act of picking is goal directed behavior?

By: Clark

Clark — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:35:26 +0000

There is chance in chaos that isn’t directed by intelligence. There just isn’t a free act that organizes data based on intelligence that looks like chance to an all-knowing being.

Now there are two ways of seeing this. Either God knows by direct intuition what relations hold between events and does not know via events and their effects. However when I offered that choice to you you didn’t take it. Instead you said that the effects of a free choice are different from the effects of a random choice. That is their effect in the universe can not be identical. But that means that randomness is inherently limited in what it can produce – i.e. any state achievable by LFW.

To make a loose analogy consider a die on a table. I can pick it up and place a number or it can be rolled. Now the only states that randomness can pick are those not accessable to LFW (as this is required for the distinction you raise). But then means that there isn’t any randomness in this situation at all.

By: Blake

Blake — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:07:04 +0000

Clark: “Regarding chance, if you are talking ontological chance then I confess I find several of your comments even more mysterious.”

Why so? Which ones?

By: Clark

Clark — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:46:20 +0000

I recognize that’s what you’re trying to argue (that I can’t know with my ontology) but you’ve not come close to establishing it. That’s why I asked about some premise you are holding that perhaps isn’t self-evident.

Regarding chance, if you are talking ontological chance then I confess I find several of your comments even more mysterious.

By: Blake

Blake — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:36:20 +0000

Clark: Boy, I’m going to wait for you show that my views are non-sense.

I agree that there can be an difference between ontological randomness and what appear to be coincidences epistemologically. I am always talking ontological randomness – and there can be ontological coincidence as well. Indeed, favorable genetic mutations are such coincidences.

You want to make a distinction between ontology and epistemology. Fine. My point is that given your ethical ontology, we cannot know what is right and wrong even if there is such a right and wrong. My further point is that you have nothing to ontologically ground right and wrong.