No human will according to science?

[Stevil]

I'm not sure about "all research" Thumpa and others have refereed to randomness of atomic decay, I can't say I understand this.

I'm no scientist and have not explored this but to my mind atomic decay makes perfect sense. There is no such this as perpetual energy. Over time atoms lose energy, when they lose too much energy they must decay. Over a huge amount of time if no construction tools are offered (e.g. stars, absorption of energy from external source) these things will decay from particles to non particle state energy.

[Stevil]

I'm not sure that proves no free will.

Some free will would be incredibly difficult to prove. You can not take a snapshot of a person and environment, let them operate, record the results, reset the person and environment back to the exact same state as the snapshot let them operate, record a second set of results and then compare the results.
For the results to be different you would assume some random factor to be in effect. Is that random factor "free will"?

A lot of people make their decisions based on their values (morals for a believer), as well as their understanding of a situation and how it pertains to their values. When decisions are based on values they are generally made with haste, when decisions are made with much investigation and consideration it is possible that values are reassessed, re-prioritised or changed, either that or the problem had high complexity and needed investigation to be sufficiently understood.

So a pertinent question would be:
Does the process of an investigation or the process of assessing ones values involve free will or is it simply implementing a rule set that has been established?

I think it is likely in the hypothetical above that the results of the two snapshots would be exactly the same.

An argument against this hypothetical would be that the free will is an expression of the person so the test would need a different person to validate free will.
So in another ridiculously impossible hypothetical we would install the snapshot onto a different person. Everything would be the same except for the person (soul for a believer).
My question here is where is the rule set stored? Is this within the material brain or within the person (soul)?
If this is within the brain then the compared results would be exactly the same.
If this is within the person (soul) then they would likely be different.

If the rule set is within the person (soul) can this rule set be changed and how?

BTW I think total free will is impossible due to the influence of genetics, environment, culture, language, upbringing, schooling, health, other external influences

[Stevil]

About religion being intolerant or whatsoever, I completely disagree....
You read a book about women in Saudi Arabia and you concluded that it must be Islam..

The book I read was one female's experiences and her derived point of view of the treatment of women within Arabic and Islamic society. Not just Saudi Arabia but also Pakistan, Iran and other places, she often referred to the Qu'ran and the Hadith as source material. However this book expressed to me one person's point of view and I never take one point of view to be the whole truth. The reason why I bought the book is because I wanted to know more about the Islamic culture as I don't think the point of view expressed on the News or on western movies is accurate because they like to use the shocking and the attention getting stuff as this is what attracts the audience. I don't think it is political propaganda but simply what sells best.

I follow the Qur'an and the Sunnah, do you see me being intolerant?

I have not made a judgment based assessment of you.

[iSok]

If we just look at materialism. Then we are absolutely nothing more than a mass of atoms continuesly replaced and at the subject of nature.
We don't even 'exist', there's no free will.
Theoretically future events can be predicted, and you can't change the past.
An amazing illusion nonetheless that we humans posses a free will.


The other part, is the UNBELIEVABLE organisation out there. Personally it even more confirms the existence of God.
Basically someway all the matter, every particle in the universe knows it job and what to do for some reason.
The time, and angle of every particle is perfect when it bumps into another one.
It isn't chaos, it's perfectly ordered, perfection beyond our wildest dreams and intellect.

If I just take a look at a common housefly, I can think about it for hours and hours.
How do those zillions of particles perfectly do their job? It's like perfect teamwork, like a theatre.
Till the day that, that teamwork has to stop. And every particle in it's body is releases to form elsewhere another creation.
I really feel utterly humble when I think about it.

Beyond all this, everyone of us looks different, even if we are from the same race.
You could say DNA, but how come DNA forms this way? And that ATCG is the reason for this code.
But ATCG consists then again of different amino-acids..which again come from moleculs....atoms..nucleus...neutrons...quarks...etc...
 What is the driving mechanism? How do they know to do this?

Or the day, that we will die has already been settled. There's no escape from it.
For me personally, it explains very well some verses in the Qur'an which always looked strange to me.

[Stevil]

If we just look at non-materialism. Then we would have to try and understand what is non-materialism. This would be concepts only and no physicality or existence.
Non materialism is non existence. If god and the human soul are non material then they do not exist, they are purley conceptual.

[Whitney]

If we just look at materialism. Then we are absolutely nothing more than a mass of atoms continuesly replaced and at the subject of nature.
We don't even 'exist', there's no free will.
Theoretically future events can be predicted, and you can't change the past.
An amazing illusion nonetheless that we humans posses a free will.

I'm failing to see why this matters in respect to if a god exists....btw, good job using a 'random' thought about free will to set people up for the rest of your attempt to prove god...that was very, well, dishonest.

The other part, is the UNBELIEVABLE organisation out there. Personally it even more confirms the existence of God.Basically someway all the matter, every particle in the universe knows it job and what to do for some reason.
The time, and angle of every particle is perfect when it bumps into another one.
It isn't chaos, it's perfectly ordered, perfection beyond our wildest dreams and intellect.

You not understanding how things work doesn't make anyone else have a reason to think a god did it; nor should it be a reason for you to make such an assumption...it just means there are things you don't understand.

If I just take a look at a common housefly, I can think about it for hours and hours.
How do those zillions of particles perfectly do their job? It's like perfect teamwork, like a theatre.
Till the day that, that teamwork has to stop. And every particle in it's body is releases to form elsewhere another creation.
I really feel utterly humble when I think about it.

Yes, it is interesting to think about and quite amazing...but it's not like there isn't a scientific explanation for how something could become complex without evoking magic.

Beyond all this, everyone of us looks different, even if we are from the same race.
You could say DNA, but how come DNA forms this way? And that ATCG is the reason for this code.
But ATCG consists then again of different amino-acids..which again come from moleculs....atoms..nucleus...neutrons...quarks...etc...
 What is the driving mechanism? How do they know to do this?

Again, more stuff you simply don't know but you could learn about if you studied.

Or the day, that we will die has already been settled. There's no escape from it.

so what?  predetermined date or not we are all going to die some day.  basic fact of life.

For me personally, it explains very well some verses in the Qur'an which always looked strange to me.

so you not understanding stuff makes the quran make more sense....that can't possibly be a good thing.

[DJAkuma]

In the end its all just positive and negative, things may look like they are complex and must be put together in some intelligent way but it's really all just attraction of two basic opposing forces. When you look closely enough you see that everything follows that simple rule.

[hackenslash]

I often think about this, for example if the whole world can be explained
by materialism, so God would play no part and won't even exist.

Unless, of course, god is material. Is your conception of god so narrow as to not include the possibility that he might be material?

Then wouldn't that mean that we are senseless robots, you might think 'ehh....are you deluted [sic]?'.

Why would it mean that we are senseless robots? We clearly have senses, so at least part of your predicate is falsified.

I'll try to explain.

That would be good. Can't wait.

We as humans still do not know what the most tiny particle is, we are already far beyond quarks.

Err, no. Quarks is as far as we've gotten yet. It could be that quarks are made of vibrating strings, or some other such esoterica we haven't elucidate yet, but at the moment, quarks is it, although we have particles that aren't made of quarks, namely electrons, which currently appear to be fundamental. The beauty of science, as opposed to unsupported wibble, is that it is open to change. The simple fact that you think that your wibble is the final word on anything is, contrary to your belief, actually a point against it. If it cannot be changed, it is invalid from a scientific perspective. Only that which is open to falsification can be accepted as reasonable. Anything unfalsifiable is, by definition, useless and unscientific.

If science says, that every thought, every motion in your brain, is a consequence of
particular chemical reactions. Then how did those reactions start? And what action triggered that? And what action triggered that? and so on...and on..and on....
This would mean, that what my thoughts are at moment, the 'universe' already knew it 5 billion years ago.

Well, if the universe were entirely deterministic, you might actually be right. The only problem is that we can actually demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that the universe doesn't fit this model. It isn't entirely deterministic. Of course, if you had paid any attention in your class on quantum mechanics, youo'd already know that your argument here is an ignorant strawman caricature of what the valid science actually says. The universe is not, indeed can not, be deterministic in the sense that you are describing here.

I will be happy to give you a course in the implications of quantum mechanics in order to address your abject ignorance with regard to this field of enquiry, the area of science that actually provides you with the means to erect this drivel on this forum.

Because my thoughts are created because of certain chemical particles, those chemical particles already existed 5 billion years ago.

Ooh, I think you actually learned something of value! Yes, the energy/matter that makes up your brain did exist 5 billion, and 13.7 billion years ago, and probably a lot longer, although that latter is uncertain.

Does this make sense? Every action has a rection, and that leads to another action, so basically if we just go by science, everything has already been pre-destined?

Oh dear. Still stuck in Laplace, are we? Science has moved on a fair bit since then. Clearly, though, apologetics hasn't.

Where are the 'headquarters' of the human will? And what controlls that headquarter? Is there any 'headquarter'?

Well, if the universe is deterministic, the n humans don;'t actually have any will, free or otherwise.

As it happens, I think that free will is an illusion, although I don't necessarily think that that means that the universe is deterministic. You might want to do some research on a phenomenon known as 'priming'.

Here's a short video as an introduction:

[youtube:3qslnbik]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1OVhlRpwJc[/youtube:3qslnbik]

That would mean that the particle that will cause your DNA in a certain cell to mutate, which means you will get cancer is already on it's journey
to reach you in a year or 15 so. And nothing is going to stop that particle, because every thought you have has already been pre-destined?

Whoah! Holy non-sequitur, Batman!

Certainly, nothing is going to stop that particle, but what does that have to do with thought? And indeed, what has that to do with the effect that that particle will have? Have you even heard of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle?

Even what I'm doing now, was already pre-destined.
Basically everything you do, whatever you think.

dealt with. Read up.

And in the midst of this chaos of billions and trillions of particles flying everywhere, we don't suddenly fall apart or decompose?

Oh, but we do, dear boy! Indeed, it could be argued that decomposition is precisely what we are doing from the age of 21 when we reach the growth cap. The imperfections in celle regeneration that cause aging are precisely equivalent to decomposition. Perhaps when you get to my age, and your back creaks, and your knees creak, and you really start to feel the weight of the years, you'll begin to understand. And I'm a fairly youthful 41 years old!

And somehow humanity advances through technology? Why do we advance?

Perhaps you've heard of this thing called learning? It means that we can pick up what our ancestors discovered and, not havng to go through the entire discovery process from scratch, we can apply what they learned and discover things they, including the ignorant, semi-literate, bronze-age nomads who wrote your holy books, couldn't even dream about. Could the moron who wrote your book, even being one of the shining intellects of his day, have elucidated quantum tunneling, which allows you to shower us all in his silly botty-water in the manner that you seem wont to do?

That would mean that small particles change their behaviour...

No. The particles behave the same. Agglomerations of those particles, however, display emergent behaviour. 'Emergent' is a good word to look up. I find that it is a very difficult word for the credulous to grasp, and it's a pretty important word when dealing with both consciousness and the cosmos.

It makes no sense...What is the source of our intelligence?

Argument from incredulity. The source of our intelligence is:

1. Accumulation of neurons
2. Accumulation of synaptic connections
3. Accumulation of experience

You talk as if intelligence is something special. Indeed, to us, it is, but only because that's the strategy our species alighted upon. What is special about it? What's special about the echolocation of bats? What's special about the sonar of whales? What's special about the ocular capacity of eagles?

From the perspective of the organism possessing those capabilities, they're all special. In reality, though, they're all just strategies, and tolls imparted by evolution. Nothing special abouot them when you look at it from the correct perspective.

For example.

I decide for a certain reason to punch you in your face.

- My brains will send particles to my muscles
- I'll punch you
- You'll feel pain, because particles send a signal to your brain.
- You'll feel angry, because certain particles tell you to do so.

What I mean, there is a never ending action - reaction, something we can't get our grip on.

Ah, you would love to erect the Kalam Cosmological argument here, I can tell. Just get it over with, and we can kick it into touch. I know a good deal more about this argument than you do, and I also know a good deal more about cosmology. First cause arguments do not help your case, because I can demonstrate that that argument applies equally to your deity, while at least the root of my causality is at least something that can actually be demonstrated to exist.

If you want to go down this road, go for it, but it will be a short argument, and you will ultimately be embarassed.

Simply because we are a product of that process accroding to science.
So we as humans have nothing to say, and we can even calculate in the near feature what happened in the past
and what will happen in the future. By just making trillions calculations of particulars coliding, and looking what way they will go.

Nope, because the universe is not deterministic. Read above. Already dealt with this guff.

Another example, so why did life on Earth start?

Why? Invalid and loaded question. Assumes a reason. Circular. No more need be said about this.

If it happened just by chance,

It didn't happen by chance, but through well-defined natural mechanisms.

if it did..

It didn't.

Then why do we continue to progress?

Perhaps you've heard of this thing... It's called evolution.

Bored now. Skip to end.

Now, does this make sense? Or should I start taking pills?

Pills it is, then.

Edit: Tags

[iSok]

I'm failing to see why this matters in respect to if a god exists....btw, good job using a 'random' thought about free will to set people up for the rest of your attempt to prove god...that was very, well, dishonest.

I wanted to know if you people ever thought about this. Before I presented as a PERSONAL evidence for God.

You not understanding how things work doesn't make anyone else have a reason to think a god did it; nor should it be a reason for you to make such an assumption...it just means there are things you don't understand.

No one does, but pre-destintion is pretty much certain.
You don't know the answer either why it works, so you don't assume anything.
But you do know for some reason one thing; 'No way it can be God!!'.

Yes, it is interesting to think about and quite amazing...but it's not like there isn't a scientific explanation for how something could become complex without evoking magic.

Science seems to be holy from you. Everything should be measured by science.
You can even be dreaming at the moment and not knowing it.

Again, more stuff you simply don't know but you could learn about if you studied.

Whitney, no one on the entire world knows what I would like to know.
I want to know why particles decided to create life, what triggered them?
And why do these particles still continue? Why are they organised in a certain way?

For me the whole world, the universe seems a perfect play.
Not just life, but the way galaxy's develop, stars form and eventually end.
Why does matter move in this way and act this way? What is the blueprint?

so what?  predetermined date or not we are all going to die some day.  basic fact of life.

Not SOME day, but A day.

so you not understanding stuff makes the quran make more sense....that can't possibly be a good thing.

I couldn't see the evidence of certain verses. I can quote them if you want too.


@Hackinator, if you want me to respond, you can atleast try to leave your 'great' attitude out of your posts.

[Whitney]

iSok...if you are going to consider studying the world around us objectively in order to understand it (aka science) "holy" then you are a waste of all of our time.

[hackenslash]

Glad to see you're still here. Please address my last post. The Kalam evisceration awaits.

[iSok]

iSok...if you are going to consider studying the world around us objectively in order to understand it (aka science) "holy" then you are a waste of all of our time.

What do you mean, can you explain?

[Stevil]

I want to know why particles decided to create life, what triggered them?

Particles don't decide anything, don't try and put a personality on to them. This would be an attempt at mythology.

And why do these particles still continue? Why are they organised in a certain way?

Forces - gravity for example

[iSok]

Glad to see you're still here. Please address my last post. The Kalam evisceration awaits.

Read my post above and post a new reply.

[iSok]

Forces - gravity for example

But gravity is also the cause of mass..particles. And what else 'triggers' them?