(08 Aug 2023, 17:03 )Lancer Wrote: [ -> ]I think this argument is a little strawman tbh, though I am an atheist and obviously biased I feel you give us an unreasonable philosophy to stand by.
You may
feel that, but it's the logical outcome of the atheistic position*. Plenty of atheists (and not just atheists) of course do at least say they believe we don't have free will. You can put it in syllogistic form if you prefer:
Premise 1: There is nothing supernatural.
Premise 2: All things are subject at all times to the laws of physics.
Premise 3: The laws of physics are ordered.
Conclusion: A clockwork universe.
Unless one or more of the above premises is false, the conclusion must
inevitably follow from them, just like 2+2=4.
Now, what to do with this knowledge? I think there are three basic options:
1. Accept it and embrace nihilism. Few people actually do this, for obvious reasons.
2. Ignore it and live your life. Most people will do this, much like how rarely people act on the
certain knowledge that they will, one day, die.
3. Reject it and find a model that permits free will etc. Probably that involves religion or spiritualism in some form or other, although you can also find esoteric alternatives in the fringes of physics and such.
(08 Aug 2023, 17:03 )Lancer Wrote: [ -> ]simply put no action occurs without energy and energy doesn't get created from literal nothingness, if it appears to do so we simply don't understand it enough to know what energy it pulls from.
Well, there's the big bang, though maybe you consider that cheating as regards getting something from nothing.
(08 Aug 2023, 17:03 )Lancer Wrote: [ -> ]However randomness does exist or close enough, try spinning a coin, when it eventually stops and lands on its side (or rarely stays vertical) it is practically random which side it ends up on, if you spun it enough times (assuming no vertical) it will be 50 50. If we model the physics involved accurately we can know 100% which side the coin will land on. It's just that in our everyday lives we don't have the ability to model it well enough to predict what side it will land on.
While we are bound by the laws of physics/reality and from a omnipotent perspective would seem very predictable the reality we live in doesn't make that so easy, we can see how the major events shape who we are but not the smaller events underpinning our choices.
Sure, but the fact that we cannot model something does not mean it is not entirely predictable. It's just a case of acting AS IF something is random, even though it's not. Below is a great interview of Richard Turner, a genius when it comes to manipulating playing cards. For you and I, if we shuffle a deck we accept it's "basically random" ... for him it's really not.
[video=youtube]
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVDwKxlcx-4[/video]
(Also, just watch it anyway, it's a real eye-opener.)
(08 Aug 2023, 17:03 )Lancer Wrote: [ -> ]Attempting to follow any ideology which espouses that your fate or actions are fixed is ultimately pointless as we don't know what actions are the fixed/correct path.
The fixed/correct path is the one that actually takes place, of course. No other one was actually possible to begin with.
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* Sort of. You see, the atheistic position is almost always predicated on an orderly universe based on universe laws of physics that apply everywhere, AND that we can discern what those laws are through observation and experimentation. But if your mind & your senses are just something that evolved to help you survive, how can you trust your senses to accurately report to your mind the state of reality? After all, your senses might be reporting what is in evolutionary terms most advantageous to survival & reproduction, not what is most accurate... and you have no way of telling because you cannot trust your mind or your senses. It turns out that throwing out all supernatural phenomena means building a house of straw on a foundation of sand, with both a wolf & a big storm on the way 😋 .