which is as I said. — Wayfarer

No, it isn't. You said this is what Plantinga was saying: "if all mental life—including reason—is understood solely in terms of material and efficient causes, then we’ve undermined the very basis on which we make rational inferences."

My objection to HIS ARGUMENT stands.

I've spelled it out in depth and detail. To recap: physics is based on a useful abstraction, which has yielded enormous physical powers, but at the expense of excluding fundamental aspects of human existence. — Wayfarer

Then explain what you meant by this:

life and consciousness are not anomalies to be explained away—they’re clues to what physicalist ontology has left out. — Wayfarer

Life seems anomolous to me, because it's a very rare, and miniscule part of the universe. What facts am I overlooking?

Elaborate on these "clues". What conclusions do you think I should draw from this? How should it influence my philosophical analysis? Does this somehow entail teleology? The problem (IMO) is that it's a negative fact (what consciousness is NOT), rather than a positive fact that has broader relevance.

What I'm suspicious of is using it as an excuse to embrace some spirituality paradigm. I'm fine with other people doing that, for whatever benefits it gives them, but I see no relevance to me.

This explains our rules on a societal level but it does not explain why we praise or blame people on a personal level. — A Christian Philosophy

Because of our moral sensibilities- the emotions we feel when considering the acts.

In other words, we reward and penalize certain behaviours as a form of conditioning, like training dogs to behave a certain way. — A Christian Philosophy

Do dogs have moral sensibilities? Do they have empathy? Do they have vicarious experiences? Do they have moral beliefs? I don't think so, and this means it's extrememy different.

Conceiving valid thought experiments is not impossible. For one thing, we don't need to simulate every factor.. — A Christian Philosophy

You're making excuses for treating the thought experiments as evidence for ontological contingency. "It seems like we could have chosen differently, therefore we could have chosen differently."

We would absolutely need to duplicate it with 100% accuracy- an impossibility. No thought experiment is actually winding the clock back to the exact mental conditions at the time the thought processes occurred.

Additionally, as described in the video, we perceive freedom differently between cases with only one type of motive (e.g. ice cream vs ice cream) and cases with multiple types of motives (e.g. ice cream vs charity). In the latter, we perceive to be free, where as in the former, we do not. — A Christian Philosophy

Your scenario is contrived is ridiculously simplistic and it ASSUMES what you're trying to prove: LFW. You erroneously assume moral "motives" can't exist under compatibilism, you ignore the many complex factors involved with developing our various tastes, wants, and even our beliefs about morality. I described some of the details on my last post, and you simply ignored it. Did you even read it?

I can only grant you that LFW came from something other than deterministic laws. — A Christian Philosophy

This is problematic, because there's no evidence of any causally efficacious factors in the world that are NOT deterministic, except for quantum indeterminacy (which you rejected). But if QI is involved with mental processes, it only introduces randomness. So there's no basis to support the claim that we are somehow a source of ontological contingency. This is exactly the reason compatibilism was developed, to show that the perception of free will was compatible with determinism.

As a side note, would you not agree that an OG would necessarily have LFW? — A Christian Philosophy

Of course not. There's no reason to think an OG has the capacity for intentional behavior and to make decisions.

Can you further explain what you mean by "initiate"? — A Christian Philosophy

I don't know what you're looking for, because it seems self-evident. So it would be best if you describe the process as you perceive it during the act, . Needless to say, don't assume LFW in your description, because that's a post-hoc interpretation. IOW, describe what you are thinking, and the relation between your conscious thoughts and your brain stimulating the nerves in your arm that makes it perform the action.

What Plantinga argues is not that evolution couldn’t produce minds, but that if all mental life—including reason—is understood solely in terms of material and efficient causes, then we’ve undermined the very basis on which we make rational inferences. — Wayfarer

That is not Plantinga's EAAN. Plantinga argues that evolution selects for behavior, not reliable belief. The Wikipedia article I linked to summarizes it, or you could read this paper by Plantinga.

I will always reference what previous philosophers have said — Wayfarer

Why are you so reluctant to state what you actually believe? The only thing that's clear is that you believe materialism is false. Please describe what you DO believe. Reference philosophers to explain your position, if necesary - but please describe your position- even if it's open ended (e.g everything except materialisn is a life possibility)

where do you believe the meaning lies? — NOS4A2

Meaning is within minds. By writing this response, my objective is to reproduce the meanings from my mind into yours. Of course, this depends on you reading it - and you may interpret it a bit differently than I intend, because you bring a different interpretive framework to the table.

I am treating eternal as very big so to speak, but not infinite — Punshhh

Is "existing at all times" consistent with your view? This would preclude a caused object from existing eternally.

saying I’m wrong is a bit hasty — Punshhh

This statement was wrong: "There is no escape from infinite regression". I provided the escape- an epistemic reason a person might reject an infinite regress. You apparently aren't persuaded by this, and that's fine - because the "escape" is not a proof of impossibility.

I am suggesting that infinity only exists as a concept, a concept in the mind of humans. — Punshhh

I agree, but it is a useful concept.

as to the question of is there more than this physical world. I would think it highly unlikely that there isn’t. Simply because in the grand scheme of things, we are insignificant and our newly found powers of reason have only worked with what we have found in front of us when we each came to be in this world. It would be rather grandiose for us to conclude — Punshhh

I agree there is likely to be more to reality than we can possibly observe or infer through physics. However, it seems to me that we can't justify believing in anything specific that is beyond that which is accessible - other than the fact you stated.

So - magical? Well, I think not, but something even greater in some respects — Wayfarer

This is what I see as an enormous problem in your position. It depends on uncritically accepting the existence of magic (or "something even greater"). I've seen no justification for this other than arguments from authority (the ancients had this view) and arguments from ignorance (physicalism's explanatory gap). You will disagree with this characterization, so I ask that you (if you choose to respond) that you explain your justification, for whatever it is that you believe, in positive terms- without reference to what philosophers have said.

Obviously organisms must respond adaptively to their environment in order to survive. But that’s a long way from showing that evolution accounts for rationality of the kind required for abstract thought and language or theoretical science — Wayfarer

I wasn't trying show that evolution necessarily accounts for rationality, I was identifying the glaring flaw in Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN). ,

"The EAAN argues that the combined belief in both evolutionary theory and naturalism is epistemically self-defeating. The argument for this is that if both evolution and naturalism are true, then the probability of having reliable cognitive faculties is low, which then destroys any reason to believe in evolution or naturalism in the first place, as the cognitive faculties one used to deduce evolution or naturalism as logically valid are no longer reliable."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_argument_against_naturalism

I’m not aware of people claiming the “God” is uncaused. They say God is eternal. — Punshhh

Google "Kalam Cosmological Argument" - a "first cause" argument for God. Yes, they universally believe God is eternal: existing at all times, past and future.

There is no escape from infinite regression, this is a peculiarity of human thought, there is no plausible likelihood that infinity can be considered external to the human mind. So this whole preoccupation with infinity is a human preoccupation around this peculiarity. It’s turtles all the way down remember — Punshhh

You're wrong. An infinite series of causes is avoided by assuming a first cause. An infinite series of layers of reality is avoided by assuming a bottom layer. These are what metaphysical foundationalism is all about.

It seems more plausible that there are no ultimate grounds out there, only relatively ultimate grounds. That this also recedes into eternity, seems much more plausible to me. — Punshhh

That's a personal choice. But here's the issue: an infinite series exists without explanation: each individual cause is explained by a prior cause, but the series as a whole is unexplained.

where you say plausible, presumably this is plausible to our limited minds which are designed to operate in this physical world we find ourselves in. So there is a kind of implicit bias there. — Punshhh

Our limited minds are the only minds we know exist, and we are utilizing these minds to speculate and judge the nature of existence. Is there more than this physical world? It's possible, but there's no way to know. So we speculate and apply reason. Different people accept different answers. No one can be proven right or wrong.

Because we are the phenomenon. — Wayfarer

We are one phenomenon. The other 99.99999999...% of the universe needs to fit into the ontology.

meaning, value, and purpose... are... constitutive of [life]. So when physicalism tries to "explain" life, it ends up trying to reconstruct the very things it had to exclude to get started. — Wayfarer

Chemistry brackets out quantum field theory. Meteorology brackets out fluid dynamics. Functional entities interact with their functional environments. The fact that the study of science is divided into disciplines doesn't imply reductionism is false, so I don't consider your point to be at all problematic.

life and consciousness are not anomalies to be explained away—they’re clues to what physicalist ontology has left out. — Wayfarer

Explained away? Explanatory gaps are...gaps. Indeed, they are rationalized, but that isn't explaining them away. The gap isn't a "clue" to anything other than possibilities. You can plug in some explanation - even immaterial ones, and you can't be proven wrong, but I'm skeptical you can justify embracing anything specific - there's no basis to exclude anything.

Start with ... taking the phenomena of life seriously,... as real indications of the nature of reality. The burden of proof doesn't rest solely with those who insist that life exhibits intrinsic purposiveness. The burden also falls on those who deny it—especially when their models can’t account for meaning, agency, or value except by explaining them away. — Wayfarer

"Burden of proof" applies to efforts to sway opinion. The only objective "burden" is to justify one's beliefs. There' a lot of room for people with contrary justified beliefs to disagree,

I believe materialism is justified on the basis that it provides the best explation for all the uncontroversial facts of the world. Best in terms of answering more questions, and in terms of parsimony. Parsimony is a good reason to deny what is superfluous.

Accounting for meaning, agency, and value isn't that problematic, other than the complexity of a reductive account. Qualia are more problematic, but because they are causally efficacious, the only real issue with them is the nature of their presentation to the mind. I acknowlege this as an explanatory gap.

If physicalism treats intelligibility as an accidental byproduct of blind processes, then it risks undermining the rational basis of its own claims. This concern is related to what some have called the argument from reason (C.S. Lewis) or the evolutionary argument against naturalism (Alvin Plantinga): namely, that if our minds are solely the product of non-rational forces, we have little reason to trust their capacity for reason—including our belief in physicalism itself. — Wayfarer

I strongly disagree. Plantinga's argument is fatally flawed. In order to survive, every organism needs a functionally accurate perception of its environment to successfully interact with it. Primitive rationality is exhibited when animals adapt there hunting behavior when necessary, doing things that work instead of those that don't. The evolution of abstract reasoning would have been an evolutionary dead end leading to extinction, if it worsened our ability to interact with the environment.

Yes, it’s vague when stated like that—but vagueness here may be appropriate considering the scale and subtlety of the question. What matters is that it opens a conceptual space between mechanistic materialism and supernatural intervention. — Wayfarer

Vagueness is an explanatory gap. The conceptual space you allude to is extremely wide - and it therefore suggests that no one conceptual guess is better than another, so no specific choice can be justified.

Materialism's narrower explanatory gap could similarly be treated as a conceptual space into which one could insert some more limited immaterial elements, if one is inclined. Similarly, nothing specific can be justified. So I'm fine with the narrow gap materialism provides.

It suggests that intentionality and consciousness may be expressions of something deeper in the fabric of reality, not inexplicable anomalies.

It's a gap, and it opens up a large space of possibilities. Something "deeper" is possible. Something in addition is also possible. How do you justify any specific assumption in the possibility space? I'm suspicious of jumping to egocentric/anthropocentric conclusions, whereas it sounds like you consider this a virtue.

[.

Yes, I would have an emotional reaction to the news. I am disgusted and angry even considering your example. But it is I who evokes the emotion, drawn as they are from my own body and actions, influenced entirely by what I know, think, understand, believe etc. The words are not responsible in any way for what I feel. — NOS4A2

I wasn't proposing any responsibility, I was trying to demonstrate that there can be more to the meaning of words than a dictionary can convey. In this case, the full meaning of "child rape" includes the emotion. This is analogous to the full meaning of "red", which includes the qualitative experience of reddness - that cannot be conveyed with words.

I get it, that you don't accept this framework. I hope you can better understand why I do.

So this indicates to me that a ground of being is “ the very source and foundation of all existence.”(wiki)
Or the role played by a god (in an Abrahamic religion), ie created everything, creating the ground on which we walk. Not a metaphysical ground. — Punshhh

The Bible doesn't depict its God in this way, but modern Christian philosophers accept the "ground of being" of philosophy, because there is just one God (Yahweh).

The post you linked to here seemed to be discussing things about infinite regression. — Punshhh

Right. There's either an infinite regression of ever-smaller parts/of causes/ of explanations - or there is a foundation of all these - the ultimate ground.

I’m only using ground in the terms you used it in the post I replied to. — Punshhh

Then you misunderstood something I said.

These mental processes are not ignored in LFW. They are part of the decision mechanism but they only serve to inform, not compel. — A Christian Philosophy

My point is that the process is identical whether its LFW or Compatibilist. The only difference is that you assume the mind is an actual source of ontological contingency. But you have not established this to be the case through any stated reasoning. You've described your opinion, but not stated an argument that shows why I should accept it.

The mental process serves to predict the end goal of the choice, called motive. If there is no conflict between two types of motive, then the decision mechanism is very much as you described under compatibilism, i.e., the strongest motive wins. But if there a conflict between two types of motive, i.e. pleasure vs moral duty, then the agent is free to choose between the two motives. — A Christian Philosophy

That's totally unconvincing. I take exception with both your terminology and your assumptions.

The mental process I described applies whether or not LFW is true, and you've ignored it in your account and simply repeated your overly simplistic description.

A choice can be before us for a variety of reasons, such as the pursuit of a goal, or entering a forced choice situation that requires choosing an option. The end result of the process isn't a "prediction", it's the decision - and I'm referring to the final decision, often immediately preceding the act. There are often many motivations, not just 1 or 2 "motives". I prefer to call them "dispositions", as a more general term than motive. There are conscious dispositions and subconscious ones. A few examples: a preference of color, a pleasant scent, a sense of pride, a desire for pleasure (sexual, aesthetic, comradery...), and even a disposition to do good, among countless many others. Beliefs are closely tied to dispositions, and are critical to the process because they are essential to the thought process.

Some dispositions are stronger than others, and the relative strengths will fluctuate over even short periods of time (example: mood swings). Same with beliefs: some are more strongly held (more certain) than others, and they also vary in relative importance. Some dispositions and beliefs have emotive qualities, meaning that they may trigger happiness, anger, affection, hatred, pleasure, etc. Every emotion is connected to beliefs and dispositions.

Morals are both dispositions and beliefs. One may be disposed to do good things in general, or specific good things in particular. But what we consider to be "good" entails a belief.

Your description omits all these factors, and I think it's self-evident that something like this is going on.

I'll now interject the compatibilist view of moral accountability that I had deferred.

It is appropriate to hold oneself (or another person) accountable for a bad act because we know he could have chosen not to do it. Here's how he could have: if he had a stronger disposition to do good, a stronger belief that the act is bad, had he considered the consequences, been more empathetic, or if he more strongly believed the "sin" could have eternal consequences, he would not have done it (my list is illustrative, not exhaustive). With oneself, there are lessons learned (new, or strenthened beliefs) from the consequences of the act, so future choices may improve.

With regard to misbehavior by others. social approbation is added- public shame or even punishment. To the degree this is public, the observed process influences members of the public to gain similar lessons learned, vicariously.

So why do we tend to think we could have chosen differently? Because we are reflecting on a past choice based on our new mental context - different state of mind, the benefit of lesson learned, gaining additional knowledge, or considering additional impacts that were previously overlooked. Entertaining these counterfactuals creates an illusion of contingency.
— Relativist

This would explain why we might choose differently after a change of factors, but not why we perceive that we are free to choose for a given set of factors.

Yes it does! It's PRECISELY why we perceive that we could have made a different choice.

To deny this, you would have to assume that fantasizing about a past choice entails a perfect duplication of the mental conditions that led to the decision. If it is NOT perfect, then it is not a valid basis for claiming this is a good reason to believe a different choice was actually possible.

To actually prove free will exists, you would assume the burden to prove God exists.
— Relativist
This is not necessary. The current topic is only to determine whether LFW exists; and we can know that something exists without knowing where it comes from, which is a different topic. Also, many people who believe in LFW do not believe in God. — A Christian Philosophy

OK, let's not assume God. Early in the discussion, you agreed that ontological contingency requires a source of contingency. If there's no God, then human life came to exist as a product of deterministic laws of nature. A deteministic law cannot be a source of ontological contingency. Case closed. This is why I said you needed a God who could create beings that behave with true contingency.

You assume that if A causes B, and B causes C, then B lacks causal efficacy. This is absurd.
— Relativist
I don't dispute that B has causal efficacy. I dispute that B has agency, as agency requires the capacity to initiate an action, and B does not initiate the action. — A Christian Philosophy

It sounds ludicrous to claim I do not initiate the raising of my arm. You've given me no reason to doubt that I am initiating the action. You just seem to make a personal judgement based on a framework you invented.

That framework simply describes what you believe; you've provided no reason for me to accept it. To do that, you would need to show it's superior to other frameworks.

a cosmogony in which the ground of being for an individual being is the body of a greater being and the body of that individual is the ground of being for a lesser being. — Punshhh

This is the opposite of what is meant by a metaphysical ground. See this. A complex object is grounded in its composition, not the reverse.

They're pointing out that organisms actually behave in ways that cannot be made intelligible in purely mechanistic terms. As soon as you describe a cell as regulating its internal state, or an animal as foraging, you're already invoking purpose-laden language—language that tracks something real in the nature of life.
...They're pointing out that organisms actually behave in ways that cannot be made intelligible in purely mechanistic terms. — Wayfarer

Intelligibility means making sense of things, so it still seems to be (just) an epistemological paradigm.

Is it plausible to treat teleological concepts as mere heuristics or metaphors, while denying their ontological basis? — Wayfarer

My questions:
Why assume an ontological basis for the epistemological paradigm?
How do you account for it without a "God" (a being who acts with intent)?

...language that tracks something real in the nature of life. — Wayfarer

But it's "real" only in the sense of it being an accurate description of phenomena in terms we can understand given our capacities and limitations.

Should intelligibility be assumed? Surely the world isn't necessarily intelligible.

perhaps the modern exclusion of telos (and with it, qualities like value, intention, or meaning) from our ontology is not just a simplifying abstraction, but a serious (even catastrophic) omission. — Wayfarer

It's catastrophic only if it's false. Teleonomy accounts for much of the perceived teleology. What I haven't seen is a justification for believing there is ontological teleology. It seems a guess, just like physicalism is a guess - but physicalism strays very little from the known. You deny it entails a God, but it seems to entail something nearly as far-fetched.

Such a God would not be the ground of being.

false dichotomy: either accepting the naturalist, mechanistic account or holding to a creationist or 'intelligent design' cosmology. — Wayfarer

I would suggest looking at telos differently, rather than in terms of a Grand Design presided over by a cosmic architect/engineer (which seems to me like God created in the image of man). — Wayfarer

I don't see that the dichitomy I described is a false one. Even after reading your post, and a good bit of the Talbot article, I could see nothing that implies this to be false. Rather, you and Talbot seem to be arguing for using "teleology" as an epistemological paradigm for describing living things and their interactions. Sure, I see the utility for better understanding biological systems. But this wouldn't negate what I said, in terms of a metaphysical teleology.

Am I misunderstanding ?

What is overlooked in all this, is the sense in which the Galilean-Newtonian view is a useful abstraction, within which life itself now appears as an anomaly, an oddity, something which has to be ‘explained’ in terms which have already intrinsically excluded it. That’s the plight of modern materialism in a nutshell. — Wayfarer

What's a better alternative, and how exactly is it better?

If there is actual teleology in the world, how do you account for it? AFAIK, it entails prior intent; Intent entails a a being with the capacity to formulate and act upon intent. Whether we call this a "God", a trascendental oversoul, or anything else, it strikes me as a rather extreme assumption to think that such a being just happens to exist uncaused. By contrast, the gradual development of beings, somewhere in an old. vast universe, with the capacity for intentional behavior, but considerably more limited powers to act, seems considerably more plausible. As you often note, there are explanatory gaps to this materialist view, but the alternative appear to me to have even more explanatory gaps.

This is what I mean. There are no such magnetic effects, forces, dimensions nor tendencies in the words. They do not carry anything. We can devise any number of instruments in order to detect such forces, and will never be able to measure it. Such descriptions of words are invariably figurative. — NOS4A2

I agree words do not carry a physical force - this is not in dispute. But you didn't respond to my comments about emotive language. Do you reject the view that there is such thing as emotive language?

Before you answer, consider a scenario in which you hear about a 5 year old girl getting raped. Of course, the plain facts of the event will enter your mental memory bank ("Sally G. age 5, raped on day x in town y...). But don't you think you would also have an emotional reaction to the news? This extreme example is just to establish that words CAN sometimes evoke emotions. It's not because sounds are being made and heard, but it's because there is information content, and the information (not the sounds) can trigger emotions.

Understand I'm trying to set aside arguing who's right, I'm just trying to understand your point of view.

So the question is “what does or does not ‘evoke’ the passions?”, the words or you? — NOS4A2

The evocation occurs in the listener, as his brain interprets the words.

The better term is "emotive language", which refers to: "words that do not merely describe a possible state of affairs. "Terrorist" is not used only to refer to a person who commits specific actions with a specific intent. Words such as "torture" or "freedom" carry with them something more than a simple description of a concept or an action.They have a "magnetic" effect, an imperative force, a tendency to influence the interlocutor's decisions.They are strictly bound to moral values leading to value judgements and potentially triggering specific emotions. For this reason, they have an emotive dimension. In the modern psychological terminology, we can say that these terms carry "emotional valence", as they presuppose and generate a value judgement that can lead to an emotion (Wikipedia article)

Example: When you hear about a child being raped, this likely triggers emotional reactions in you: horror at the act, sadness for the victim, and anger at the perpetrator.

Do you think reason is a useful means of evaluating conceptions of God? I'm aware of its historical use in Natural Theology to 'demonstrate' the divine, but I wonder how far that can be taken. Everyone is convinced their use of reasoning is unassailable. Particularly the Thomists and their Preambula Fidei. — Tom Storm

Sure, we can evaluate and compare different conceptions of God, but I'm sketical this can lead to actual knowledge of God.

Thomism has pros and cons. In its favor: it's a fairly complete, coherent metaphysical theory. I've read a couple of Ed Feser's books on the topic, and he seems to have embraced Thomism because he sees it as a framework for answering all the important metaphysical questions. That said, it's still an untestable, unfalsifiable hypothesis. If one believes in God, it may be satisfying because of its competeness.

I wonder how useful a ground of being is to us as a concept and what it can mean, other than nebulous notions of foundational guarantee for truth, goodness and beauty. — Tom Storm

I'm thinking strictly of an ontological bottom layer of physical reality, and (possibly) something deeper than the physical. I suppose one could choose to use the foundation to account for minds and beauty.

Libertarian free will implies a person chooses which actions he will take. These choices will be made based on his beliefs and his passions. There are both positive and negative passions. A positive passion will tend to influence our choices in positive ways (e.g. acts of charity). A negative passion will tend to influence our choices toward negative behaviors (e.g. hurting others).

When we hear or read words spoken by others, our passions can be evoked. This can lead to negative behaviors. It's true that the perpetator is morally accountable for his actions, but it's also true that the conveyor of the evocative language is a contributing factor or cause. I previously discussed contributing causes with you here.

This is the issue we are confronting, from my perspective. Tell me which portions you disagree with.
.

I'm interested in conversations about more sophisticated and philosophical accounts of theism. — Tom Storm

IMO, the philosophical accounts do not point to a God of religion. There may very well be a ground of being, but the big question is: does it exhibit intentionality? If not, then it points to a natural ground of being, not a god.

Is there a good reason to believe the ground of being acts intentionally? IMO, the only reason one might think so, is that teleology requires it - so the question becomes: is there good reason to believe teleology? I haven't seen one.

There is no argument for censorship save for superstition and magical thinking. — NOS4A2

I think you're saying that those of us who support some restrictions on speech are basing this on false beliefs about the effects of the speech. Is that correct?

And if so, do you agree this is the pivotal issue? Can you please attempt to state exactly what false beliefs we hold, in objective terms, rather than with judgemental terms?

Also state your position on free will. Do you believe humans possess libertarian free will? Reading some of your exchange with @Michael, this seems relevant.

It's a good question, but I see no strong basis to answer it. Speculative answers are easy, but cannot be well-supported epistemically. It seems to me that people are drawn toward specific answers for personal reasons. That's fine for them, but I'm too pragmatic for that.

Although physics, along with other theories of consciousness, will eventually, I believe, move toward consciousness as being the primary driver of physical reality. All of reality swings on the "hinge" of consciousness. — Sam26

This strikes me as relevant to identifying who your argument would and wouldn't appeal to.

To be honest, I find the objections in this thread to be very weak, so there's not much to overcome. — Sam26

When you claim you can overcome the objections, I think this means you didn't find them persuasive. But reflect on the fact that you persuaded no one to come closer to your view that there's a spirtual basis for NDEs (the objections explain why). Some who already believed in an afterlife may have may have gained comfort from your reasoning. So I just suggest specifying your target audience.

I hope that, in your book, you take into account the objections raised in this thread. Although I doubt you can overcome these objections, you could perhaps identify the sort of person (his background beliefs) that you believe you can persuade.

The simple statement goes like: "I ask scientists how they are able to trust their theories without a belief in a purpose-driven evolution." — PartialFanatic

This sounds a lot like Plantinga's (flawed) evolutionary argument against atheism.

If we are rational because we were purposefully directed, then we simply could not have had the capacity to be irrational. — PartialFanatic

Purposeful evolution may have only been directed toward faith in God. Rationality can be an obstacle to that.

Alternative decisions are possible if we have the power of LFW which gives us exactly that: the ability to make alternative decisions. — A Christian Philosophy

You've simply restated your assertion, and haven't considered the decision process.

Deliberative decisions entail a series of thoughts that lead to a decision. These thoughts entail consideration of immediate perceptions (sounds smells, tastes, shapes. textures...), beliefs, dispositions, and conditioned responses. All of which are considered within a specific state of mind (e.g. mood, energy, feelings). The particular sequence of thoughts (which even your "king" must go through) leads to a decision. It makes no sense to suggest that the same sequence of thoughts (by the same "king"), in the same state of mind, could have reached a different conclusion, because there can be no reason for it. Simply declaring that LFW accounts for other, non-actual, possibilities ignores these mental processes.

Could one of the intermediate thoughts have differred? No, because each intermediate thought developed similarly, or is simply a recall of a prior belief, disposition (transient attitude, general dispositions, mood), some immediate sensory perceptions (e.g. smell, sight, sound), or a conditioned response to a prior thought or sensation.

So why do we tend to think we could have chosen differently? Because we are reflecting on a past choice based on our new mental context - different state of mind, the benefit of lesson learned, gaining additional knowledge, or considering additional impacts that were previously overlooked. Entertaining these counterfactuals creates an illusion of contingency.

In your video, you claimed that we ought to trust our intuition that we could have made a different choice. My above analysis counters that: when reflecting back, we are considering a past choice from a new perspective. This does not entail winding the clock back to the prior set of mental conditions.

Another issue: you claimed Occam's razor (principle of parsimony) should be applied to this intution of contingency, suggesting it's a "simpler explanation". That is a misstatement of parsimony. Newton's gravitational theory is simpler than General Relativity (GR), but we choose GR because it explains the fuller set of facts.

The fullest set of relevant facts includes everything we know about the natural world, which is mostly a product of science. The success of physics at describing the evolution of the universe through laws, is strong evidence that the universe evolves strictly according to laws - implying determinism is true. So it becomes UNparsimonious to assume humans are an exception to determinism. What could account for this exception? A deterministic universe could not produce an object that behaves INdeterministically.

A theist would reply that God accounts for this indeterminacy - he directly creates a soul/will/"king". That takesGod's existence for granted. To actually prove free will exists, you would assume the burden to prove God exists. God+LFW is inherently unparsimonious, compared to compatibilism. So your "Occam's razor" argument fails.

I'll defer addressing your moral argument for now, but it will also fail.

There are no physical forces outside of you but all the factors that necessitate your actions originate from outside of you. — A Christian Philosophy

You are committing 2 errors:

1) You assume that if A causes B, and B causes C, then B lacks causal efficacy. This is absurd.

2) You ignore the fact that every part of a person has been caused even under your paradigm. You came into existence from the development of a zygote that was created from your parents union (they were each created the same way). This established (i.e. caused) your intrinsic nature.

As you matured, you were shaped by your environment (a causal effect). It influenced what you came to believe and how you think. You are changed a bit by every new experience, each of which you process through the lens of your existing world view- an ever evolving perspective that shapes your subjective interpretations of the experiences.

You can interject your belief that there is a non-physical inner soul/will/"king", that is part of your core identity, but even so - this thing did not pop into existence uncaused. You assume God caused it. So even if your LFW paradigm is correct, everything about you was still caused.

Libertarian free will (LFW) and randomness are similar in that they are both free — A Christian Philosophy

But how can a person have actually made a decision that differs from the one actually made? I have been arguing that, irrespective of LFW or compaitibilism, our choices are made due to a set of mental factors, and that GIVEN those factors, no alternative decisions are possible. Can you falsify this?

You seem to apply this logic:

1. We have LFW (premise).
2. LFW entails our choices are contingent
3. Therefore our choices are contingent (i.e. there are non-actualized possibilities)

I can understand that you believe premise 1, but you haven't provided an argument that establishes this premise. If your logic is different, then please provide it.

Can you explain the "capacity to initiate action"? It seems to me that if the entire causal chain is determined, then there is never a point where an action is initiated by the agent, since, as you said, all the things necessitate the agent's decision.

I choose to lift my arm, and voilà : my arm lifts. I can initiate this action any time I like. I am lifting it, not forces outside of me. Another example: I am writing this response to you - I initiate every keystroke, not something external to me.

God's foreknowledge does not entail fate; rather, He observes us in the future as though it is happening in real time. — A Christian Philosophy

This contradicts omniscience. Omniscience entails knowledge without a process of learning or observing.

I asked the question because I wondered if you embraced Molinism. The Molinist view: God knows every freely-willed choice you will make in every metaphysically possible world. He "chooses" to create the world that results in the best possible world. (God's "choice" is not deliberative; he knows the correct choice through omniscience).

under libertarian free will, all these things are real and they inform and influence our decisions but do not compel - like a king listening to his advisers, the free will has the final say. — A Christian Philosophy

Either these things necessitate the decision, or there is some randomness to the decision. Consider any deliberative decision a person makes: he evaluates from a set of options that have come to mind; he weighs pros and cons, based on his prior-existing beliefs and dispositions, and finally makes a reasoned choice. How could your "king" make a different choice, given the complete set of mental conditions that led up to it? He couldn't, unless the deliberative process included some random element (e.g. randomness in the set of options that came to mind, the weights assigned, the antecedent beliefs...). If the difference is randomness, that's not a manifestation of some additional control.

So the decision-making process does not seem to be a meaningful point of distinction between compatibilism and incompatibilism.

real metaphysical agency (not merely the perception of agency) necessitates freedom, i.e. contingency. — A Christian Philosophy

That is a unique definition of "agency". You're attempting to "win" this debate by creating a non-standard definition of agency that is inconsistent with compatibilism. I previously pointed you to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on agency (again here). As I noted, agency entails
-the capacity to act intentionally
-the capacity to initiate action
-reflection on, and caring about, our actions

In the compatibilism/incompatibilism debate among philosophers, the term "agent," is not in dispute. Rather, they debate what sorts of freedoms human agents require (for example) to be held morally accountable.

I'm also curious how you account for free will given God's foreknowledge. You are not free to make a choice other than the one God knows you will make. No alternatives are possible.

position is also inconsistent with the existence of any real metaphysical agency - which you seem to believe in — A Christian Philosophy

Identify this alleged inconsistency. The comment you referred to doesn't do it:

I dispute that necessitarianism is compatible with intentions, free choice, control, and agency. Consider the statement "water streams look for the path of least resistance". The word "look" is used here in a non-technical sense. Metaphysically, water streams do not literally look for anything as they are just molecules driven by gravity and friction. — A Christian Philosophy

Water streams are not capable of intentional behavior. Human minds are.

Our minds retain memories, develop beliefs. We perceive needs and develop wants. Streams of water do not.

the point remains that the definition of libertarian free will does not match the definition of compatibilist free will. — A Christian Philosophy

It matches the definition you provided:

"the ability to choose without being compelled by external factors (meaning factors other than our will)". — A Christian Philosophy

You may have a different concept of what is meant by "the will", but I regard this to refer to our capacity for intentional behavior - not as some non-physical object. This capacity exists, in varying degrees, in other animals. Example: thirst establishes an intent to drink water, and engage in behaviors to achieve that.

This capacity for intentional behavior, perception, memory etc is the product of evolutionary forces on the development of our central nervous system. Your specific brain was "caused" by the physical development that began with a zygote. From birth, onward- we learn, establishing knowledge that influences our thinking. The collection of all these things (central nervous system, innate cognitive ability, memories, conditioned responses, etc are what makes us who we are. And we are organisms that engage in intentional behavior guided entirely by what is within us. You are trying to define us into non-existence.

any cause other than our free will or soul is an "external factor" and it includes not only the environment but also beliefs, desires, genes, etc. In that light, my definition of libertarian free will does not match a compatibilist definition of free will. — A Christian Philosophy

So you're simply stipulating that a soul exists, and on this basis - you "prove" a god exists.

To be clear, I have not been trying to convince you that compatibilism is true. Rather, I'm explaining my point of view. You reject it, and that's fine - I realize my position is inconsistent with theism.

However, I would like you to realize that God's existence can only be "proven" by stipulating certain metaphysical assumptions - assumptions that no naturalist would accept.

Embrace your faith, but recognize it depends on FAITH.

My choices seem free, and compatibilist free will is consistent with the PSR. But under necessitarianism and compatibilism, no choice is actually free. Thus, necessitarianism and compatibilism are inconsistent with the observation that my choices seem free. — A Christian Philosophy

You have not identified an inconsistency. Here's how you defined "libertarian free will":

"the ability to choose without being compelled by external factors (meaning factors other than our will)" — A Christian Philosophy

This definition matches a compatibilist definition of free will. Our choices are entirely the product of internal factors (whims, beliefs, desires, needs...). Surely you don't deny that all these internal factors have causes, do you? What aspect of the decision making process is uncaused?

I can try a few more times to show why I disagree but then we may have to call it quits. — A Christian Philosophy

Remember, you said:

I accept the burden of proof to defend the existence of libertarian free will. — A Christian Philosophy

Of course you disagree, but my point all along has been that your alleged "proof" of God depends on unsupported assumptions.

Necessitarianism does not allow for alternate future possibilities, right? — A Christian Philosophy

Correct, but this overlooks that our intentional acts, help cause the future through the choices we make- through our agency. Our motivations are all real, and they are part of who we are. The knowledge we employ can be true, and our reasoning can be valid.

You have identified no point in the decision making process at which an alternate decision could have been made - given the person's beliefs, perceptions, state of mind, set of factors that happened to come to mind, etc. You obviously want to believe there's something outside the deterministic chain of causation - a soul, for example. Which implies circularity in your argument.

I agree that we have real agency, and yet this is not possible under necessitarianism where all actions from every part, like cogs, are necessary. — A Christian Philosophy

Assertion without argument. You refuted none of the 3 aspects of agency I identified:
-the capacity to act intentionally
-the capacity to initiate action
-we reflect on, and care about, our actions

I agree that fatalism is a wrong view, and yet under necessitarianism, we have no power over future events since the future is fixed. — A Christian Philosophy

You're ignoring everything I said. If you're very sick, you choose to seek medical care because you believe it improves your chances of recovery. If you lacked that belief, you wouldn't bother. A fatalist wouldn't bother, because he assumes his outcome is fated to occur and any actions he takes are futile.

Compatilists refer to the "principle of alternate future possibilities" - the set of choices before us. I am free to make a choice among options before me. This is distinguished from the "principle of alternate possibilities" (implying past choices were contingent) that most incompatibilists consider essential to libertarian free will. This principle implies that our past choices could have differed from what they were.

A compatibilist, like me, recognizes that our actions influence the future, and so we make choices accordingly. In one sense, past choices could have been different - but only if there were something different, like a different (or stronger) belief.

Your choices seem free to you, I'm sure. You agreed the decision process is consistent with the PSR, so exactly what can you show to be inconsistent with determinism?

B is essential for C to occur, but this does not dismiss fatalism. E.g. cog A is connected to cog B which is connected to cog C. Cog B is essential for cog C to spin, but cog B has no control over the outcome. — A Christian Philosophy

Two problems with this:
1. We have agency:
- the capacity to act intentionally
-the capacity to initiate action
-we reflect on, and care about, our actions

2. Fatalism entails an attitude of futility in the face of future events. If you're sick, your recovery (or death) is fated to occur - and this will occur regardless of whether or not you seek medical care. This is obviously not the case: we typically choose to act a certain way in order to achieve a desireable outcome. We choose medical care because we anticipate that it will improve our chances of recovery.

I don't see that libertarian free will can do any more: decisions are still based on reasons.
— Relativist
In other words, you are asking how libertarian free will could be compatible with the PSR. — A Christian Philosophy

No. I'm pointing out that because decision making is consistent with determinism (and thus, the PSR)- there is no basis for insisting we have libertarian free will. You choose to believe we have it, but I do not accept that as a premise.

I understand your view of compatibilism but I don't understand why this does not entail fatalism. If all choices are the product of factors (internal or external) and all these factors are caused by something else, then all our choices are caused by something else. — A Christian Philosophy

Here's the logic you may be applying:

Assume A causes B, and B causes C, then:
A causes C (the logic is transitive)- Implying B is irrelevant. This is a fatalist view.

My point is that B is not irrelevant. Logic is transitive, but causation is not. Our acts of will are "B", and the mental processing that we perform is essential for C to occur.

Compare this to a computer: input- processing- output. The processing is a necessary step - essential to producing the output. "A" consists of the physical parts of the computer, the software, electricity running through the circuits, and the specific input it was given. All those components are essential to producing the output ("C").

The underlined sentence is a prescriptive statement, a "should", which implies a freedom to do X or not. If all prescriptive statements were going to occur necessarily, then the prescription is merely an illusion — A Christian Philosophy

If I decide not eat cookies (a "should"), this decision establishes a disposition- a factor that will influence, but not necessitate, my future behavior. The craving induced by the scent may create a disposition that may be stronger. The prior disposition is not an illusion, it was simply ignored and the impulse acted on.

I accept compatibilism- an account of free will that is consistent with determinism. It does not entail fatalism. Fatalism is the view that you have no real choices. Compatibilism is the view that our choices are under our control. Choices are the product of internal factors: knowledge, beliefs, desires, wishes, genetic predispositions, learned conditioned responses, dispositions, impulses, mood...

These factors were all caused, but they are bundled uniquely into each of us. They are what make us who we are.

Under compatibilism, we can still entertain past possibilities - the things one might have done, but it correctly recognizes that something would have had to be different: some missing bit of knowledge, improved impulse control. I don't see that libertarian free will can do any more: decisions are still based on reasons. And new experiences and knowledge change us, so that our future decisions will be made on a different basis.

There are no absurd conclusions at all. It doesn't trivialize modal reasoning, because we can still conceptualize how things might have been in counterfactual conditions. We all make use of this, learn from it. "If I hadn't done X then Y (an unfortunate consequence) would not have occurred." Lesson: in the future, avoid doing X.

Concieiving this way doesn't imply that X was metaphysically contingent. Consider why you made decision to do X. If it was an impulse, then something led to the impulse (e.g. the scent of freshly baked cookies induced an impulse to eat one). If X was a deliberative decision, it was consequence of the factors that came to mind. that you weighed in a certain way. There's no obvious source of contingency, so why believe it was actually contingent? Conceivability can lead to modal illusion.

So I don't think it's reasonable to ever assume contingency, unless one can point to a source of contingency.

I suppose that's true; just like we are able to talk about impossible worlds. Nevertheless, modal collapse should still be avoided when we talk about metaphysically possible worlds. — A Christian Philosophy

I continue to take issue with the notion that "modal collapse" must be avoided. I believe that modal collapse translates to necessitarianism in ontology: the notion that everything that exists could not have failed to exist, and that there are no non-actual possibilities (non-actual possibility= something that could have happened, but did not).

What would prevent necessitarianism from being true is some source(s) of contingency. No proposed source of contingency can be proven. You correctly noted that quantum collapse isn't necessarily contingent, and I pointed out that libertarian free will does not necesarily exist.