Does inductive validity hold sway with you Jar? If I told you that I had something which was 90% likely to be a carton of ice cream behind my back and you had a personal assessment of my honesty being 90% consider that my statement of probability was in fact strong evidence of there being a carton of ice cream behind my back?
In this particular instance, I would deem it to be very likely that you had a carton of ice cream behind your back. But as Carl Sagan put it, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so if your claim had been, say, that you had a fairy behind your back, that would be different.
I find it highly implausible that there is nothing out there for us to interact with in some meaningful way. Perhaps we are too late, and by the time we get out there, wherever there is, we will not be able to have a meeting of the minds, but that does not mean that nothing can be learned. An ant might not have any evidence that it can understand that humans exist, but not having any evidence one can understand is not the same as there exists no evidence at all. Our limited perspective and limited exposure to the universe (cosmic infancy) makes it seem highly probable that we are simply unable to see the evidence not that there is no evidence to ever be found.
Well, seeing as I never claimed that there was no evidence, I still hold that until such time when this evidence becomes available the most logical thing to do is to stick with the Null Hypothesis.
"Free Will" requires your will be unconstrained by the direct influence of some other form of conscious direction, not that your will be free from externalities. Externalities are necessary in order to learn. The form your consciousness ultimately takes is derived from your experiences modifying who and what you are. So I do not think that the scientist and the theologian can disagree that Free Will does not preclude outside influences in the form of perception of one's surroundings.
Agreed, although I have heard theists claim that free will indeed does preclude outside influences in all shapes and forms.
There are numerous examples of things "considered" to be emergent; wikpedia conveniently lists many of them.
Emergence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Granted.
I find the notion of emergence a defeatist position. If I told you that kinetic energy was an emergent property of matter, and that an object at rest had no property which was readily identifiable as kinetic energy, then I think you would call my labeling of kinetic energy as an emergent property of matter disingenuous. Potential energy is a causal precursor to kinetic energy. There is definitely some factor which leads to the creation of kinetic energy. It does not appear out of thin air.
Again, when dealing with the question of consciousness I see the term 'emergent property' to be a place-holder until we have a better understanding of what really happens.
I apologize for the confusion. My point about quantum physics was that there is almost certainly (99.99 ad nauseum %) more that can be learned from Quantum physics and that it would be wrong to assume that nothing more could be learned simply because things defy our ability to predict as of yet.
Already agreed to this, so, yes.
We have not encountered anything which is not something other than matter or energy? Sounds like you are firmly entrenched against idealism then.
When considering an observable empirical evidence based universe idealism is an impossible position to base one's views from.
Also, I find the notion to be highly impractical and basically useless. It is one of those discussions that are interesting to have once, and then it becomes pointless. But that's just my opinion.
Would you really be willing to suppose that matter and energy compose everything at all levels of reality even that which is outside the universe?
One universe at the time mate. One universe at the time.
Seriously though, considering that we have no idea if there even is anything 'outside the universe' or if that even makes any kind of sense I feel that anything anyone might say about what that 'reality' might or might not be like would be highly speculative by definition.
Take string theory for instance; Would you really suggest that strings were matter? Well what "substance" composes membranes then? What allowed for the creation of "membrane reality?" You keep going until you are forced to break.
They could be energy for all I know, but currently we don't even know whether these strings and membranes even exist or if String theory is even valid. Thus, we're into speculative territory again.
I am a neutral monist because I suppose that all things eventually break down into "preconsciousness." "Semi-self-aware data structures which have not yet managed to abstract via data recursion." It is interesting to note that wave-particles seem to be "aware" of constraints on the possibilities of their form, placement, velocity etc. And no I don't mean to suggest that things inside the universe are all pre-consciousness. When you bound your universe of discourse you can end up creating objective limitations on what is possible: matter and pre-consciousness that has qualitative value such that it responds to gravity; interacts with other matter, etc appear very much the same when you confine the discussion to "the universe."
Just following the evidence mate. Just following the evidence.
What I am arguing is a meta-level constraint: it is not possible for there to be no causes what-so-ever.
Granted, this is what classical physics tells us, but at the same time, it appears that we might have to modify our physics models anyway, so this may or may not hold water.
It might not be possible for us to predict with our perspective being limited to inside the universe or limited to a distinctly material human body. But that does not mean that it is entirely impossible. And that is what my argument is about; it is not possible for it to be entirely impossible to predict something. It will always be possible with the right perspective, the right data, and the right understanding to be able to predict something.
Perhaps. But how does that help us if we can't get access to this perspective, this data or this understanding?
You can't use nothing to get something.
Except, perhaps, Zero Point Energy:
Zero-point energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nothing by its very definition does not allow for anything else it would be something. The fabric of the universe; the empty space of the universe; etc might do something, and from our limited perspective it might appear as though something was coming from nothing. There certainly doesn't seem like anything is going on at least that we can see. BUT for sake of argument suppose string theory is correct; if you could get a look at the strings responsible for governing that particular portion of spacetime and the particles involved, then you would definitely be able to see some sort of change. Factors "merely" need to be non-local or non-local and hidden (Bell's inequality seems to establish that local hidden variables cannot be responsible for the laws of physics as we understand them). So if we could somehow look outside the universe, then we would be able to see what was actually happening instead of it looking like something was coming from nothing.
I agree that this is certainly possible, and if/when String theory pans out, we might get some testable results to verify. Until then, I withhold judgement.
I'm not terrible afraid of saying 'I don't know'.
Ultimately the question of "Is my Will constrained by conscious influences outside my own consciousness" is one that cannot be answered given our current perspective. What other state of consciousness do we have to compare such that we can establish a baseline for non-interference versus interference? If we are inside the matrix or thralls to alien masters, then we have never existed in such a way as to not have that be true. And if our wills are in fact "free," then how would we know what to look for in order to determine what a consciousness that is being influenced looked like? I certainly haven't met anyone that I could honestly point to and say: "This person is certainly a demon possessed individual" OR "Good thing I knew about this person being a brain in a vat and that their brain is compromised by alien mind control jelly."
Agreed. And these are clearly unfalsifiable concepts, which makes them, at best philosophical, and most definitely unscientific.
To be fair, I think we mostly agree.
