Miracles & Free Will (1/10)

A CASE AGAINST MIRACLES & FREE WILL
by Mike Earl - aka SpiritualAtheist
(Part 1 of 10)

This is an audio presentation I produced several years ago. Given the popularity of the free will versus determinism debate here on Youtube I thought some of you might find this interesting. Please forgive the slight 'Alvin the Chipmunk' pitch of my voice. When I first recorded this I sped up the recording to fit on a CD with some other material I was working on at the time.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• freewill
• free
• will
• determinism
• miracles
• mike
• earl
• spiritualatheist
• atheism
• god

[MeIoco]

I think I'm becoming a Mike Earl fan.

[SpiritualAtheist]

:-)

[2bsirius]

An interesting choice of settings...Earl Street...Excellent! Yes, all the points you ...I'm referring to those areas of quantum physics which are not amenable to your analogy. Also outside of this to me is what is controversially referred to as the individual unity of subjective consciousness -- aka "the binding problem"...There are others too, but don't have the room to delinate them.

[SpiritualAtheist]

The quantum issue will probably require another video. The "orthodox" quantum interpretations are indeed at odds with my analogies. It will probably not surprise you to learn that I think the orthodox interpretations are mistaken.

[SpiritualAtheist]

The problem with both miracles and free will (as I see it) is that both introduce into our picture of reality something fundamentally arbitrary. I think most quantum interpretations do the same thing. I believe in all of these cases we are projecting our ignorance onto reality.

[2bsirius]

An interesting choice of settings...Earl Street...Excellent! Yes, all the points you make here are valid, as far as they go...My question: How do we contend with the flexibility of these physical "rules" at the boundries of the physical reality you are describing? In saying this I'm NOT referring to "miracles"...

[SpiritualAtheist]

Since this wasn't actually a video and because you can't upload just audio files I thought I would just grab a photo. After much personal deliberation it came down to either the picture of Earl street or one of my dogs. Vanity got the best of me.

[scwinable]

This assumes quite a bit. First of all, it assumes we know all of the rules of the universe.

[helenlenmo]

Atomic decay??

[garywilliamhartman]

I guess it all comes down to the definition of the word miracle. From the perspective over here, Existence itself along with the rules that it implies is the biggest miracle of them all. More acurately the only miracle in town! Blessings Now. Trumpet89

[bskyow]

Logic and reason feels so good. Well done Mike.

[Beardedyoungman]

I do think a lot of the distinctions you made about the determinism vs free will arguement are important ones though;)

[Beardedyoungman]

someone who can't overcome the duality of free will and unity will be in just as much pain but do nothing. Someone who has will be mad and want out. And yes it is determined, a large mass of oppression will have a big affect on the smaller will of one person who will feel helpless to overcome that duality.

[Beardedyoungman]

I think of free will completely differently. It has more to do with a conflict of interest and our feeling of a right to exist. Its more visible when say a city floods and the government locks you in the city and takes it's slow time bringing help.

[Beardedyoungman]

I just feel conscious. Emotions are just subjective and don't really matter in the big picture of survival.

Everything humans experience is just feeling though. I agree humans a tiny and fragile in terms of the universe so our type of free will and consciousness is very limitted.

[Beardedyoungman]

This is a little over my head because I don't know a lot about quantum threories, but the whole arguement of deterimism against free will seems really dualistic. I think we put too much implication in our conceptions sometimes. You could argue away all aspects of consciousness with the same arguement, I'm not conscious of the million billion callculations I make every second to have a thought, and they're all just reactions anyways..