Ahh, a religion column freelancer out in Red State world fundy/conservative evangelical land. Ma'am, the word "luck" has nothing to do with "Lucifer" etymologically. Rather, it comes from the same root as today's modern German "Glueck."
Since this apparently goes back to known nutbar and Greed Gospel purveyor Kenneth Copeland, things like this deserve scorn, not "engagement," on the whole debate as to how much skeptics, or atheists, should "engage" religious people on certain issues.
See here for more on the fake etymology.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Do you have free will? Is that even a discussable issue?
Are our selves free willers, or determined selves? Galen Strawson discusses both sides of the issue in a great "Stone" column at the NYT.
That said, Strawson, the son of renowned British philosopher P.F. Strawson, missed one big issue or two.
Namely, how much of our actions are conscious, can "free will" even be spoken of sensibly at a level of allegedly unitary consciousness, can we, though, talk of subconscious subselves having free will, etc.
Anyway, overlooking Strawson's lapses, he does give fair play to both sides, while shooting down things like the New Agey myth that quantum mechanics has disproved determinism. (Certainly, if one is an Einsteinian "naive realist" on quantum mechanics, it's clear all QM did was made determinism more probabilistic at the ultimate fine-grained level. Even under other models of understanding of QM, reality can still be deterministic above the quantum level. It's like a state change, if you will, and to not "get that" is, to quote a peer of Strawson's dad, Gilbert Ryle, to make a category mistake.
That said Strawson ultimately argues that believing in both some form of determinism and in moral responsibility (which is where many people want to sink determinism) is possible, maybe even quite possible.
I partially disagree, answering with a mix of "Mu" from Zen Buddhism via "Goedel, Escher, Bach" and Dennett's idea of subselves. I don't think you can discuss this issue otherwise.
That said, Strawson, the son of renowned British philosopher P.F. Strawson, missed one big issue or two.
Namely, how much of our actions are conscious, can "free will" even be spoken of sensibly at a level of allegedly unitary consciousness, can we, though, talk of subconscious subselves having free will, etc.
Anyway, overlooking Strawson's lapses, he does give fair play to both sides, while shooting down things like the New Agey myth that quantum mechanics has disproved determinism. (Certainly, if one is an Einsteinian "naive realist" on quantum mechanics, it's clear all QM did was made determinism more probabilistic at the ultimate fine-grained level. Even under other models of understanding of QM, reality can still be deterministic above the quantum level. It's like a state change, if you will, and to not "get that" is, to quote a peer of Strawson's dad, Gilbert Ryle, to make a category mistake.
That said Strawson ultimately argues that believing in both some form of determinism and in moral responsibility (which is where many people want to sink determinism) is possible, maybe even quite possible.
I can’t do better than the novelist Ian McEwan, who wrote to me: “I see no necessary disjunction between having no free will (those arguments seem watertight) and assuming moral responsibility for myself. The point is ownership. I own my past, my beginnings, my perceptions. And just as I will make myself responsible if my dog or child bites someone, or my car rolls backwards down a hill and causes damage, so I take on full accountability for the little ship of my being, even if I do not have control of its course. It is this sense of being the possessor of a consciousness that makes us feel responsible for it.”
I partially disagree, answering with a mix of "Mu" from Zen Buddhism via "Goedel, Escher, Bach" and Dennett's idea of subselves. I don't think you can discuss this issue otherwise.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Relativity in philosophical, poetic portrait
RELATIVISTIC PHILOSOPHY
Einsteinian physics can seem unreal
Perhaps even more when physicists who know better,
Or should,
Still try to pin down a light-infused transcendent field
To an 'objective reality' of space and time, or spacetime.
The problem?
Light is objective,
But the flow of spacetime is not, no matter the apparent
Near-zero rest speeds of everyday life.
Too many physicists
Have failed to crack open and wrestle with Wittgenstein
And honestly admit they are playing the wrong word and language games.
Ultimately, we cannot 'step outside' of the universe.
We cannot fully fathom the light's-eye view that collapses our cosmos to a singularity.
Light, the ultimate speed limit?
Yes, and more.
The ultimate mind limit, as accelerated thought foreshortens ever more.
It is the escape velocity of the omnisphere
Einsteinian physics can seem unreal
Perhaps even more when physicists who know better,
Or should,
Still try to pin down a light-infused transcendent field
To an 'objective reality' of space and time, or spacetime.
The problem?
Light is objective,
But the flow of spacetime is not, no matter the apparent
Near-zero rest speeds of everyday life.
Too many physicists
Have failed to crack open and wrestle with Wittgenstein
And honestly admit they are playing the wrong word and language games.
Ultimately, we cannot 'step outside' of the universe.
We cannot fully fathom the light's-eye view that collapses our cosmos to a singularity.
Light, the ultimate speed limit?
Yes, and more.
The ultimate mind limit, as accelerated thought foreshortens ever more.
It is the escape velocity of the omnisphere
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