AB,
There seems to be some confusion between the words "determined" and "predetermined".
Yes there is – your own. Let’s see if you’ve finally managed to unravel it though shall we…
They are two different words with different meanings. The word "predetermined" would apply to a process which has a predictable outcome according to sets of rules such as those pertaining to the results of physical reactions in material elements.
No, that’s “determined” – or, more grammatically, “deterministic”: event A causes event B, event B causes event C etc.
The word "determined" can include that which is predetermined, but can also include processes driven by events which can't be predicted.
Nope. “Predetermined” in the sense you intend it implies some “thing” to decide in advance what an outcome will be. My sipping a very nice cocktail in Greece last year was “predetermined” by my decision earlier in the year to have a Greek holiday – it was a choice I made. (And no, please don’t bother with you usual trope of “ah, but how could it be a choice if….” etc. You know perfectly well that we’re talking about different levels of abstraction here.)
Such outcomes may result from processes involving one or more elements whose source is not detectable by current scientific means.
They may do, yes. Just as many phenomena that were previously not “detectable by current scientific means” now are.
In the case of human will there is agreement that it is not random, so the question would be - Is there any evidence of unidentifiable sources involved in an act of human will?
If there’s evidence then, broadly, they’re not unidentifiable - the evidence would identify them as a generalised phenomenon. The evidence we do have points heavily toward a deterministic paradigm – that’s not to say though that there’s not a great deal more to find out about it.
Those who claim there is no such evidence would, by default, have to conclude that every element in any human thought, word or action was entirely determined by the outcome of physical reactions, and therefore such activity must be considered to be predetermined by the laws of physics.
“Determined”, and they wouldn’t “have” to do that necessarily but absent any cogent reason to think otherwise, broadly yes.
We seem to take much for granted in presuming that such consciously driven abilities as thinking, contemplating, deducing, concluding, analysing, philosophying etc. can all be achieved entirely through physically predetermined reactions in material elements. Along with the presumption that the unfathomable complexity of the physical workings of our material brain emerged from the unguided, purposeless forces of a universe indifferent to the existence of life.
Your personal incredulity is letting you down again. And besides, no-one “presumes” that in the sense you imply of “guesses”. Rather rational people proceed on the basis that the most coherent and verifiably robust model we have for the way the universe works is to be preferred over magical thinking, which would require many more assumptions – Occam’s razor and all that.
I maintain that these presumptions which we take so much for granted offer evidence of consciously intended, supernatural interaction with our physical world - driven from a source of conscious will rather than material reaction. Some of you try to label this as “magic”.
Well, I did say rational people. What you “maintain” without reason or evidence is epistemically no more valid than what I maintain about leprechauns on the same unqualified basis. Both claims are, effectively, magic.
I consider it evidence of the creative will of God – the source of all existence – or “that which exists”. A supernatural power which God has imparted to the spiritual souls of all human beings.
And I consider it the idle noodlings of Colin, the grand Poo-bah of the Leprechaun Kingdom.
Why in your opinion should anyone else taking either of our speculations seriously?
