GsTSaien t1_jbluusm wrote on March 9, 2023 at 11:36 PM

Reply to comment by testearsmint in I just published an article in The Journal of Mind and Behavior arguing that free will is real. Here is the PhilPapers link with free PDF. Tell me what you think. by MonteChristo0321

Regarding god, if there were a being that created the universe, I would expect something to suggest that, which is not the case. Furthermore, even if we entertained the idea of a creator it would not be one that stuck around. It is abundantly clesr that the universe has ran itself since its inception, whether that inception was some concious entity's design is interesting, but ultimately unlikely and makes no difference to reality.

The idea of a creator being needed is a human construct, it follows our instinct, nothing else in reality suggests the need for a creator.

testearsmint t1_jbm50nu wrote on March 10, 2023 at 12:50 AM

I think there are some interesting arguments here and there (fine-tuning's one example). It's interesting to consider because it may have some combination of certain metaphysical implications (mind-body dualism, idealism, afterlife, reincarnation), but it is true that it could be possible that these metaphysics may also exist in a creatorless universe. After all, we've yet to solve such issues as bridging the gap between general relativity and quantum physics, consciousness, etc.

Organized religion, kind of a separate matter, is definitely pretty common for humans, though. Whether for social community or authoritarian inclinations of opportunists.

GsTSaien t1_jbm89po wrote on March 10, 2023 at 1:15 AM

I don't really find much value in anything metaphysical or spiritual. Growing up surrounded by it as well as religion it has become incredibly apparent that it is all made up. I understand the desire to imagine there is something more to us than matter being funny, but everything we know suggests we are only matter.

I think we have free will and intelligence as an emergent quality of the biochemical processes that we are formed by, conciousness may indeed be more than the sum of its parts. Perhaps conciousness is the result of the quantum superposition of what happens in our brain, but I do not think it is reasonable to entertain the concept of some unmaterial soul, some entity that exists beyond the body and brain. All of our best evidence tells us the only logical conclusion is that there is no afterlife, or karma, or reincarnation. It really is not logical to believe in anything else when we can be pretty certain we already know nothing happens.

People still believe in other things, of course, or they at least entertain some ideas related to spiritualism. That is ok, belief is natural. I personally feel like truth is more important, and I am simply not convinced by "no one can truly know". Just because something can not be proven false does not mean it is possible. I know there is no afterlife and consider that a fact, because that is the only possible option.

testearsmint t1_jbmbfty wrote on March 10, 2023 at 1:39 AM

That's all fair. I just think of metaphysics as physics potentially not yet realized, and quantum physics has at least put forward the idea of the possibility of extra possibilities beyond things we can currently conceive.

Regarding things that may not be currently falsifiable, I think it depends on the idea. Sometimes the ideas are useless to consider, sometimes we may in time know the truth of them, and some of them are just left in a state of "remains to be seen". In that sense, a lot of that kind of stuff is in the grouping of things I don't necessarily believe in, but are interesting to consider, may be verified in the future, and aren't necessarily worth tossing out straight from the get-go.