ysumlin

Fellow Unbelievers:

Trump tells Iranian protesters against Islamist tyranny that “Help is on the way” two weeks after the uprising starts and after anywhere from 12,000 to 20,000 Iranian citizens are dead. I’d say time and agency are pretty damn real. Can you relate?

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
No, you feel you have a certain amount of agency.

What I’m saying is, we treat ourselves and each other as if we have agency, whether we “really” do or not. It’s on this level that we’re held accountable.

See, you can’t talk about agency without implying agency where there really is none. And I mean you you,…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
No, you feel you have a certain amount of agency.

What I’m saying is, we treat ourselves and each other as if we have agency, whether we “really” do or not.  It’s on this level that we’re held accountable.

How long is now?

Simon Paynton wrote:
As far as accountability and free will go, I’d say that we all operate in an everyday world of “as-if” free will – we have a certain amount of agency over our actions – and we’re judged and held accountable on this as-if agency.

No, you feel you have a certain amount of agency. If you are sure there’s any agency at all, exp…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Some will say, “But that’s nihilistic. That means there’s no point to anything. The child abuser, the family annihilator, the terrorist…they’re no better or worse than the hero or altruist or selfless caregiver.”

I don’t know what to tell you other than…”Yup! In a very real sense, we’re not the author of our actions, no matter…

[Read more]

Unseen:

Okay, Enco, but we do all that shit in the present, which appears to have no duration whatsoever.

Notice the multiple tenses used in my sentences. Those couldn’t exist or mean anything without time. Not to mention observe all the choices available. Those couldn’t exist either in a wholly free will-free Universe.

It seems like…

[Read more]

Okay, Enco, but we do all that shit in the present, which appears to have no duration whatsoever.

It seems like everything we do is in a world defined by Zeno. You know, that paradox guy.

Fellow Unbelievers,

Meanwhile, real people have been, are now, and will persist in, baking loaves of bread of all varieties, white, wheat, split-top butter, cinnamon raisin, sourdough, and–in spite of everything–rye, pumpernickel, and bagels.

Some of us even make flat breads like tortillas, pitas, and naan. And once these are made, real…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
I think it makes more sense if we consider a structure of the universe as being one of deterministic cause and effect.  The proposal is that the universe, from start to finish, was formed in one go.  All events and timelines of objects’ spatial movements were put in place by this process that formed the block det…

[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
The notion that the big bang, the trillions of galaxies and septillions of planets, the inception and explosion of life forms on Earth or anywhere, the construction of the Pyramids and The Sphynx, the sinking of The Bismarck, and that time my cat destroyed my tablet by knocking a coffee mug onto it, as well as everything included in…

[Read more]

It seems to me as an  atheist that the presentist universe makes more sense because the block universe is far more compatible with the intelligent design view.

The notion that the big bang, the trillions of galaxies and septillions of planets, the inception and explosion of life forms on Earth or anywhere, the construction of the Pyramids and…[Read more]

Block universe on the one hand or a universe governed by the inescapable necessity of physical laws, it makes no difference. It makes no matter how you respond to either situation. In the one case, your response has already happened in a sense while in the other, however you respond, your response is what had to happen.

Some will say, “But that’s…[Read more]