1. A universe that follows 'laws' implies a 'law giver'

Comment #115800 by omrsafetyo on January 24, 2008 at 8:08 pm

In my personal opinion, as in line with prettygoodformonkeys, I don't think "laws" accurately expresses that the universe is made up of causal interactions.

Instead of "laws", perhaps we should express things as "probable interactions" or "possible interactions" - because thats all the universe really is - a large collection of potential interactions. The interactions that occur are the sum of the possible interactions of all the parts involved.

For instance, fermions and bosons have a very limited amount of ways in which they are able to interact. These possible interactions are described as up quarks, down quarks, electrons, gluons, photons, etc. When these are not interacting, their behavior is wildly chaotic - and since at this level, the universe is largely "empty space", interactions are less common than they are for, say, molecules under atmospheric and gravitational pressure; they can behave erratically. This in my opinion is why it seems that in the quantum world, things seem indeterministic: when quanta are interacting, the potential outcomes are determined - but when no interactions are occuring, there is less limitation on their behavior.

These fundamental interactions determine the interaction potential of their parent parts - protons, neutrons, atoms. Atoms are limited to the causal spectrum associated with the limited possible configurations of the fermions and bosons that make them up.

To explain this more eloquently, I guess I would say that universal laws are the outcome of structured combinations of fundamental interactions, limiting the possible outcomes for a given state change. The more "structured" the universe becomes, the less radical the change from one state to the next can be. This makes interactions predictable - and therefore seemingly law abiding.

I have a blog on this matter: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=119005137&blogID=193959738

2. Atheists are just as dogmatic as theists, and the only reasonable person is an agnostic.

Comment #115790 by omrsafetyo on January 24, 2008 at 7:39 pm

I think you will be very hard pressed to find someone who is truly "agnostic". In fact, I find that to be rather impossible. You can read all about that at my myspace blog, but to make a long story short:

A theist is someone who believes there is a God.
An atheist is someone who does not believe there is a God.

All rational atheists, and all rational theists (there are very few) know that the existence of a creator cannot be "truly" known. This is not a question that science can address. It can be proven to be highly unlikely - and I believe it has; but it cannot be proven outright.

No one can say that they are agnostic without being either theistic or atheistic, because atheism is not the downright refusal that there is a God (in all cases), but can be as simple as not knowing, and having no explicit belief that there is.

A self-proclaimed agnostic is just that. They have no explicit belief that there is a God, but they don't want to commit to one side of the fence or ther other. To me this is being atheist without knowing it.

3. What is the role of free will to an atheist?

Comment #115783 by omrsafetyo on January 24, 2008 at 7:12 pm

To me this question is actually much more realistic as secular person.

A Judeo-Christian person really cannot argue that there is free will according to their religion. If God is all-knowing, then there simply is no free will. If there is free will, then God simply is not all knowing. I think we all know how this argument goes, and if not, then simply think critically on the matter, and the logic will come to you.

As an atheist, this question has much more possible answers.

Perhaps there is no free will, and we live in a purely deterministic world.

Perhaps there are varying degrees of free will; an emergent property of the combination of the traits "inherent interest" and "observation capability" - and we just happen to be the agents most successful at avoiding determinism.

Perhaps free will is a built in function of the universe, and order arises as a property of free will.

Any of these options are certainly viable, but I think personally that free will is an emergent property of deterministic learned behaviors. There are obviously inherent, genetically determined "good" and "bad" things. As we become self-aware (and I believe this precedes free will), we learn to interpret which situational outcomes are conducive to desired (good)results. This is the observation capability. As this talent develops, behavior self-modifying agents are capable of adapting their behavior to that which is desired (still mostly deterministic - also known reflexes), OR more importantly, to be plastic based on predictive ponderance; that is: acting rationally to control behavior based on expectations of which actions will produce which outcomes - free will.