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Originally Posted by CaptainBubba
Importance is a human notion. It is a term we use to describe things which we must divert attention to for us to further ourselves. In the context you use it it could only make sense if one assumes there is a more powerful version of a human who is responsible for our creation which only raises the same questions we have in regards to that entity. The results are the same.
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I see your point here, but I'd have been happier if you'd have said something more like importance is a self-centered notion. After all, anything alive is primarily existing under the assumption that it is more important than anything else.
That wasn't really what my usage of the word was attempting to project, however. With the capabilities that we, above any other known organism, have available to us, we are the most dangerous creature in nature. THAT makes us
important in that we, moreso than any other living thing, have the power to fundamentally change or even destroy everything we see.
In nature, things just do not exist for no reason. Even though we do not understand what a certain thing's reason is, we now know that it would not exist if it served no purpose. That is the importance we share with all things, right? Above that, nature has demonstrated the ability to bend a being's function to it's own reason or interest, as in the giant tortoises of Galapagos.
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Originally Posted by CaptainBubba
Again I'm sorry If I sounded insulting. Its simply that your argument seems more of one arguing in the existence of a god and not for or against determinism or free will.
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To me, the discussion here presupposes some sort of motivational force or purpose to existence. If you believe all existence is due solely to random chance, why would you be discussing determinism vs. free will?
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Originally Posted by CaptainBubba
By all means there could be a god given determinism. In fact god would have to be deterministic as well. Your definition of free will would in fact, in a stunning move of irony, fit into determinism. All things are autonomous.
To explain why this is so take the following example. I create a computer program. I am its creator and god. I give it the "choice" between x = 1 and x=2. where given condition 1 x = 1 and given condition 2 x = 2. Although the program has two options it will choose only one and can choose only one. It is autonomous. Adding in complexity merely complicates the program but does not make it magically or unexplainable. Just complex.
Merely not fully grasping every element of the enormously complex program of existance doesnt mean it transcends logic. Merely that it transcends our ability to fully know it.
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To better illustrate where I'm coming from, and to back up my assertion that one can have spiritual beliefs without necessarily being a religious zealot, please check out the link following...
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Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.
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http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
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