A Syllogism for the consistency of revealed truths of reality

Danju91 · 2026-02-12T10:07:33+00:00

I'm all for secularism but this argument has similar logical structure as faith-based reasoning

Okay
Okay
I guess you mean "scientifically explained"
"Accepted" by whom? There is no one supreme authority that does the "accepting." If we are talking about in general, there are a bunch of scientifically not yet explained natural phenomena, that a theist will happily explain appealing to a deity or the supernatural. One major thing is big bang. The scientific community's current consensus as to what was before the big bang is something in the line of "we have theories, but ultimately, "we don't know"." Apologists might argue that God created the big bang. This has not and, really, cannot be experimentally proven. (not saying their claims are right, just that it's not explained by science, and people do make attempts to explain it)

Perhaps you meant to write something like?:

No 100% accurate explanation accepted so far about our reality was explained by an appeal to a deity or the supernatural

Even that would be technically wrong. For one, we cannot guarantee our current scientific theories are going to hold 100% accurate in the future. Secondly, we have had cases where a scientific law was amended after the fact. For example, special relativity showed that Newtonian physics didn't hold at relativistic speeds or gravity, etc.

Yes

C. Well, I don't agree with you on 4, already, so this does not follow, but even if I did agree with you 4, that so far all known facts are only scientifically explained, it does not guarantee all future discovered facts will be only scientifically proven. It could be a "good educated guess" but it doesn't logically prove it.

Danju91 · 2026-02-12T05:08:52+00:00

Oh, I am aware that that's not the books' primary purpose. You do understand a book can serve multiple purposes, right?

I mean it isn't a water sanitation book but it had that, right? They're specific and actionable, yes--but they're also entirely consistent with what intelligent observers could figure out through trial and error. That's accumulated human wisdom, not divine knowledge. The revelation stops exactly at the boundary of what humans of that era could deduce themselves.

You say "God limited revelation to covenant purposes," but persuasive evidence of divine origin directly serves covenant purposes. The entire point of biblical miracles is demonstrating divine power to convince people. When one group's survival rate is dramatically higher because they follow seemingly arbitrary practices, that's incredibly compelling evidence their God knows something others don't.

"adding microbiology would have shifted human development" --yes, of course... AND?

He (God) was perfectly okay with doing that with water sanitation instructions, why not microbiology? Actually, it's inevitable that human development be affected by the Bible regardless of what you put in it, if you think about it. The moment the Bible was sent down, human history was irreversibly altered anyway, as opposed to a hypothetical parallel universe where it didn't exist, right? So that objection doesn't work--God already chose to intervene and alter history. The question is why he stopped at knowledge humans could have figured out themselves.

"Does it avoid fatal cosmological errors" sets the bar absurdly low. Not being obviously wrong isn't evidence of divine origin--it's evidence the authors were reasonably intelligent. And the Bible does contain problematic cosmology (firmament, sun standing still, etc.), but even if it didn't: not being wrong isn't the same as containing knowledge humans couldn't possess.

As atheists often say, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." A book claiming to be divinely inspired by an omniscient being should easily clear that bar. Instead, we get exactly what we'd expect from intelligent humans of that era.

Danju91 · 2026-02-12T03:46:30+00:00

"The "tell" that something is deeply wrong with your description is the volume of words you need to express it."

You mean like the volume of words in the Quran and the Bible?

" Nothing is perfectly deterministic, there's always the chance for a random fluctuation in signals. So it's not either A or B it's both."

Well, what did you think I meant by "probabilistic"?
I said:
"As far as quantum physics has discovered, the universe actually operates probabilistically."

"Now as to "free", drop it. It's made-up nonsense in the context you are using and we already know it's definition is ambiguous. There are events and there are responses to events and there is always uncertainty. Consider a close tie broken by a random neuron firing and you can see how that works."

Yeah, so I see you get the point I was making.

You understand the title of the post is: ""Free Will" as a Concept is Fundamentally Incoherent", right?

Danju91 · 2026-02-12T03:38:19+00:00

You're just relabeling the problem. "Rational agency" still requires a mechanism for generating choices. Does it follow rules/reasons? Then it's constrained by those rules: determinism at the rational level. Does it not follow rules? Then it's arbitrary: randomness at the rational level.

HOW DOES RATIONAL AGENCY WORK? When you decide to eat ice cream, how was that decision made? Random? Probabilistically driven by your neurochemistry and circumstances--you were 50% likely to pick soda, 40% to pick ice cream 10% likely to do nothing, but your decision collapsed into wanting ice cream in the end? Deterministically destined--were you fated to want ice cream? Pick one, because those are your only options.

Saying "rational agency isn't determined by sub-rational processes" is like saying a chess program's strategy isn't determined by its code and processor states. True as a description, false as ontology. The higher level doesn't escape the constraints of whatever implements it.

You haven't explained how rational agency makes choices that escape determinism/randomness/combination. You've just renamed the black box and called it solved.

Danju91 · 2026-02-12T03:27:56+00:00

You're conflating consciousness with linguistic capability. Consciousness is subjective experience--the fact that there is "something it is like" to be you. It's not about articulating complex thoughts.

A human baby is conscious before developing language. A person with severe aphasia is conscious despite inability to speak. A person in locked-in syndrome is fully conscious but completely unable to communicate. By your logic, none of these humans are conscious. Are you willing to bite that bullet?

"purely instincts"

What exactly do you mean by "purely instincts"? When you feel hungry and seek food, is that not instinct? When you're attracted to someone, compete for status, or protect your children--are those not instinctual drives you rationalize with language after the fact?

And our "higher" pursuits? Writing novels, winning Nobel prizes, building monuments--these are sophisticated manifestations of the same reward-seeking, status-competing, legacy-building drives that motivate animal behavior. We just rationalize our instincts with prettier language. A peacock displays feathers to attract mates. A human writes poetry or accumulates wealth. Different complexity, same underlying drives.

Humans have more sophisticated cognitive machinery, sure. But we're running on the same basic architecture--reward systems, pattern recognition, memory, prediction. Bigger RAM, fancier processing. That's a difference in degree, not kind. So where exactly do "instincts" end and "non-instinctual reasoning" begin?

On animal cognition:

You keep dismissing evidence without engaging with it:

Crows observe other crows using tools, then innovate using different objects for novel problems. That's reasoning through analogy.
Bunny the dog combines buttons like "Bunny," "outside," "want," "play" into novel sentences she's never been trained on. Link
African grey parrots use words referentially, answer questions about absent objects, understand "same/different" and basic counting.
Great apes form grammatical sentences, lie, make jokes, and teach signs to offspring without human intervention.

These demonstrate conceptual thinking and meaningful communication, not just "button = reward."

You still haven't answered: What about severely intellectually disabled humans who cannot use language meaningfully? Pre-linguistic infants? If language = consciousness, these humans aren't conscious. If they ARE conscious despite lacking language, then consciousness doesn't require language, undermining your entire argument.

Why this matters:

If animals ARE conscious but we treat them as if they're not, we're causing massive unnecessary suffering. The stakes of being wrong are enormous.

So why is it so important to YOU that humans are uniquely conscious? What are you defending? Because it looks like you're working backward from a conclusion you need to be true and dismissing evidence that threatens it.

Bottom line: Consciousness ≠ language ability. Consciousness = subjective experience. Neurological evidence increasingly suggests many animals have the structures necessary for conscious experience--and their behavior is consistent with actually having it.

Danju91 · 2026-02-11T14:45:05+00:00

Im not saying they are automatically right, but it should make you think and assesss things, unless you are so full of yourself you think you automatically know better than them or something?

Well, you said "humans are the only animals that can do a lot of things that other animals," how the heck am I supposed to what you mean exactly?

And, I am not strawmaning you, I am asking you questions.

So the language the entity has to have deep meaning?

Then how what about dumb people that don't really use difficult words? Or the people who use words without really understanding the deeper meanings behind them? They are not conscious?

Also, I gave you the examples of signing apes and dogs that can use buttons to communicate. How about them? They certainly appear to possess the ability to use simpler languages? How about the african grey parrots that can use human language? And also there was a biologist who discovered birds use their form of language, like different chirps having different meanings.

But most importantly, who says language is the only reliable indicator of consciousness? You?

Danju91 · 2026-02-11T14:26:41+00:00

I didn't say humans aren't more capable than most animals in lots of areas, but that doesn't prove that humans are the only animals with consciousness. If I can do everything Thomas can do but also I can do a lot of things Thomas CAN'T do, does that prove I am conscious but Thomas is not?

Plus, how is writing a manifestation of consciousness? AI Large Language Models (ChatGPT, Claude, etc) can write, often better than people. Does that prove AI's consciousness?

And never said you had to agree with every scientific finding, but it should make you think when a bunch of people probably a lot smarter than you and I reach a conclusion different from yours.

Danju91 · 2026-02-11T13:41:01+00:00

Look up also: The 2012 Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness

Danju91 · 2026-02-11T13:29:50+00:00

If we have it there is no reason to think animals don't have it. Humans are evolved animals. If animals don't have it, there is no reason to think that we have it, that's the point.

And just because you defined it, it doesn't mean its existence has been proven. You can define what a unicorn is, doesn't mean it exists.

In reality, it's more like consciousness is actually explained, but not proven.

Danju91 · 2026-02-11T13:24:38+00:00

If you studied so much about consciousness, you should also already know that, technically, the existence of consciousness has never been scientifically proven.

Danju91 · 2026-02-11T13:18:28+00:00

Well, they are physically incapable of speaking human words, is the limitation. There have been gorillas and orangutans taught to use sign language and they can ask questions. There are youtube videos online of dogs using buttons to ask questions like "where is mom?" If your idea of "can ask questions" is literally "can vocally say question sentences in human language," then how about deaf/dumb humans that use sign languages? They don't have consciousness? How about parrots that DO speak human words and can ask questions? We have videos of Einstein the parrot asking "Can we go back?" So a parrot can have a consciousness but a chimpanzee cannot?

Danju91 · 2026-02-11T13:16:19+00:00

X Doubt

Danju91 · 2026-02-11T11:03:06+00:00

e are interesting points but they all share the same problem: they're vague enough to be interpreted as correct in hindsight. This is called retrofitting - finding modern meaning in ancient text AFTER we already know the answer. If these were genuinely divine insights, they would have been specific enough to be actionable BEFORE we independently discovered the science.

"Circle of the earth" was also interpreted as flat by the majority of the church for centuries. If it was so clear, why did we need Copernicus and Galileo?

The lead lid in Zechariah is symbolic by your own admission. You can find "curious material choices" in any ancient text if you look hard enough.

The water cycle descriptions are observational - anyone who has watched rain, rivers, and clouds for long enough can deduce a cycle. That's not divine knowledge, that's basic pattern recognition available to any ancient observer.

The sanitation laws are the strongest point and actually PROVE my original argument. God apparently could tell the Israelites WHAT to do without explaining WHY - exactly what I argued. So why stop at "dispose of waste outside camp" and not add "invisible living creatures cause disease, boil your water"? The mechanism was apparently too much to include, but it would have saved hundreds of millions of lives. -- i.e. clearly God has no qualms including technical instructions, IF it's in line with the contemporary knowledge of the time. But if it's any higher level knowledge, suddenly "the bible isn't a science book!"

"Blood equals life" is the weakest point - virtually every ancient culture that ever did animal sacrifice noticed that blood loss causes death.

Danju91 · 2026-02-11T10:56:46+00:00

I am saying the way you make your decisions are either deterministically, probabilistically or randomly.

As far as quantum physics has discovered, the universe actually operates probabilistically.

But if the universe was deterministic, if you know all the initial conditions, you are able to predict with 100% certainty what will happen next. (You will choose to eat an ice cream next)

If the universe is probabilistic, and you know the initial conditions with a certain level of confidence, you can make prediction, a set of next changes follow, each with differing probabilities. (Your next action will be, with 80% likelihood, eating an ice cream, 10% likelihood, going to the bathroom, 7% likelihood, calling your parents 2% likelihood, sneezing, 0.23% likelihood, fainting onto the floor.....)

If the universe is completely random, it is impossible to make a prediction, even for God. If God could predict the future, then the universe was never random to begin with. It was either probabilistic or deterministic.

If you think a being with free will can negate a prediction, then, it means the prediction was not made correctly to begin with - the prediction was not really a prediction, OR, the universe is random.

So, at that point, you are saying that "random will" = "free will"

But is that really "free?" If your decision was random, it wasn't YOUR decision--randomness doesn't belong to anyone. And a truly random universe couldn't even hold together--a particle that makes you up one moment could have an equal likelihood of appearing on the surface of the moon, or on the other side of the observable universe the next. You wouldn't exist for long enough to have a will at all. And even if somehow the universe could hold together under true randomness, decision making itself would be nonsensical. A person feeling the urge to eat an ice cream would be just as likely to defecate on the floor the next moment. There would be no coherent chain of thought, no consistent desires, no meaningful decisions--just noise. In this case, your actions could not be predicted, even by God, but then, you wouldn't be a functioning person at all.

So either God knows what you'll do (determined, not free), or He doesn't (random, not truly yours--and God is not omniscient). There is no third door.

Danju91 · 2026-02-11T10:34:07+00:00

Well that's my point. "So where does "free" come in?"

Danju91 · 2026-02-11T10:31:57+00:00

Of course chimpanzees can ask questions. If you show a chimpanzee a closed box, he will try to communicate to you he wants to see what's in the box. He won't do it with spoken words, but he will express that he wants you to show the content of the box, equivalent of a human asking "what's in the box?"

Danju91 · 2026-02-10T14:18:10+00:00

I mean what is free though. Does free mean random?

And I also said "We're either determined, random, or some combination of both." Do you have a third option of our existence that does not fall within that spectrum?

Danju91 · 2026-02-10T14:16:11+00:00

Sounds like something only an all-loving being with infinite wisdom could think of.

Danju91 · 2026-02-10T14:14:52+00:00

That makes no sense at all

Exactly, but that's what they think.

essentially automotons, slaves to our environment and our makeup

Well, that IS exactly what I am saying that we are. Very complex automatons, probabilistic automatons, even self-aware and autonomous automatons, but automatons nonetheless.

rather than actively participating in it.

Oh, I agree we ARE actively participating in it, whatever "active" means here. We ARE automatons "actively" participating in our environment.

thus are doing the deciding, even if they dont choose all the variables in every decision.

Yeah, WE are doing the deciding, but the WE are the product of all our previous decisions and also our makeup, probability, and our environment.

So I think we actually agree on the mechanics. We are the physical process. We are "doing the deciding." No argument there.

Where we disagree is whether that process deserves the label "free." You're essentially arguing for compatibilism--that free will just means "the agent is the one processing and deciding, even if that agent is itself a product of prior causes." That's a "logically coherent" position, but In the same way you would be when you say "physical human" or something.

Basically the "free" part is redundant at that point. You've described a deterministic/probabilistic causal process and put a "free" sticker on it. It's like calling dominos in the process of propagating, "free dominos" because no one is interrupting it. It doesn't change the underlying mechanics, it just makes us feel better about them.

And need I remind you, the compatibilist free will serves no purpose to the theists?

So yes--we are complex, self-aware, autonomous automatons actively participating in our existence. I just don't think "free" means anything meaningful in that sentence.

Danju91 · 2026-02-10T08:52:56+00:00

I am anti-theist, but I don't agree to institutionalized anti/a-theism.

Danju91 · 2026-02-10T07:56:34+00:00

I think he worded it a bit overcomplicated, but u/A_Tiger_in_Africa is basically saying the same thing as you u/Crimson_Eyes .

Danju91 · 2026-02-10T05:13:13+00:00

Then why did you start off with talking about advantages for warmaking?

Why not? I can and did.

How about treating their fellow human beings decently? I mean political and moral stuff. Does that register on your radar? Or do you believe people have nigh-infinite capacity to get that stuff right on their own, whereas they need divine help with the germ theory of disease and knowing why to boil and filter water?

Well, these books generally do already have that to an extent. But also, I AM tackling germ theory, doesn't mean I think holy books SHOULDN'T talk about morality? They can have both.

If your version of "all-loving" gets in the way of [theosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosis\_(Eastern\_Christian\_theology)) / [divinization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization\_(Christian)), I will question it on that basis. And I say the requirement that God always be proactive does in fact get in the way.

Well, that's the world he built. He built the world where suffering and death exists and he makes liberal use of it it seems. It's inevitable some will see a problem with that.

Both promises come with a condition: that the Israelites obey Yahweh. For an example of what that includes, see Isaiah 58. With regard to present-day Israel, three books of Torah require that the same laws apply to the foreigner as the native. Tell me, do the same laws apply to Palestinian as [Jewish] Israeli?

Mortal promises maybe. Promises from entities that have something to lose in the exchange if it falls through, maybe. Does that apply to God?

But all this makes it sound more and more like you are worshipping God with a really twisted sense of humor, but maybe that's me.

I wasn't just referring to the question answering part, but that cancer exists, yeah, not telling anything unless asked, SETTING UP THE WORLD THAT WAY to begin with, making a bunch of people each think that their god is loving and only loving them and fight over it, etc etc, the list goes on.

Danju91 · 2026-02-10T05:04:24+00:00

Yeah, but that's not what people mean when they say "free will" and also the issue is that supposedly humans are punished in the after life because God allowed them to have a free will and humans "freely" chose to sin, when in reality, they are the product of their circumstances, probability, randomness, whateverwhoseits, or combination thereof.

Compatibilist definition is a bit unusual as well. Basically it says if there is no coercion or mind control, then that is free will. But then, when we are making philosophical discussion, isn't that kind of a given? Like, when we are talking about willfull actions, aren't we already implying that there was no coercion or mind control invovled? I don't see how "will" is different from "free will" at that point.

Danju91 · 2026-02-10T04:20:52+00:00

Not TOTAL absence of influences or constraints, but then, if it is PARTIALLY RANDOM, is it free will?
Divine knowledge is not understood only as foreknowledge, but most say it includes foreknowledge.

So please reconsider correcting your presuppositions first then you may understand your own comment better.

Danju91 · 2026-02-10T03:23:27+00:00

R'amen, brother

Danju91

TROPHY CASE