tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post6367250116798924555..comments2024-03-28T21:32:26.550+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: Precognition - an explanationBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-15318229235658374492018-05-08T01:22:52.326+01:002018-05-08T01:22:52.326+01:00Unfortunately, this view does not rest on any give...Unfortunately, this view does not rest on any given metaphysics, it is applicable regardless of metaphysics.<br /><br />It is of course <i>meaningless</i> without the correct metaphysical outlook, but still coherent and applicable.<br /><br />We can decide our own preference for what part we will play in the future that really will be. We do not have the power to substantially alter that future for anyone <i>else</i>.Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-45500379221333876652018-05-07T14:49:52.834+01:002018-05-07T14:49:52.834+01:00@CCL - As you presumably know, I regard the metaph...@CCL - As you presumably know, I regard the metaphysics underlying your view to be mistaken and incoherent. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-86825292130467959092018-05-07T11:29:11.980+01:002018-05-07T11:29:11.980+01:00What you believe you know about the past through m...What you believe you know about the past through memory is generally false in the first instance because it is biased by your instinctive need to avoid contemplating challenges to your social value. This is a well known cognitive problem in humans.<br /><br />The first and most difficult task of free will is to challenge your distorted perspective of what has happened in the past, this is why repentance and forgiveness are central aspects of Christianity, because they are the prerequisites for any really serious commitment to the will of God in in the future.<br /><br />Ultimately, you <i>will</i> serve God's plan. Your only real choice is whether you do so willingly out of love or serve as an unwitting pawn. Yes, the outcome from <i>your</i> perspective is different depending on whether you serve willingly or not, but in the ultimate scheme of things it doesn't make an overall difference.<br /><br />This is fundamentally difficult for most humans to appreciate because they naturally have a perspective that assigns great importance to their own perspective. And of course that's not entirely wrong, you <i>should</i> seek Heaven because <i>you</i> want to be with God (at least, that's why God wants you to seek Heaven). But the extension of this natural preference for your personal perspective to the belief that you are personally changing the outcome of the universe as a whole is illogical, or even just ridiculous.<br /><br />God knows, for each of His children, whether or not they ultimately <i>will</i> choose Him. Such is the nature of true love, it enlightens one concerning the real nature of the beloved. But even if God didn't know your individual fate, but were personally indifferent to you, it would still be a simple matter to assess statistically the outcome of eternity.<br /><br />A nuclear physicist doesn't need to know which particular atoms will undergo quantum events leading to nuclear decay in order to accurately predict the outcome of a chain reaction. He only needs to know the statistical rate of such events among all the atoms. No individual atom decides the entire process, it only itself undergoes the quantum event...or not. But to call that a "decision" or to suppose the atom itself cares either way is nonsensical. It is merely an analogy.<br /><br />You decide your relationship to the future, as to the past, and that relationship <i>really</i> does matter to <i>you</i> (and to God, because He loves you as an individual). But to the grand scheme of events it matters not at all. There will be villains, and there will be heroes, but whichever <i>you</i> decide to be doesn't change the story. The story is decided by the total choices of <i>everyone</i>, not just yourself.<br /><br />God accepts this. That's both why God is all powerful, and why "all powerful" doesn't mean "able to save people against their own will". Otherwise God would do just that.Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-54152145067300773092018-05-06T09:40:44.628+01:002018-05-06T09:40:44.628+01:00I agree with WmJas in my understanding of CCL.
I...I agree with WmJas in my understanding of CCL. <br /><br />I think of the the difficulties of discussing time is that we tend to become captivated by our models - for example our visualisations. This is a charactaristic error of modern science (and was noted as such 200 years ago, by Goethe - or more poetically by William Blake)... I mean that we tend to assume that there is no end to analysis, to explaining. <br /><br />But what happens when you analyses below the metaphysical level is that you generate contingent, aritrary 'models' - none of which are real. By contrast science (according to Goethe, correctly IMO) ought to be about explaining in terms of the ultimate phenomena. At that point we may contemplate the phenomena, and understand how they 'fit' with everything else - but we cannot explain them in terms of anything more fundamental. <br /><br />(e. In biology, the genetic revolution (in the 1950s) actually stopped 'doing biology' - which is the science of living things; and instead studied the biochemistry found-in living things. Consequently, none of what-had-been the main problems of biology - such as the nature of life, the origins of life, the nature of form - have been addressed, or solved, since that time.) <br /><br />But time is (for me, anyway) a bottom line metaphysical reality, which cannot be explained in terms of anything more fundamental - time cannot be 'analysed'. We can give examples of what it does, how we perceive ti it - but we cannot explain what it is, because the concept is irreducible. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-51042610042329324592018-05-06T07:44:47.953+01:002018-05-06T07:44:47.953+01:00CCL, you seem to be saying that everything about t...CCL, you seem to be saying that everything about the future is predetermined and inevitable except our own attitudes towards it. How is that a consistent position? If the future is just as fixed as the past, I have no more ability to choose my future attitudes than to alter my past ones.Wm Jas Tychonievichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-78340023908873403712018-05-05T10:14:38.081+01:002018-05-05T10:14:38.081+01:00From my perspective, precognition is no more inexp...From my perspective, precognition is no more inexplicable than memory.<br /><br />Whether you accept that the present is all that there is, and that it undergoes ordered transformation to become the future and abolish the past, or believe that the past continues to exist in some manner after we cease to regard it as the present, and thus that the future may already exist in the same sense but in the opposite direction.<br /><br />But humans often deal with the issue of volition as if it gave them unlimited potential to change a future that doesn't yet exist, but has no power over the past which is both real and fixed.<br /><br />I can see no logical basis for such an asymmetry. First off, it is factually incorrect. Most of our volitional power in any moment must be focused on altering our relationship and view of the past in order for it to be effective in shaping our future. To dream only of the future without studying and learning from the past (and these are vastly different things) is to ensure that one cannot have any realistic conception of things as they will actually occur.<br /><br />The future is not more amenable to being radically altered by our present volition than is the past, what we can do is choose our attitude towards it. And this is also what we can do with they past, what we <i>must</i> do with the past if we are to see the future that is rather than be deluded by false hopes or terrors.<br /><br />Men often like to think as if, by cheering for one horse or another, they can determine the outcome of the race. But they cheer for a horse because they have bet on it. Betting changes their relationship to the outcome of the race, it doesn't change the outcome.<br /><br />Rather than making long-odds bets and cheering for a horse that isn't going to win, the clever (I do not say wise) look at the past and offer attractive odds on the horse that <i>will</i> win. Of course, being clever rather than wise, they aren't always content to be strictly honest in their dealings. Nor do seeds thrown on fresh manure rather than rocks go to Heaven as a result. Any analogy breaks down if you try to push it too far.<br /><br />The repentant gain power to learn from their past and thus wisely choose their relationship to the inevitable future. This wisdom makes their perceptions of the future precognitive rather than delusional. But it comes from letting go of their delusional misapprehensions about the past and remembering what really was rather than what seems most flattering to their desires to feed their vanity.<br /><br />Cognitive science demonstrates amply this malleable aspect of memory, though it is generally couched in different terms there.Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.com