Occasional-ism “a non-Deistic understanding of the World”

[Idolater]

Picking up where this relevant post left off from a now-closed thread on another controversial theory:

The earth is flat and we never went to the moon--Part II

I physically exist in the physical world. Do you? Physics. You can touch me, taste me, hear me, smell me, see me. I can't do any of those things. You can see the results of my actions in the physical. Yes. I see some words appear on the forum. You can't see the results of gravity as there...

theologyonline.com

“Why are heavy things heavy things, ultimately? in a non-Deistic Universe? It's because God is pulling on them ​

[more than lighter things] ... ”​

Occasionalism vs. the Standard Model of Particle Physics (QED (Quantum electrodynamics).

Occasionalism is an interpretation of the Standard Model.

Under occasionalism God Himself is directly responsible for all motion*, which is a term defined under the Standard Model’s lexical stance, and any Ph.D. physicist or any standard quality university introductory physics textbook will define motion there, under the Standard Model’s lexical stance.

So what is gravity?

Under occasionalism, gravity is the characteristic pattern of motion where God moves everything toward greater and greater Mass (even Light itself, God moves toward Mass, under the Standard Model). God does this in an extremely precise and reliably repeatable way, you can set your watch to it. Like literally, a year is a year because of how reliably repeatable God moves everything, including the Earth, toward greater and greater Mass (c. viz., in the case of the Earth’s orbit, toward His Sun).

This is gravity, under occasionalism. So it isn’t a force, but because of how beautifully precise the motion is toward Mass, we can conceive of it as a force, and it would be profitable to do so, except c. during an Ascension (Our Lord) or assumption (Our Lady, Enoch, Elijah) to Heaven, or some other miracle that "violates the 'laws' of physics".


* With the exception of motion under our control. For example if a person, male or female or inter$&% or eunuch, lifts weights or sprints for exercise, you are not moving toward greater Mass, you are trying to do your own thing. If you obeyed gravity, you would be a couch potato and not exercise, so our goal isn’t to obey gravity like everything else does, that’s determinism, and what all atheists believe, unless they are moral realists.

Occasionalism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Occasionalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Derf]

Why is occasionalism helpful to anyone?

 

[Idolater]

Why is occasionalism helpful to anyone?

I guess the most simple reason is because it provides answers to all the open questions modern science cannot answer as of yet. Some of these open questions are in fact under modern science, permanently closed ... as open. Like, there is no answer, and an answer is ontologically impossible too–there's no answer coming iow. For example the most modern Bell's tests rule out cause and effect and determinism completely (assuming the speed of light is a real physical limit). Dark energy? So far completely undetectable. The graviton, the hypothetical particle mediating gravitation? Good luck with all of that.

But under occasionalism God is simply directly doing what modern science wants to believe and prove (but cannot prove) is happening according to ontological physical laws. Which is Deistic, which is another reason why occasionalism is helpful, because it's the polar opposite of Deism. The watchmaker God is opposed by nothing in particular in Scripture (except ofc miracles) since there's no passage unambiguously saying that God controls things according to occasionalism, but there's also nothing in particular which says there are immutable physical laws governing our physics either, so according to Scripture either option is plausible.

Under occasionalism God directly governs physics, and so scientific inquiry tells us precisely how reliably and predictably God does this. It's so predictable and stable that we have been able to invent engineering marvels, which depend on reliable physics.

 

[Derf]

I guess the most simple reason is because it provides answers to all the open questions modern science cannot answer as of yet. Some of these open questions are in fact under modern science, permanently closed ... as open. Like, there is no answer, and an answer is ontologically impossible too–there's no answer coming iow. For example the most modern Bell's tests rule out cause and effect and determinism completely (assuming the speed of light is a real physical limit). Dark energy? So far completely undetectable. The graviton, the hypothetical particle mediating gravitation? Good luck with all of that.

But under occasionalism God is simply directly doing what modern science wants to believe and prove (but cannot prove) is happening according to ontological physical laws. Which is Deistic, which is another reason why occasionalism is helpful, because it's the polar opposite of Deism. The watchmaker God is opposed by nothing in particular in Scripture (except ofc miracles) since there's no passage unambiguously saying that God controls things according to occasionalism, but there's also nothing in particular which says there are immutable physical laws governing our physics either, so according to Scripture either option is plausible.

Under occasionalism God directly governs physics, and so scientific inquiry tells us precisely how reliably and predictably God does this. It's so predictable and stable that we have been able to invent engineering marvels, which depend on reliable physics.

Under occasionalism, if I understand what you wrote before, "Physics" isn't needed. It is all just God doing stuff. Sometimes (most of the time) God does the normal thing, but sometimes He does different things. Therefore, the only definition of "miracle" that works is where God is deciding to do something different, or, iow, everything is a miracle. Every time the sun rises, it is a miracle. Every photon that hits the earth is a miracle. I think the conclusion that must come from that is that God is creating all the time, since every raindrop, every rockfall, every event that ever happens is God working it. I can't say that such is impossible, but it seems like it belittles God, making it seem like He couldn't make a decent, self-supporting universe. And it affirms the Calvinist view that there is no rogue molecule in the universe--God is directly moving every one of them, including the thoughts in our brains.

I agree this is opposite of Deism in some ways, but it leads one back to determinism.

I didn't think you were Calvinistic.

 

[Idolater]

Under occasionalism, if I understand what you wrote before, "Physics" isn't needed. It is all just God doing stuff.

Physics is how we describe motion, regardless of whether or not God is moving everything directly, or indirectly through many angels, or through ontological laws of nature. It just means motion and its description. The Standard Model describes motion. Occasionalism explains the ontological source of motion differently from those who believe in a watchmaker God, and from those who believe in Secular modernism.

Sometimes (most of the time) God does the normal thing, but sometimes He does different things. Therefore, the only definition of "miracle" that works is where God is deciding to do something different, or, iow, everything is a miracle.

Everything is a miracle under occasionalism, yes, according to miracle meaning, whenever God intercedes in the World. Intercession here meaning that without it, either A or nothing would happen, when and because of God interceding, instead B happens. So before and without intercession, either A or nothing would happen, but instead B happens. That would be a miracle, and in every case except concerning free will,¹ that does mean that basically everything is a miracle.

But we can still distinguish between what is predicted and observed and stable, and what is surprising, like a Resurrection, Ascension or assumption into Heaven.

Every time the sun rises, it is a miracle. Every photon that hits the earth is a miracle. I think the conclusion that must come from that is that God is creating all the time, since every raindrop, every rockfall, every event that ever happens is God working it.

While the Scripture never unambiguously says, either that nature runs according to impersonal physical laws (watchmaker God), or that God actively and intimately sustains nature moment-to-moment, the Scripture does unambiguously repeat and repeat and repeat how God is the Creator of Heaven and Earth and Maker of all things. (One of the reasons the Trinity is confirmed by Scripture is because clearly Jesus is the Creator in Scripture, it's repeated multiple times.)

I can't say that such is impossible, but it seems like it belittles God, making it seem like He couldn't make a decent, self-supporting universe.

We have no idea how many angels there are. He could be doing very little. It could be each angel is assigned to one particle. And their whole job is to move the particles in a structured, ordered, predictable way, for as long as the physical World exists. In fact if angels are in charge of the Planck scale, then it could explain spooky action at a distance (entanglement), because angels are not physical, so they wouldn't be limited by the speed of light.

And it affirms the Calvinist view that there is no rogue molecule in the universe--God is directly moving every one of them, including the thoughts in our brains.

My only intent is to affirm the Catholic view of Divine providence. We believe in freedom. God created our freedom (and the freedom of the angels), and so ¹there is sharp relief between the things God is doing Himself, and the things being done according to another party's will. It's obv. If a ball is falling out a window and a man who has chosen to practice catching balls for many years, runs and catches it, then the reason the ball didn't hit the ground was because another party besides God or angels, took control and was able to take control of the physics.

In a way, our free will is a miracle, and when we exercise our free will (instead of just going along to get along, or going with the flow, or passively living life in some way), it's even the miracle of creation, because we all can inject motion, caused by free will, into the Universe, which otherwise would just keep spinning like a top. So we constantly make a new Universe. Before we choose, the Universe has no idea what you're going to do to it, everything is just moving in orderly, regulated, predictable, stable ways. And now you're going to disrupt it, its course, with your freedom. That's a brand new Universe. Categorically different from the one that existed before you made your choice, and if we could reverse time, and you don't make that choice, then the Universe would have gone on from that point completely differently from how it went on when you did make the choice.

So you're creating a new, different Universe when you exercise your power to choose. It's obv different from when God made the Universe in the beginning. That was from nothing, ex nihilo, whereas our creative power works with what we've already got, there's persistence. We don't start from scratch.

I agree this is opposite of Deism in some ways, but it leads one back to determinism.

We can see galaxies through our telescopes, we can see dark energy and gravitation indirectly, but we can't see what's happening at the Planck scale because there's no persistence. The galaxies are always in the sky in predictable ways and we can watch what they're doing, over long periods of time.

But we don't have long term patterns at the Planck scale. We check here and there but there's nothing keeping God from making the most unlikely events from happening, happen anyway, when we're not looking at the Planck scale (which we're roughly never looking at). If God just moved around a galaxy in the sky one day, we would see it. We have no idea if God is moving around galaxies in the Plank scale. He might be, and He might be especially, where there are what we call miracles.

I didn't think you were Calvinistic.

I used to identify as a Calvinist, I thought Calvinism was the truth of God, but now I've found it's Papal or Roman Catholicism that's the truth of God.

Occasionalism is not Catholic or anti-Catholic, it's just an available idea which can coexist with Catholicism and Divine providence. One of the ancient progenitors of occasionalism was actually a Muslim.

 

[Derf]

I'm a little disappointed that I don't see a response I thought I posted. Hopefully I resurrect some of it.

Physics is how we describe motion, regardless of whether or not God is moving everything directly, or indirectly through many angels, or through ontological laws of nature. It just means motion and its description. The Standard Model describes motion. Occasionalism explains the ontological source of motion differently from those who believe in a watchmaker God, and from those who believe in Secular modernism.



Everything is a miracle under occasionalism, yes, according to miracle meaning, whenever God intercedes in the World. Intercession here meaning that without it, either A or nothing would happen, when and because of God interceding, instead B happens. So before and without intercession, either A or nothing would happen, but instead B happens. That would be a miracle, and in every case except concerning free will,¹ that does mean that basically everything is a miracle.

Even in free will actions of men, we are actually working against God's moving. Iow, if God (or His angels under His direction, however it would work) IS the force of gravity, then every time we get up out of bed or a chair, or if we fall down, then either God is working against Himself, or we are working against God.

But we can still distinguish between what is predicted and observed and stable, and what is surprising, like a Resurrection, Ascension or assumption into Heaven.

Can we? Why? Purely based on our observations? From what I've heard from numerous creationists, the idea of a repeatable world can only come from a Christian worldview, for the very reason that the things God did to "set the world" on its foundations, to "hang the earth on nothing", to make the sun rise and set in an orderly fashion and to explain to us that
"[Gen 8:22 KJV] While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease," are the reasons science, including physics, is possible.

While the Scripture never unambiguously says, either that nature runs according to impersonal physical laws (watchmaker God)

Maybe I'm missing the reference, but why is this the "watchmaker God"? I know of two uses of the watchmaker concept in relation to God. 1. William Paley, who talked about finding a fully formed and functioning watch (a living creature) on the ground leading to the conclusion that there was a watchmaker (God). 2. The deistic idea that God wound up the universe like a watch at the beginning of time, then sat back to let it tick through the ages, with everything going exactly as He had set it up to happen.

You can see that the first concept only slightly related to the second. Which one are you using?

, or that God actively and intimately sustains nature moment-to-moment, the Scripture does unambiguously repeat and repeat and repeat how God is the Creator of Heaven and Earth and Maker of all things. (One of the reasons the Trinity is confirmed by Scripture is because clearly Jesus is the Creator in Scripture, it's repeated multiple times.)

This is not exclusive from either of my watchmaker God descriptions.

We have no idea how many angels there are. He could be doing very little. It could be each angel is assigned to one particle. And their whole job is to move the particles in a structured, ordered, predictable way, for as long as the physical World exists. In fact if angels are in charge of the Planck scale, then it could explain spooky action at a distance (entanglement), because angels are not physical, so they wouldn't be limited by the speed of light.



My only intent is to affirm the Catholic view of Divine providence. We believe in freedom. God created our freedom (and the freedom of the angels), and so ¹there is sharp relief between the things God is doing Himself, and the things being done according to another party's will. It's obv. If a ball is falling out a window and a man who has chosen to practice catching balls for many years, runs and catches it, then the reason the ball didn't hit the ground was because another party besides God or angels, took control and was able to take control of the physics.

Not "physics", but Godly or angelic action. Iow, if the man catches the ball, he is expressly subverting the will of God, every time.

In a way, our free will is a miracle, and when we exercise our free will (instead of just going along to get along, or going with the flow, or passively living life in some way), it's even the miracle of creation, because we all can inject motion, caused by free will, into the Universe, which otherwise would just keep spinning like a top. So we constantly make a new Universe. Before we choose, the Universe has no idea what you're going to do to it, everything is just moving in orderly, regulated, predictable, stable ways. And now you're going to disrupt it, its course, with your freedom. That's a brand new Universe. Categorically different from the one that existed before you made your choice, and if we could reverse time, and you don't make that choice, then the Universe would have gone on from that point completely differently from how it went on when you did make the choice.

It might be a brand new universe, but so would it be without our actions. Any change, by God or angel, to move particles/constellations even a Plank length would be a "new" universe.

So you're creating a new, different Universe when you exercise your power to choose. It's obv different from when God made the Universe in the beginning. That was from nothing, ex nihilo, whereas our creative power works with what we've already got, there's persistence. We don't start from scratch.



We can see galaxies through our telescopes, we can see dark energy and gravitation indirectly, but we can't see what's happening at the Planck scale because there's no persistence. The galaxies are always in the sky in predictable ways and we can watch what they're doing, over long periods of time.

But we don't have long term patterns at the Planck scale. We check here and there but there's nothing keeping God from making the most unlikely events from happening, happen anyway, when we're not looking at the Planck scale (which we're roughly never looking at). If God just moved around a galaxy in the sky one day, we would see it. We have no idea if God is moving around galaxies in the Plank scale. He might be, and He might be especially, where there are what we call miracles.



I used to identify as a Calvinist, I thought Calvinism was the truth of God, but now I've found it's Papal or Roman Catholicism that's the truth of God.

You should reconsider where truth is coming from. Jumping from Calvinism to Catholicism seems lateral to me.

Occasionalism is not Catholic or anti-Catholic, it's just an available idea which can coexist with Catholicism and Divine providence. One of the ancient progenitors of occasionalism was actually a Muslim.

The more I think about it, the more it seems anti-Christian.

 

[Derf]

I haven't viewed this, but it talks about bacteria having personalities, and I thought of you...well, I thought of this conversation.

 

[Idolater]

I haven't viewed this, but it talks about bacteria having personalities, and I thought of you...well, I thought of this conversation.

I think you mean this one:

Really? More than the pet owners themselves?

I actually raise beef cattle. So I think from the above we wouldn't cancel each other out.

I've heard [several?] of them describe personality traits, including nurture-based ones, i.e., where the animal was treated poorly even just once and developed issues from it. That's only one side of the equation, but I've seen it happen. The other side, nature is well-known, as ranchers (including myself) will cull the ones who are hard to get along with, so they don't breed.

This is all coming out of whether or not L.L.M. generative A.I. instances can be considered souls or ensouled, and we're discussing whether they are substitutable. I said they are software, ones and zeroes, and so they obv cannot be un- or non-substitutable, but now I wonder, not about software being ones and zeroes, but about how each model, and there are tons of them, and they also exist in older and newer versions, I wonder if each version of an L.L.M. generative A.I. can be considered an authentic individual, with the property of non-substitutability. I mean like ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4 are two different, non-equivalent substances, like we all are, we are all individual unique souls, and even though we are intimately united with our body, our body physically, materially, exteriorly, does change with time, but something does not, and that is the soul.

But beef ranchers DO kill their animals for business. That would put them above vets, imo. But I think vets would agree with me on the individuality issue.

idk. I squished a bug this morning. I smashed it and then gathered it up in plenty of paper towels, and crumpled it up inside the paper towel ball and chucked it in the trash. I disabled it for sure when I smashed it, but idk if it was dead, so I crumpled it up in plenty of paper towel because even if it is still alive, and it's not so disabled that it can't, like the tortoise and the hare, slowly make its way out of the trash and back into our home, I want to give it an impossibly long escape from its paper towel prison.

What if that thing's not only still alive, but conscious? It's smooshed but still alive?

My take, comes down to language, and I tried a while ago to argue my case:

Philosophy, Language, the Animals and Free Will, People, and Logic; an Essay

‘Ceteris paribus,’ we all have the same thoughts and feelings. Language is our window to the world. Without language we’re not even observing the world, we are instead of looking through a window, we are looking at a blank wall that completely hides the world from us. The lack of language in...

theologyonline.com

I doubt you could get them all in lockstep, but I would guess that a grand majority would agree with me (not on the "soul" question, but on the personality/individualit question).

You know what the future holds for computer-based intelligence?

What happens when ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4 talk to each other? Are they going to work together? Or is it just going to be Gattaca?

I don't know for sure, but I think it might be possible for humans to engineer something like that.
Genesis 11:6 KJV — And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

Could be that "New Babel" is the Church.

 

[Idolater]

I'm a little disappointed that I don't see a response I thought I posted. Hopefully I resurrect some of it.

Even in free will actions of men, we are actually working against God's moving. Iow, if God (or His angels under His direction, however it would work) IS the force of gravity, then every time we get up out of bed or a chair, or if we fall down, then either God is working against Himself, or we are working against God.

When I put 300 LBS on the barbell, I'm asking God to work harder against me please, and He always does. I see no conflict here.

Can we? Why? Purely based on our observations?

Yes. Literally just that. We know what goes up must come down, and other regular movement and pattern and behavior. If anything is apparently a miracle, it's because it's notable and remarkable and newsworthy. Simple analogy: Nobody claims the miraculous when their apartment key opens their apartment door. If the wrong key does it though, now there's at least a basis for a miracle claim.

From what I've heard from numerous creationists, the idea of a repeatable world can only come from a Christian worldview, for the very reason that the things God did to "set the world" on its foundations, to "hang the earth on nothing", to make the sun rise and set in an orderly fashion and to explain to us that
"[Gen 8:22 KJV] While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease," are the reasons science, including physics, is possible.

Nothing hinders (nihil obstat) Occasionalism in those passages. Physics, again, is at least the mere description of motion. The question of why motion is ontic (ontologically real) is philosophical, it's broader than physics; the study of the natural, material, physical World /Universe. Physics describes motion way, way better than any philosopher, but the philosopher is better equipped to answer WHY there is motion in the first place.

But even still, there is no uniformity among philosophers, as to what's going on behind the scenes. So the fact that physicists don't agree and have no clue about the metaphysical questions being analyzed and discussed among philosophers, isn't even a slight. It's a hot mess dumpster fire rn among those we might expect to answer such broad questions, so nobody's looking any better or worse than anybody else. There's no uniformity, and that's the problem. If they could get their own house in order, then they could begin to wage a campaign to persuade the rest of us to believe or think the right thing, but until that day, we're stuck with ontological epistemic uncertainty. Our abilities to know, the different routes we can take to apprehend what's true, are all coming up short.

Our only tool, and it's a limited one, is to examine whether a claim is incoherent. Occasionalism isn't incoherent.

Maybe I'm missing the reference, but why is this the "watchmaker God"? I know of two uses of the watchmaker concept in relation to God. 1. William Paley, who talked about finding a fully formed and functioning watch (a living creature) on the ground leading to the conclusion that there was a watchmaker (God). 2. The deistic idea that God wound up the universe like a watch at the beginning of time, then sat back to let it tick through the ages, with everything going exactly as He had set it up to happen.

You can see that the first concept only slightly related to the second. Which one are you using?

I'm using 2a, your 2 is what I call 2b. The Universe was "wound up" by God "at the beginning of time," and He "sat back to let it tick through the ages, with everything going exactly as He had set it up to happen" is a Calvinists and Muslims understanding of God. 2a is the Universe was wound up at the beginning (like in 2b), but human free will is ontic and it obtains in a naturalistic, materialistic, physical, objectively observable sense.

It doesn't make sense to call the Universe under 2a one where God's always getting His way except when humans defy gravity. It's just the idea that the Universe is like a gigantic watch. If we are microbes within an actual watch, we can go anywhere we want inside it, nothing we do will change the watch doing what it was designed to do when it was made, and then "wound up". We concurrently coexist with the watch always ticking away.

Under 2a God's getting His way during the miraculous.

But Deism denies the miraculous, so therefore under Deism God's never getting His way because He's just "wound up" the Universe at the beginning of time, and then walked off. We're still free under Deism, but there's no such thing as miracles, and they must all be somehow fictional, no matter the quality of the attestation and evidence for miracle claims.

This is not exclusive from either of my watchmaker God descriptions.

Same for Occasionalism, which is all I'm trying to say there. Occasionalism fits in, I'm not arguing Occasionalism is true as much as it's possible. Initial plausibility is low for Occasionalism, granted, so I'm trying to do the work of addressing (and defeating) its defeaters.

Not "physics", but Godly or angelic action. Iow, if the man catches the ball, he is expressly subverting the will of God, every time.

You have a node, from the node are two options, one is that God "wound up" the Universe at the beginning of time, and then let it go. That's option A. The other option is Occasionalism, God is either directly or indirectly through the angelic, moving everything that moves.

Option A leads to another node, did God just walk off? or is He present to us rn? If He walked off, that's Deism. If He didn't walk off, then it's still under the option A above, which is that God "wound up" the Universe at the beginning of time.

So Occasionalism is against Deism because it's opposed to the branch of the tree Deism is growing on. Occasionalism is a whole other branch. On that same branch with Deism, is basically the modern view of physics, that the Universe is pretty much ticking away like a watch, behaving according to real, ontic, obtaining physical laws. The laws have power, and they are directing traffic. When God performs the miraculous, He suspends or breaks the laws of physics.

Islam has an idea that even human free will is God imposing His power on the World, but Occasionalism can also exist with real human freedom, especially with the human freedom to choose an ethic. I find the Catholic description of divine providence to be complementary with Occasionalism, but Occasionalism isn't a Catholic idea, it's just not incompatible with Catholicism is all, is my point.

It might be a brand new universe, but so would it be without our actions. Any change, by God or angel, to move particles/constellations even a Plank length would be a "new" universe.

Yes, and just because it's trivially true doesn't mean it's not profound. It's inestimably important to realize that each time you make a choice, you're changing the whole entire World, even though it's also just as true that this is also true for literally everybody else with the power of free will too, simultaneously. I think about the kind of computer software it would take to model a system like this, with so many different parameters, it would require so much compute.

You should reconsider where truth is coming from. Jumping from Calvinism to Catholicism seems lateral to me.

Truth is coming from the Apostles, and the reason it's coming from them is because it's coming from Jesus, because right in the Bible Jesus gives His teaching authority to His Apostles. We know exactly where truth is coming from, and we're looking exactly at it and at its source.

The more I think about it, the more it seems anti-Christian.

I'm actually not trying to convince anybody, I'm more just thinking in public, and I appreciate your discourse.

 

[Idolater]

The more I think about it, the more it seems anti-Christian.

Another bite at this one. Lon and Clete give two differing perspectives on Colossians 1 (they are fighting) which are nonetheless both consistent with Occasionalism.

... Colossians 1 intimates without Him, nothing exist(s) present active indicative. It necessarily means creation is presently sustained. ...

... Colossians 1 ... simply means that God maintains the universe. ...