…America does not believe in witchcraft…

There’s “nothing unusual” about a blessing regarding witchcraft given in a country that does not believe in witchcraft (rolls eyes). Mr Olupona may be an “expert,” but certainly not in logic.

On the witchcraft claim, from the Boston Herald:

The video of a Kenyan bishop asking Jesus to protect Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from “witchcraft” has turned into a political witch hunt, says one Harvard expert who found “nothing unusual” about the blessing.

“He was giving an African prayer to an American Christian,” said Jacob K. Olupona, a Harvard African studies professor. “His prayer reflects his own background and his own training and his own world view. America may not believe in witchcraft, but witchcraft is a reality (in Africa).”

On the ridiculous dinosaurs claim, I looked but couldn’t find actual quotes from Palin expressing this belief. The LA Times source for this shocking expose is a music teacher’s supposed casual conversation with Palin 12 years ago. Oh, and this source, “who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska.”

Oh and WikiAnswers notes that “Sarah Palin is not a literal Creationist in the sense that she believes the world was created in 7 literal days and is only a few thousand years old” and “her church does not believe that Dinosaurs literally roamed Earth with man”.

Or to put it in a way that you might understand, Sarah Palin Does Not Believe That Dinosaurs and Humans Walked the Earth at the Same Time, and that claiming she does is Bullshit Propagated By Delusional Left Wing Cranks

Now about that anti-semite Rev Wright…

Yes, it does. It is not a matter of our mathematics being insufficiently sophisticated to explain the behavior of atoms.

If, for example, you conduct an experiment to slowly send electrons one at a time through a narrow slit, you will gradually build up a diffraction patter – a wave phenomenon – on the screen behind the slit. But if you try to measure the trajectories of the individual electrons, the diffraction patter disappears and you just get a single bright spot. That’s a physically observable phenomenon, not just an inadequate mathematical model.

But that’s just it. I did give a mechanism for how free will isn’t really possible. Determinism and the (theoretical) predictability of behavior preclude free will. So, can you counter that?

Frank: “If you want to look at “free will” as simply microscopically minute course corrections in what is a preordained path, it still resembles free will.”

Hell, I recognize that my behavior each day resembles free will. I don’t constantly think of my actions as being predictable. I still make “choices,” but cognitively I recognize those choices as being absolutely determined by a whole host of variables – my genetic makeup, my environment, my mood, immediate social constraints, etc. And each of those variables is individually determined by a whole host of OTHER variables. And so on, and so forth…

I’m afraid I don’t quite understand the point you’re trying to make with your last paragraph. Are you trying to say that although we’re all on a predetermined path, we have some freedom within the constraints? In other words, I am destined to be a college professor, but there is some limited freedom en route to that end?

If that’s your argument, I can’t buy into that. Not only do you have to account for what things ARE determined (e.g., becoming a professor, who you marry, how many children you have), but you have to account for the things that are not (e.g., what sandwich will I eat for lunch?). How do you know which is which? Why would the universe “care” more about my future profession than what I eat for dinner?

I’m pretty sure that the universe doesn’t really give a shit. I don’t see any reason why there should be some dichotomy between determined events and events due to “free will.” But I’m all ears if someone can give me a sound argument.

It is not necessary to explain how free will is possible, unless you had demonstrated that it was not.

If you want to look at “free will” as simply microscopically minute course corrections in what is a preordained path, it still resembles free will.

If you could burn a stand of trees; replant it, regrow it, then burn it again, the stand would never burn the same way twice in a million years. If the trees were sentient for even a moment,what would stop them from thinking, “You may set us ablaze, and we are powerless against the flames, but we can choose how we burn”?

And that is measurable and, to some extent, predictable.

Unfortunately.

By any math currently known.

Does that preclude a more complex math from making accurate predictions in the future?

http://google.com/search?q=Sarah+Palin+witchcraft

Republican Sarah Palin was the right wing’s weapon against Witches!

And for good measure, I’ll raise you again with an evolution denier:

http://google.com/search?q=Sarah+Palin+evolution+Dinosaurs

You betcha!

No, you won’t see identical behavior in rats in most instances. There will be variation between organisms. However, even that variation is lawful in nature. This is actually the subject of my dissertation work – the effect of reinforcement contingencies on the variability of behavior. Turns out that you can manipulate variability in instrumental and Pavlovian action very readily by the altering the probability of reward; in fact, you can even directly train animals to respond more or less variably. In other words, variation in behavior can be an instrumental action, in and of itself, just like flipping a light switch, firing a gun, or pressing a lever. This isn’t even touching on the variation between organisms due to biological differences (e.g., genetics).

And even if you wanted to define free will in terms of variation in behavior across organisms, you still have the problem of defining the mechanism that explains how free will is possible. Like I said, if you want to invoke God for that, I understand but disagree.

I think we’ve gone pretty far afield in this thread, and that’s my fault. I just find this topic exceedingly interesting.

Obama’s Pastor, Role model and Spiritual Mentor of 20 years complains that “Jews” are keeping him from President Obama

Think of that as free will; or, think of lunch hour in a major corporation: It is lunch hour for all, but some don’t even eat, some eat at their desk, some bring their lunch but eat in the lunch room, etc. etc.

Sure. The subatomic world isn’t strictly predictable. I’m not disputing that (and realize my first post on this topic was not written so elegantly, and therefore lends confusion to my position). If you accept that macroscopic things behave predictably, then it seems like you have to accept that animals, specifically humans, behave predictably. And if behavior is predictable (e.g., behavior is a product of deterministic physical laws), you seem to lose free will. If I somehow have the relevant information to know that you are going to step on a nail on December 16th, 2016, and then you do it… doesn’t the utter predictability of the situation eliminate free will?

Another way of thinking about it… we know that the Colorado River eroded layers of rock away to leave the Grand Canyon. We don’t impute any kind of concept of free will to the river. What makes us different from the river?

The whole nature of the subject I do study (experimental psychology, specifically animal learning and behavior) is predicated on the idea that behavior IS predictable. If you give a rat “X” set of stimuli, in “Y” manner, you WILL observe “Z” behavior at test. Behavior is lawful. What makes us different from the rat?

And that that is domestic terrorism?

You totally missed his point.

In a nutshell, really big things behave predictably, really small things, not so much.