On Apr 27, 11:38 am, 1Z <peterdjo...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > What do you say the efficient cause of feeling is? > > > > > > > > Some priori brain state. > > > > > > > What could make a brain state cause a feeling? > > > > > > A psychophsical law or identity. > > > > > An omnipotence law could cause omnipotence too. > > > > so? > > > So it's a fallacy to say that X can exist because there could be a Law > > of X that allows it to exist. > > That doens't follow, and it isn't. Even if there is some specific > problem with > X=omnipotence, that doens;t mean there is for other values of X.
I used X to show specifically that the whole principle of justifying something by saying maybe there is a law which makes it so is a fallacy. > > > > > > > > > > > > > Otherwise I can just say that a > > > > > > > > > > deterministic universe includes libertarian free will, > > > > > > > > > > ghosts & > > > > > > > > > > goblins, whatever. > > > > > > > > > > Libertarian free will contradicts the requirment > > > > > > > > > for sufficent causes. > > > > > > > > > No more than feeling. > > > > > > > > No, Feeling isn't defined in terms of the presence or absence > > > > > > > of any kind of determinism or causality. > > > > > > > Causality is a condition within feeling, > > > > > > says who? > > > > > The notion of a cause is an idea - a feeling about order and sequence. > > > > That doesn't mean a cause itself is. > > > I think that it does. Without the possible perception of causality, > > what is 'cause'? > > What the perception is a perception of. A cat is what a perception of > a cat is a perception of, etc. What makes you think that that it is possible for something to exist without being perceived by something (including itself)? It's a common assumption, but I think it's totally empty. Existence, in reality, is nothing more or less than perception. > > > > > To have cause you have to have memory and narrative pattern > > > > recognition. > > > > To *recognise* a cause you have to have memory and narrative pattern > > > recognition > > > I'm not talking about human recognition in particular, I'm saying that > > ontologically you cannot have a 'cause' without something that > > remembers the initial condition and can detect that a change has > > occurred. > > Says who? > > > Otherwise there is only a perpetual now, uncaused, with no > > memory. > > Says who? What difference does it make who says it? Can you refute it in some way? > > >There is no time, no changes, no events at all, just a > > perpetual forgetting and incomprehensible fragments. > > Says who? If I say that a square has four sides, will you ask the same thing? > > >Being born as a > > blank slate every trillionth of a second. Cause isn't realizable in > > that universe because there is no memory of a non-now moment with > > which to infer time, sequence, and cause. > > > > > Without that, there really is no difference between a > > > > cause and a non-cause. > > > > Without that, there really is whatever there really is. > > > A lot of people believe that, but I don't think that's what reality > > is. Everything we know about perception and relativity points to a > > realism that is profoundly dependent upon perspective. > > That makes no sense. You are similtaneously claiming to that > there is no reality, and that you know what reality is. I not saying there is no reality, I am saying that reality is perception. I know what reality is, it is multi-sensory perception, or said another way, existence is multi-sense realism. > > > What is a > > tomato without any point of view? If I am a virus, a tomato is like a > > planet. If I am the size of a mountain, a tomato is a speck. > > All the evidene is that there was a unvierse a long time before humans > came along. Again, what I am talking about has nothing to do with humans. I am talking about atoms having and making sense. Atoms are the sense that the universe makes at the microcosmic level. Humans are a multi- layered stack of sensemaking stories on this anthropological level. > > >Without > > perception, there is no 'is'. Awareness is all that is (not just human > > awareness, but many frames of perceptual inertia that have accumulated > > in the cosmos, including human awareness). > > > > >Only disconnected fragments. > > > > Who told you that the universe absent huamns is disconnected? God? > > > Who told you that perception requires humans? Nothing that I am > > talking about is limited to humans, other than the fact that we can > > only comment with certainty on our own perception. > > You presumamnly need some kind of panpsychism to > prop up your perception driven view of relaity. You need some kind of mechanemorphism to prop up your prejudice against panpsychism. > OTOH, > people who think that things Just Are, don't need that posit. Of course they do, since their 'thinking' makes them completely different from any 'thing' that ever 'Just Was'. This is the delusion of mechanism - that faith in disbelief somehow escapes the epistemological bankruptcy of faith in belief. > > > > > > > as is free will. Feeling > > > > > > gives rise to free will directly. > > > > > > Says who? > > > > > Says most people who have ever lived. > > > > I don;'t think so. > > > I believe that you think that, but I can't see how. When we say the > > word "I" followed by any verb, we are saying ' this self does X of > > it's own free will'. > > Naah. Eg "I trip over and break my arm". I trip is still free will compared to 'I was pushed'. Accidents can still be willed, and with different degrees of consciousness. > > > > > > >If I feel like doing something, > > > > that feeling allows me to possibly try to do it. > > > > How do you know that isn't deterministic? A lot of people would say > > > that your desires > > > cause your action, and you can't choose your desires. > > > There is bi-directional feedback. You can choose which of your many > > desires to privilege with attention, action, etc. We tell our body > > what to do, it tells us what to do. > > There are various theories. You don't know it isn;t deterministic. I know that it doesn't make sense for it to exist if it were deterministic. > > > > > It's very > > > > straightforward. > > > > > > > Whoever is doing the feeling is > > > > > > ultimately determining the expression of their own free will. > > > > > > Says who? > > > > > According to you nobody can say anything except what they are > > > > determined to say, > > > > I am not sayign determinism is true, just that FW isn;t true apropri > > > in the way you keep saying. > > > I'm saying the opposite, that the fact FW is even conceivable means > > that determinism is not true. > > That arguemnt doens't work. That somehting is conceivable > does not make it really possible let alone actual. I didn't say that it did. I say that it means determinism is not universally true. If color didn't exist, you could not conceive of color. If you can conceive of color - that means that the universe can't only be black and white. It doesn't prove there is color, it doesn't mean that you have experienced color, but it does mean that ontologically there cannot be only black and white. You have to imagine a universe that is truly empty, before you fill it with all of your 21st century prejudices and look at it in the simplest possible terms. If your only choices are black and white, then color is not conceivable in any way. No more than you could conceive of another spectrum of all new colors right now. > > > > >so what possible difference could it make who > > > > happens to say it? > > > > Who says things have to make a difference in order to happen. > > > You did. By continuing to ask 'says who' and 'who says', you imply > > that there is some point in asking that > >. I am pointing out that > > nothing could be more meaningless than asking 'says who' when you > > assume that there really is no 'who' that decides freely to say what > > they want. > > Well, there is a point. Persons can have reasons and evidence > for their opinions even if they are determinstic. Opinions can't exist without free will. They are nothing but the intellectual readiness to express the positions you prefer, for the purpose of influencing others preference through their free will to be won over or not. > > > Who cares who says? Why does that make a difference to you? > > What does your concept of authority rest on? Free. Will. Intention. > > Personal qualification. > > > > > > > > > >The others don;t contradict determinism. > > > > > > > > > Why not? > > > > > > > > They are not defined in terms of it or its absence. > > > > > > > You are the only one defining free will in terms of an absence of > > > > > > causality. I see clearly that causality arises out of feeling and > > > > > > free > > > > > > will. > > > > > > Maybe you could make that clear to the rest of us. > > > > > By writing this sentence I am causing changes in a computer network, > > > > your screen, your eyes, and your mind. Do you doubt that I am choosing > > > > to do this? > > > > Even determinists can admit that your are choosing, since they regard > > > choice as another deterministic process. > > > Determinism can be seen as a process of free will also. The difference > > is that conscious choice really doesn't make sense in a fully > > deterministic universe, but all determinism makes sense as a category > > of motive experience. > > I have no idea what that means. It means determinism can be a kind of choice and choice can be a kind of determinism, but if you really want to be absolute about it, choice can't exist in a world of pure determinism but determinism can seem to exist in a world of pure choice. > > > > >What physical law do you claim has an interest in what I > > > > write here? > > > > Who says physcial laws have to be "interested"? > > > I'm speaking figuratively. > > What does the figure mean? It means that physical laws aren't literally 'interested' in what I am doing, but their effect on determining what I am doing can be considered a form of being interested or paying attention. > > > What physical law do you claim determines > > what I write here? > > The laws of electromagentism are particualrly relavant to the > mesoscopic > scale of humanity. You think electromagnetism determines whether I quote the Walrus and the Carpenter here? That can work only if you assume panspychism/ panexperientialism as I do. If thinking and feeling is electromagnetic, then electromagnetism is also thinks and feels. Or else you can appeal to metaphysics in Platonia or quantum unrealities. > > > > > > > > > > > > > What business does a feeling have being in a > > > > > > > > > > universe that is essentially a very sophisticated clock? > > > > > > > > > > Something happened that would cause a feeling. > > > > > > > > > Are you being serious? > > > > > > > > Yes. Why shouldn't you have laws of the form > > > > > > > "If <<see kitten>> then <<feel warm and gooey>>" ? > > > > > > > Because there is no logic to it. > > > > > > Statements of scientific law tend not to be analytical in any case. > > > > > But there is nothing to it whatsoever. You are saying that it should > > > > help solve a math problem if the computer can smell spaghetti just > > > > because we seem math on one side and spaghetti on the other. > > > > No. I am saying that there can be an if-then relationship between > > > phsycial > > > > states and mental states. I am not saying that all such relationships > > > hold. > > > Sure, there is if-then representation between physical states and > > mental states, and vice-versa. That doesn't mean that they both aren't > > presentations in their own right. If anything, it is the physical > > states that are always a representation. > > I have no idea what point you are making there. I am saying that physical fact is a type of perceptual fiction, and that perceptual fiction is primordial in the cosmos. > > > > And I am certainily not casting causality in terms of things being > > > "needed" or "taking an interest" > > > or "helping". > > > If you say that everything is deterministic, then you are saying that > > anything that exists needs to fit in with the context of what has been > > determined. > > Has to, not needs to. Ok, has to. > > > Everything needs to follow laws. > > Ditto. Fine, but what is the difference? Nothing in the universe needs anything until suddenly on the surface of this one planet in this backwater galaxy humans invent 'need' out of whole cloth? > > <You can't just have a > > > pipe organ appear out of the vacuum. That is exactly what awareness > > would have to be in a deterministic universe though - a sudden, > > unexplainable, and useless invention. > > Awareness is pretty damn useful. I am aware of things I want to eat, > and things that want to eat me. No. Awareness adds nothing to the effectiveness of machines to survive and reproduce. As you said, electromagnetism can explain everything. You can't have it both ways: either the universe makes sense as a deterministic machine and feeling is completely superfluous and unexplainable, or feeling is causally efficacious and we use it to determine our own behavior and alter evolution. > > > > > > >If you are positing a universe ruled > > > > > > by laws of mechanistic logic, then you are required to demonstrate > > > > > > that logic somehow applies to feeling, which it doesn't. If you have > > > > > > mechanism, you don't need feeling. > > > > > > I dare say vast tracts of the universe are unnecessary. > > > > > Then your insistence upon mechanism is devoid of anything except > > > > arbitrary sentiment. > > > > I am not insisting on it, I am just expaliing it as it has been > > > understood > > > for the past few centuries. Our understanding of mechanism is that it > > > has nothing to do with necessity of final causes, or sentiment or > > > interest, > > > and that it just churns away deriving future states from past ones. > > > You keep criticising this anthropomorphic notion of determinism > > > that is very much your own. > > > To say that all future states are derived from past ones means just > > what I am saying, that everything in the universe has to be justified > > by the necessity of the mechanism. You can't posit a cosmos of rigid > > mechanistic order and then claim that anything can happen for no > > reason. > > You're equivocating on reason. D-ism requires everythng to have > a prior intial cause, but nothing need exist for a reason, in the > sense of an aim goal or final cause. What is the prior cause of the invention of feeling? > > > > >Why not have a classical pantheon of gods? We > > > > could say they improve computation too. > > > > Huh? > > > Why not? Apollo would improve photosynthesis, agriculture, etc. Why > > not him? > > > Craig > > Huh? I never said anythign existed in order to improve computation. Apollo improves survival and reproduction too. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
