Re: Free-Will discussion
On 11 Apr 2013, at 21:31, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, April 11, 2013 2:24:44 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Apr 2013, at 17:28, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, April 11, 2013 11:07:01 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 10 Apr 2013, at 17:24, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Saturday, April 6, 2013 6:49:45 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Apr 2013, at 01:51, Craig Weinberg wrote: You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. No, you bet on them. You are not aware of your brain, in any direct way. Some antic believed consciousness comes from the liver. That consciousness is related to a brain is a theory, there are only evidence, we cannot experience any theory. By the same understanding that we know the brain is more likely to be the seat of consciousness than the liver, we also know that whatever we experience personally is most available impersonally as brain activity. We can manipulate brain activity magnetically and experience a change in our consciousness, when the same is not true of any other organ. This does not mean that our experience is caused by the brain or that brain characteristics can be translated into conscious qualities, but the correlation shows us that what an fMRI reveals is the correlation of events between space-time body and sensory-motor self. Far from being a map, most of the private experience is utterly opposite and unrecognizable to any of the forms or functions on the 'other side.' I was just saying that we are aware of our experience, then we built theories. Some of those theories are instinctive, other are build during early childhood, and others are brought by long histories. We are not experiencing a brain. In fact we can't according to the usual theory that there are no sensory neurons in the brain. If we are sitting inside of an airplane, it could be said that we don't 'directly experience' the airplane, as we might not be able to tell the difference, if we woke up there, between the seats on a plane and the seats on a train. If a piece of the plane fell off though, then we would be able to infer air travel. The same goes for the brain. We are only aware of it when some unexpected experience is presented. Tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, phantom smells, etc. All of these give us direct experiences of our own neurology which are beyond theory. It's multi-layered, so that on one level we do hear a sound that sounds like it is coming from outside of our body, but on another level we can test and understand that it can't be. As much as it is quite plausible, the brain existence is theoretical. Tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, phantom smells, etc. All of these give us *direct* experiences of tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, and phantom smells, and provide only *indirect* evidence that, perhaps, there is a brain, in some possible reality. Each one of those however are experiences which expose the medium itself. How could something like be possible? Like a lens flare in photography, or pixelation in a video, the phenomena not only reveals a non-purposive sensory artifact, but the particular intrusive quality of the artifact actually reflects the art itself. This is what the neurological symptoms tell us - not that we have a brain and that it is real, OK, then. but that there is more to our nature than to simply be a clear conduit to an objectively real universe. In this way, our senses provide us not only with simple truth, but also simple doubt which leads us to sophisticated truth, which then leads to sophisticated doubt, and finally a reconciled truth (multisense realism). OK. Note that the hypostases might play the role of the multisense in the comp theory. Both inside and outside of the body, and the body themselves are theoretical constructs, which might have, or not, some reality, primitive or not. I'm not so big on the power of the theoretical. To me theory is only as good as the access it provides to understanding. Exactly. Bruno Craig Bruno Craig Bruno Craig Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To
Free-Will discussion
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 1:17 AM, Craig Weinberg
whatsons...@gmail.comjavascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'whatsons...@gmail.com');
wrote:
On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 9:22:10 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:18 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com
wrote:
Where do you get the idea that subjective events cannot repeat? It
seems another thing that you've just made up, with no rational
justification.
Subjective events cannot literally repeat for the same reason that
historical events cannot literally repeat and you cannot step into the
same
river twice. All conditions are constantly changing so that it is
impossible
for every condition to be reproduced in a given frame of experience
because
what frames private experience is the relation with every other
experience
in the history of the universe, and to an eternity ahead.
My current experience is due to the current configuration of my brain,
But the current configuration of your brain is due to the current events
in your life.
Yes, and the milk is in the refrigerator because I put it there, but if
someone else put it there, or if it miraculously materialised there, the
milk would still be in the refrigerator.
and the current configuration of my brain is due to the preceding
configurations.
Then you rule out any possibility of perception or interaction with
anything outside of your brain. Your brain is basically a slime mold in the
dark.
Brain configuration at T2 is determined by the configuration C1 at T1 +
external influences at T1 + transition rules.
The current configuration is due to the preceding
configurations because of the deterministic causal chain which you
discount. But even without this causal chain, if the current
configuration repeats due to chance at some future point, the
experience would repeat.
That's your assumption. My understanding is that no experience can ever
repeat. How could it? Every particle is always decaying at different rates
in different combinations which cannot be controlled. Even if one
phenomenon were to precisely repeat, the context in which is has repeated
is different, so that the overall event is not repeated. Configurations of
matter don't repeat, but they can echo.
It is known from quantum mechanics that a given volume of space has a
finite number of possible configurations. This number can be calculated:
the Bekenstein bound. So there is only a finite number of brain states that
you can have if your brain remains finite in size, and this number is far,
far greater than the number of mental states you can have since most
possible brain states do not correlate with mental states (eg., if your
brain is mashed in a blender). If you can only have a finite number of
brain states what would prevent the brain states from repeating?
The causal chain is significant only insofar
as it reliably brings about the correct configuration for experiences.
A car mechanic is only significant insofar as he reliably fixes a
problem with the car, but if the same operation were performed
accidentally by a chimpanzee playing with the engine, the car would
run just as well.
That is not the case for free will. If my arm moves without my moving it,
that would be a spasm. If I imitate that motion for a doctor, it is not
really a spasm, even though I am reliably bringing about the correct
configuration to effect the arm motion. Two very different ways to arrive
at the same function. That means that if you build a system based purely on
function, there is no way of knowing which ways of accessing those
functions are present and which are not. To deny this, or remain ignorant
of it, is like a huge flashing neon sign that the full reality of the
phenomenon of consciousness has not been considered at all.
How have you addressed the point I made? If the correct configuration of
the brain were arranged, your arm would move as freely and consciously as
you like. The brain configuration for a spasm would be different. That's
why one is a spasm and the other is voluntary movement. To build something
you don't necessarily need to understand it, you just need to arrange
matter in the correct configuration. Cells do this, and they don't
understand anything.
We know that the person is the same regardless of the origin of the
matter in their body.
Huh? What person are you claiming is the same as another person?
A person has atoms from a hamburger in their brain one day and atoms from a
pizza another day, but they remain the same person. The origin of the
matter is not important.
We know that the entire person is rebuilt from
alternative matter over the course of normal metabolism and they
remain the same person.
Not all at once though. Any organization can trade a certain number of old
employees for new employees at a given time - the new employees learn by
example of existing employees and can be trained by them as well. You
cannot expect to fire
Re: Free-Will discussion
Craig: ...If we are sitting inside of an airplane, it could be said that we don't 'directly experience' the airplane, as we might not be able to tell the difference, if we woke up there, between the seats on a plane and the seats on a train. If a piece of the plane fell off though, then we would be able to infer air travel. The same goes for the brain. We are only aware of it when some unexpected experience is presented. Tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, phantom smells, etc. All of these give us direct experiences of our own neurology which are beyond theory. It's multi-layered, so that on one level we do hear a sound that sounds like it is coming from outside of our body, but on another level we can test and understand that it can't be.-Craig... JM: Consequently we have no proper indication of what our theory is based on (cf:Bruno) - we just 'think'. And 'believe'. And apply NAMES for it. Like 'consciousness'. It is interesting how superstition creeps into science. (cf: religions). John M On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 11:28 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: On Thursday, April 11, 2013 11:07:01 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 10 Apr 2013, at 17:24, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Saturday, April 6, 2013 6:49:45 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Apr 2013, at 01:51, Craig Weinberg wrote: You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. No, you bet on them. You are not aware of your brain, in any direct way. Some antic believed consciousness comes from the liver. That consciousness is related to a brain is a theory, there are only evidence, we cannot experience any theory. By the same understanding that we know the brain is more likely to be the seat of consciousness than the liver, we also know that whatever we experience personally is most available impersonally as brain activity. We can manipulate brain activity magnetically and experience a change in our consciousness, when the same is not true of any other organ. This does not mean that our experience is caused by the brain or that brain characteristics can be translated into conscious qualities, but the correlation shows us that what an fMRI reveals is the correlation of events between space-time body and sensory-motor self. Far from being a map, most of the private experience is utterly opposite and unrecognizable to any of the forms or functions on the 'other side.' I was just saying that we are aware of our experience, then we built theories. Some of those theories are instinctive, other are build during early childhood, and others are brought by long histories. We are not experiencing a brain. In fact we can't according to the usual theory that there are no sensory neurons in the brain. If we are sitting inside of an airplane, it could be said that we don't 'directly experience' the airplane, as we might not be able to tell the difference, if we woke up there, between the seats on a plane and the seats on a train. If a piece of the plane fell off though, then we would be able to infer air travel. The same goes for the brain. We are only aware of it when some unexpected experience is presented. Tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, phantom smells, etc. All of these give us direct experiences of our own neurology which are beyond theory. It's multi-layered, so that on one level we do hear a sound that sounds like it is coming from outside of our body, but on another level we can test and understand that it can't be. Craig Bruno Craig Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~**marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@**googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.**com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_outhttps://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~**marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Friday, April 12, 2013 4:58:31 PM UTC-4, JohnM wrote: Craig: ...If we are sitting inside of an airplane, it could be said that we don't 'directly experience' the airplane, as we might not be able to tell the difference, if we woke up there, between the seats on a plane and the seats on a train. If a piece of the plane fell off though, then we would be able to infer air travel. The same goes for the brain. We are only aware of it when some unexpected experience is presented. Tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, phantom smells, etc. All of these give us direct experiences of our own neurology which are beyond theory. It's multi-layered, so that on one level we do hear a sound that sounds like it is coming from outside of our body, but on another level we can test and understand that it can't be.-Craig... JM: Consequently we have no proper indication of what our theory is based on (cf:Bruno) - we just 'think'. And 'believe'. And apply NAMES for it. Like 'consciousness'. It is interesting how superstition creeps into science. (cf: religions). I think that behind the thinking and believing is only sensing and participating. That's the only thing that I can't conceive of as having a more primitive description. Everything else seems to easily boil down to sensory experiences (not limited to humans of course). I can imagine a space station made of oatmeal and grass in less time than it takes to type this sentence, so the idea of forms and experiences without public material is easy. By contrast of course, all of the experiences or forms I can imagine could never have any need themselves to generate any sensory experience. Craig John M On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 11:28 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: On Thursday, April 11, 2013 11:07:01 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 10 Apr 2013, at 17:24, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Saturday, April 6, 2013 6:49:45 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Apr 2013, at 01:51, Craig Weinberg wrote: You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. No, you bet on them. You are not aware of your brain, in any direct way. Some antic believed consciousness comes from the liver. That consciousness is related to a brain is a theory, there are only evidence, we cannot experience any theory. By the same understanding that we know the brain is more likely to be the seat of consciousness than the liver, we also know that whatever we experience personally is most available impersonally as brain activity. We can manipulate brain activity magnetically and experience a change in our consciousness, when the same is not true of any other organ. This does not mean that our experience is caused by the brain or that brain characteristics can be translated into conscious qualities, but the correlation shows us that what an fMRI reveals is the correlation of events between space-time body and sensory-motor self. Far from being a map, most of the private experience is utterly opposite and unrecognizable to any of the forms or functions on the 'other side.' I was just saying that we are aware of our experience, then we built theories. Some of those theories are instinctive, other are build during early childhood, and others are brought by long histories. We are not experiencing a brain. In fact we can't according to the usual theory that there are no sensory neurons in the brain. If we are sitting inside of an airplane, it could be said that we don't 'directly experience' the airplane, as we might not be able to tell the difference, if we woke up there, between the seats on a plane and the seats on a train. If a piece of the plane fell off though, then we would be able to infer air travel. The same goes for the brain. We are only aware of it when some unexpected experience is presented. Tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, phantom smells, etc. All of these give us direct experiences of our own neurology which are beyond theory. It's multi-layered, so that on one level we do hear a sound that sounds like it is coming from outside of our body, but on another level we can test and understand that it can't be. Craig Bruno Craig Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~**marchal/http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@**googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.**com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit
Re: Free-Will discussion
On 10 Apr 2013, at 17:24, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Saturday, April 6, 2013 6:49:45 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Apr 2013, at 01:51, Craig Weinberg wrote: You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. No, you bet on them. You are not aware of your brain, in any direct way. Some antic believed consciousness comes from the liver. That consciousness is related to a brain is a theory, there are only evidence, we cannot experience any theory. By the same understanding that we know the brain is more likely to be the seat of consciousness than the liver, we also know that whatever we experience personally is most available impersonally as brain activity. We can manipulate brain activity magnetically and experience a change in our consciousness, when the same is not true of any other organ. This does not mean that our experience is caused by the brain or that brain characteristics can be translated into conscious qualities, but the correlation shows us that what an fMRI reveals is the correlation of events between space-time body and sensory-motor self. Far from being a map, most of the private experience is utterly opposite and unrecognizable to any of the forms or functions on the 'other side.' I was just saying that we are aware of our experience, then we built theories. Some of those theories are instinctive, other are build during early childhood, and others are brought by long histories. We are not experiencing a brain. In fact we can't according to the usual theory that there are no sensory neurons in the brain. Bruno Craig Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Thursday, April 11, 2013 11:07:01 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 10 Apr 2013, at 17:24, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Saturday, April 6, 2013 6:49:45 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Apr 2013, at 01:51, Craig Weinberg wrote: You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. No, you bet on them. You are not aware of your brain, in any direct way. Some antic believed consciousness comes from the liver. That consciousness is related to a brain is a theory, there are only evidence, we cannot experience any theory. By the same understanding that we know the brain is more likely to be the seat of consciousness than the liver, we also know that whatever we experience personally is most available impersonally as brain activity. We can manipulate brain activity magnetically and experience a change in our consciousness, when the same is not true of any other organ. This does not mean that our experience is caused by the brain or that brain characteristics can be translated into conscious qualities, but the correlation shows us that what an fMRI reveals is the correlation of events between space-time body and sensory-motor self. Far from being a map, most of the private experience is utterly opposite and unrecognizable to any of the forms or functions on the 'other side.' I was just saying that we are aware of our experience, then we built theories. Some of those theories are instinctive, other are build during early childhood, and others are brought by long histories. We are not experiencing a brain. In fact we can't according to the usual theory that there are no sensory neurons in the brain. If we are sitting inside of an airplane, it could be said that we don't 'directly experience' the airplane, as we might not be able to tell the difference, if we woke up there, between the seats on a plane and the seats on a train. If a piece of the plane fell off though, then we would be able to infer air travel. The same goes for the brain. We are only aware of it when some unexpected experience is presented. Tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, phantom smells, etc. All of these give us direct experiences of our own neurology which are beyond theory. It's multi-layered, so that on one level we do hear a sound that sounds like it is coming from outside of our body, but on another level we can test and understand that it can't be. Craig Bruno Craig Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Free-Will discussion
On 11 Apr 2013, at 17:28, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, April 11, 2013 11:07:01 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 10 Apr 2013, at 17:24, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Saturday, April 6, 2013 6:49:45 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Apr 2013, at 01:51, Craig Weinberg wrote: You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. No, you bet on them. You are not aware of your brain, in any direct way. Some antic believed consciousness comes from the liver. That consciousness is related to a brain is a theory, there are only evidence, we cannot experience any theory. By the same understanding that we know the brain is more likely to be the seat of consciousness than the liver, we also know that whatever we experience personally is most available impersonally as brain activity. We can manipulate brain activity magnetically and experience a change in our consciousness, when the same is not true of any other organ. This does not mean that our experience is caused by the brain or that brain characteristics can be translated into conscious qualities, but the correlation shows us that what an fMRI reveals is the correlation of events between space-time body and sensory-motor self. Far from being a map, most of the private experience is utterly opposite and unrecognizable to any of the forms or functions on the 'other side.' I was just saying that we are aware of our experience, then we built theories. Some of those theories are instinctive, other are build during early childhood, and others are brought by long histories. We are not experiencing a brain. In fact we can't according to the usual theory that there are no sensory neurons in the brain. If we are sitting inside of an airplane, it could be said that we don't 'directly experience' the airplane, as we might not be able to tell the difference, if we woke up there, between the seats on a plane and the seats on a train. If a piece of the plane fell off though, then we would be able to infer air travel. The same goes for the brain. We are only aware of it when some unexpected experience is presented. Tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, phantom smells, etc. All of these give us direct experiences of our own neurology which are beyond theory. It's multi- layered, so that on one level we do hear a sound that sounds like it is coming from outside of our body, but on another level we can test and understand that it can't be. As much as it is quite plausible, the brain existence is theoretical. Tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, phantom smells, etc. All of these give us *direct* experiences of tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, and phantom smells, and provide only *indirect* evidence that, perhaps, there is a brain, in some possible reality. Both inside and outside of the body, and the body themselves are theoretical constructs, which might have, or not, some reality, primitive or not. Bruno Craig Bruno Craig Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Thursday, April 11, 2013 2:24:44 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Apr 2013, at 17:28, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, April 11, 2013 11:07:01 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 10 Apr 2013, at 17:24, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Saturday, April 6, 2013 6:49:45 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Apr 2013, at 01:51, Craig Weinberg wrote: You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. No, you bet on them. You are not aware of your brain, in any direct way. Some antic believed consciousness comes from the liver. That consciousness is related to a brain is a theory, there are only evidence, we cannot experience any theory. By the same understanding that we know the brain is more likely to be the seat of consciousness than the liver, we also know that whatever we experience personally is most available impersonally as brain activity. We can manipulate brain activity magnetically and experience a change in our consciousness, when the same is not true of any other organ. This does not mean that our experience is caused by the brain or that brain characteristics can be translated into conscious qualities, but the correlation shows us that what an fMRI reveals is the correlation of events between space-time body and sensory-motor self. Far from being a map, most of the private experience is utterly opposite and unrecognizable to any of the forms or functions on the 'other side.' I was just saying that we are aware of our experience, then we built theories. Some of those theories are instinctive, other are build during early childhood, and others are brought by long histories. We are not experiencing a brain. In fact we can't according to the usual theory that there are no sensory neurons in the brain. If we are sitting inside of an airplane, it could be said that we don't 'directly experience' the airplane, as we might not be able to tell the difference, if we woke up there, between the seats on a plane and the seats on a train. If a piece of the plane fell off though, then we would be able to infer air travel. The same goes for the brain. We are only aware of it when some unexpected experience is presented. Tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, phantom smells, etc. All of these give us direct experiences of our own neurology which are beyond theory. It's multi-layered, so that on one level we do hear a sound that sounds like it is coming from outside of our body, but on another level we can test and understand that it can't be. As much as it is quite plausible, the brain existence is theoretical. Tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, phantom smells, etc. All of these give us *direct* experiences of tinnitus, vertigo, visual phosphenes, proprioceptive changes, and phantom smells, and provide only *indirect* evidence that, perhaps, there is a brain, in some possible reality. Each one of those however are experiences which expose the medium itself. Like a lens flare in photography, or pixelation in a video, the phenomena not only reveals a non-purposive sensory artifact, but the particular intrusive quality of the artifact actually reflects the art itself. This is what the neurological symptoms tell us - not that we have a brain and that it is real, but that there is more to our nature than to simply be a clear conduit to an objectively real universe. In this way, our senses provide us not only with simple truth, but also simple doubt which leads us to sophisticated truth, which then leads to sophisticated doubt, and finally a reconciled truth (multisense realism). Both inside and outside of the body, and the body themselves are theoretical constructs, which might have, or not, some reality, primitive or not. I'm not so big on the power of the theoretical. To me theory is only as good as the access it provides to understanding. Craig Bruno Craig Bruno Craig Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:18 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Where do you get the idea that subjective events cannot repeat? It seems another thing that you've just made up, with no rational justification. Subjective events cannot literally repeat for the same reason that historical events cannot literally repeat and you cannot step into the same river twice. All conditions are constantly changing so that it is impossible for every condition to be reproduced in a given frame of experience because what frames private experience is the relation with every other experience in the history of the universe, and to an eternity ahead. My current experience is due to the current configuration of my brain, and the current configuration of my brain is due to the preceding configurations. The current configuration is due to the preceding configurations because of the deterministic causal chain which you discount. But even without this causal chain, if the current configuration repeats due to chance at some future point, the experience would repeat. The causal chain is significant only insofar as it reliably brings about the correct configuration for experiences. A car mechanic is only significant insofar as he reliably fixes a problem with the car, but if the same operation were performed accidentally by a chimpanzee playing with the engine, the car would run just as well. Before we move to styrofoam balls, it's problematic that you don't even accept the modest assumption that the same matter in the same configuration will yield the same behaviour and same subjective states, such as they may be. There is no same. There is seems the same by some standard of sensory interpretation. Configurations of matter don't yield any subjective states, any more than configurations of TV sets yield TV programs. The TV sets are built so that the programs can be watched. They have no meaning or use otherwise. But the same configuration of electronics fed the same signal would produce the same TV program. If the configuration is different and/or the signal is different the program would be different. Disrupting the form of this matter disrupts the experiences, while swapping the matter for different matter in the same form does not. If you swap the matter in a TV set for cheese, it won't work, even if the cheese is in the same configuration. Maybe the TV set is constructed only of certain materials for good reasons, or maybe you can make a TV set out of cheese, but it receives different (more cheesy?) programs. If you swap the matter in a TV set for different matter of the same type the TV will work the same. You can do this blindly, knowing nothing about TV's and it will just work. If you know something about TV's you can swap out components for components of different type but equivalent function and it will work the same. But it does seem, at the very least, that building a person out of matter builds the experiences. Says who? Has someone assembled a living person from scratch yet? Have we even cloned an adult into another adult without growing it first from a zygote? We know that the person is the same regardless of the origin of the matter in their body. We know that the entire person is rebuilt from alternative matter over the course of normal metabolism and they remain the same person. We know that replacing components in a person with artificial analogues, proteins and other small molecules, leaves the person unchanged, and we know that molecules that arise naturally are exactly the same in every respect we have been able to determine as their artificial analogues. We have created bacteria with artificial DNA which function normally. We have not yet created an entire organism from scratch but if we did and it didn't work that would be a staggering scientific puzzle implying that something magical is going on, and you would expect that there would be some evidence of this in the other experiements we have done. Use the same matter but disrupt the form - no experiences; use different matter and keep the form - experiences. What different matter are you talking about? Can you use DNA made out of laundry soap? If laundry soap contains all the elements needed to make DNA you should be able to make DNA from it. Artificial DNA is made from various chemicals ultimately derived, I guess, from petroleum and minerals mined from the ground and ammonia synthesised from atmospheric nitrogen. The organisms now alive purport to create organisms in the future, but they might all be wiped out. The universe doesn't care and has no purpose or function. Then by that definition, we cannot be part of the universe since we are nothing but cares, purposes, and functions. We are part of the universe but we are not identical to the universe. The whole does not necessarily have all the properties of the parts and the parts do not necessarily have all the properties of the
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Saturday, April 6, 2013 6:49:45 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Apr 2013, at 01:51, Craig Weinberg wrote: You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. No, you bet on them. You are not aware of your brain, in any direct way. Some antic believed consciousness comes from the liver. That consciousness is related to a brain is a theory, there are only evidence, we cannot experience any theory. By the same understanding that we know the brain is more likely to be the seat of consciousness than the liver, we also know that whatever we experience personally is most available impersonally as brain activity. We can manipulate brain activity magnetically and experience a change in our consciousness, when the same is not true of any other organ. This does not mean that our experience is caused by the brain or that brain characteristics can be translated into conscious qualities, but the correlation shows us that what an fMRI reveals is the correlation of events between space-time body and sensory-motor self. Far from being a map, most of the private experience is utterly opposite and unrecognizable to any of the forms or functions on the 'other side.' Craig Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Free-Will discussion
On 06 Apr 2013, at 01:51, Craig Weinberg wrote: You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. No, you bet on them. You are not aware of your brain, in any direct way. Some antic believed consciousness comes from the liver. That consciousness is related to a brain is a theory, there are only evidence, we cannot experience any theory. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 11:35 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: It does mean you could replicate World War II if you replicate the complex arrangement of matter. It does not mean you would necessarily understand it if you replicated it, any more than a photocopier understands the image it is copying. But if the photocopier were technically very good, the copy could be arbitrarily close to the original in the opinion of anyone who *did* understand it. Similarly, if you replicated World War II to a close enough tolerance the observers inside the replication would understand it and an external observer would understand it. Your view assumes that time is a generic plenum of duration, while I understand that it is precisely the opposite. Time is proprietary and unrepeatable subjective content. Experiences can be inspected and controlled publicly to a limited extent but no single event or collection of events can be repeated in the absolute sense since all events are eventually intertwined causally with all others. You want to make this about arrangements of matter but it is about experiences of time. Where do you get the idea that subjective events cannot repeat? It seems another thing that you've just made up, with no rational justification. Matter is, indeed, not absolutely important for mind. What is important is the functional arrangement of matter. If this is replicated, the mind is replicated. By that assumption, if I arrange styrofoam balls in the shape of the molecules of a cheeseburger, then a gigantic person would be able to eat it and it would taste like a cheeseburger. If that were true, then we should see the same arrangements over and over again - giant ants the size of a planet, etc. Arrangement is only important because of the properties of what you are arranging. If you arrange inert blobs, then all that you can ever get is larger, more complex arrangements of inert blobs. No mind is present in arrangement. Before we move to styrofoam balls, it's problematic that you don't even accept the modest assumption that the same matter in the same configuration will yield the same behaviour and same subjective states, such as they may be. This happens in the course of normal physiology, whereby all the matter in your body is replaced with different matter from the food you eat, but you still feel that you are you. That's because your lifetime is made of subjective experience, and experience is publicly accessible in a limited way as forms and functions. Your view confuses the vehicle of life with a producer of life. If your lifetime is made of subjective experiences, the matter in your body seems essential for these experiences to be realised. Disrupting the form of this matter disrupts the experiences, while swapping the matter for different matter in the same form does not. But why would a complex experience require a complex arrangement of matter? It doesn't require it, that is just the inevitable embodiment of it. If you want to play baseball, you play on a baseball diamond. The baseball diamond doesn't conjure baseball players to the field out of the aether (only in the dreams of Kevin Costner and functionalists does 'Build it and they will come. work out.). But it does seem, at the very least, that building a person out of matter builds the experiences. Use the same matter but disrupt the form - no experiences; use different matter and keep the form - experiences. The experience is primary, and why is to allow complex interactions and experiences as a kind of trellis to extend aesthetic qualities. If the experience supervenes on arrangement then you have to explain why there is any experience there to begin with, what it is, and how it comes to attach itself to 'arrangements'. You can't do that, but nobody can because it's incorrect. Can you explain what use there is for bodies, why experience is attached to them and disrupting the body disrupts the experience? The influences going back billions of years are just the means to create organisms now alive. Why do you think that there is a now? What causes it and where does it come from? Aren't the organisms now alive just the means to create organisms which will live in the future? The organisms now alive purport to create organisms in the future, but they might all be wiped out. The universe doesn't care and has no purpose or function. It took billions of years of evolution to create cars, but if a car randomly fell together from scrap iron and so on in the exact form of a Toyota Corolla, it would function exactly the same as a Toyota Corolla despite never seeing the inside of a Toyota factory. That's because the Toyota doesn't feel like anything. If it did, then it would not feel like a Toyota since it had never been inside of a Toyota factory. It would, in the absence of other cars, roads, garages, etc feel like a collection of scrap iron would
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 1:20 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Because it is an observed fact that consciousness is associated with certain complex arrangements of matter. So what? World War II was associated with certain complex arrangements of matter also, but that doesn't mean you could understand, define, or replicate World War II that way. It does mean you could replicate World War II if you replicate the complex arrangement of matter. It does not mean you would necessarily understand it if you replicated it, any more than a photocopier understands the image it is copying. But if the photocopier were technically very good, the copy could be arbitrarily close to the original in the opinion of anyone who *did* understand it. Similarly, if you replicated World War II to a close enough tolerance the observers inside the replication would understand it and an external observer would understand it. Matter is nothing at all but a way of organizing experiences of public perspectives on different scales by frequency and size. It is a way for eternity to be present explicitly as forms and functions as well as implicitly as perceptions and participations. The forms and arrangements of them are irrelevant from an absolute perspective. In this final phase of the Western approach, we are like RainMan having an OCD attack as we recite Who's On First about wavefunctions and ion channels. It is only important to us locally, for medicine and engineering, but cosmologically it is a dead end. This conversation is associated with certain IP addresses, certain routers and switches, certain video screens and GUIs - but that has nothing to do with what is generating the conversation at all. Not even a little bit. Trying to make a new conversation by using statistical models between these screens and routers without any human users involved is idiiotic. It is like a sculpture of an uninhabited city. Matter is, indeed, not absolutely important for mind. What is important is the functional arrangement of matter. If this is replicated, the mind is replicated. This happens in the course of normal physiology, whereby all the matter in your body is replaced with different matter from the food you eat, but you still feel that you are you. If consciousness were fundamental then why would it need this complex arrangement? It's only complex where there is a complex experience, like an animal. It doesn't need to have complexity, but it wants increasing richness and significance, and complexity is the public expression of that. But why would a complex experience require a complex arrangement of matter? If the experience is primary it does not explain why, whereas if the experience supervenes on the complex arrangement it does. Why would it persist in much the same way despite a complete replacement of the matter? Why would it be disrupted with relatively small structural changes in the matter? Because as a vertebrate, we are really out on a limb as far as pushing the envelope of sensory elaboration. To get to this depth of privacy, it is sort of like how forging a samurai sword must be folded over and over to incorporate the oxygen and carbon into the steel. We are dply embedded in forms within forms and functions within functions. It as if all kinds of agreements are in place on different levels - zoologically, biologically, psychologically, that for a time they will all suffer together to have this human lifetime show - all of these noble influences going back billions of years are sort of kneeling so that for a time a human person can become relevant...as long as you get burned, buried, or eaten at the end :) The influences going back billions of years are just the means to create organisms now alive. It took billions of years of evolution to create cars, but if a car randomly fell together from scrap iron and so on in the exact form of a Toyota Corolla, it would function exactly the same as a Toyota Corolla despite never seeing the inside of a Toyota factory. Fact 1 accepted by everyone: we are conscious. Fact 2 accepted by everyone except you: everything that happens in the universe is either determined or random. Everyone meaning like three people on this list? No, everyone who understands the conventional meaning of the terms determined and random. Perhaps you are excluded because you have your own private definition for these words. A lot of people think that the universe does not include their own life. They conceive of the universe from the view from nowhere, like some perfect diorama which exists in an observation bubble. When presented with real opportunities to participate in the world, nobody thinks that what they eat for lunch is determined by physics or random, they personally contribute to their own lunch experience and the universe fully supports that. It does not require any metaphysical powers that defy the laws of gravity, we
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Sunday, April 7, 2013 3:46:04 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 1:20 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: Because it is an observed fact that consciousness is associated with certain complex arrangements of matter. So what? World War II was associated with certain complex arrangements of matter also, but that doesn't mean you could understand, define, or replicate World War II that way. It does mean you could replicate World War II if you replicate the complex arrangement of matter. It does not mean you would necessarily understand it if you replicated it, any more than a photocopier understands the image it is copying. But if the photocopier were technically very good, the copy could be arbitrarily close to the original in the opinion of anyone who *did* understand it. Similarly, if you replicated World War II to a close enough tolerance the observers inside the replication would understand it and an external observer would understand it. Your view assumes that time is a generic plenum of duration, while I understand that it is precisely the opposite. Time is proprietary and unrepeatable subjective content. Experiences can be inspected and controlled publicly to a limited extent but no single event or collection of events can be repeated in the absolute sense since all events are eventually intertwined causally with all others. You want to make this about arrangements of matter but it is about experiences of time. Matter is nothing at all but a way of organizing experiences of public perspectives on different scales by frequency and size. It is a way for eternity to be present explicitly as forms and functions as well as implicitly as perceptions and participations. The forms and arrangements of them are irrelevant from an absolute perspective. In this final phase of the Western approach, we are like RainMan having an OCD attack as we recite Who's On First about wavefunctions and ion channels. It is only important to us locally, for medicine and engineering, but cosmologically it is a dead end. This conversation is associated with certain IP addresses, certain routers and switches, certain video screens and GUIs - but that has nothing to do with what is generating the conversation at all. Not even a little bit. Trying to make a new conversation by using statistical models between these screens and routers without any human users involved is idiiotic. It is like a sculpture of an uninhabited city. Matter is, indeed, not absolutely important for mind. What is important is the functional arrangement of matter. If this is replicated, the mind is replicated. By that assumption, if I arrange styrofoam balls in the shape of the molecules of a cheeseburger, then a gigantic person would be able to eat it and it would taste like a cheeseburger. If that were true, then we should see the same arrangements over and over again - giant ants the size of a planet, etc. Arrangement is only important because of the properties of what you are arranging. If you arrange inert blobs, then all that you can ever get is larger, more complex arrangements of inert blobs. No mind is present in arrangement. This happens in the course of normal physiology, whereby all the matter in your body is replaced with different matter from the food you eat, but you still feel that you are you. That's because your lifetime is made of subjective experience, and experience is publicly accessible in a limited way as forms and functions. Your view confuses the vehicle of life with a producer of life. If consciousness were fundamental then why would it need this complex arrangement? It's only complex where there is a complex experience, like an animal. It doesn't need to have complexity, but it wants increasing richness and significance, and complexity is the public expression of that. But why would a complex experience require a complex arrangement of matter? It doesn't require it, that is just the inevitable embodiment of it. If you want to play baseball, you play on a baseball diamond. The baseball diamond doesn't conjure baseball players to the field out of the aether (only in the dreams of Kevin Costner and functionalists does 'Build it and they will come. work out.). If the experience is primary it does not explain why, whereas if the experience supervenes on the complex arrangement it does. The experience is primary, and why is to allow complex interactions and experiences as a kind of trellis to extend aesthetic qualities. If the experience supervenes on arrangement then you have to explain why there is any experience there to begin with, what it is, and how it comes to attach itself to 'arrangements'. You can't do that, but nobody can because it's incorrect. Why would it persist in much the same way
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Saturday, April 6, 2013 5:01:49 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: On Friday, April 5, 2013 6:47:00 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 11:35 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: Why are all of your actions obviously due to subconscious influences? If that were the case why would personal awareness exist? Your actions are due to physical processes in your brain which move your muscles, but you are not actually aware of these physical processes. How can you be any more aware of those processes than by being them? Because I have no idea that these processes are going on, or even that I have a brain. Why do you think people used to believe that they think with their hearts, or with their immaterial soul? People thought that because they tried to explain private physics in the terms of public physics instead of understanding it in its own terms. You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. The problem is that you are making the same mistake that the immaterialists make only in reverse. You begin with absolute certainty in what instruments have shown us of the outside of matter to the extent that you doubt what your own native senses tell you about the inside of matter. You use the word subconscious differently to the way most people do. Most processes in your body occur subconsciously in the conventional sense of the word. It makes it difficult to participate in a discussion when you redefine words. At least make it explicit when you do so. Point taken - in general I do tend to blurt based on my own worked-through understanding of things, but I do that intentionally because its a way for me to see if they fit with all of the rest of what is being discussed. It's a way of beta-testing the the deeper implications of the concept. In this case, however, I'm not sure that I'm using subconscious in a different way, its that I'm challenging how you are using your in all of your actions are obviously due to subconscious influences. To me, using that 'your' to mean the behavior of your body is an ideologically loaded presumption. The body becomes your body through private conscious association (you will let people do surgery on your body since by being unconscious, it is not really your body at the time as far as your personal awareness is concerned). It is a generic public artifact which is not just subconscious, but actually devoid of all private content. It is an impersonal presentation of a particular slice of biological history made temporarily interactive...or that's how it appears from the outside anyhow. You seem stuck on the belief that it is not possible to be conscious if the processes leading to consciousness are deterministic, random or subconscious. As a matter of logical deduction, this is false. It is possible for a thing to have qualities different from its parts. This would be a case where the intentional would have to come from its complete opposite - from the unintentional (determined and random), which could happen theoretically, but not in a universe which had no use for intention. A universe where intentionality is fundamental can pretend to be unintentional, but unintentional can't pretend to be anything. Unintentional is anesthetic and has no plausible use for intention. It sounds again like something you have just made up. What's worse, you present it as certain or self-evident. It is an understanding of what seems certain and self-evident. It's no more or less made up than any such understanding that any scientist or philosopher has ever had. Why does the universe need to hae a use for something? Who made this rule? It's not a rule it's reason. If there were no fish in the water, there would be no such thing as gills. If there were gills on a cow, then that would be weird, especially if someone was saying that gills are an illusion. The universe is not conscious and doesn't care. Here you use the same ideology. The universe then either cannot include you, or you are not conscious and don't care. Which is it? We could be wiped out tomorrow by an asteroid hit and everything else would continue as before. Perhaps life and intelligence will evolve again, perhaps they won't. Yes, the universe is a dynamic, multi-level syzygy of private intentional sequences and public unintentional consequences. Not everything knows or cares about human beings or planet Earth but that doesn't mean that consciousness and caring isn't as real as helium or the Andromeda galaxy. And what difference does it make if you say intentionality is fundamental or emergent? It could be a fundamental fact that consciousness will emerge when
Free-Will discussion
On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 11:35 AM, Craig Weinberg
whatsons...@gmail.comjavascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'whatsons...@gmail.com');
wrote:
Why are all of your actions obviously due to subconscious influences? If
that were the case why would personal awareness exist?
Your actions are due to physical processes in your brain which move your
muscles, but you are not actually aware of these physical processes.
How can you be any more aware of those processes than by being them?
Because I have no idea that these processes are going on, or even that I
have a brain. Why do you think people used to believe that they think with
their hearts, or with their immaterial soul?
You can't tell me that you feel neurons firing in your cerebellum, for
example.
No, neurons firing are my feeling already, there is no more way that they
can be felt from the human perspective.
But you are directly aware that your fingers are hitting the keys and
control them to write your email. You do not make such a decision to
activate cortical centres; it happens when you do something, but it is
subconscious.
It is an inference from empirical data that the brain is the organ of
thought at all.
You seem stuck on the belief that it is not possible to be conscious if
the processes leading to consciousness are deterministic, random or
subconscious. As a matter of logical deduction, this is false. It is
possible for a thing to have qualities different from its parts.
This would be a case where the intentional would have to come from its
complete opposite - from the unintentional (determined and random), which
could happen theoretically, but not in a universe which had no use for
intention. A universe where intentionality is fundamental can pretend to be
unintentional, but unintentional can't pretend to be anything.
Unintentional is anesthetic and has no plausible use for intention.
Why does the universe need to hae a use for something? Who made this
rule? And what difference does it make if you say intentionality is
fundamental or emergent? It could be a fundamental fact that consciousness
will emerge when matter is organised in particular ways.
* ...I never said that the laws of physics deny the possibility of free
will,
but free will is impossible if you define it in such a way as to be
incompatible with the laws of physics or even with logic.*
*
*
The Laws of physics are our deduction from the so far observed
incomplete
circumstances - they don't allow or deny - maybe explain at the
level of their
compatibility. The impossibility of free will is not a no-no, unless
it has been
proven to be an existing(?) FACT (what I do not believe in).
Logic is the ultimate human pretension, especially if not said 'what
kind of'.
In order to decide if free will exists the first thing is to understand
what is meant by the term. If it means I choose to do what I want I do
then free will exists. If it means something else such as neither
determined nor random then it doesn't exist.
What do you claim is the difference between choosing to do what you want
to do and acting as a physical phenomenon which is intentional rather than
unintentional (determined or random)?
I don't accept your claim that intentional (either in the common sense
or the philosophical sense) is incompatible with the phenomenon being
determined or random. It seems to be something you just made up and present
as self-evident, which it certainly is not.
You don't accept it but you have no reason to offer for your opinion. I
present my view as self-evident because to me it certainly is. It's funny
for you to talk about 'making things up' since that is certainly a thing
which makes no sense in an unintentional universe.
I have a good reason for my opinion:
Fact 1 accepted by everyone: we are conscious.
Fact 2 accepted by everyone except you: everything that happens in the
universe is either determined or random.
Conclusion: hence, consciousness is compatible with a deterministic or
random universe.
--
Stathis Papaioannou
--
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Re: Free-Will discussion
On Friday, April 5, 2013 6:47:00 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 11:35 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: Why are all of your actions obviously due to subconscious influences? If that were the case why would personal awareness exist? Your actions are due to physical processes in your brain which move your muscles, but you are not actually aware of these physical processes. How can you be any more aware of those processes than by being them? Because I have no idea that these processes are going on, or even that I have a brain. Why do you think people used to believe that they think with their hearts, or with their immaterial soul? People thought that because they tried to explain private physics in the terms of public physics instead of understanding it in its own terms. You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. The problem is that you are making the same mistake that the immaterialists make only in reverse. You begin with absolute certainty in what instruments have shown us of the outside of matter to the extent that you doubt what your own native senses tell you about the inside of matter. You can't tell me that you feel neurons firing in your cerebellum, for example. No, neurons firing are my feeling already, there is no more way that they can be felt from the human perspective. But you are directly aware that your fingers are hitting the keys and control them to write your email. You do not make such a decision to activate cortical centres; it happens when you do something, but it is subconscious. It's subconscious but its still me. Of course I make the decision to activate cortical centres, I AM the cortical centers and when I turn my attention toward particular capacities, that attention is represented publicly as simulataneous and serial changes in tissues, cells, and molecules. I am not in my body, my body is just how I look at any given moment to participants other than me. It is an inference from empirical data that the brain is the organ of thought at all. You seem stuck on the belief that it is not possible to be conscious if the processes leading to consciousness are deterministic, random or subconscious. As a matter of logical deduction, this is false. It is possible for a thing to have qualities different from its parts. This would be a case where the intentional would have to come from its complete opposite - from the unintentional (determined and random), which could happen theoretically, but not in a universe which had no use for intention. A universe where intentionality is fundamental can pretend to be unintentional, but unintentional can't pretend to be anything. Unintentional is anesthetic and has no plausible use for intention. Why does the universe need to hae a use for something? Who made this rule? It's not a rule it's reason. If there were no fish in the water, there would be no such thing as gills. If there were gills on a cow, then that would be weird, especially if someone was saying that gills are an illusion. And what difference does it make if you say intentionality is fundamental or emergent? It could be a fundamental fact that consciousness will emerge when matter is organised in particular ways. The difference is that the argument that intention must be reduced to determinism or randomness doesn't make any sense but it makes perfect sense that intention would be fundamental and determinism and randomness would naturally arise as perceptual fictions. The idea that consciousness will emerge from an organization of inanimate, unconscious matter (which makes no sense to begin with since there is no real way to conceive of a universe devoid of all detection and presentation) is just a religious faith with no explanatory power at all. Why not just say that when there are a trillion customers at the galactic WalMart that consciousness appears on a random planet. * ...I never said that the laws of physics deny the possibility of free will, but free will is impossible if you define it in such a way as to be incompatible with the laws of physics or even with logic.* * * The Laws of physics are our deduction from the so far observed incomplete circumstances - they don't allow or deny - maybe explain at the level of their compatibility. The impossibility of free will is not a no-no, unless it has been proven to be an existing(?) FACT (what I do not believe in). Logic is the ultimate human pretension, especially if not said 'what kind of'. In order to decide if free will exists the first thing is to understand what is meant by the term. If it means I choose to do what I want I do then free will exists. If it means something else such as neither determined nor
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 8:26 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Stathis wrote: *I also have a very simple and straightforward idea of free will: I exercise my free will when I make a choice without being coerced* * * And how do you know that you are *not* coerced? your mind works on both conscious and (sub-? un-? beyond-?) conscious arguments that 'influence' (nicer, than 'coerced') your decisive process. Then again you may decide to 'will' against your best (or not-so-best?) interest - for some reason. You even may misunderstand circumstances and use them wrongly. All such (and another 1000) may influence (coerce??) your free decision. Continuing your sentence: I'm not coerced when I don't think I am coerced. Obviously, all my actions are due to subconscious influences, namely, the biochemistry of my brain, of which I am unaware. * ...I never said that the laws of physics deny the possibility of free will, but free will is impossible if you define it in such a way as to be incompatible with the laws of physics or even with logic.* * * The Laws of physics are our deduction from the so far observed incomplete circumstances - they don't allow or deny - maybe explain at the level of their compatibility. The impossibility of free will is not a no-no, unless it has been proven to be an existing(?) FACT (what I do not believe in). Logic is the ultimate human pretension, especially if not said 'what kind of'. In order to decide if free will exists the first thing is to understand what is meant by the term. If it means I choose to do what I want I do then free will exists. If it means something else such as neither determined nor random then it doesn't exist. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Thursday, April 4, 2013 7:10:45 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 8:26 AM, John Mikes jam...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: Stathis wrote: *I also have a very simple and straightforward idea of free will: I exercise my free will when I make a choice without being coerced* * * And how do you know that you are *not* coerced? your mind works on both conscious and (sub-? un-? beyond-?) conscious arguments that 'influence' (nicer, than 'coerced') your decisive process. Then again you may decide to 'will' against your best (or not-so-best?) interest - for some reason. You even may misunderstand circumstances and use them wrongly. All such (and another 1000) may influence (coerce??) your free decision. Continuing your sentence: I'm not coerced when I don't think I am coerced. Obviously, all my actions are due to subconscious influences, namely, the biochemistry of my brain, of which I am unaware. Why are all of your actions obviously due to subconscious influences? If that were the case why would personal awareness exist? * ...I never said that the laws of physics deny the possibility of free will, but free will is impossible if you define it in such a way as to be incompatible with the laws of physics or even with logic.* * * The Laws of physics are our deduction from the so far observed incomplete circumstances - they don't allow or deny - maybe explain at the level of their compatibility. The impossibility of free will is not a no-no, unless it has been proven to be an existing(?) FACT (what I do not believe in). Logic is the ultimate human pretension, especially if not said 'what kind of'. In order to decide if free will exists the first thing is to understand what is meant by the term. If it means I choose to do what I want I do then free will exists. If it means something else such as neither determined nor random then it doesn't exist. What do you claim is the difference between choosing to do what you want to do and acting as a physical phenomenon which is intentional rather than unintentional (determined or random)? Craig -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 12:53 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: On Thursday, April 4, 2013 7:10:45 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 8:26 AM, John Mikes jam...@gmail.com wrote: Stathis wrote: *I also have a very simple and straightforward idea of free will: I exercise my free will when I make a choice without being coerced* * * And how do you know that you are *not* coerced? your mind works on both conscious and (sub-? un-? beyond-?) conscious arguments that 'influence' (nicer, than 'coerced') your decisive process. Then again you may decide to 'will' against your best (or not-so-best?) interest - for some reason. You even may misunderstand circumstances and use them wrongly. All such (and another 1000) may influence (coerce??) your free decision. Continuing your sentence: I'm not coerced when I don't think I am coerced. Obviously, all my actions are due to subconscious influences, namely, the biochemistry of my brain, of which I am unaware. Why are all of your actions obviously due to subconscious influences? If that were the case why would personal awareness exist? Your actions are due to physical processes in your brain which move your muscles, but you are not actually aware of these physical processes. You can't tell me that you feel neurons firing in your cerebellum, for example. It is an inference from empirical data that the brain is the organ of thought at all. You seem stuck on the belief that it is not possible to be conscious if the processes leading to consciousness are deterministic, random or subconscious. As a matter of logical deduction, this is false. It is possible for a thing to have qualities different from its parts. * ...I never said that the laws of physics deny the possibility of free will, but free will is impossible if you define it in such a way as to be incompatible with the laws of physics or even with logic.* * * The Laws of physics are our deduction from the so far observed incomplete circumstances - they don't allow or deny - maybe explain at the level of their compatibility. The impossibility of free will is not a no-no, unless it has been proven to be an existing(?) FACT (what I do not believe in). Logic is the ultimate human pretension, especially if not said 'what kind of'. In order to decide if free will exists the first thing is to understand what is meant by the term. If it means I choose to do what I want I do then free will exists. If it means something else such as neither determined nor random then it doesn't exist. What do you claim is the difference between choosing to do what you want to do and acting as a physical phenomenon which is intentional rather than unintentional (determined or random)? I don't accept your claim that intentional (either in the common sense or the philosophical sense) is incompatible with the phenomenon being determined or random. It seems to be something you just made up and present as self-evident, which it certainly is not. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Thursday, April 4, 2013 8:14:27 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 12:53 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: On Thursday, April 4, 2013 7:10:45 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 8:26 AM, John Mikes jam...@gmail.com wrote: Stathis wrote: *I also have a very simple and straightforward idea of free will: I exercise my free will when I make a choice without being coerced* * * And how do you know that you are *not* coerced? your mind works on both conscious and (sub-? un-? beyond-?) conscious arguments that 'influence' (nicer, than 'coerced') your decisive process. Then again you may decide to 'will' against your best (or not-so-best?) interest - for some reason. You even may misunderstand circumstances and use them wrongly. All such (and another 1000) may influence (coerce??) your free decision. Continuing your sentence: I'm not coerced when I don't think I am coerced. Obviously, all my actions are due to subconscious influences, namely, the biochemistry of my brain, of which I am unaware. Why are all of your actions obviously due to subconscious influences? If that were the case why would personal awareness exist? Your actions are due to physical processes in your brain which move your muscles, but you are not actually aware of these physical processes. How can you be any more aware of those processes than by being them? You can't tell me that you feel neurons firing in your cerebellum, for example. No, neurons firing are my feeling already, there is no more way that they can be felt from the human perspective. It is an inference from empirical data that the brain is the organ of thought at all. You seem stuck on the belief that it is not possible to be conscious if the processes leading to consciousness are deterministic, random or subconscious. As a matter of logical deduction, this is false. It is possible for a thing to have qualities different from its parts. This would be a case where the intentional would have to come from its complete opposite - from the unintentional (determined and random), which could happen theoretically, but not in a universe which had no use for intention. A universe where intentionality is fundamental can pretend to be unintentional, but unintentional can't pretend to be anything. Unintentional is anesthetic and has no plausible use for intention. * ...I never said that the laws of physics deny the possibility of free will, but free will is impossible if you define it in such a way as to be incompatible with the laws of physics or even with logic.* * * The Laws of physics are our deduction from the so far observed incomplete circumstances - they don't allow or deny - maybe explain at the level of their compatibility. The impossibility of free will is not a no-no, unless it has been proven to be an existing(?) FACT (what I do not believe in). Logic is the ultimate human pretension, especially if not said 'what kind of'. In order to decide if free will exists the first thing is to understand what is meant by the term. If it means I choose to do what I want I do then free will exists. If it means something else such as neither determined nor random then it doesn't exist. What do you claim is the difference between choosing to do what you want to do and acting as a physical phenomenon which is intentional rather than unintentional (determined or random)? I don't accept your claim that intentional (either in the common sense or the philosophical sense) is incompatible with the phenomenon being determined or random. It seems to be something you just made up and present as self-evident, which it certainly is not. You don't accept it but you have no reason to offer for your opinion. I present my view as self-evident because to me it certainly is. It's funny for you to talk about 'making things up' since that is certainly a thing which makes no sense in an unintentional universe. Craig -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Thursday, March 28, 2013 5:26:23 PM UTC-4, JohnM wrote: Stathis wrote: *I also have a very simple and straightforward idea of free will: I exercise my free will when I make a choice without being coerced* * * And how do you know that you are *not* coerced? your mind works on both conscious and (sub-? un-? beyond-?) conscious arguments that 'influence' (nicer, than 'coerced') your decisive process. Then again you may decide to 'will' against your best (or not-so-best?) interest - for some reason. You even may misunderstand circumstances and use them wrongly. All such (and another 1000) may influence (coerce??) your free decision. Continuing your sentence: It's true that there are influences outside of your personal range of consciousness which contribute to our personal intentions, but who is to say that these sub-conscious or super-conscious influences are not also *ourselves*? As our personal awareness blurs out into countless semi-conscious interactions where we increasingly blend into the public infinity and private eternity, who is to say that our personal will doesn't influence those outlying resources as much as they influence us? * * * ...I never said that the laws of physics deny the possibility of free will, but free will is impossible if you define it in such a way as to be incompatible with the laws of physics or even with logic.* * * The Laws of physics are our deduction from the so far observed incomplete circumstances - they don't allow or deny - maybe explain at the level of their compatibility. The impossibility of free will is not a no-no, unless it has been proven to be an existing(?) FACT (what I do not believe in). Right on. I would further suggest however that free will doesn't exist in public physics, it insists through private physics. Craig Logic is the ultimate human pretension, especially if not said 'what kind of'. John M -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
