Now you've skipped my question about controlling your volition for the second time, I even made it bold! I think this could be the core of our disagreement and I'd really like you to respond to the first part of my previous post.
Now on to the topic of determinism. It kind of feels like you mostly ignored my previous response (no harsh feelings, just firm discussion).
>It’s a farce for Crick and Watson to be rewarded for discovering DNA.
It doesn't make sense for them to be proud of what they did, but appreciating their ingenuity and the giant discovery it led to, and encouraging others to try the same by rewarding and honoring them still makes total sense. But I'm sure the first part is what you meant. I just want to caution you not to throw out everything in a purely deterministic world because people tend to overreact in that way. Like for example an admission that free will doesn't exist wouldn't mean we should get rid of our justice system and find everyone not guilty for reasons of insanity. We would just treat people like sentient robots.
> They didn’t think it through. They had no choice. There is no such thing as speculating a hypothesis, as researching data, weighing evidences and arriving at a conclusion. There is only following the route. No one “discovers” anything. It is all set, it is all given. For that matter, we’re not really thinking. It’s a misnomer to call it thinking, because all I can do is follow the route.
It's only a misnomer if by thinking you mean something metaphysical, but I don't see why that would have to be the case only because it feels that way. People still speculate, research, weigh evidences, arrive at conclusions and discover things. It's just that it's all a physical process going on in their brains.
> It’s also not fair to speak of something as true or false. There is only what is.
But reality still exists, and ideas and statements can still correspond to that reality or not. The robot from my previous example can be right or wrong about what result it arrives at based on its measurements and computations.
> And I can’t say that’s wrong or bad.
Not in a transcendental metaphysical sense. But you can still make up non-arbitrary standards to which you then can objectively compare something. Like deciding whether an action is morally good or bad based on the assumption that suffering is bad and well-being good.
> If we subscribe to it, we can’t claim it’s true or right or that we have come to this conclusion by reason.
Again, only if you think that reason is something supernatural and not completely tied to a subjective physical mind. If reason is programmed into us by embryology and experience it can still lead us to a more or less correct understanding of the world. Based on that, purely physical brain activity may inevitably lead me to the conclusion that determinism is true (corresponds to reality). Someone else might inevitably come to a different conclusion, but then that's just the way it is. All I can do is rely on my reasoning and the fact that other people came to the same conclusion.
Board index ‹ Free Will
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Re: Could cloning disprove free will?
by jimwalton » Sun Sep 23, 2018 9:03 am
> Now you've skipped my question about controlling your volition for the second time, I even made it bold! I think this could be the core of our disagreement and I'd really like you to respond to the first part of my previous post.
I've lost the **bold**, so I'll just have to guess at what part was bolded, so I will do my best.
> Can you control what you want?
Yes, I can control what I want. I do it all the time. I find my brain wanting things that are no appropriate for me to have, and so I change the wanting of it, for the sake of my sense of morality. I talk myself out of it. There are other times when I know there is something I should want because of its benefit or its morality, even though I am not wanting it. So I change the wanting of it so it is now in my orbit and a part of my desire. I do these kinds of things all the time. I am in control of my mind, my emotions, my desires, my attitudes, and my behavior.
> Even if my thinking is uncontrollable and predetermined, I'm still thinking, in the sense that there's still a process going on in my brain which takes input from the world and produces an output based on the "reason" that was programmed into it by embryology and past experiences.
You are not truly "thinking" because it's a determined, regulated process and sequence. According to what you have explained, the only "process" going on in your brain is following an unavoidable, uncontrollable, and unchangeable succession of synaptic activity. The input and output are not in any real sense pondered, accepted, rejected, or decided. At core it's a farce to consider it "reason." All it is is a preprogrammed sequence, in your view.
> appreciating their ingenuity and the giant discovery it led to
There was no ingenuity in your view. According to you, they had no control and no choice but to think those thoughts and arrive at those conclusions. They had no more input into it than a caterpillar has to become a butterfly.
> Like for example an admission that free will doesn't exist wouldn't mean we should get rid of our justice system and find everyone not guilty for reasons of insanity. We would just treat people like sentient robots.
What is justice if the people had no control and no choice? There is no right or wrong, but only "what is." They can't be condemned for following an inevitable effect.
> People still speculate, research, weigh evidences, arrive at conclusions and discover things.
How is this possible without free will? All of these events require some legitimate sense of self-direction.
> But reality still exists, and ideas and statements can still correspond to that reality or not.
To me this doesn't follow. If it's all physical processes going on in the brain, how could anything possibly correspond to what is not real? If the brain is generating the thought, and it has no other options, then it is corresponding to reality. How can a statement not correspond to reality if everything is reducible to synaptic firings? But the next and more important question is: If the synaptic firings are uncontrollable, but can just as well lead to false conclusions as well as true, how can we EVER trust them? "Reason" is now a roll of the dice, and is not to be trusted, and therefore there is no such thing, really.
> Like deciding whether an action is morally good or bad based on the assumption that suffering is bad and well-being good.
But both are inevitable and uncontrollable states, and therefore we can't honestly call them bad or good. We can only accept them as what is.
I've lost the **bold**, so I'll just have to guess at what part was bolded, so I will do my best.
> Can you control what you want?
Yes, I can control what I want. I do it all the time. I find my brain wanting things that are no appropriate for me to have, and so I change the wanting of it, for the sake of my sense of morality. I talk myself out of it. There are other times when I know there is something I should want because of its benefit or its morality, even though I am not wanting it. So I change the wanting of it so it is now in my orbit and a part of my desire. I do these kinds of things all the time. I am in control of my mind, my emotions, my desires, my attitudes, and my behavior.
> Even if my thinking is uncontrollable and predetermined, I'm still thinking, in the sense that there's still a process going on in my brain which takes input from the world and produces an output based on the "reason" that was programmed into it by embryology and past experiences.
You are not truly "thinking" because it's a determined, regulated process and sequence. According to what you have explained, the only "process" going on in your brain is following an unavoidable, uncontrollable, and unchangeable succession of synaptic activity. The input and output are not in any real sense pondered, accepted, rejected, or decided. At core it's a farce to consider it "reason." All it is is a preprogrammed sequence, in your view.
> appreciating their ingenuity and the giant discovery it led to
There was no ingenuity in your view. According to you, they had no control and no choice but to think those thoughts and arrive at those conclusions. They had no more input into it than a caterpillar has to become a butterfly.
> Like for example an admission that free will doesn't exist wouldn't mean we should get rid of our justice system and find everyone not guilty for reasons of insanity. We would just treat people like sentient robots.
What is justice if the people had no control and no choice? There is no right or wrong, but only "what is." They can't be condemned for following an inevitable effect.
> People still speculate, research, weigh evidences, arrive at conclusions and discover things.
How is this possible without free will? All of these events require some legitimate sense of self-direction.
> But reality still exists, and ideas and statements can still correspond to that reality or not.
To me this doesn't follow. If it's all physical processes going on in the brain, how could anything possibly correspond to what is not real? If the brain is generating the thought, and it has no other options, then it is corresponding to reality. How can a statement not correspond to reality if everything is reducible to synaptic firings? But the next and more important question is: If the synaptic firings are uncontrollable, but can just as well lead to false conclusions as well as true, how can we EVER trust them? "Reason" is now a roll of the dice, and is not to be trusted, and therefore there is no such thing, really.
> Like deciding whether an action is morally good or bad based on the assumption that suffering is bad and well-being good.
But both are inevitable and uncontrollable states, and therefore we can't honestly call them bad or good. We can only accept them as what is.
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Re: Could cloning disprove free will?
by Jet Ski » Mon Oct 01, 2018 9:35 am
> Yes, I can control what I want. I do it all the time. I find my brain wanting things that are no appropriate for me to have, and so I change the wanting of it, for the sake of my sense of morality. I talk myself out of it.
But you can only do that if you want to do it. And you can't control if you want to do it in the first place. Have you read my post about it in Reddit in DebateReligion religion? Here's a link: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/9i0az9/an_argument_against_free_will/
> You are not truly "thinking" because it's a determined, regulated process and sequence. According to what you have explained, the only "process" going on in your brain is following an unavoidable, uncontrollable, and unchangeable succession of synaptic activity. The input and output are not in any real sense pondered, accepted, rejected, or decided.
I would just say that your notion of real "thinking" is impossible. You cannot determine your thoughts. You don't know what you will think before you think it, and you cannot choose between different thoughts to think, because that would require thinking them before actually thinking them. It's a one-dimensional stream pouring into your consciousness and all you can do is experience it right in this moment.
> There was no ingenuity in your view. According to you, they had no control and no choice but to think those thoughts and arrive at those conclusions. They had no more input into it than a caterpillar has to become a butterfly.
It was ingenuity in the sense that not every next guy on the street could have come up with it, and that's why people are impressed. It required their special brains to do it. But the fact that their brains are just physical entities doesn't subtract from that. We marvel at purely physical things all the time. If we build artificial intelligence that could make similar discoveries, we would be just as impressed, if not even more so.
> What is justice if the people had no control and no choice? There is no right or wrong, but only "what is." They can't be condemned for following an inevitable effect.
And they wouldn't be condemned, like you wouldn't condemn a tiger killing an antelope. There would be no real cosmic justice. We would have to change the name to the 'avoiding crime system'. I think all this sin and punishment just for the sake of justice and redemption is a really barbaric primeval mindset.
> How is this possible without free will? All of these events require some legitimate sense of self-direction.
It's a complicated process in the brain. That's it. Whenever you come up against this, just think about the following: Could smart robots do it? They definitely could.
> To me this doesn't follow. If it's all physical processes going on in the brain, how could anything possibly correspond to what is not real? If the brain is generating the thought, and it has no other options, then it is corresponding to reality.
Just like a robot could compute something based on measurements it took and get the wrong result about reality. Maybe its measurements were flawed or the computing process didn't take into account something it should have, or it used obsolete data in the process. You really have to think about this from the perspective of the brain as a computer.
> If the synaptic firings are uncontrollable, but can just as well lead to false conclusions as well as true, how can we EVER trust them? "Reason" is now a roll of the dice, and is not to be trusted, and therefore there is no such thing, really.
It's not a role of dice, since it's based on inputs from the world and a brain that evolved to come to the right conclusion, at least most of the time. In the end we can't be sure and we definitely can't trust it 100%, but since everyone basically reasons in the same way and so far it proved to work really well when it comes to understanding the world, it seems to be pretty reliable.
But you can only do that if you want to do it. And you can't control if you want to do it in the first place. Have you read my post about it in Reddit in DebateReligion religion? Here's a link: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/9i0az9/an_argument_against_free_will/
> You are not truly "thinking" because it's a determined, regulated process and sequence. According to what you have explained, the only "process" going on in your brain is following an unavoidable, uncontrollable, and unchangeable succession of synaptic activity. The input and output are not in any real sense pondered, accepted, rejected, or decided.
I would just say that your notion of real "thinking" is impossible. You cannot determine your thoughts. You don't know what you will think before you think it, and you cannot choose between different thoughts to think, because that would require thinking them before actually thinking them. It's a one-dimensional stream pouring into your consciousness and all you can do is experience it right in this moment.
> There was no ingenuity in your view. According to you, they had no control and no choice but to think those thoughts and arrive at those conclusions. They had no more input into it than a caterpillar has to become a butterfly.
It was ingenuity in the sense that not every next guy on the street could have come up with it, and that's why people are impressed. It required their special brains to do it. But the fact that their brains are just physical entities doesn't subtract from that. We marvel at purely physical things all the time. If we build artificial intelligence that could make similar discoveries, we would be just as impressed, if not even more so.
> What is justice if the people had no control and no choice? There is no right or wrong, but only "what is." They can't be condemned for following an inevitable effect.
And they wouldn't be condemned, like you wouldn't condemn a tiger killing an antelope. There would be no real cosmic justice. We would have to change the name to the 'avoiding crime system'. I think all this sin and punishment just for the sake of justice and redemption is a really barbaric primeval mindset.
> How is this possible without free will? All of these events require some legitimate sense of self-direction.
It's a complicated process in the brain. That's it. Whenever you come up against this, just think about the following: Could smart robots do it? They definitely could.
> To me this doesn't follow. If it's all physical processes going on in the brain, how could anything possibly correspond to what is not real? If the brain is generating the thought, and it has no other options, then it is corresponding to reality.
Just like a robot could compute something based on measurements it took and get the wrong result about reality. Maybe its measurements were flawed or the computing process didn't take into account something it should have, or it used obsolete data in the process. You really have to think about this from the perspective of the brain as a computer.
> If the synaptic firings are uncontrollable, but can just as well lead to false conclusions as well as true, how can we EVER trust them? "Reason" is now a roll of the dice, and is not to be trusted, and therefore there is no such thing, really.
It's not a role of dice, since it's based on inputs from the world and a brain that evolved to come to the right conclusion, at least most of the time. In the end we can't be sure and we definitely can't trust it 100%, but since everyone basically reasons in the same way and so far it proved to work really well when it comes to understanding the world, it seems to be pretty reliable.
- Jet Ski
Re: Could cloning disprove free will?
by jimwalton » Mon Oct 01, 2018 9:52 am
I appreciate your thoughts, but I feel as if we have truly reached an impasse. I have given you my case, along with the reasoning to show that your position is self-contradictory, self-defeating, and impossible. Your retort is that what I say just isn't the case. We could go back and forth on this one ad infinitum. At this point I would just reiterate arguments I've already made along with the evidences and logic that accompanies them.
> And you can't control if you want to do it in the first place.
We've covered this ground. I am the one who shapes my wants. I am the one who decides my direction. As I've explained, any entity/organism that is self-aware must also necessarily be self-directed. There is no other choice. And therefore anyone/anything that is self-directed has free will. For instance, Francis Gorman says, "Worry is only possible in a world of choice. It also demonstrates the limits of reason. Worrying exposes what we really have faith in."
> It was ingenuity in the sense that not every next guy on the street could have come up with it
No one came up with it, in your view. It was given to them by an inevitable and irresistible sequence of neuronic activity. That's not ingenuity. You can't attribute ingenuity to a person when they are not choosing anything that leads to their conclusion.
> There would be no real cosmic justice.
In my illustration I am not talking about cosmic justice, but simple street justice. There is no such thing, according to your view, because the people couldn't help it. If there is no self direction, there is no responsibility behind their action, and therefore no culpability for the action. Every criminal could rightfully plead, "I couldn't help it," and they would have to be set free.
> You really have to think about this from the perspective of the brain as a computer.
You're right, and I will never believe that the brain is just a computer. That position betrays the reality of consciousness.
> since it's based on inputs from the world and a brain that evolved to come to the right conclusion, at least most of the time.
Many nontheist scholars disagree with you.
Thomas Nagel: "If we came to believe that our capacity for objective theory (e.g., true beliefs) were the product of natural selection, that would warrant serious skepticism about its results."
Barry Stroud: "There is an embarrassing absurdity in [naturalism] that is revealed as soon as the naturalist reflects and acknowledges that he believes his naturalistic theory of the world. … I mean he cannot it and consistently regard it as true."
Patricia Churchland: "Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four Fs: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems it to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. ... Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism’s way of life and enhances the organism’s chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost."
Charles Darwin: "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"
There is no warrant to assume the brain evolved to come to the right conclusion at least most of the time.
> And you can't control if you want to do it in the first place.
We've covered this ground. I am the one who shapes my wants. I am the one who decides my direction. As I've explained, any entity/organism that is self-aware must also necessarily be self-directed. There is no other choice. And therefore anyone/anything that is self-directed has free will. For instance, Francis Gorman says, "Worry is only possible in a world of choice. It also demonstrates the limits of reason. Worrying exposes what we really have faith in."
> It was ingenuity in the sense that not every next guy on the street could have come up with it
No one came up with it, in your view. It was given to them by an inevitable and irresistible sequence of neuronic activity. That's not ingenuity. You can't attribute ingenuity to a person when they are not choosing anything that leads to their conclusion.
> There would be no real cosmic justice.
In my illustration I am not talking about cosmic justice, but simple street justice. There is no such thing, according to your view, because the people couldn't help it. If there is no self direction, there is no responsibility behind their action, and therefore no culpability for the action. Every criminal could rightfully plead, "I couldn't help it," and they would have to be set free.
> You really have to think about this from the perspective of the brain as a computer.
You're right, and I will never believe that the brain is just a computer. That position betrays the reality of consciousness.
> since it's based on inputs from the world and a brain that evolved to come to the right conclusion, at least most of the time.
Many nontheist scholars disagree with you.
Thomas Nagel: "If we came to believe that our capacity for objective theory (e.g., true beliefs) were the product of natural selection, that would warrant serious skepticism about its results."
Barry Stroud: "There is an embarrassing absurdity in [naturalism] that is revealed as soon as the naturalist reflects and acknowledges that he believes his naturalistic theory of the world. … I mean he cannot it and consistently regard it as true."
Patricia Churchland: "Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four Fs: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems it to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. ... Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism’s way of life and enhances the organism’s chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost."
Charles Darwin: "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"
There is no warrant to assume the brain evolved to come to the right conclusion at least most of the time.
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Re: Could cloning disprove free will?
by Jet Ski » Mon Oct 01, 2018 4:34 pm
Actually, I think now it's just getting really interesting because (no offense):
1. you start to sound dogmatic ("I will never believe that the brain is just a computer"),
2. jump to straw men conclusions I already cautioned you against (you: "Every criminal could rightfully plead, 'I couldn't help it,' and they would have to be set free"; me, in a previous post: "I just want to caution you not to throw out everything in a purely deterministic world because people tend to overreact in that way. Like for example an admission that free will doesn't exist wouldn't mean we should get rid of our justice system and find everyone not guilty for reasons of insanity. We would just treat people like sentient robots.", meaning we would lock up people for the same reason we keep lions and crocodiles in zoos instead of letting them roam freely through the streets: prevention of violence and crime),
3. and cite authorities ("Francis Gorman says", "Many nontheist scholars disagree with you").
I only think it seems like we reached an impasse because you didn't address the argument I gave against free will, and I'd really like you to do that in your next response. This time you've said, again: "I am the one who shapes my wants. I am the one who decides my direction." What I assert is that you cannot ultimately determine your wants and control your decision because it leads to an infinite regress. You shape your wants because you want to shape them, and either you just uncontrollably want to or you decided to want it, which means you want to want it and so on, ad infinitum. How can this be reconciled with free will?
You also brought up another point, which is that "any entity/organism that is self-aware must also necessarily be self-directed." Why should this be the case? Is it impossible for a conscious zombie to exist, someone who is conscious of their actions and decisions but doesn't control them?
And the third point is that you claim "[my] retort is that what [you] say just isn't the case", whereas I see it as this: You assume there has to be metaphysical, transcendental truth and reason - or at least that everything would be pointless without it - and all I'm saying is that this isn't the case. This gets reflected again in your last sentence: "There is no warrant to assume the brain evolved to come to the right conclusion at least most of the time." What I mean by "right" is sufficiently corresponding to objective reality in such a way that the conclusions aid survival. And as I said, our merely physical reason has proven to be pretty damn effective in helping us understand the universe and become a technologically advanced species that's about to fly to Mars in the next decades.
1. you start to sound dogmatic ("I will never believe that the brain is just a computer"),
2. jump to straw men conclusions I already cautioned you against (you: "Every criminal could rightfully plead, 'I couldn't help it,' and they would have to be set free"; me, in a previous post: "I just want to caution you not to throw out everything in a purely deterministic world because people tend to overreact in that way. Like for example an admission that free will doesn't exist wouldn't mean we should get rid of our justice system and find everyone not guilty for reasons of insanity. We would just treat people like sentient robots.", meaning we would lock up people for the same reason we keep lions and crocodiles in zoos instead of letting them roam freely through the streets: prevention of violence and crime),
3. and cite authorities ("Francis Gorman says", "Many nontheist scholars disagree with you").
I only think it seems like we reached an impasse because you didn't address the argument I gave against free will, and I'd really like you to do that in your next response. This time you've said, again: "I am the one who shapes my wants. I am the one who decides my direction." What I assert is that you cannot ultimately determine your wants and control your decision because it leads to an infinite regress. You shape your wants because you want to shape them, and either you just uncontrollably want to or you decided to want it, which means you want to want it and so on, ad infinitum. How can this be reconciled with free will?
You also brought up another point, which is that "any entity/organism that is self-aware must also necessarily be self-directed." Why should this be the case? Is it impossible for a conscious zombie to exist, someone who is conscious of their actions and decisions but doesn't control them?
And the third point is that you claim "[my] retort is that what [you] say just isn't the case", whereas I see it as this: You assume there has to be metaphysical, transcendental truth and reason - or at least that everything would be pointless without it - and all I'm saying is that this isn't the case. This gets reflected again in your last sentence: "There is no warrant to assume the brain evolved to come to the right conclusion at least most of the time." What I mean by "right" is sufficiently corresponding to objective reality in such a way that the conclusions aid survival. And as I said, our merely physical reason has proven to be pretty damn effective in helping us understand the universe and become a technologically advanced species that's about to fly to Mars in the next decades.
- Jet Ski
Re: Could cloning disprove free will?
by jimwalton » Mon Oct 01, 2018 4:57 pm
Ah, yes. Now it seems we are resorting to the logical fallacy of "discredit the messenger."
> you start to sound dogmatic ("I will never believe that the brain is just a computer")
It's not that I'm dogmatic but rather that I'm not reductionistic. Perceiving the brain as a computer minimizes and discredits the brain's capability and the unique place of consciousness. Physicalism doesn't explain the complexity of the brain's dynamical systems that result in what we call consciousness.
* We are able to reason our way far deeper and beyond what can be explained by deterministic synaptic connections.
* Even within our own brains we are able to specialize, filter, innovate and adapt. Sometimes completely new systems emerge.
* Thinking, deciding, consciousness, memory, language, representation, belief, etc. are large dynamic patterns of brain activity that constrain the ongoing lower-level physiological phenomena whose activity constitute the brain patterns themselves. Therefore the causal properties of patterns are not reducible to the elements.
* Therefore there is necessarily true self-determination and free will.
> jump to straw men conclusions I already cautioned you against
Please. Let's not descend into insult. Straw men? C'mon. "I just want to caution you not to throw out everything in a purely deterministic world..." I have not thrown out everything but rather shown that it is self-contradictory and self-defeating. It's an untenable position.
> and cite authorities
Arguments citing authority are types of inductive reasoning.
> because you didn't address the argument I gave against free will, and I'd really like you to do that in your next response.
I've addressed it several times. I addressed it that last time you accused me of not addressing it. I devoted a whole post to addressing your argument against free will.
> What I assert is that you cannot ultimately determine your wants and control your decision because it leads to an infinite regress. You shape your wants because you want to shape them, and either you just uncontrollably want to or you decided to want it, which means you want to want it and so on, ad infinitum. How can this be reconciled with free will?
I disagree. Exercising my consciousness is an expression of my self-awareness which is an expression of self-direction, and therefore free will. My decisions that arise from my desires are not cyclical as you assert, but linear. I continually arrive at novel places and confront new desires and decisions. My free will expresses itself in my humanity, as I have explained. Both time and consciousness are linear in a forward direction, so free will is not an infinite regress.
> "any entity/organism that is self-aware must also necessarily be self-directed." Why should this be the case?
Because self-awareness involves reason: weighing situations, evaluating environment, assessing pros and cons, truth and falseness, and making decisions. Self-awareness that is locked into an unalterable path is not self-awareness at all but rather mere mechanistic robotism.
> Is it impossible for a conscious zombie to exist, someone who is conscious of their actions and decisions but doesn't control them?
Yes it is impossible.
> You assume there has to be metaphysical, transcendental truth and reason
I don't assume it a priori—the evidence leads me to it. But if we don't start with the possibility of truth as a first principle, we can't even have a discussion. Everything devolves into "what is," and truth is not part of the picture. But I have already explained this several times. If we can't agree that truth is possible, our discussion is meaningless. If we can agree that truth is possible, then we agree that some sense of transcendental truth must exist for us to define it and reason by it.
> And as I said, our merely physical reason has proven to be pretty damn effective in helping us understand the universe and become a technologically advanced species that's about to fly to Mars in the next decades.
Yes, and I have disagreed with this. Unless we have true free will, science is a sham and there is no such thing as science or reason. Unless we can honestly consider the data, weigh and assess the information, consider hypotheses, and decide which ones conform to reality (i.e., science and reasoning), "mere physical reason" doesn't take us anywhere. But, as I mentioned before, I'm repeating myself and I wonder if we have reached an impasse.
> you start to sound dogmatic ("I will never believe that the brain is just a computer")
It's not that I'm dogmatic but rather that I'm not reductionistic. Perceiving the brain as a computer minimizes and discredits the brain's capability and the unique place of consciousness. Physicalism doesn't explain the complexity of the brain's dynamical systems that result in what we call consciousness.
* We are able to reason our way far deeper and beyond what can be explained by deterministic synaptic connections.
* Even within our own brains we are able to specialize, filter, innovate and adapt. Sometimes completely new systems emerge.
* Thinking, deciding, consciousness, memory, language, representation, belief, etc. are large dynamic patterns of brain activity that constrain the ongoing lower-level physiological phenomena whose activity constitute the brain patterns themselves. Therefore the causal properties of patterns are not reducible to the elements.
* Therefore there is necessarily true self-determination and free will.
> jump to straw men conclusions I already cautioned you against
Please. Let's not descend into insult. Straw men? C'mon. "I just want to caution you not to throw out everything in a purely deterministic world..." I have not thrown out everything but rather shown that it is self-contradictory and self-defeating. It's an untenable position.
> and cite authorities
Arguments citing authority are types of inductive reasoning.
> because you didn't address the argument I gave against free will, and I'd really like you to do that in your next response.
I've addressed it several times. I addressed it that last time you accused me of not addressing it. I devoted a whole post to addressing your argument against free will.
> What I assert is that you cannot ultimately determine your wants and control your decision because it leads to an infinite regress. You shape your wants because you want to shape them, and either you just uncontrollably want to or you decided to want it, which means you want to want it and so on, ad infinitum. How can this be reconciled with free will?
I disagree. Exercising my consciousness is an expression of my self-awareness which is an expression of self-direction, and therefore free will. My decisions that arise from my desires are not cyclical as you assert, but linear. I continually arrive at novel places and confront new desires and decisions. My free will expresses itself in my humanity, as I have explained. Both time and consciousness are linear in a forward direction, so free will is not an infinite regress.
> "any entity/organism that is self-aware must also necessarily be self-directed." Why should this be the case?
Because self-awareness involves reason: weighing situations, evaluating environment, assessing pros and cons, truth and falseness, and making decisions. Self-awareness that is locked into an unalterable path is not self-awareness at all but rather mere mechanistic robotism.
> Is it impossible for a conscious zombie to exist, someone who is conscious of their actions and decisions but doesn't control them?
Yes it is impossible.
> You assume there has to be metaphysical, transcendental truth and reason
I don't assume it a priori—the evidence leads me to it. But if we don't start with the possibility of truth as a first principle, we can't even have a discussion. Everything devolves into "what is," and truth is not part of the picture. But I have already explained this several times. If we can't agree that truth is possible, our discussion is meaningless. If we can agree that truth is possible, then we agree that some sense of transcendental truth must exist for us to define it and reason by it.
> And as I said, our merely physical reason has proven to be pretty damn effective in helping us understand the universe and become a technologically advanced species that's about to fly to Mars in the next decades.
Yes, and I have disagreed with this. Unless we have true free will, science is a sham and there is no such thing as science or reason. Unless we can honestly consider the data, weigh and assess the information, consider hypotheses, and decide which ones conform to reality (i.e., science and reasoning), "mere physical reason" doesn't take us anywhere. But, as I mentioned before, I'm repeating myself and I wonder if we have reached an impasse.
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Re: Could cloning disprove free will?
by Jet Ski » Tue Oct 02, 2018 12:51 pm
To me it seems that you're just asserting things without explaining why it must be that way.
> Perceiving the brain as a computer minimizes and discredits the brain's capability and the unique place of consciousness.
How do you know this? Why should this be the case?
> Physicalism doesn't explain the complexity of the brain's dynamical systems that result in what we call consciousness.
Why not?
> Thinking, deciding, consciousness, memory, language, representation, belief, etc. are large dynamic patterns of brain activity that constrain the ongoing lower-level physiological phenomena whose activity constitute the brain patterns themselves. Therefore the causal properties of patterns are not reducible to the elements.
How do you know this?
Yes it is impossible.
Why?
> Perceiving the brain as a computer minimizes and discredits the brain's capability and the unique place of consciousness.
How do you know this? Why should this be the case?
> Physicalism doesn't explain the complexity of the brain's dynamical systems that result in what we call consciousness.
Why not?
> Thinking, deciding, consciousness, memory, language, representation, belief, etc. are large dynamic patterns of brain activity that constrain the ongoing lower-level physiological phenomena whose activity constitute the brain patterns themselves. Therefore the causal properties of patterns are not reducible to the elements.
How do you know this?
Yes it is impossible.
Why?
- Jet Ski
Re: Could cloning disprove free will?
by jimwalton » Tue Oct 02, 2018 1:08 pm
I have already explained these things. Consciousness is more than the processing of information. The brain is more than the sum of its parts. We are able to do things that defy mechanistic and chemical explanation. Neurologists studying the brain find that our capabilities, ability to create, intuit, infer and adapt are not reducible to any physical explanation. The complexity of the brain's capabilities are far greater than any synapses firing sequence. The primary axiom of evolutionary biology—that humanity is merely the product of random mutations plus natural selection—is an extremely vulnerable theory. To assume evolution from chemicals to reason, when truth is not part of the mutational or selective process, doesn't wash. Random mutations consistently destroy information. "Natural selection" is a blind process. Neither of them claim to create and verify informational data. One human cell contains more information than the Library of Congress. Our phenomena is immeasurably more complex than any known technology. To think that random mutations and natural selection, chemicals and neuronic activity could somehow arrive at a working space shuttle is ludicrous, and yet our brain is geometrically far more complex. The idea that it came about through a process involving no purpose and no intelligence baffles credibility. Our brains are not just senseless but high-level molecular machines. Instead, we are more than just the sum of the parts.
> Is it impossible for a conscious zombie to exist, someone who is conscious of their actions and decisions but doesn't control them? "Why [is this impossible]?"
First of all, we're into the Twilight Zone here, so the analogy is difficult if not impossible to work with. Zombies don't exist. But if they did, how do we know what their state of consciousness is? Therefore how can you assert that they are conscious of their actions but those actions don't control them? And then you try to hold me to that definition and explanation as if it's an argument against what I am saying?
> Is it impossible for a conscious zombie to exist, someone who is conscious of their actions and decisions but doesn't control them? "Why [is this impossible]?"
First of all, we're into the Twilight Zone here, so the analogy is difficult if not impossible to work with. Zombies don't exist. But if they did, how do we know what their state of consciousness is? Therefore how can you assert that they are conscious of their actions but those actions don't control them? And then you try to hold me to that definition and explanation as if it's an argument against what I am saying?
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Re: Could cloning disprove free will?
by Jet Ski » Wed Oct 03, 2018 2:08 pm
> Neurologists studying the brain find that our capabilities, ability to create, intuit, infer and adapt are not reducible to any physical explanation. The complexity of the brain's capabilities are far greater than any synapses firing sequence.
I'm still waiting for you to provide me with some credible sources for this. From what I know we can't fully explain our mental capabilities yet, using a materialist approach, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to explain it in that way. And we already made a lot of progress in that direction (again, see the Stanford lecture playlist I linked you). Just like a few hundred years ago people couldn't explain how life could emerge from dead matter, and they concluded there had to be some metaphysical life force - which we now know is not the case. It's a highly complex but 100% physical process.
> Random mutations consistently destroy information. "Natural selection" is a blind process.
Setting aside that most mutations don't have any phenotypic consequences, I agree that the majority of the mutations that do have an effect on the phenotype are destructive. But the very few ones that actually lead to an advantage in the organisms fitness, or the "fitness" of the replicators inside it, make for the potential of cumulative complexity and adaptation to the environment. So natural selection is actually a process of gathering information about the environment of a replicator (or a group of replicators "acting" in unison) and how to be successful in it, and it's a process of slowly (and very wastefully) giving rise to non-random strings of DNA, which have non-random consequences. If you don't think this is enough to lead to such highly complex organisms as we see today, it's just a failure to grasp the immense amount of time that has passed, and the diversity of possible chemical reactions.
> To think that random mutations and natural selection, chemicals and neuronic activity could somehow arrive at a working space shuttle is ludicrous.
> The idea that it came about through a process involving no purpose and no intelligence baffles credibility.
What more are these statement than mere intuitions of yours? And why should your intuitions be a trustworthy assessment of what's likely or possible? I could say the same thing about an all-powerful God - it "baffles credibility".
> Therefore how can you assert that they are conscious of their actions but those actions don't control them?
How do you know that you're not just experiencing your actions and decisions as being yours, when in fact you are aware of them but don't actually control them?
I'm still waiting for you to provide me with some credible sources for this. From what I know we can't fully explain our mental capabilities yet, using a materialist approach, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to explain it in that way. And we already made a lot of progress in that direction (again, see the Stanford lecture playlist I linked you). Just like a few hundred years ago people couldn't explain how life could emerge from dead matter, and they concluded there had to be some metaphysical life force - which we now know is not the case. It's a highly complex but 100% physical process.
> Random mutations consistently destroy information. "Natural selection" is a blind process.
Setting aside that most mutations don't have any phenotypic consequences, I agree that the majority of the mutations that do have an effect on the phenotype are destructive. But the very few ones that actually lead to an advantage in the organisms fitness, or the "fitness" of the replicators inside it, make for the potential of cumulative complexity and adaptation to the environment. So natural selection is actually a process of gathering information about the environment of a replicator (or a group of replicators "acting" in unison) and how to be successful in it, and it's a process of slowly (and very wastefully) giving rise to non-random strings of DNA, which have non-random consequences. If you don't think this is enough to lead to such highly complex organisms as we see today, it's just a failure to grasp the immense amount of time that has passed, and the diversity of possible chemical reactions.
> To think that random mutations and natural selection, chemicals and neuronic activity could somehow arrive at a working space shuttle is ludicrous.
> The idea that it came about through a process involving no purpose and no intelligence baffles credibility.
What more are these statement than mere intuitions of yours? And why should your intuitions be a trustworthy assessment of what's likely or possible? I could say the same thing about an all-powerful God - it "baffles credibility".
> Therefore how can you assert that they are conscious of their actions but those actions don't control them?
How do you know that you're not just experiencing your actions and decisions as being yours, when in fact you are aware of them but don't actually control them?
- Jet Ski
Re: Could cloning disprove free will?
by jimwalton » Wed Oct 03, 2018 2:34 pm
> I'm still waiting for you to provide me with some credible sources for this. From what I know we can't fully explain our mental capabilities yet, using a materialist approach, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to explain it in that way.
Dr. Warren Brown, neurologist of the Lee Travis Research Center, writes that neuronal systems are dynamical enough to give a plausible account of the emergence of high-level causal properties in complete system, but also reveal non-reducible properties and patterns in that system. He says that complex, nonlinear, highly interact aggregates becomes systems that are causal in tier own right through adaptive self-organization. He uses the illustration of an ant colony. Colonies of ants, he says, have causal properties that are not entirely attributable to the capacities and behaviors of individual ants. In the same way, neurons adapt and emerge in complex dynamical systems. (There's a whole lot more he says.) He concludes: "Thinking, deciding, consciousness, memory, language, representation, belief, etc. are large dynamic patterns of brain activity that constrain the ongoing lower-level physiological phenomena whose activity constitute the brain patterns themselves. Therefore the causal properties of patterns are not reducible to the elements. They are emergent."
His summary and conclusion:
* Will (agency) is not about initiation action from inaction, but it the modulation of ongoing action.
* Modulation occurs by comparison of the outcomes of ongoing action with criteria for evaluation.
* As we move up the nervous system more and more complex levels of criteria come into play.
* The anterior frontal lobes evaluate and modulate action with respect to long-term perspectives (past and future).
* Human nervous system is largely a self-organizing complex dynamical system that acts from its own point of view.
* Behavior and thought emerge from complex patterns related to current or imagined environmental situations.
* The very slow physical development of the human brain means it is maximally open to being formed by interaction with the physical and social environment.
* The capacity to simulate action off-line and evaluate the results allows for choice (agency).
He says, "There is an increasingly large domain of resources within the current understanding of neuroscience that support the requirement of human moral agency and free will."
I'm not a neurologist. I can only read and try to digest.
> Setting aside that most mutations don't have any phenotypic consequences, I agree that the majority of the mutations that do have an effect on the phenotype are destructive.
From my reading, there is not one, single, crystal-clear example of a known mutation that unambiguously created information. Muller (1964) showed that many mutations of a genome's nucleotides are unselectable. Kimura (1979) shows that most mutations are negative, even though near neutral.
Beneficial mutations occur at a rate less than 1 in a million, so low as to thwart any actual measurement. And a certain percentage of these are unselectable. Everything about the true distribution of mutations argues against their possible role in forward evolution.
Bergman (2004) reviewed the research and literature on beneficial mutations. Of his 453,732 "mutation" hits," only 186 even mentioned the word "beneficial." Of those 186, the presumed beneficial mutations were only beneficial in a very narrow sense and consistency involved loss of function (loss of information) changes. He was unable to find a single example of a mutation that unambiguously created new information.
Geneticists were working on an estimated rate of deleterious mutation of 0.12 - 0.30 mutations per person per generation (Morton, Crow, and Muller, 1956). Recent findings show that the rate is rather 100 (and possibly as high as 300) per person per generation (Kondrashov 2002). In other words, genetic deterioration is a certainty.
Natural selection doesn't help. Selection capabilities are limited to the final product, not the wording of the instruction manual, so to speak. Nor can natural selection communicate with the mutation process to create a superior manual. Natural selection can only allow or destroy the final product. Crow (1997) says, "The consensus among human geneticists is that, at present, the human race is genetically degenerating due to rapid mutation accumulation and relaxed natural selection pressure." This is not to claim natural selection doesn't work. It does, but only on a limited level. Natural selection has eliminated the worst human mutations, but selection is not a magic wand, nor omniscient, nor even intelligent. No form of selection can maintain, let alone create, higher genomes. Selection can sometimes work on the genic level, but systematically fails at the genomic level.
Dr. Warren Brown, neurologist of the Lee Travis Research Center, writes that neuronal systems are dynamical enough to give a plausible account of the emergence of high-level causal properties in complete system, but also reveal non-reducible properties and patterns in that system. He says that complex, nonlinear, highly interact aggregates becomes systems that are causal in tier own right through adaptive self-organization. He uses the illustration of an ant colony. Colonies of ants, he says, have causal properties that are not entirely attributable to the capacities and behaviors of individual ants. In the same way, neurons adapt and emerge in complex dynamical systems. (There's a whole lot more he says.) He concludes: "Thinking, deciding, consciousness, memory, language, representation, belief, etc. are large dynamic patterns of brain activity that constrain the ongoing lower-level physiological phenomena whose activity constitute the brain patterns themselves. Therefore the causal properties of patterns are not reducible to the elements. They are emergent."
His summary and conclusion:
* Will (agency) is not about initiation action from inaction, but it the modulation of ongoing action.
* Modulation occurs by comparison of the outcomes of ongoing action with criteria for evaluation.
* As we move up the nervous system more and more complex levels of criteria come into play.
* The anterior frontal lobes evaluate and modulate action with respect to long-term perspectives (past and future).
* Human nervous system is largely a self-organizing complex dynamical system that acts from its own point of view.
* Behavior and thought emerge from complex patterns related to current or imagined environmental situations.
* The very slow physical development of the human brain means it is maximally open to being formed by interaction with the physical and social environment.
* The capacity to simulate action off-line and evaluate the results allows for choice (agency).
He says, "There is an increasingly large domain of resources within the current understanding of neuroscience that support the requirement of human moral agency and free will."
I'm not a neurologist. I can only read and try to digest.
> Setting aside that most mutations don't have any phenotypic consequences, I agree that the majority of the mutations that do have an effect on the phenotype are destructive.
From my reading, there is not one, single, crystal-clear example of a known mutation that unambiguously created information. Muller (1964) showed that many mutations of a genome's nucleotides are unselectable. Kimura (1979) shows that most mutations are negative, even though near neutral.
Beneficial mutations occur at a rate less than 1 in a million, so low as to thwart any actual measurement. And a certain percentage of these are unselectable. Everything about the true distribution of mutations argues against their possible role in forward evolution.
Bergman (2004) reviewed the research and literature on beneficial mutations. Of his 453,732 "mutation" hits," only 186 even mentioned the word "beneficial." Of those 186, the presumed beneficial mutations were only beneficial in a very narrow sense and consistency involved loss of function (loss of information) changes. He was unable to find a single example of a mutation that unambiguously created new information.
Geneticists were working on an estimated rate of deleterious mutation of 0.12 - 0.30 mutations per person per generation (Morton, Crow, and Muller, 1956). Recent findings show that the rate is rather 100 (and possibly as high as 300) per person per generation (Kondrashov 2002). In other words, genetic deterioration is a certainty.
Natural selection doesn't help. Selection capabilities are limited to the final product, not the wording of the instruction manual, so to speak. Nor can natural selection communicate with the mutation process to create a superior manual. Natural selection can only allow or destroy the final product. Crow (1997) says, "The consensus among human geneticists is that, at present, the human race is genetically degenerating due to rapid mutation accumulation and relaxed natural selection pressure." This is not to claim natural selection doesn't work. It does, but only on a limited level. Natural selection has eliminated the worst human mutations, but selection is not a magic wand, nor omniscient, nor even intelligent. No form of selection can maintain, let alone create, higher genomes. Selection can sometimes work on the genic level, but systematically fails at the genomic level.
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