EPTIs the mind all chemical and electricity? - Page 96
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Yorbon
Netherlands4272 Posts
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DertoQq
France906 Posts
Free will is seeing something occur and reacting to that. Depend on how you define seeing, free will and reacting. Does a wurm seeing food and eating it has free will ? Does a man under drugs seeing something and reacting to it has free will ? Does a computer set up to do something when something happens has free will ? Either you treat everything equally, or you draw the line somewhere, but I don't think everyone will agree on where to draw the line. | ||
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grassHAT
United States40 Posts
On August 29 2013 01:28 Xiron wrote: It's so laughable when laymen without even the tiniest amount of understanding try to explain the world. So for these ridiculous people who actually "believe" (because it's just a religion like any other) that free will exists, let me enlight you. You know the world is made up of atoms, which are made up of quarks (or maybe you don't believe in atoms?) They do have an have uncertainty in their position, impulse etc. This uncertainty is so tiny, that it hardly even affects a single atom anymore, let alone a big molecule. These atoms make up molecules. A brain is an accumulation of cells, which are made up of molecules. It evolved in a way in which these cells communicate with each other by sending electric signals. This is thinking, feeling, the order to breath, the order to move. You can stimulate a brain with an electric impulse and cause your body to move. You can inject hormones into your blood that make you happy (drugs, anyone?). You can become sad because there is too much of a hormon in your brain. Also, you can take substances that make you sleepy/agressive/etc. That is the same in every living animal. This proves that we don't really have free will when it comes to our actions/feelings. But what seperates us from these animals? It's the thinking. So, what is thinking made of? It's memories, experiences and feelings., and the cells in your brain which store all of this information. Memories are created by your environment. As are experiences. Let's say you are given the choice between getting a red ball or a blue ball. If you choose the red ball, that's because you wanted it, right? No! It's because your past experiences, memories and your genetics gave you a preference for red. So where is this "free will"? That's right, there is no occasion where free will would be needed to explain an action of a human being. People who believe in free will are probably religious, too, because it's the easiest answer to a question. Why did this guy kill his brother? "Because he wanted to!" That is so wrong. It's because his mind and all it's molecules reacted in such a way that made his hand grab the knife. Did you not listen to the video I posted at all? Your "rationality" undermines itself bro. You are saying that you only doing things because of your brain which would include your acceptance of the theory you just proposed on irrational causes (i.e. uncertainty of the motion of atoms). That makes your theory irrational... It is funny when anyone tries to explain reality, but it is even more hilarious when someone arrogant comes along and ends up being completely foolish... A completely materialist worldview undermines scientific rationality, objective morality, self-identity, objective purpose, among many other things. Sounds like a bad fantasy. | ||
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kwizach
3658 Posts
First of all, you speak of "random atom motion", while atom motion is not random the way you're implying. Like mcc wrote earlier in the thread, have you ever heard of atomic bonds? If atoms behaved as randomly as you make it sound, why would there be anything solid in the universe? Why can we produce solid objects? To go even further, why would liquid exist instead of gas? Why would atoms not occupy completely random positions within the universe? The answer is that there are plenty of laws which constrain how atoms and molecules behave, especially together, and prevent them from moving completely randomly in an individual manner (not to mention the limits upon the random movement of an atom by itself which Xiron evoked). Our brain is constituted, like Xiron said, of assemblages of molecules - of cells. What you're failing to grasp is that these groups of molecules behave together through the links they have with each other, and not simply individually and randomly (again, if they did only behave randomly, how would they build lasting structures together in the first place?). The physical/chemical reactions that these cells have with each other determine their movement and their existence. Ultimately, they determine what goes on inside our brain and, in fact, inside our whole body. Now if you zoom back a bit more, beyond cells, we have tissues, and beyond tissues, organs. These organs behave according to specific functions within the human body, but their behavior is still entirely based on the laws of physics, because the laws of physics determine not only how individual atoms and molecules behave but also how groups of elements, linked in a certain way, behave. If I drop a metal plate from 5 feet above the ground, my metal plate is still going to be a metal plate when it reaches 3 feet above the ground. It doesn't stop being a metal plate and disintegrate into a collection of molecules behaving randomly. So, the organs are able to stay whole and behave/react as structures of tissues taken collectively (the tissues being themselves structures of cells taken collectively) to perform certain functions that can be observed as a macro level. The brain works exactly like this. It is governed by the laws of physics, it is an aggregate structure that is composed of other aggregate structures. These aggregate structures, by their very nature, do not behave completely randomly, although there are processes, which happen within the framework of these structures, that are stochastic in nature. These processes however do not change the fact that the brain is an organ that is "ordered" and made of "ordered" structures which allow it to function in an "internally predictable" way. Rationality is one of the features of this organ in action, along with reflexivity. They are the result of structures operating at levels featuring the predictable behavior of aggregates. There is absolutely nothing mysterious about these basic principles. To answer Xiron, though, I'd like to add like DoubleReed that this is not necessarily a refutation of free will, depending on how you define it - one can very well have a non-dualistic view of "free will" as the (reflexive) exercise of choice by our physical selves, regardless of the fact that this choice is ultimately the result of physical connections (and would therefore be predictable if an entity could be omniscient about the physical world). | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On August 29 2013 08:00 kwizach wrote: grassHAT, you're the one who is completely failing to understand some of the basic workings of the physical world to be fair, I believe most of the manhattan project guys are on record saying they don't, either | ||
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kwizach
3658 Posts
On August 29 2013 08:32 sam!zdat wrote: to be fair, I believe most of the manhattan project guys are on record saying they don't, either Since I am talking about the existence of physical aggregate behavior, I'm pretty sure they understood that part ,-) | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
edit: i think we have free will, but only in the future. but that's just a doctrine that i find amusing, i think the problem might be intractable | ||
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grassHAT
United States40 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On August 29 2013 08:54 grassHAT wrote: im talking about irrational atom motion. not random. you're thinking about brownian motion and it doesn't help you. it was a profound idea in the third century though so don't feel bad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus edit: another good doctrine: free will is not about doing something, but about not doing something | ||
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grassHAT
United States40 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On August 29 2013 09:05 grassHAT wrote: If rationality is determined by the organ then it is not rational... lol... you are suggesting that we have evolved "rationality" but that would be contradictory because rationality would be dependent on consciousness and free will. This argument is turning into a joke. so many trolls on here i think he thinks we all think using bayesian reasoning. so he thinks we are robots. his definition of rationality doesn't require any of that stuff i don't think. but you're on the wrong track. focus on qualia. that's the thing nobody can explain. | ||
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johnny123
521 Posts
On August 28 2013 09:05 grassHAT wrote: It is a pretty stupid thing to ask, but considering people who hold a naturalist/materialist (majority of atheists) actually BELIEVE that there is no free will it should be addressed... it is a stupid thing to ask.Especially with you trying to post a theological mental gymnastics video. I maintain we do have free will, but its a lot different than just simply stating "we have free will". We don't have free will in the sense of how our bodies react to chemicals/physics. But we do have the ability to suppress or "hold back" memories or thoughts which gives us the illusion as if our minds are free. But in reality we are very wired and have to fight to suppress these reactions.Can you be happy if your mother is killed? The ones that are happy are called psychopaths and they get locked up for lacking that emotion to feel empathy. ITS ALL IN THE BRAIN Can you make sugar not taste sweet to your body ? ( did you know cats cannot taste anything that is sweet because they lack the sweet gene?) Can alcohol not make you drunk? Can smoking Cannabis not make you stoned? Can touching the brain in certain spots during open brain surgery cause some cool phenomena like "out of body experiences" or involuntary actions of the body ? How do you explain people that are "retarded or mentally handicapped" seem to lack the ability to reason thus losing their free will. Look clearly the brain is responsible for every cognitive action. Our brains are easily fooled. Thats why we need science( peer review) and specialized instruments to stop us from fooling ourselves. Religion is the opposite of that. It takes full advantage of cognitive dissonance. Example, Religious people think all the good and beautiful things in life are due to GOD. And say all the bad things in life are due to the devil or make up some excuse to not blame god like saying "Adam caused the fall". When thats clearly not true as we are evolved animals. There is no such thing as a first human. We have come from Homo Erectus Wonderful creations like Aids/Cancer/Malaria/Measles/Bronchitis/Polio/Smallpox/Cholera/Ebola/Spanish Flu/ Influenza were not created by god. Worm burrowing through someones eyeball causing blindness? clearly not god. Hurricane destroying a state and killing many, Clearly not god. 99% of all the species to have ever lived on this rock are WIPED OUT? obviously not god. He is merciful and loving and caring. Beautiful sunset at the beach? Yup thats GOD. COGNITIVE DISSONANCE | ||
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kwizach
3658 Posts
On August 29 2013 08:54 grassHAT wrote: im talking about irrational atom motion. not random. If you can convince yourself in your mind that this doesn't contradict itself, then so be it. On August 29 2013 09:05 grassHAT wrote: If rationality is determined by the organ then it is not rational... lol... you are suggesting that we have evolved "rationality" but that would be contradictory because rationality would be dependent on consciousness and free will. This argument is turning into a joke. so many trolls on here There is absolutely nothing about "irrational atom motion" that is contradictory with the existence of rationality, because rationality is the product of structures operating at the aggregate level and responding physically to physical stimuli. Consciousness and our perception of free are the result of our brains being physically capable of reflexivity at an aggregate level. You're the one who has convinced himself that it is contradictory for no reason other than "it seems to me that it is so", which is neither evidence nor a valid argument. On August 29 2013 08:44 sam!zdat wrote: fine. but it remains that you have no theory capable of saving appearances or dispelling the illusion of consciousness. you can tell me that my qualia are epiphenomenal, but you have no way of telling me how that epiphenomenal illusion arises from the aggregate behavior of non-mental matter. it's very mysterious. anyone who claims to understand what is going on i think does not understand the problem edit: i think we have free will, but only in the future. but that's just a doctrine that i find amusing, i think the problem might be intractable Why would I try to dispel what you call "the illusion of consciousness"? Consciousness is real, as in it is the product of physical processes inside of our brain. If you're going to claim that anything related to consciousness cannot exist/correspond to physical processes, the burden of proof lies on you. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
consciousness obviously is real. the problem is that our way of thinking about stuff doesn't include any way that it is "like" to be that stuff. our intuitions tell us that we are a physical process which it is "like" something to be, but which can be completely described by some other physical processes which our intuitions tell us it is not "like" something to be. how can this be the case? how can an arrangement or aggregate of entities which it is not "like" something to be produce a higher order entity which it IS "like" something to be? this is the question that remains unanswered and, I think, a really fundamental enigma we are left maybe with the possibility that it is "like" something to be information, in some sort of primordial metaphysical sense, but does that get us anywhere? probably not edit: the point is not that consciousness can't be physical, the point is that our understanding of what "physical" means must be incomplete, because it can't be reconciled with phenomenological appearances | ||
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Parcelleus
Australia1662 Posts
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kwizach
3658 Posts
That humans are incapable of recreating a machine that would experience its environment and itself the way humans do (at least currently, who knows what the future holds), or even of transcribing physically every detail which together make up conscious experiences, doesn't at all change the fact that conscious experiences are the result of physical processes. It's simply a case of confusing epistemology and ontology. | ||
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tokinho
United States785 Posts
I disagree with both points here. "Lets leave aside the burden of proof that's never a really useful concept. " In what sense i proof never useful? The point of understanding something is to predict, examine, characterize, and determine conditions upon which a premise if valid.. "Consciousness obviously is real"- agree with this premise. Consciousness being the ability to go against instinct and make a choice. As clever as this may be curiously you may make almost no actual decisions. If you go the other route, the idea of sensual transduction. The idea that we can perceive patterns out of senses is fascinating, but in both cases all non-human animals exhibit these behaviors to a much smaller degree. Either way I don't disagree really with this point, as its basically a premise. "how can an arrangement or aggregate of entities which it is not "like" something to be produce a higher order entity which it IS "like" something to be? " this is the question that remains unanswered and, I think, a really fundamental enigma The buildup problem is is to predict, examine, characterize, and determine conditions upon which a you can start exactly with smaller elements and produce a higher order entity. (Examples, http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002236, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480649/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_potentiation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_plasticity,http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/ ) As of yet, there is no system that integrates most aspects of real-time sensory potentiation of all the senses that human has. Computers have not reached a point where this is feasible. Its hard to compare physicists of the 40's 50's and 60's difficulty in understanding the standard model and the challenge of learning how the strong and weak forces work or relate to gravity, when those forces tend to be negligible at the scale that we are talking about. They are all preFeynman, who did in fact clearly understood the concept of perception and the limitation of their techniques. Currently, the idea of discretization is found in that a response is valid within a range of values. (i.e. depolarization) and we can in fact determine the type of inhibition and receptor levels which characterize different behaviors. We can also build complex markov models based off of those behaviors. (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1202.full) The idea that "we are left maybe with the possibility that it is "like" something to be information, in some sort of primordial metaphysical sense, but does that get us anywhere? probably not" Therefore, I think it does get us somewhere. The question of how, does not address a question of non-existence(why did it happen this way, vs some other way) which i think tends to be the nature of the metaphysical which i define as the perception of the world based off of notions of non-symmetric projection. (I.e. Asking cause and effect, perception of time, what exists which we cannot perceive, decartes separation of mind and body, or the apparent lack of randomness when a few samples are taken) To word it differently, a scientist asks if i flip a coin 3 times and it has a 50 % rate, and i get heads all three times the next chance its tails is still 50%(independence). Behaviourly, a human says god all i get are heads, the next one has to be tails, because we have perceived an apparent flaw in our understanding in just a few samples. They are in fact the same question, one blind the other thrown off by experience. Either way i just don't agree that you should not try and prove claims, or you cannot build a higher order thing from smaller elements and that it doesn't result in an instance given specific conditions. | ||
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koreasilver
9109 Posts
But we do have the ability to suppress or "hold back" memories or thoughts which gives us the illusion as if our minds are free. I honestly am not sure if this doesn't register to you due to some insane conceptual dissonance, but if we have the ability to suppress memories or thoughts, then that is in-of-itself willed to some way or another, no? And furthermore, this linking between the belief in a free will and "religion" is historically and conceptually really short-sighted and/or even completely ignorant given that a great deal of theological thought has railed against the idea of a free will and were rabidly deterministic, particularly with Luther, who wrote polemic against Scotus and free will, and Calvinist predestination. The materialist determinism in this thread isn't really all that different when it comes to practical immanent events from Christian predestination even if it may operate under different ontological grounds. Similarly, the question of whether there is a free will or not under a materialist rubric doesn't seem to be any more fruitful than the theological question of predestination given our epistemological limitations. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On August 29 2013 16:20 kwizach wrote: the functions and the workings of the entities at the two different levels (the "small" entities on the one hand, like tissues, and the "big" entity on the other hand, which is an aggregate of the smaller ones, like the brain) are different. The brain's function is to be a decision-making center (I'm obviously simplifying) and the way it operates gives us reflexivity. The functions and operations of the smaller entities are different. Your question could just as well be: how can individual objects that are not capable of producing coffee give us, when aggregated together in a certain way, an object that is capable of producing coffee? The brain may be extraordinarily more complex than a coffee machine, but the same principle is true - as an aggregate, it is different from its parts taken individually. not an answer, just restatement of problem. i understand what emergence is. that doesn't make it not a problem On August 29 2013 16:20 kwizach wrote: doesn't at all change the fact that conscious experiences are the result of physical processes. please reread post I address this quite specifically - this is not my claim. i have never denied nor will i deny that consciousness is the result of a physical process. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
just like a runner would not need to know how her muscle and neurons function to execute a thought of "run!", nor does that "run!" lose any meaning without this knowledge of biology, that we can have this concept of consciousness without knowledge of the brain just shows that, yes, consciousness is physical, but there should be no anxiety over how it does not make sense to reduce it to physical mechanisms. reducing a sonata to sound vibrations may not make music either, but it does not change what it is. | ||
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