Materialism and Consciousness.

[Birdjaguar]

without the need to think about it, this seems odd to me because I do this so frequently and I am rarely if ever wrong, I'd love to know the dynamic between my subconcious and concious and how it gets the answer?

The is a book on this I read last year, but the name eludes me for the moment. I will see if I can resurect it for you.

 

[Ayatollah So]

So free will is the ability to act on a whim? To not take into account your history, or physical nature? That doesn't sound so important to me. Does this act have to be random? That is not based on previous experience or physically based preferences?

Why must you be more than your physical body and the sum of your experiences?

Whatever consciousness is, be it physical or non-, that is where free will lies. To be physical is not to be nonexistent. A definition of "free will" which requires that people be non-material is too narrow.

Even the determinism of classical physics is no threat to free will. To be "causally determined" in that sense is just to be intimately related to things outside yourself, such that neither you nor they could exist without the other. Your character is still your own, even if the "information" in it is spread around further than you might have thought. As Calvin (the cartoon character) would say, "the whole point of the history of the universe so far is to lead up to me." It wouldn't exactly be an insult to learn that something like that is true - exactly as true as that the whole point of you is to reflect the history of the universe so far.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Blink Is the book mentioned above. Interesting reading.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316172324/103-1679976-0617414?v=glance&n=283155

 

[punkbass2000]

Looks interesting.

 

[Ayatollah So]

But the trick in your argument is that, while you use your own new, scientific definitions (including one for free will) you talk about 'free will' as if you're using the old definition, and so it seems like the usual grand, wonderful concept! When, in reality, you've proven something totally opposed to the older definition of free will, one undeserving of the same name

The logic is good, the argument is sound, but the terminology gives it an element of sophistry. If you're going to set up a new definition of free will - especially one as radically different as yours is - don't call it free will.

But the "old" definition of free will which ties it to a nonphysical soul was itself a revision. It seems to have been invented sometime in the Middle Ages (but then, I'm not much of a historian). We compatibilists are trying to change it back - to purge this unnecessary and irrelevant complication. Stripped to its bare bones, free will is about the powers of intelligent minds - not about whether a physical or supernatural metaphysics underlies them.

It's not just political freedom. Consider how legal punishment uses the term "free will". And imagine that the defendant subscribes to your definition of free will. I can just imagine the conversation:

Judge: did you kill this man of your own free will?
Defendant: No, your honor. I killed him because I wanted to.
Judge:

 

[cgannon64]

I wrote out a post last night, until it was deleted. I'm glad I did, though, because (specifically with regards to WillJ) I had a new thought.

I disagree, of course.

I don't think you can disagree that your idea of free will is nonstandard, meaning it is not instinctive and not commonly held. Simply put, since you were a small child - and probably right up to this very moment - you feel like you have the free will I'm talking about, and you act as if you do.

I have no clue why you say that. Again, "desire" doesn't mean "instinct." I probably shouldn't be using the word "desire" anyway, since it is indeed a loaded term.

But, when you follow it downwards, it does! Ultimately desires are either the result of the will, other desires, or instinct. Instinct would be the wellspring from which everything else comes.

Now I'll talk about your viewpoint. You seem to think that your actions being predictable makes you unfree. Disagreement with that is probably what's most fundamental to my viewpoint. How does predictability equate to a lack of freedom?

Let's say that I, being the genuis that I am, invent a machine that is able to predict with 100% certainty what you will do. It says that you will have a cupcake for dessert. I don't even tell you this, yet sure enough, you have a cupcake for dessert.

Regardless of what the machine predicted, YOU decided to have a cupcake. No one else did. No thing else did either. You might say, "The electrons in my brain did!" But the electrons in your brain are what make YOU. Sure, in this hypothetical situation, science has allowed us to discover and understand every square inch of you, but me understanding you doesn't make you any less YOU than you were before I understood you.

I've heard a good example that should explain: Let's say you're sitting in your room. You really like it; you're digging sitting in your room, doing whatever it is you do, and you want to stay there very much. Unbeknownst to you, the door is locked. Are you free to leave? No! Are you acting in accordance with your desire? Of course! But are you free? No.

To be free, there must be at least two options, both of which are viable.

You seem to desire (oops, I mean want ) to have a will that's unpredictable, yet not random. You say this makes sense in every way except "the purest statistical terms." What other (valid) terms are there?

Random, I think, can either mean unpredictable, or it can mean uncaused according to any sense or design. I understand the problems the second definition raises with regards to free will, but more on that in turn.

You want your decisions to have causes. On that we agree. The fact that my decisions are based on neural activity (and a plethora of other things) is a good thing, because those are causes. But you seem to think it's a bad thing, which makes your opinions quite inconsistent. You want your decisions to have causes, yet when we scientifically discover them, the causes are somehow bad.

Imagine your free will is some sort of mystical, almost ghost-like entity in another world, able to interact with your brain, which is in this world (I think I'll give this idea a name ... how about dualism ). I suppose this is the traditional idea, and I'll take a wild guess and say that's what you want it to be like. But, wait a minute, you say you want this mystical free will to base its decisions on causes. And if its activity is based on causes, then surely we humans (or at least an infinitely intelligent being) could discover the causes. Which is what science is all about, finding the causes of things.

Now, last night I wrote out something like this: According to your theory - just call it a soul! for simplicity's sake - you are right in that, in the end, it does seem random. My response, however, was that this 'randomness' is tolerable, because the only cause is our own will. And, however random that will appears, it is still our will. Which random option we choose is entirely up to us. This hardly seems like randomness at all, then - since we are in complete control of it. (So wouldn't it be predictable to us?) Now, does this violate my second definition of randomness, meaning it is uncaused? Well, no, because we're the cause. But are our decisions random? You say they are uncaused - but they are certainly caused by ourselves. What leads us to choose them is motivated by outside factors, but not determined without doubt - there is a little extra push from our will, in one direction or another. This appears random, but it is randomness which is controlled by a will - a very interesting kind of randomness.

What I realized afterward, however, is that this is a very old problem recast: What was the First Cause? Materialism fails to answer this question, and the free will theory answers it in a way similar to the religious supposition of God - a little disappointing, perhaps, but still something.

But the "old" definition of free will which ties it to a nonphysical soul was itself a revision. It seems to have been invented sometime in the Middle Ages (but then, I'm not much of a historian). We compatibilists are trying to change it back - to purge this unnecessary and irrelevant complication. Stripped to its bare bones, free will is about the powers of intelligent minds - not about whether a physical or supernatural metaphysics underlies them.

That may well be, but the Medeival idea of free will is very, very, very entrenched. To replace it with the new (or old) definition of free will would involve a sea change - and one, I think, that would never happen, if you want this change to be transparent and also alter the way people think about their own free will.

You must, however, consider all the factors involved in this change. To truly beleive in this new definition would undermine - or at least severely alter/damage - ideas about guilt, democracy, crime & punishment, the very way we approach every decision of our lives...

It's not just political freedom. Consider how legal punishment uses the term "free will". And imagine that the defendant subscribes to your definition of free will. I can just imagine the conversation:

Consider how legal punishment would use your term? Can we send anyone to jail any more? Can we continue to beleive in "evil" crimes that warrant the death penalty or life imprisonment? Why would these questions be decided democratically, anyway?

 

[Ayatollah So]

Because, if one views the situation from the I-level rather than the T-level, our behavior is completely controlled.

Saying that our behavior is, at some high level of abstraction and complexity, completely consistent, is not saying that it's completely controlled. Controlled by whom? (or Whom? And aren't we talking about materialists who typically aren't theists?)

 

[Birdjaguar]

CG: "Are birds free from the chains of the skyways?"

 

[cgannon64]

Saying that our behavior is, at some high level of abstraction and complexity, completely consistent, is not saying that it's completely controlled. Controlled by whom? (or Whom? And aren't we talking about materialists who typically aren't theists?)

This is semantic. I'm pretty sure the word 'controlled' is often used when something is controlled by inanimate agents - "x is controlled by gene y," etc.

CG: "Are birds free from the chains of the skyways?"

Unfair: even Bob Dylan can't answer that one.

 

[Ayatollah So]

My first question is: Why exactly does consciousness arise at this point, wherever it may be?

My second question is along the same lines[...]: Why would consciousness be present in one grouping of atoms obeying the laws of physics, and not another group?

(By the way, I'd just like to say that I'm not bringing this all up to try to argue against materialism - I'm not saying, "Materialism can't explain this so it's stupid" - I'm just trying to understand it better.)

Let's focus on "the hard problem" by substituting "pain" or "the subjective smell of a rose" for "consciousness". I don't think materialism can explain why these qualia, rather than others or none, arise at the particular point where they do. But it can explain why it can't explain that. In fact, the inability to look at a brain and say "aha, it's completely transparent that such neural activity is painful," is exactly what you would expect if materialism is true.

A few generalities about neurology first. There are many overlapping neural groupings in the brain, where activity in some of the neurons in that grouping tends to activate others in that grouping, more than in the brain at large. Stimulating some of these groupings leads to particular sensations and stimulating others leads to other sensations, or memories or feelings or ... . Asking a subject to remember the smell of a rose, or a pain, often (always?) leads to activity in some (not all) of the same neural groupings that activate when actually smelling a rose, or feeling pain. And, if you pick two sensations, or a sensation and a concept, at random, the odds of those two things picking out highly similar neural groupings at a detailed level, are small.

According to the materialist thesis, roughly speaking, the subjective experience of rose smell IS activity of certain types of neurons in certain parts of the brain. And, remembering or contemplating that experience is also activity of neurons, partly overlapping with those same activities of neurons involved in the smelling of an actual rose.

Now contrast the understanding of the neurology of a particular brain area. On the materialist thesis, this understanding also involves activities (or maybe just the ready potential for activities) of parts of the brain, but probably very different parts. Looking at an MRI of brain activity activates very different neurons than does remembering the smell of a rose, even if the brain being MRI'd is involved in smelling a rose, or remembering. Therefore, of course you don't make the intuitive connection between what you see on the MRI and the subjective smell of a rose. Why should anyone expect that looking at this brain activity magically causes you to undergo this activity? That is exactly what would have to happen in order to have an intuitively satisfying grasp of why this particular brain activity leads to that particular sensation.

 

[Ayatollah So]

This is semantic. I'm pretty sure the word 'controlled' is often used when something is controlled by inanimate agents - "x is controlled by gene y," etc.

OK, but then on this reading of "controlled" it's not true that

if one views the situation from the I-level rather than the T-level, our behavior is completely controlled.

Genes exist on the T-level. And if we ask, where is "you" in all this, there you are, very prominent on the T-level, doing lots of controlling.

 

[WillJ]

I don't think you can disagree that your idea of free will is nonstandard, meaning it is not instinctive and not commonly held. Simply put, since you were a small child - and probably right up to this very moment - you feel like you have the free will I'm talking about, and you act as if you do.

I don't know how commonly held my view is. Is there a Gallop poll on the issue?

When I was a little boy, "free will" was just some nice phrase to me. Much like the Pledge of Allegience, just a string of nice phrases, that is until I came to understand classical liberal thought a few years ago (not to mention fascism, which made me kinda suspicious of the pledge ).

When I finally got around to thinking about free will, you're right, I did indeed "start out" with your view. Maybe it is instinctive.

But you were saying that I'm demonstrating that free will exists (in most cases) through an argument that, while logically sound, makes "free will" a not-so-wonderful thing. Maybe I'll concede that my idea of free will isn't the same thing as most people's idea, but I still maintain that my idea is what makes free will a good thing.

But, when you follow it downwards, it does! Ultimately desires are either the result of the will, other desires, or instinct. Instinct would be the wellspring from which everything else comes.

An "instinct," as I (and biologists, I think) use the term, is something you're born with. Even with my idea of free will, you can still have learned behavior.

I've heard a good example that should explain: Let's say you're sitting in your room. You really like it; you're digging sitting in your room, doing whatever it is you do, and you want to stay there very much. Unbeknownst to you, the door is locked. Are you free to leave? No! Are you acting in accordance with your desire? Of course! But are you free? No.

To be free, there must be at least two options, both of which are viable.

I'll say upfront I agree with your last sentence.

The whole question of whether someone is "free," yes or no, or whether someone has a "free will," yes or no, is a silly one, even though I've admittedly been implying I have an answer all this time.

"Free" is a useless term unless it's qualified. Is John free? Who knows. Is John free to...? That we know.

You are free to do something if you could do it if you wanted to. (And you are free to not do something if you could refrain from doing it, if you so wished.)

In your situation, there are two things going on. Let's just say what I want to do in the room is play XBox.

Am I free to play XBox? Yes. (If I wanted to*, I could.)
Am I free to leave the room? No. (Even if I wanted to**, I couldn't.)

*which I do, but that's irrelevant
*which I don't, but that's irrelevant

Random, I think, can either mean unpredictable, or it can mean uncaused according to any sense or design.

What's the difference?

Edit: I'm assuming that by "unpredictable," you mean even with infinite knowledge. Just being unpredictable to us humans obviously doesn't imply randomness, as the weather and the economy repeatedly tell us.

Now, last night I wrote out something like this: According to your theory - just call it a soul! for simplicity's sake - you are right in that, in the end, it does seem random. My response, however, was that this 'randomness' is tolerable, because the only cause is our own will. And, however random that will appears, it is still our will. Which random option we choose is entirely up to us. This hardly seems like randomness at all, then - since we are in complete control of it. (So wouldn't it be predictable to us?) Now, does this violate my second definition of randomness, meaning it is uncaused? Well, no, because we're the cause. But are our decisions random? You say they are uncaused - but they are certainly caused by ourselves. What leads us to choose them is motivated by outside factors, but not determined without doubt - there is a little extra push from our will, in one direction or another. This appears random, but it is randomness which is controlled by a will - a very interesting kind of randomness.

What I realized afterward, however, is that this is a very old problem recast: What was the First Cause? Materialism fails to answer this question, and the free will theory answers it in a way similar to the religious supposition of God - a little disappointing, perhaps, but still something.

Seems to me like you're saying that your will causes itself, which doesn't make any sense. It's simply randomness, plain and simple.

You're right, materialist thinkers don't know of a first cause. But I don't see how your idea of free will invokes God as a first cause. Whatever the case, that's all beside the point.

All that I ask for is that my actions are a result of me reacting to the outside world, hopefully making somewhat rational decisions.

With my idea of free will, this is the case. With yours, it is also the case, although you then go on to add your soul-like will, which adds nothing to the equation (besides randomness).

Consider how legal punishment would use your term? Can we send anyone to jail any more? Can we continue to beleive in "evil" crimes that warrant the death penalty or life imprisonment? Why would these questions be decided democratically, anyway?

We still bear responsibility for our actions. We still make our decisions. Like I said earlier, the atoms in your brain might be making your decisions, but that's just because they make you. And when they (you) make bad decisions, we reserve the right to punish you.

 

[Sidhe]

Looks interesting.

Thanks it looks intriguing. Here's the link in the English Amazon and in Paperback in case you don't want to pay the Capitalist dogs in America too much for this Icon of communist ideology.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...08769/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_3_1/026-5575277-0798843

I just worte out a long post asking people to describe the conciousness from a point of view of predeterminism or free will, but it deleted the whole lot, since I can't be bothered to write it out again give us an overview of how you think free will/materialism explains some of the simple more complex and very complex parts of the conciousness

i.e intuition, instinct,visualization of objects/ideas,humour, the senses(invent more than 5 if you have to) Creativity and inspiration, emotion, social conscience,memory,pain etc etc etc.

 

[Gothmog]

cg wrote:

What I realized afterward, however, is that this is a very old problem recast: What was the First Cause? Materialism fails to answer this question, and the free will theory answers it in a way similar to the religious supposition of God

I would call that something of a revelation.

I would be interested for you to follow up on that last part.
How IYO does the free will theory answer the question of the First Cause?

@Sidhe.

Put all those properties it in an evolutionary context,
mix in a refusal to posit unnecessary complications,
and it seems pretty straight forward.

Intuition - this is just a feeling. It is wrong as often as right.

Instinct - we must have many hard coded behaviors. We could not survive otherwise. Simple ones like semi-autonomous breathing to more complex like pattern discrimination (essential for using our senses).

Visualization - we must keep a running integration of the information our senses provide us with, or they are next to useless.

Senses - obviously and conclusively evolutionary and completely physical.

Creativity - adaptation to change is the most important evolutionary advantage. Thus the difference between phenotype and genotype. It most likely even explains sexual reproduction. Creativity is nothing more than a phenotype within the genotype.

etc. etc. etc.

 

[Sidhe]

completely without any insight but thanks for the effort, you couldn't look at some stuff on biology and or try and guess at how they get biologically encode or how for example a visual image of an orange is stored or how instinct or recurrent thoughts get transcribed into our DNA? If thought itself can effect DNA(which it obviously can) and how that in turn can lead to instinct etc etc.

1/10 very poor.

I rather suspect you rushed your homework on the bus on the way into school

This thread is a philosophical one don't be afraid to philosphise or to use science? Just saying oh it just is so there, is about as revealing as saying that tomorrow is Thursday.

Your feeling that there is no free will and this post shows to me that you lack imagination or a very good creative ability? But I could be worng, I think the reason you doubt free will though is you can't help breaking everything down to it's simplest form and reducing anything complex to basics, even though all it does is expalin the tip of the iceberg, you see no reason to explore further because that would demand some imagination, am I right or am I right? Probably not at least from looking at some of your previous posts you do sometimes explain things in a rational and somewhat inventive manner but I get the impression that it's not something your comfortable with sometimes.

 

[CartesianFart]

I always lurked in this thread and can't seem to shake off the feeling of this topic being obsolete by standard of the 21st century.I feel this question is meaningless and should be shelved alongside the theology,and the metaphysics.

Maybe this insight by Thomas Nagel can sum up of what i was trying to convey this sickness:

At the present time the status of physicalism is similar to that which the hypothesis that matter is energy would have had if uttered by a pre-Socratic philosopher. We do not have the beginnings of a conception of how it might be true. In order to understand the hypothesis that a mental event is a physical event, we require more than an understanding of the word 'is'. The idea of how a mental and a physical term might refer to the same thing is lacking, and the usual analogies with theoretical identification in other fields fail to supply it. They fail because if we construe the reference of mental terms to physical events on the usual model, we either get a reappearance of separate subjective events as the effects through which mental reference to physical events is secured, or else we get a false account of how mental terms refer (for example, a causal behaviorist one).

Here is the link of where i've found this.
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/nagel_nice.html

Edited:the boldfaced is referring to the "Every reductionist(You guys in this thread) has his favorite analogy from modern science. "

 

[Sidhe]

Yeah I agree there is so much specualtion involved, but it is a thread grounded in philosophy so we don't have to do too much explanation to make some valid points. What pisses me off is when people say: oh well it's obviously all due to this, without having any knowledge or insight into just how difficult the hard problem is and just how many things we can't possibly explain.

For a start how does something that simply fires electrical impulses and makes connections represent the colour smell taste of something. And how does it show it's shape and texture? We can't even answer the most fundemental questions atm but people are quite happy to say: there is no free will because this is how it all works. Or there is no free will because I with my severely limited comprehension of how the brain works, so limited that I don't even understand how in anyway any sort of thought process works or is encoded have decided that there is no free will because of A, or that materialism must be right because of B. No problem with that but it seems to come across as a statement not an idea or even a sugestion. Not once have I had the balls to claim anything I tried to say was right or not just a guess, just that it was an idea? But some people who shall remain nameless seem to think they have all the answers, without ever having asked any questions? Cmon guys stop generalising based on opinion, it's not even philosophy it's just blather.

EDIT: cool I just read that link, I agree with him absolutely, thus the above

 

[CartesianFart]

Yeah I agree there is so much specualtion involved, but it is a thread grounded in philosophy so we don't have to do too much explanation to make some valid points.

I disagree.Philosophy job now is to correct language(think of linquistic) by finding a mess and remaking it by making meanings more precise.

Kinda reminds me of Wittgenstein said:
When we start thinking about the meaning of life,time,space,mind,body,meaning,free-will,the good and other grand philosophical questions,we become bewitched by language.

We take the words out of their natural place in talking and assume they refer to some essence or ideal entity which we try to define.

Because the word is uniform in appearance,we assume it refers to a uniform entity about which we can generalize.

WE FORGET THE APPLICATION OF THE WORD

But some people who shall remain nameless seem to think they have all the answers, without ever having asked any questions? Cmon guys stop generalising based on opinion, it's not even philosophy it's just blather.

Not blather,just a pure grammatical confusion.

 

[Gothmog]

Heh, still mad about how I dismissed your QM stuff eh?

I've looked at lots of 'stuff on biology', it would take a course to even begin to get at the basic literature on one of these topics. I did study animal behavior in college, admittedly a long time ago - but it is a topic I am interested in. I still read and engage in philosophy.

The insight is that we are not special, we come from the lineage of life and share everything with it. None of the things you listed need to be separated from our physical aspects - just looked at in an evolutionary light.

I did offer a couple examples of how things get biologically encoded. Did you want a discussion of how rods and cones work? Of how our heart keeps beating? Of eusocial behavior in insects? I did not say 'it is just there' about anything afaikt.

What do you mean by 'thought can effect DNA'?
Maybe you mean gene expression? What?
How would that lead to instinct?

What I've said previously is that there is no need for free will (in the sense cg meant, I actually am closer to Ayatollah So in philosophy), and that I don't see where such a thing would originate. This is not from a lack of imagination, quite the opposite. These ideas are quite obviously at odds with most peoples world view.

I did offer possible origins for free will in my response to cg (post #381), and that I don't see the need for them.

Looking at your previous posts I get the feeling that you tend to shoot from the hip and believe things that you read because they feel right and not because you understand them. Please reread the first part of your signature, I think it applies here.

It seems that by philosophize you mean 'spout nonsense'. I understand that that is the OT tradition, but I prefer more grounded conversation.

If you want a more specific discussion about any of the topics you listed, you need to ask more specific questions.

Nearly everything you listed are behaviors seen in organisms much simpler than ourselves, that is where insight must start. That or revelation.

 

[aneeshm]

Nobody has come up with an answer to what I have said till now , apparently .