I'm answering this one first because it's troubling:
Cartesian Fart said:
I see alot of Cg and Gothmog making other references of other fellow posters in the OT.This is surely a demostration of politics.A person who follows true philosophy does not need support(making statements of other OT posters) to give more weight on arguments.Why can't you guys make a argument without referring someone else on your side.No individual persuit of truth in here.All it consist is to make alliances and deny other single point of views.
I don't recall doing this at all in this thread. Simply put, I can't even name anyone else in the whole forum who's "on my side" - there are some (a small minority) of religious posters who share my views, but none have shown up in this thread or expressed similar views on this specific topic. I'd even bet that some of them would disagree me on some of what I say.
Now, please, I'd rather not get dragged in to what appears to be an ugly conflict.
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Anyway, getting on with the actual discussion...
Ayatollah So said:
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.
Not at all. To have a satisifying grasp of why neural activity leads to sensation would
not be acheived by this fantastical idea of
feeling that sensation by looking at it on a picture. If such a thing were possible (which you seem to understand it is not) that would bring us no closer to understanding why electrical happenings in the brain lead to sensation.
OK, but then on this reading of "controlled" it's not true that
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.
I brought up genes as nothing more than an example of how I was using the word 'controlled'. I don't see why you related it to the actual discussion at hand.
WillJ said:
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.
Of course, and I allow you to do that. I just disagree.
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.)
This statement sounds very agreeable. The problem with this, is that, when speaking about free will internally - I've referred to your definition as a "political" one for this reason: it matters only with external forces, like guns and jails - your definition is a bit fatuous. Disregarding external factors, I am always "free" to do what I want. Hooray! But what I want is just as much of an external factor, according to materialism, as a pair of handcuffs. You may say that what you want is determined by 'you', but when you use the word 'you' in this case you include something which
isn't usually included in normal thinking: genes, stimuli, the laws of physics. Simply put, your desires are
entirely imposed on you. You are
always overcome by desire, all the time. (I intentionally use a phrase here that is often used in real life, because we use it sparingly in real life - but, according to materialism, we should use it all the damn time.) So, this definition of free will is internally (I have to use that word, even though I think the difference between external and internal is unclear) always consistent, but only because it sets up the parameters to easily.
To relate this to a point I made a long while ago in this thread: According to materialism (in my opinion at least), the difference between myself and the rest of the universe is nonexistent, or at least unclear. And, according to materialism, your definition of free will is successful because it includes factors which appear internal, but are just as external as anything else. My genes are just as imposed on me as any chains, and I am locked inside of my electrically-controlled impulses just as much as I am a jail cell. The difference is that one set is inside my body, so I call it "me" - but it's just as far from my control as everything else in the universe.
When a program generates a random string of numbers, you wouldn't say that the program
chose 3, and then 7, and then 2, and then 5, etc. Those are uncaused by any sense or design,
and unpredictable. But, when you say that a person's actions are "random," they are obviously unpredictable, but they are still (according to the theory of the soul) still controlled by design.
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.
This is opening up a can of worms we can't deal with now. One assault on free will at a time, please!
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.
Not that the will causes itself, but that the will causes its decisions.
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.
I'm sorry for the confusion, let me explain. Considering
just the subset of one individual, the chain of causes stops with the individual. But with materialism, it stretches beyond it, to the beginning of the universe, and we're left with the old problem of materialism not proposing any first cause, or any alternative explanation. (How the individual "first cause" relates to
God as the
real first cause is a difficult question, but as I said earlier, a different one.)
All that I ask for is that my actions are a result of me reacting to the outside world, hopefully making somewhat rational decisions.
But they're not the result of you at all! Unless you include things which are just as "outside" as the outside world is...
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.
But that sounds so unfair! How can you put a person into solitary confinement for decades, how can you impose that
brutal punishment on their consciousness - for it is indeed the consciousness that suffers - when it is wholly out of their control! The person had only the illusion of control when they committed the crime, and in return they are given the all-too-real suffering.
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).
No, it explains the very strongly-felt impression of control.
Gothmog said:
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?
It's a bit hard, because once you probe this question you see it's (another) age-old religious problem.
My point about the first cause, which I clarified to WillJ, is that the individual will is the "first cause" of its small, self-contained system, and God the
true First Cause of the entire universe. Whereas with materialism, the distinction between the universe and the individual is nonexistent, and we must deal with the very real problem of the lack of a first cause immediately. Obviously, one might consider there to be a conflict between these two. Still, I don't think that religious problem is unsolvable, and so I don't think we should rule out this idea as contradictory too hastily. (In terminology I recently learned, I'd rather not "push" into this problem, for I'm afraid it will take us far too long to "pop" back out.)
