Materialism and Consciousness.

[El_Machinae]

I very much agree that randomness is not in itself free will.

But, it seems that the brain can choose whether to act on a random impulse. The machinery may notice randomness and act on it.

Urg. Nevermind. I think CG stumped me.

My theory is that free will is a self-contained loop. Once the conditions for it occur, life takes steps to maintain it. My biggest evidence is that people can commit suicide - people can actively take an action that is only in their best interest if faith is incorporated into the paradigm.

 

[Gothmog]

Yeah, I don't know why life would take steps to maintain free will. Seems to me that it would be a confounding factor more than anything from a system wide POV.

Now the illusion of free will, I can see that being evolutionarily favored.

Not sure what you meant by suicide, why couldn't that be the result of a learned behavior?

Also couldn't make out what you meant with best interest and faith.

 

[El_Machinae]

Sorry:

My opinion is that we're not 'free' in that we'll always do what we deem to be in our best interest (certain altruistic events disprove this, but there is a evolutionary aspect to altruism). Now, the ability to plan and coordinate certainly changes our actions, because the ability to plan seems connected to how we make valuations.

However, suicide is clearly against our best interest - except when faith is factored in. This faith is that '*I* will benefit from suicide' or 'my life will only get worse'.

The fact that free will can choose against life means something to me. Consciousness can act against itself, when it should be self-selecting.

 

[Gothmog]

Altruism has always been a favorite topic of mine, gotta love the naked mole rat.

It does seem that various animals will comit suicide for apparently altruistic reasons (e.g. protecting other members of a group), or when sick, or when suffering, or when kept in captivity.

So again, that doesn't seem unique to me in its self.

Also, it may that some other characteristic that is selected for is somehow linked to suicide. So it is not the suicide its self that is selected for but that e.g. in a given genotype 0.05% will commit suicide but another 25% will willingly sacrifice themselves to a violent death for the good of the group.

 

[Ayatollah So]

I'm not sure that this changes much. After all, there is nothing irrational about crime. Plenty of clever people execute it, and they execute it well.

Rational criminals are responsible. It's the highly irrational ones, like John Hinckley (the guy who shot Reagan) who have diminished responsibility.

But, regardless, I think the point I made to WillJ stands: How can you cause people suffering for what they, essentially, have no control over?

Another important aspect of legal practice is 'intent'. The meaning of 'intent' is pretty wrapped-up in the older, non-materialist conception of free will. What is the difference between a crime planned out beforehand, and a crime done in a moment of passion, if both are uncontrolled by a person's free will? The only difference is the length with which their desires were focused on crime. Does someone who unintentionaly desired to commit a crime for months deserve more punishment than someone who unintentionally desired to commit it for a few seconds?

I don't accept the premise that material beings "have no control over" their actions. If you can rationally evaluate multiple actions and implement the "best" (by your lights) one, you are in control of that action.

Intent, as in the difference between Murder 1 and Murder 2, is at best a placeholder for the rationality of the criminal. In premeditated crime the criminal is presumed to be acting according to his stable values, whereas in Murder 2 the perpetrator is "acting in the heat of the moment" and presumed to be blinded by passion. There might be some truth to that in general, but I think this way of sorting out the murderers could stand improvement.

 

[Gothmog]

The difference is potenital future threat to society, and is typically worded this way.

The justice system is a method for creating a safer more stable society while attempting to rehabilitate criminals.

 

[cgannon64]

I don't really have the time to answer these questions tonight, but I must...

I'm afraid the Big Bang is far from universally accepted as such, and there are plenty of theories in physics that dispense with the need for a God although some of them are a tad tenuous scientifically speaking. The big bang being in fact one of them, in an oddly odd sort of way. The universe spontaneously came into existence much like quasi particles do in the void of space in a sea of particle creation and anhiallation. Sounds far fetched but? Might be true?

Of course, but this violates the logical ideas that noting can create something, and effects don't need causes - and while I've heard alot claimed that those ideas have been destroyed by modern physics... that's a pretty tricky development.

Have a look at M theory it explains the big bang as a never ending series of big bangs within a membrane of interdimensionality. Doesn't need a God at all as such.

Sounds like a wild re-interpretation of an infinite chain of causes - but an infinite chain of causes nonetheless.

I have never felt comfortable with the idea that we are all predetermined by our DNA like mindless automatons, it doesn fit with what I experience conciously and intuitively it just feels wrong, especially when I consider how my actions affect others. I can't prove either way that we have or don't have free will but, at a fundemental level I do believe we do.

As do I, which is why I'm looking for a way to explain it.

I have no problem with a God figure either. I do have a problem with what is comitted in that Gods name. It seems to often be used as an excuse to act apaulingly towards humanity. And to justify irational and outmoded moralities.

'Tis nothing against God himself, though.

What ever gave you the impression that human societies progress agrees with that idea.

History if nothing else is evidence to me of free will. For if predetermanism ruled it would be very easy to find out how everyone ticked and to pull their strings I see little evidence of this happening now or ever.

Even if I could take one look at someone and break down his personality profile using his DNA and then use psychology techniques to refine my analysis when face to face. I still would have no hope of predicting with any certainty what anyone will do.

Try experimenting with people you know, you will find that even in the most rigidly defined situations people behave and act unexpectedly to what you predict, with my friends I'd say I could predict what they were going to say in a rigid social situation first about 1 in 300 times.

Psychology is an art not a science,always has been always will be. No matter how much we can know about the way conciousness works, it would continue to defy the predictable.

That we cannot predict something now is no proof that we cannot in the future.

I've heard the idea too that in order to understand the conscious mind you would have to be removed from it(thus the hard problem is an impossible one) This I agree with to some extent, because the way we percieve things clouds our understanding of what we percieve. Not that I think that destroys the idea of free will, but that I think that that destroys the idea of predeterminism, because conciousness is not explicable to those who percieve it and cannot be reduced to materialism, it is more than just the sum of its parts. We might build a machine to observe us and look for signs outside of ourselves but since it would be programmed from our point of view, we would have no idea what to design into it to look for and it would not recognise it because we cannot.

I don't think this is necessarily true. We can already examine small, isolated parts of the brain and understand what they do - why is that necessarily impossible on the large scale, with sufficient knowledge?

So the basic idea becomes: where in this lineage does free will originate? where consciousness? Can we really be the only life that has these, assuming for a moment that they are really more than subjective experiences.

On a more philosophical path, why can't we just be a collection of cells that respond to their environment the way they are programed to do? What need is there for a biological organism, such as we are, to be more than that? What roll is there for free will in this context? If it does exist, where does it originate? Are you really 'free' to make decisions that are outside the context of your genetic material and the materialistic process that led to your specific phenotype?

Before anyone attacks these ideas or this presentation as 'patchwork' or 'incomplete' or '1/10' or calls me 'senile' or 'uncreative' or whatever - let me say that this is just a start. I am in no way claiming that this is the truth, or even part of the truth. Heck, I don't even believe in the truth.

Please respond with well formulated questions about it, or not at all.

This was a very good post. I don't have any well-formulated questions, but no attacks either: I'd just like to point out that you've explained what the "hard problem" is well - and we're still no closer to the answer. Which leads us to the question, Can these ever be answered scientifically?

Sloppy phrasing on my part. It's not feeling that sensation upon looking at the brain scan, which matters, but being reminded of it. Being reminded of it would be required to have a satisfying grasp of why neural activity leads to the sensation. Also, being reminded of a sensation, pain for example, shares something with actually experiencing it. In both cases the concept of pain is usually activated: "Ow, that hurts!" if you're in pain, or "Ow, that's gotta hurt!" if you're a neurologist seeing that an MRI of a patient shows that the patient is in pain.

Because both the actual experience and the second-hand experience of it typically share this feature, you would expect some (not all as I accidentally implied) of the same brain activities to be involved in both. But, you wouldn't expect that just looking at an MRI on its own terms, without correlating to subjective experience, would activate those brain areas.

I still don't understand why you're making this leap. How, exactly, would a link between the visual depiction of brain activity and a reminder of that activity prove anything? You seem to want this to happen to any viewer - but that's just absurd. I'm sure a sufficiently trained MRI operator can do what you ask of them: look at brain activity in a particular area and say, "Ah, this is pain," and if he is an emotional person, he might be reminded of an example of his own pain - but what does this prove, except that he knows how to read a diagram and connect it to his own mind? You could trick a person into reading anything any way: think of the rigorous, scientific way in which Romans read the motions of birds, which meant absolutely nothing. People project emotions on many things that are unrelated, and have no connection: a gullible person might feel sad that you feel sad when they see your mood ring is a certain color, and what does that mean? Nothing.

I think your line of argument is going down the wrong path. It is, to me at least, inconceivable that we could explain, with science as it is now, why the sensation of consciousness is caused by neural activity - because this question is trying to explain something so mysterious, so elusive, and so viscerally non-scientific, that it defies a scientific explanation. Explaining consciousness, so far, cannot go higher than neurons - there are no sensation particles, or consciousness levels, which can be pointed at - and at this explanation, which appears to be the highest, it is still mysterious.

Because I don't think you've justified the claim (which I can't remember exactly but here's a rough paraphrase) that on a materialist picture we're controlled by the laws of nature. Using the sense of "controlled" in which genes can be said to control morphology.

I think the analogy fits well. Genes have properties and work according to rules; their interaction produces a certain individual, so can be said to 'control' the nature of that individual.

Particles in the universe have certain properties and act according to certain rules, and their interaction produces more complex things, so can be said to 'control' the nature of that individual. In fact, I'd say the analogy between particles and molecules, and genes and beings, fits well. in fact, it's a neat ascending scale: Particles to molecules to DNA to beings. Each one 'controls' the next level.

Rational criminals are responsible. It's the highly irrational ones, like John Hinckley (the guy who shot Reagan) who have diminished responsibility.

Indeed, and my point is this: Irrational criminals, in our society, are not put in normal jails because they are felt to have no control over their actions - but, according to materialism, rational people and irrational people have equally little control over themselves. It's just that one group acts the same way we do, and one group doesn't.

I don't accept the premise that material beings "have no control over" their actions. If you can rationally evaluate multiple actions and implement the "best" (by your lights) one, you are in control of that action.

Why? You're stubbornly sticking to the old conception of free will without a basis for it. Can I control what I consider rational? Can I choose to implement a lesser option when I know it is lesser?

Intent, as in the difference between Murder 1 and Murder 2, is at best a placeholder for the rationality of the criminal. In premeditated crime the criminal is presumed to be acting according to his stable values, whereas in Murder 2 the perpetrator is "acting in the heat of the moment" and presumed to be blinded by passion. There might be some truth to that in general, but I think this way of sorting out the murderers could stand improvement.

Why is acting murderously on stable values any worse than acting muderously on fleeting, passionate values? Both are in accordance with your desire - only one is for a moment (but how strongly it is!) and one is for many moments.

Is "responsibility," then, nothing more than the duration of our desires? This is a very odd definition, especially since according to materialism we have no control over our desires...

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'm afraid the Big Bang is far from universally accepted as such, and there are plenty of theories in physics that dispense with the need for a God although some of them are a tad tenuous scientifically speaking. The big bang being in fact one of them, in an oddly odd sort of way. The universe spontaneously came into existence much like quasi particles do in the void of space in a sea of particle creation and anhiallation. Sounds far fetched but? Might be true?

Every alternative I've heard to explain the existence of the universe usually sounds like an infinite chain of causes.

And what in that would suggest a God? A Source of all creation maybe but need we necessarily resort to God to explain it. Try putting yourself in a position of the Atheist and come up with some ideas of how the universe or multiverse or whatever can exist without God. What are you thinking? There you go it's not that hard

Have a look at M theory it explains the big bang as a never ending series of big bangs within a membrane of interdimensionality. Doesn't need a God at all as such.

Here is an Indian description of the creation event that was first put forth in the 1920s. Rather than bore you with a long quote, here is a snipet. I'll just walk you through it.

Through this most finite point of manifestation of the first urge, the shadow of the Infinite gradually appeared...and went on expanding. This most finite point of manifestation of the first urge is called the "OM" Point or Creation Point and this point is unlimited.

The Inifnite is the infinite, unchanging eternal exisitence, the Oversoul, Through the creation point the illusion of separation occurs and "consciousness" first appears in its most finite form. It is not unlike the Big Bang. Does it sound farfetched? Yes, but it might be true. And like M theory it, it is entirely theoretical. Since it is much simpler, can we apply Occam's razor and eliminate one?

 

[Sidhe]

We are somewhat dictated by our genes as to how we act think and behave. But I personally think the one redeeming thing about humanity is its ability to overcome its own programming. If I am for example tempted to great bouts of violence say because I have an extra y chromosome, or my DNA produces too much of a precursor to testosterone or whatever. I can with time learn to adapt to my anger and to become a calm individual. I think it's the same for every characteristic I posess if I don't like it I can change it. If you accept that humanity have been changing there ingrained characters since societies began then you also accept that this ability to change your concious reactions is ingrained in the DNA itself.

Environmentally speaking an individual that spends too much time doing counter productive things both to himself and his environment is not an evolutionary viable trait thus the ability to change according to situations or to adapt is a favoured trait, thus human beings have say over their earlier ancestors the ability to view situations and to adapt. Thus Homo sapiens. Wise man. This of course could be just programmed behaviour, you make change a favoured characteristic and it explains the human species dissatisfaction with the norm. The constant quest for improvement or for stimulae. The many futures scenario doesn't exist under predeterminism since the future is cast in stone and cannot be changed. Every human being is bound to act in a predictable way consistent with his genetic make up. But hold on a minute haven't we already said that a human being can change his make up, can act differently to the way he is programmed can pass on the ability to conflict with his nature as a favoured trait. So where does that leave the robot of the predetermined? Answer nowhere, evolution favours no predeterminsim. Not free will as such just that evolution in humans is the antithesis of predeterminism, since our success can be shown to derive from our very flexibility to change our behaviours at a simple level to promote adaptability and to change our concious behavior at a fundemental and more complicated level to improve once again our viability.

Materialism is a nonsense, it is simply not born out as viable in evolution, there is no reason to assume our make up dictates our behaviour any more than that our make up dictates precisely what we will do next, this is preposterous and fits in with no reality I can think of. Even the feedback loop of the concious is subject to random outside influence, it becomes viable therefore to be able to react to the random and to adapt.

Throughout humanities existence it has been showing that an ability to think outside of the envelope to walk around a problem to adapt natural behaviours to challenge tennants, to be ingenius and most importantly felxible is key to our survival, so key in fact that it lead to our frontal lobes increasing in size to promote an ability to think to predict and to identify solutions before the situation even arrives. If we are predetermined to make just totally programmed decisions then at a fundemental level it should become possible to let the concious know of these decisions we are already going to make. To become prescient and somewhat self aware of every urge and desires origins. Why then are we not aware of this subconcious realm, since analysis of our own behavioural subconcious would be an advantage and by using that knowledge we could formulate better ways to tackle situations. I will have to move to drink at some point in the future. I will have to stand because my leg aches. I will have to control my iritation at the sequence of my behaviour. Knowing this would allow us to plan for our own behavioral actions. Why are we not aware of this?

Quite simply because our subconcious doesn't know exactly what is going to happen with regards our concious. We may chose to scratch our foot we may not, so telling someone of a sequence of events that may or may not happen is pointless untill it becomes necessary to do so, all these superfluous decisions are best left in the realm of the subconcious.

Our subconcious is cuer it cues us to possible scenarios but only makes us aware of them if they are likely to happen. That's a mighty clever bit of kit. It functions totally independantly of the concious but relies on feedback. However it cannot fathom anything as being predetermined so it lives in an environment of constant chaotic random and unpredictable input(lucky we're not made aware of this subconcious angst, we'd go nuts, I would imagine) Anyway the subconcious tries to cue us to anything that ceases to be chaotically unpredictable. And the concious leads us to make a decision based on this mess of virtual possibilities. Our conciousness appears to work on the will over the chaotic. But of course since we are aware of all the fleetingly stupid thoughts that pop into our head at times we tend to ignore silly fancies and fantasies. Not that they aren't useful because sometimes those fancies lead to leaps of intuition we might not otherwise make.

In conclusion predeterminism is not viable for evolution, so predeterminism is dead, long live non-predeterminism. Physics at a fundemental level tends to support this notion too, it does not necessarily say that free will exists merely that predeterminism is hocus pocus both at the funemental level and at the macro level, within a concious framework it cannot promote adaptability to be programmed by your DNA. Fortunatley conciousness can reprogram the DNA, which is how we got instinct in the first place and in fact how we got our great flexibility, also our speech can reprogram others actions and learning can too. Evolution favours that it itself is not always subject to evolutionary benefit at a purely physical level but that the animal itself can change its viability to a situation and those gain dominance over evolution itself.

Evolution may have come to this state by trial and error, but in the scale of things it was inevitable, not predetermined as such but inevitable that predeterminism was hoisted by it's own petard

Having the ability to make choices and to defy your own nature in conclusion is beneficial to evolution, having to follow your nature blindly is of no benefit comparitively as it does not in and of itself promote change or flexibility. So in simple terms if you can chose to defy your own programming you can make adaptation easier than if you are merely a slave to you programming and thus, evolution has favoured us with said abilities through trial and error, even the predetermined non will of DNA eventually leads to non predterminism, what would it take for this to be an example of free will?

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't think this is necessarily true. We can already examine small, isolated parts of the brain and understand what they do - why is that necessarily impossible on the large scale, with sufficient knowledge?

I don't think one person can sufficiently understand the human brain, unless that person has been augmented to be greater than the human brain that he is understanding. (I fully think that a team of people can fully understand the human brain among themselves, by specialisation, but I don't know how large that team must be).

There is a real simple reason for this. My brain is 'more' than my knowledge and consciousness. And it is controlled by events that I am not aware of on a conscious level. (I don't know when dopamine gets low, or how much testosterone is being released, etc). My knowledge of the brain and consciousness sits in discrete parts of my brain (they are a limited subset). For my consciousness to be aware of all the factors in the rest of a brain, it would have to incorporate that information into the conscious/ memory/ knowledge parts - growing them larger than they are.

By that extrapolation, I should not be able to be fully aware of everything in someone else's brain either. I don't think I have the capability of knowing what both the conscious and subconscious in my brain are doing, and humans are sufficiently homologous that I cannot do the same in another.

That isn't to say that one person cannot know a LOT about what's going on in someone's brain (controlling a patient's environment and having access to their fMRI scans does allow a great deal of information) - but to have access to all the information at once is too much. IMHO. If we allow me to operate in non-real time, I can certainly examine a lot of data from a 'snap shot' of the patient's limited time.

I might not have explained that well. But, if my memory / knowledge / consciousness become great enough to full understand someone else's mind, I would guess that I've been augemented to have a greater than human mind. (if nothing else, I have access to more time to examine the data than was required to get the data)

 

[Sidhe]

I already made that point in one of my posts in order to understand the concious mind one would have to step outside of the concious mind to be different than that concious mind or superior or whatever, looking at it from our own perspective would mean we are unable to step far enough back so that the picture can be seen as a whole. However I have noted that I need to make points at least 15 times for anyone to notice them and in fact that most of the points I make get repeated by someone else at some later date funnily enough it's often to argue against me. I supose I should be happy that at least people actually read what I post even if they never make reference to it directly

I supose soon someone will tell me why predeterminism can't exist because of evolutionary "prejudice" to eliminate it soon too

 

[Gothmog]

cg wrote

Which leads us to the question, Can these ever be answered scientifically?

I tend to think not, for the exact reason that it really comes down to the nature of the First Cause.

As with God, the area that free will occupies and the things it is needed to explain is being reduced by detailed investigation of the physical world.

And, as with God, as long as some part of it stays in the realm of the untestable it is safe from science. As Sidhe and El Machinae intone (ironic name given the thread).

Even now it seems that free will isn't needed to explain any behavior we observe. This is clear when we consider that no experiment has been able to show even a hint of existence dispite the large steps forward in brain imaging and other behavorial experiments.

For me it isn't that the question doesn't matter, I think it does and have pondered it for a long long time, its that I reached the conclusion that its existence of lack thereof would make zero difference in my actions or how I live my life.

Genes have properties and work according to rules; their interaction produces a certain individual, so can be said to 'control' the nature of that individual.

It's their interaction with the external world that creates an individual. They ensure that e.g. a human does not become a dog, but they have much less effect on variation within a genotype.

For example, every cell in our body shares exactly the same DNA. Do they all look the same to you? Do they all perform the same tasks? No and no. In the same way our DNA does not account for the individual we become, for our phenotype.

according to materialism, rational people and irrational people have equally little control over themselves

You need to explain what you mean by control here. I would say the both have exactly the same responsibility over their actions... that is all of it.

If you are just a material being then you have full responsibility for everything that you do. There is no hiding from it, no 'the devil made me do it', no claiming to be working under a higher purpose.

Now as to control, well, I didn't choose to be a human in the first place. Nor who my parents would be, nor where or when I would exist, etc., etc. Even if we alow the existence of free will for a moment, these factors have a much larger effect on who we become than the small area that free will is currently relegated to. What I must do is take responsibility for being me, that's all.

Why is acting murderously on stable values any worse than acting muderously on fleeting, passionate values?

As I say above, it is potenital future threat to society that matters in this context. Punishment doesn't change anything, IMO the criminal system should not be in the business of punishment but of helping to improve society; obviously many disagree.

@Sidhe, a much better post. Still...

If you accept that humanity have been changing there ingrained characters since societies began then you also accept that this ability to change your concious reactions is ingrained in the DNA itself.

...

since our success can be shown to derive from our very flexibility to change our behaviours at a simple level to promote adaptability

As I argue above, this ability is also present in other life forms extant on the earth and (IMO) in our direct lineage. This arrises from the fact that as Darwin (and Civ4) say: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Materialism is a nonsense, it is simply not born out as viable in evolution, there is no reason to assume our make up dictates our behaviour any more than that our make up dictates precisely what we will do next, this is preposterous and fits in with no reality I can think of.

You call it nonsense, and yet offer no specific reasons why materialism cannot explain our actions. Evolution is the essence of materialism: we are biological entities, nothing more.

I did enjoy your thoughts on the nature of the unconscious and its effect on our day to day lives.

Edit: fixed quotes

 

[El_Machinae]

El Machinae intone (ironic name given the thread)

Can't a machine pass a Turing Test? How can a machine prove it is conscious? I think engaging in a discussion regarding consciousness really helps! (However, due to the nature of archiving, I'm sure some future machine will use my posts to fake being conscious).

I think the answer to 'why punish criminals if they don't have free will?' is answered by:

Punishment works. As well, they may not have full free will, but they certainly have control in the type that punishment changes behaviour. We may all be slaves to atoms, but we certainy are not slaves to social pressure. I don't remember the exact controls, but punishment is an I-level control of an I-level problem. The rules may never change at the T-level, but punishment is not (really) part of the T-level.

 

[Sidhe]

cg wrote I tend to think not, for the exact reason that it really comes down to the nature of the First Cause.

As with God, the area that free will occupies and the things it is needed to explain is being reduced by detailed investigation of the physical world.

And, as with God, as long as some part of it stays in the realm of the untestable it is safe from science. As Sidhe and El Machinae intone (ironic name given the thread).

Even now it seems that free will isn't needed to explain any behavior we observe. This is clear when we consider that no experiment has been able to show even a hint of existence dispite the large steps forward in brain imaging and other behavorial experiments.

For me it isn't that the question doesn't matter, I think it does and have pondered it for a long long time, its that I reached the conclusion that its existence of lack thereof would make zero difference in my actions or how I live my life.

It's their interaction with the external world that creates an individual. They ensure that e.g. a human does not become a dog, but they have much less effect on variation within a genotype.

For example, every cell in our body shares exactly the same DNA. Do they all look the same to you? Do they all perform the same tasks? No and no. In the same way our DNA does not account for the individual we become, for our phenotype.

You need to explain what you mean by control here. I would say the both have exactly the same responsibility over their actions... that is all of it.

If you are just a material being then you have full responsibility for everything that you do. There is no hiding from it, no 'the devil made me do it', no claiming to be working under a higher purpose.

Now as to control, well, I didn't choose to be a human in the first place. Nor who my parents would be, nor where or when I would exist, etc., etc. Even if we alow the existence of free will for a moment, these factors have a much larger effect on who we become than the small area that free will is currently relegated to. What I must do is take responsibility for being me, that's all.
As I say above, it is potenital future threat to society that matters in this context. Punishment doesn't change anything, IMO the criminal system should not be in the business of punishment but of helping to improve society; obviously many disagree.

@Sidhe, a much better post. Still...
As I argue above, this ability is also present in other life forms extant on the earth and (IMO) in our direct lineage. This arrises from the fact that as Darwin (and Civ4) say: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
You call it nonsense, and yet offer no specific reasons why materialism cannot explain our actions. Evolution is the essence of materialism: we are biological entities, nothing more.

I did enjoy your thoughts on the nature of the unconscious and its effect on our day to day lives.

Edit: fixed quotes

Well I don't see how materialism can in and of itself advocate that change and defieance of our own natures leads to better evolution, if it is just materialism there is no question ofdefying our nature we simply blindly follow it without even a glimmer of ever changing, this is not conducive to evolutionary adaptability and does not favour adaptability. However having the ability to not only defy our own nature but completely change it is not an example of DNA's programming. It is an example of how we by intitial programming can break that programming in whatever way we see fit and this in itself will lead to greater adaptability.

This is not predetermined behaviour because if it was then it would not lead to greater evolution, just environmental evolution. Utter and total disregard for our own genetic floorplan at anytime we chose to disregard it is quite compelling evidence that predeterminism is dead.

Because we couldn't be at a stage where we can define evolution if we did not at some point step outside of our evolutionarily predetemined scenario. Evolution has lead to non predeterministic thinking and will, I see no way you can question the total disregard I can have for my genetic code. If someone presented me with a blue print of every gene and said you will most likely turn out to be a drunk and an agressive bully, there is no way on earth that I would. Do you not see that the feed back loop itself has given us an ability to chose our own destiny. I say it again fate is dead long live non fate. Can you honestly tell me that DNA dictates exactly what everyone will do when I can question every thing that my DNA is and chage it. I could even in the future do this physically. I have the power to change my life or to do nothing that argues with my programming and be determined, how do I know the difference? This revolutionary idea that we are not subject at any level to be determined by our DNA, and we can completely reorder change and by concious will evolve it? Does this not suggest that predeterminism can't exist or is this ability to have a virtually infinite possibility of futures indicative of predeterminism? Is predeterminism then the definition of free will

 

[Gothmog]

Utter and total disregard for our own genetic floorplan at anytime we chose to disregard it is quite compelling evidence that predeterminism is dead.

So are you saying that you can will your genes to change your morphology into that of a Dog? Or that if you are born with a genetic disease, you can choose not to express it?

As I attempted to show in my post about bacteria, even a bacteria will adapt to the environment it is presented with through gene expression. Even a simple animal has awareness of time, memory, and multiple senses - and it uses these to process information and change gene expression based on that input. So a genotype can become a wonderful array of different phenotypes, a stem cell may become a liver or a brain cell. Identical twins may become totally different people, without once needing to fall back on the untestable (and so unscientific) character known as 'free will'.

I see no way you can question the total disregard I can have for my genetic code

And I, in turn, see no way for you to totally disregard your genetic code or the nature of your physical surroundings.

As I have said before, it is not that your DNA would predict you becoming a drunk or whatever. It is that your DNA in combination with the experiences and exposure you have had would make you one. So, if you are one, it did.

There is no way, even assuming the existence of free will, that you can choose your own destiny. Can you choose to live in the past? in the future? Can you choose to be born in Africa? Can you choose what hormones you are exposed to in the womb? Can you choose the social station of your parents? The economic condition of your nation?

fate is dead long live non fate

I find irony here, this of course is a modification of 'the king is dead, long live the king', which is another way of saying 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'.

 

[Sidhe]

Atually yes, in the future if I so wished I could change my genetic make up so that I became part dog, but that isn't the point we're talking about conciousness here. We're not saying that we can become physically different, although soon we will be able to do just that and in fact to some extent already can since we now have understanding of what specific gene sequences do we can already program DNA to replace mutated DNA with healthy protein producing DNA thus curing us of hereditary disease, this breakthrough science is in it's infancy but essentially by using inert viruses to replace DNA sequences that are corrupted say in Cystic Fibrosis we can replace these sequences with functioning protein producing sequences that will cure the disease. This research is maybe 5 - 10 years away at most from fruition. Take a look at Genetic engineering on Google you'll see what I'm talking about. In essence give it ten years max and I will have the ability to chose not to express an inherited disease.

It is besides the point anyway not only can we conciously chose to change our behaviour and thus completely and radically change what our future brings but soon we will be able to completely alter what we are at will too. Whether we do so is a moral issue and bridge yet to cross. The fact is we have the ultimate ability to completely out evolve evolution at the moment conciously and soon physically. This is not indicative of materialism at all but of free will n'est pas?

Have you ever seen Gattica sums up the moral dilema of genetic knowledge rather well.

I am not saying free will exists I am merely saying materialism is being slowly throttled to death by us.

 

[Ayatollah So]

I still don't understand why you're making this leap. How, exactly, would a link between the visual depiction of brain activity and a reminder of that activity prove anything? You seem to want this to happen to any viewer - but that's just absurd. I'm sure a sufficiently trained MRI operator can do what you ask of them: look at brain activity in a particular area and say, "Ah, this is pain," and if he is an emotional person, he might be reminded of an example of his own pain - but what does this prove, except that he knows how to read a diagram and connect it to his own mind?

It's not I who wants this to happen to any viewer, but rather the person who demands that materialists answer the hard problem. Answering the hard problem would require that "purely physical" observations of brains would remind one of the smell of a rose, the feeling of pain, etc. Only if such reminding consistently happened would one be able to draw the connection between the "physical" and the "subjective". And I agree, that is not going to happen, and the hard problem remains hard. But my point is, materialism predicts that the hard problem remains hard.

There is no distinction between "soul theory" and "materialism" on the question of the hard problem of consciousness - both predict that it should be hard.

I think the analogy fits well. Genes have properties and work according to rules; their interaction produces a certain individual, so can be said to 'control' the nature of that individual.

Particles in the universe have certain properties and act according to certain rules, and their interaction produces more complex things, so can be said to 'control' the nature of that individual. In fact, I'd say the analogy between particles and molecules, and genes and beings, fits well. in fact, it's a neat ascending scale: Particles to molecules to DNA to beings. Each one 'controls' the next level.

DNA may control the shape and size of your face (actually, diet matters too) but it doesn't control your behavior. Next, you encompass all particles within the human being and suggest they control his behavior - yes that's true, but it's just another way of saying that he controls his own behavior. All thoughts and decisions are, by hypothesis, encompassed in the activity of those particles.

Indeed, and my point is this: Irrational criminals, in our society, are not put in normal jails because they are felt to have no control over their actions - but, according to materialism, rational people and irrational people have equally little control over themselves. It's just that one group acts the same way we do, and one group doesn't.

Why? You're stubbornly sticking to the old conception of free will without a basis for it. Can I control what I consider rational? Can I choose to implement a lesser option when I know it is lesser?

I'm not trying to smuggle souls in by the back door, if that's what you mean. I'm pointing out that "control" in the legal framework has a lot to do with rationality, and I propose to define control in terms of rationality. Controlling what you consider rational would just be redundant; what matters is that you are rational. A little more specifically, your rationality rises to the level where it is self-sustaining and self-reinforcing.

As for choosing a known-to-be-lesser option, I find the question of "can I" moot. I certainly don't intend to, so who cares if I can?

 

[El_Machinae]

DNA may control the shape and size of your face (actually, diet matters too) but it doesn't control your behavior.

However, your DNA certainly restricts what behaviours your conscious mind has available to you.

 

[Sidhe]

However, your DNA certainly restricts what behaviours your conscious mind has available to you.

Funnily enough though your environment broadens what behaviors your concious mind has available to you. Also if a concious behavioural trait that you exhibit such as bad temper or an addictive personality in you is not within the bounds of your own tolerated behaviour you can overcome said behaviours and change. Concious behaviour is just not made up of what your DNA programs into you any more than what suit you wear. Not in a holistic environment and not with the unpredictableness of who where when you'll meet someone who will change the way you behave or encourage you to behave differently etc etc etc.

 

[El_Machinae]

I agree that environment also restricts what behaviours your conscious mind has available to you.