Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Free Will

[CYSQUATCH9]

Great read. Shockingly, this was not mentioned. I think Neuroscience is rapidly debunking the concept of Free Will; as traditionally thought of. Enjoy. Great book as well. An afternoon outside is all you need to finish it.


Link to video.

 

[timtofly]

Are you saying that the more you know, the less choices you have?

 

[CYSQUATCH9]

Im saying the choice doesnt exist

 

[Kyriakos]

One thing is for certain, if you think choice does not exist, you effectively diminish your ability to choose.

On the other hand one is not entirely free to choose ever, given that he is not ever aware of the full spectrum of variables he can alter, the full amount of choices there is to make. Consciousness is never presenting the entirety of one's mental world.

 

[CYSQUATCH9]

One thing is for certain, if you think choice does not exist, you effectively diminish your ability to choose.

On the other hand one is not entirely free to choose ever, given that he is not ever aware of the full spectrum of variables he can alter, the full amount of choices there is to make. Consciousness is never presenting the entirety of one's mental world.

Well said, Then the debate must spiral into whether or not you believe in the "ghost in the machine", or empirical determinism. And that can never be proven or dis proven. What evidence can you provide to people who do not respect evidence?

 

[Kyriakos]

I personally do not like the phrase "ghost in the machine". In my view it is more likely that the mental world which remains unseen/unknown is in reality vastly larger than any consciousness one can have, simply for the reason that the nth floor of a scyscraper can only exist if all the previous ones also do.
Only consciousness is not a building, but something a lot more adaptable to change. So it would be a bit like a building that can have its floors move to any place in space, while still being based on some previous, untravelled to floor.

 

[CYSQUATCH9]

Man, you present your thoughts very well in written form. bravo

I like "ghost in the shell" because it is a laughable way to say "soul". Which is a laughable concept to me as far as having control over the corporeal. Have you familiarized yourself with Sams argument? I think he addresses what you are talking about with his tumor argument. That once we understand the micro-structure of the brain, it will be just as culpable for behavior as a tumor pressing on the brain.

 

[Kyriakos]

^I am not aware of the argument you refer to (?), however it seems to me that those are two very different objects so no analogy can be drawn in such a manner between them.
A bit like showing someone the number "1", then the number "2", claiming those are obvious as to how they came about one after the other, and then going on to argue that therefore we actually are aware of the infinity of decimals between them and run through it each time we go from 1 to 2.

Whereas, in my view, the deeper mind is "aware" of such things, but not the conscious person, centered on his sense of self (the Ego).

And it goes without saying that such heavily theoretical issues need a lot more time and space to present in any meaningful way, but i wish to thank you for your compliment.

 

[CYSQUATCH9]

I encourage you to watch the talk, and read the book. He will explain what I mentioned far better, as he is a neuroscientist.

I hope I didnt insult you with my cheap shot at the soul. What I mean is, if your soul is making the choice, or giving you access to the choice, and you have no control over your soul, where is free will?

 

[Souron]

I hope I didnt insult you with my cheap shot at the soul. What I mean is, if your soul is making the choice, or giving you access to the choice, and you have no control over your soul, where is free will?

You are your soul. So if your soul is making a choice, you have free will.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

You are your soul. So if your soul is making a choice, you have free will.

And since soul is only a portion of unlimited reality called God any kind of limitation you may experience can only be self-chosen and temporary just becouse you have a God make that choice.

 

[Kyriakos]

I encourage you to watch the talk, and read the book. He will explain what I mentioned far better, as he is a neuroscientist.

I hope I didnt insult you with my cheap shot at the soul. What I mean is, if your soul is making the choice, or giving you access to the choice, and you have no control over your soul, where is free will?

I do agree that there is a distinction between the actual self (center of consciousness at any given time) and the "soul", the latter alluding to the totality of the mental world of the person. And indeed that is what "makes the choice" for the far largest part of the available to change variables.
It still allows the individual to make billions of choices, depending on just how self-reflective he is.

I don't view "free will" as an absolute, cause then it is simply obvious it won't exist. However it is a bit like saying that i am not free to just move to another planet, or another galaxy (since the latter is not even known to have specific planets i can focus on moving to) : indeed i am not free to do that, and this does limit me. On the other hand i do not particularly wish to do that either. Of course this is not that good of a parallelism, given that unlike moving to another galaxy, incorporating larger parts of the unknown (unconscious) realms of one's deeper mental world, can have a very beneficial function, and is in theory something which can be achieved under some circumstances (to a small degree it happens all the time).

In general i think it can be said that the way modern life is formed in current societies, most of the people are less likely to even search their own mental life beyond some minor attempts. So we end up with low culture and low thought, low art and other forms of decadence. Maybe in the future this will change, if we survive as long.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I do agree that there is a distinction between the actual self (center of consciousness at any given time) and the "soul", the latter alluding to the totality of the mental world of the person. And indeed that is what "makes the choice" for the far largest part of the available to change variables.
It still allows the individual to make billions of choices, depending on just how self-reflective he is.

I think about this to be much more complex phenomena and as more peculiar in human and even general reality. Your actual consciousness or say the portion of it which in any given time you would call your actual self-aware/practical self may vary greatly. Depending if you sleep or are awake and what you experience with this consciousness. Now you may say that as a human being your consciousness is predominantly mental but I dont think you can say that soul is if only in part mental for at present human mentality constitutes rather the opposite of what an immortal soul the portion and representative of omniscience and omnipotent God, traditionally represents.
Why should soul be supernatural/superconscious in that way and not just totality of our conscious and subconscious processes? Why it cant be just some wider mental not yet totally known self? Because its not with agreement with universal spiritual experience of mankind and even more importantly with Nature and its evolutionary processes. You can observe in nature around you and inside you -your body - astonishingly intelligent processes which are completely independent of your mentality and on which your very life depends. Your imperfect and semiconscious mental world doesnt add anything to these and as we can witness is even potentially very harmful to them. Yet we may be quite right when we see ourselves as potential gods in making for this great imperfection of ours can possibly lead us to greater revelations. Only its not straight forward process just like our linear mental thinking is. Its nature is totally different....

I don't view "free will" as an absolute, cause then it is simply obvious it won't exist. However it is a bit like saying that i am not free to just move to another planet, or another galaxy (since the latter is not even known to have specific planets i can focus on moving to) : indeed i am not free to do that, and this does limit me. On the other hand i do not particularly wish to do that either. Of course this is not that good of a parallelism, given that unlike moving to another galaxy, incorporating larger parts of the unknown (unconscious) realms of one's deeper mental world, can have a very beneficial function, and is in theory something which can be achieved under some circumstances (to a small degree it happens all the time).

In general i think it can be said that the way modern life is formed in current societies, most of the people are less likely to even search their own mental life beyond some minor attempts. So we end up with low culture and low thought, low art and other forms of decadence. Maybe in the future this will change, if we survive as long.

Yet free will probably exist in absolute form as well. That is if there is such a thing as absolute. And to that I say why not? Just because you can form an mental conception of it is for me like seeing animal footprints in the snow. The animal exists too. And the only reason we can form the conception of it is because we experience the opposite of it. You cant separate the limited and unlimited. What you experience as limited is only a fraction of unlimited in any given time and space. For how could something be unlimited if it could not limit itself?

Yes, instead of barbarism of physical strength we have ended up with economical barbarism. We have enslaved human life in economical machinery and even whole nations made subjects to economic vampires. But this experience is only end result of material and rationalistic age which at its peak have proven to be one of the most creative ages of mankind. It seems it laid foundation for future where people will not be easily fooled by single idea/ ideal but yet will progress on the strength of some higher culture and principles.

 

[CYSQUATCH9]

You are your soul. So if your soul is making a choice, you have free will.

Where is your empirical evidence for a soul? Let me just stop you there because there is none. So you must have the "ghost in the shell" argument, which we have already discussed, and is thoroughly dismissed in Mr. Harris's talk.

I do agree that there is a distinction between the actual self (center of consciousness at any given time) and the "soul", the latter alluding to the totality of the mental world of the person. And indeed that is what "makes the choice" for the far largest part of the available to change variables.
It still allows the individual to make billions of choices, depending on just how self-reflective he is.

I don't view "free will" as an absolute, cause then it is simply obvious it won't exist. However it is a bit like saying that i am not free to just move to another planet, or another galaxy (since the latter is not even known to have specific planets i can focus on moving to) : indeed i am not free to do that, and this does limit me. On the other hand i do not particularly wish to do that either. Of course this is not that good of a parallelism, given that unlike moving to another galaxy, incorporating larger parts of the unknown (unconscious) realms of one's deeper mental world, can have a very beneficial function, and is in theory something which can be achieved under some circumstances (to a small degree it happens all the time).

In general i think it can be said that the way modern life is formed in current societies, most of the people are less likely to even search their own mental life beyond some minor attempts. So we end up with low culture and low thought, low art and other forms of decadence. Maybe in the future this will change, if we survive as long.

So Mr. Harris's argument is that free will is an illusion. He states that the one thing that cant be an illusion is the conscious mind. However, consciousness has not been defined. But we know this, all evidence points to consciousness arising in the brain, the brain is a physical system, the brain is beholden to the laws of physics.

It is quite obvious that you have not watched the talk. Which is cool man, and if you dont want to, thats cool too, but we really cant go any further until you do. The free will debate has been raging for a long time, modern neuroscience has rendered the claims of spiritualists, combatibilists, dualists, and other claims to "philosophical" insight obsolete.

Please, watch the talk. It isnt Hitchens rage, or new-age nonsense; its a neuroscientist presenting a concrete argument, and Sam is funny.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

There has been proven conscious action in plants as well.

 

[lovett]

Please, watch the talk. It isnt Hitchens rage, or new-age nonsense; its a neuroscientist presenting a concrete argument, and Sam is funny.

Perhaps you would be so kind as to give a short precis of the one hour, twenty minute long talk. I am rather unwilling to watch it, because whenever I have come into contact with the work of Sam Harris previously I have found it to express a shallow understanding of the issues and a lack of engagement with the relevant literature.

 

[timtofly]

Where is your empirical evidence for a soul? Let me just stop you there because there is none. So you must have the "ghost in the shell" argument, which we have already discussed, and is thoroughly dismissed in Mr. Harris's talk.

Where is the empirical evidence for the wind? We know that it is the exchange of gas elements, but we only see it's results. We know what produces it, but we cannot ourselves move the individual elements and put wind together.

Even if you could take the neurons down to their most basic level, one cannot manipulate them and call it soul. We know that the body makes decisions that we are not aware of in it's ongoing state of existence. We know that there are behavioral choices that we can control. Would we really want to have to make every single choice involved in every bodily function? You are your soul and it exist and communicates inside your physical brain waves. If you no longer have any choices, then you are lifeless, or dead.

 

[CYSQUATCH9]

Perhaps you would be so kind as to give a short precis of the one hour, twenty minute long talk. I am rather unwilling to watch it, because whenever I have come into contact with the work of Sam Harris previously I have found it to express a shallow understanding of the issues and a lack of engagement with the relevant literature.

You really cannot condense the material because there is so much that needs to be refuted. I am sorry that you have a negative impression of Sam Harris. I dont see how that is possible unless you are attempting the journey with preconceived notions. Have you seen his TED talk?

Where is the empirical evidence for the wind? We know that it is the exchange of gas elements, but we only see it's results. We know what produces it, but we cannot ourselves move the individual elements and put wind together.

Even if you could take the neurons down to their most basic level, one cannot manipulate them and call it soul. We know that the body makes decisions that we are not aware of in it's ongoing state of existence. We know that there are behavioral choices that we can control. Would we really want to have to make every single choice involved in every bodily function? You are your soul and it exist and communicates inside your physical brain waves. If you no longer have any choices, then you are lifeless, or dead.

I honestly have no idea how to respond to that. Im pretty sure we have a thorough grasp on the question...What is wind?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind
I think the fact that you do not, looms large here.

There has been proven conscious action in plants as well.

 

[CYSQUATCH9]

Yes, instead of barbarism of physical strength we have ended up with economical barbarism. We have enslaved human life in economical machinery and even whole nations made subjects to economic vampires. But this experience is only end result of material and rationalistic age which at its peak have proven to be one of the most creative ages of mankind. It seems it laid foundation for future where people will not be easily fooled by single idea/ ideal but yet will progress on the strength of some higher culture and principles.

So have you watched the talk? You seem to be more up to speed with the latest debates on the Free Will. What say you?

Also, to your points about the limited and unlimited. As long as inflationary physics and the boundary that the speed of light presents stay true. The universe is actually finite(though ever expanding). It thus gives rise to the multiverse, which because of the boundary of the speed of light; we could never interact with or observe. Making it in essence....another universe.

So, even the unlimited is in fact limited. LOLOLOL crazy right?

 

[timtofly]

I did not ask what wind was. Are you asking what Free Will is?

You are claiming that it does not exist. I get the impression that it is because no one has choices, but that is as far as we have gotten. Perhaps if humans limit their choices to empirical ones, then you may be correct.