The Blind Spot of the Materialist Worldview
Offline Below is a link to a "Google Tech Talk" YouTube video given by B. Alan Wallace on science and the study of consciousness. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7gBW9HoTg8&feature=PlayList&p=B2CA29A4B3268623&playnext=1&index=1
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
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Offline Paisley wrote:If we have free will, then clearly the mind is not identical with the body. And I would argue that the vast majority of people (if not all) have the first-person experience that their mind is not identical with their body. The bottom line is that you presuppose free will even as you attempt to argue against it!Please cite the scientific evidence that has proven that neuronal events are equivalent with mental events.
Well paisley, how about this, show me the evidence of your stance outside of I feel, or my personal experience makes it seem. Again it has been pointed out that when it comes to mental states you experience the outcome of those states and the brain activity which can make it seem like the mental or the mind is seperate entity, even I can understand that view, however the evidence so far suggests otherwise.
The first-person experience that the mind is not identical with the body is the evidence. I'm not the one who is doubting my own experience, you are. Therefore, the onus is upon you to prove that my first-person experience of free will and that the mind is not identical with the body is simply an illusion.
Can you give us some scientific studies that shows that the mind is seperate from the brain? That the mind can somehow function without the brain? I at least gave you one study, do you have any studies to show your position?
I think Richard Dawkins demonstrates my point in this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOuovhfjF7o
As for the free will stance I never stated free will I said Will, which I use as the capability to make a decision and have your body respond to it, such as lift my arm for no other reason than I want to lift my arm, again it's within my capablity to do so.
If your will is not free, then obviously your are not free to exercise it. On materialistic worldview, you are reduced to a "robot with consciousness."
I actually read both of these links. Sorry, but I don't see how either one supports the materialistic worldview. The first one makes the statement that the argument for idealism (all is mental) is just as valid as the argument for materialism (all is physical). And the second one assumes the working hypothesis of "pscyhophysical parallelism" (which is a dualistic viewpoint).
so there are some links, of course you could buy or subscribe to the journal of conscousness studies ( http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs ) if you like to find out more regarding studies of naturalism and consciousness, the illusion of free will, or mental and neural events etc, etc, etc. But yes there are studies out there as well as papers regarding this.
Within the last year I have read two books published by "Imprint Academic" that were compilations of articles extracted from "The Journal of Consciousness Studies." I think you are operating under the misconception that the Journal is upholding a materialistic worldview. It isn't. It takes an interdisciplinary approach ranging from neuroscience, cognitive science, neurotheology, quantum physics, psychology, parapsychology, mysticism, theology, transpersonal psychology, depth psychology, philosophy of mind, etc.
Can you please present your evidence outside of first person experience? Do you have any studies that show that the mind is some how seperate from the brain and can survive without the brain? Or able to function without the brain? Please present Paisley. As I have at least presented some studies.
I have already provided a video on the scientific evidence of psi phenomena in another thread. I don't think there is any need to rehash it.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
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Offline Paisley wrote:I fail to see how an insentient data processing machine becomes a sentient data processing machine by simply introducing "complexity" into the equation. The whole notion is patently absurd.A cockroach's relatively simple cluster of neurons that is its brain doesn't give it sentience. Our very complex version of that same cluster of neurons gives us sentience. With enough data processing we get understanding. Now, you don't believe that the brain's data processing IS your understanding and thoughts, so I understand that you don't agree with me on this. If you are right, then no computer will ever be sentient because it only has a physical data processor and it lacks a non-physical component that you consider to be significant. I think the problem is that your claim that sufficiently complex data analysis isn't sentience is patently absurd while you think that my claim that sufficiently complex data analysis is sentience is equally absurd. At least one of us is 100% wrong on this matter and we both can't get why someone would take the position opposite our own.
I don't agree with your premise: that the cockroach doesn't have an inner life.
Paisley wrote:First-person experience of free will most certainly constitutes evidence for free will. And if you actually think that you're are going to convince anyone that it doesn't by simply saying "no, it doesn't," then you're deluding yourself. I'm afraid the onus is upon you to prove that free will is illusory. Moreover, the reality of the situation is that you presuppose free will even in your futile attempt to deny its existence!I have told you again and again and again that I beleive in free will. You harp on this issue constantly as though I don't also agree that free will exists. Free will exists and the universe it deterministic. There is no contradiction in that statement. Should I, yet again, post links that describe compatabilism for you to read up on this idea? I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall here. No matter what I type, you respond as though you haven't read a thing that I wrote. This is at least the third time that I have had to respond to your demand that I need to prove that free will doesn't exist. I beleive in free will, stop demanding that I disprove it.
And you refuse to acknowledge what I have typed. I am familiar with compatibilism. Indeed, I have stated what it was in my previous posts but you keep ignoring it. Compatibilism simply redefines free will in order to make it compatible with determinism. It's merely a semantical ploy! The free will that everyone presupposes in practice is not compatibilist free will; it's libertarian free will - the view that, given the same situation and circumstances, "I could have chosen otherwise." Libertarian free will is not compatibile with determinism. And I can assure you that there are many atheists who agree with me on this point. The bottom line is that deterministic materialism reduces you to a "robot with consciousness." Saying that you believe in both free will and determinism is not going to change this fact.
I am aware of quantum mysticism. I know about how people love to shoehorn quantum mechanics into other ideologies and then pretend that QM proves that their woo-woo beliefs have physical evidence to support them. Raping quantum mechanics in order to get it to conform to a certain brand of Hindu philosophy isn't something that you should be holding up as an example that you are correct. Also, you haven't argued for it. You just stated the claim and then quoted someone else who just stated the same claim. Unsupported claims and arguing in support of claims are two different things.Should I respond to your quantum mysticism quote with a quote from a physicist denouncing that kind of nonsense?
This quote from Pagels is focusing on just one kind of attempt to rape QM into being support for woo-woo nonsense but the message of it applies to all such attempts to rape QM through willfully incorrect interpretation:
There's only one problem with your assessment of quantum mysticism. Many of the "mystics" were the founders of quantum mechanics.
Several of the founders of quantum physics were interested in the link between quantum mechanics and mysticism, including Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Eugene Wigner and Erwin Schrödinger. They felt that quantum mechanics required a subtle reexamining of the role of conscious experience in the physical world.(source: Wikipedia: Quantum mysticism)
Concerning Bell's Theorem....Any deterministic interpretation of QM results in a nonlocal universe. So your choice is between an indeterminate universe or a nonlocal one.
In physics, the Principle of locality is the concept that information cannot travel faster than the speed of light (also see special relativity). It is known experimentally (see Bell's theorem, which is related to the EPR paradox) that if quantum mechanics is deterministic (due to hidden variables, as described above), then it is nonlocal (i.e. violates the principle of locality).(source: Wikipedia: Measurement in quantum mechanics)
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
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Offline So what you are saying is that you can make any decision, or have the will to do anything you desire without using any prior knowledge of anything you have experienced? We have free will in the sense that we can make decision based on prior knowledge and experience. With that said when we have an encounter that we have never experienced before we still use prior knowledge and experience to make a decision on what to do. What you have seem to argue is that we can do what ever we want per se, or make decisions without any restriction of prior knowledge or experience, that I would like to see evidence of. Even my first person experience has shown me that I make my decisions with prior knowledge and experience of the past.
As for the journal of conciousnes studies I said it has studies in there regarding naturalism and consciousness, the ilusion of free will and mental and neural events, didn't say they were strictly all in the material sense, however I did say you can find those studies in there. Since you know there are studies in there regarding that then you cannot claim there are no studies or that you haven't read them, of course you could have just ignored them since they are not part of your world view.
The Harvey Carr paper conclusion and trying to use an unorthodox defintion of psychophysical parallelism so that psycology could be used by science studies to understand the mental events, with the understanding of the nerual events, especially in regards to mental diseases, that are phsycial problems with the brain and not just mental events with non-physcial connection. Here re-read this part: The subjective conception of the nature of mental process (mental as opposed to material) originated from philosophical interests at a time when a dualistic conception of the human organism prevailed. At present the prevailing point of view in the science is biological. The issue at hand was students once they started to understand the phsyological parts of the brain, disregarded the psycologcal philosophies as they viewed them as inert. Hence psycology needed to include in it's understanding the phsyiological and nerual events that occur when the mental events occur.
Since this is a new thread, and your making some claims of the mind is seperate from the brain, yes you have to present studies on it, just because you have in other threads does not mean I have to look for them, as again, your making the claim not me.
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Offline I have never denied that we have sensory perceptions. What I have argued is that we have first-person experience of free will. And clearly, we experience duality - i.e. the mental vs. the physical. This is really indisputable.
Of course you experience what seems to you to be what you think of as "free will". But if it is a purely mental phenomenon, it proves absolutely nothing about what ultimately causes that particular set of mental events. We know from direct experiment that all kinds of experiences, including experiences which the individual involved experiences as a 'conversation with God', can be triggered by electrical, or chemical, or other physical inputs to the brain. By finding the right part of the brain ti stimulate, or maybe a combination of locations, it appears that essentially the full spectrum of possible mental states can be invoked.
And of course there are categories of perceived referents which do not refer to physical objects - this has nothing to do with 'dualism' in the spiritual sense, although it can be described as simple dualism, ie the simple distinction between actual material objects and the words and phrases indicating the properties, attributes, and interactions of material objects, which obviously are not material objects themselves. And there are further referents which are about things like personal relationships and social interactions, which are another category, which still are ultimately only descriptors of the behaviours and thoughts of other individuals inhabiting physical bodies.
Nothing in this account requires that any of the referents to 'things' which are not actual physical objects in any way assumes or requires the existence of anything other than an abstract realm of concepts in addition to the physical world.
Dualism is simply unnecessary as anything other than a metaphor.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline So what you are saying is that you can make any decision, or have the will to do anything you desire without using any prior knowledge of anything you have experienced? We have free will in the sense that we can make decision based on prior knowledge and experience. With that said when we have an encounter that we have never experienced before we still use prior knowledge and experience to make a decision on what to do. What you have seem to argue is that we can do what ever we want per se, or make decisions without any restriction of prior knowledge or experience, that I would like to see evidence of. Even my first person experience has shown me that I make my decisions with prior knowledge and experience of the past.
No, I'm not arguing that free will entails omnipotence (I wouldn't even ascribe that kind of power to the divine will). What I am arguing is that our first-person experience provides us evidence that our will exerts mental causation that is not the result of an antecedent physical cause. Clearly, we experience the mental as numerically distinct from the physical. This should not be misconstrued to say that the body does not influence the mind.
As for the journal of conciousnes studies I said it has studies in there regarding naturalism and consciousness, the ilusion of free will and mental and neural events, didn't say they were strictly all in the material sense, however I did say you can find those studies in there. Since you know there are studies in there regarding that then you cannot claim there are no studies or that you haven't read them, of course you could have just ignored them since they are not part of your world view.
The only study that I am aware of is the Benjamin Libet experiment (or those who have repeated his experiments), which we have already discussed.
The Harvey Carr paper conclusion and trying to use an unorthodox defintion of psychophysical parallelism so that psycology could be used by science studies to understand the mental events, with the understanding of the nerual events, especially in regards to mental diseases, that are phsycial problems with the brain and not just mental events with non-physcial connection. Here re-read this part: The subjective conception of the nature of mental process (mental as opposed to material) originated from philosophical interests at a time when a dualistic conception of the human organism prevailed. At present the prevailing point of view in the science is biological. The issue at hand was students once they started to understand the phsyological parts of the brain, disregarded the psycologcal philosophies as they viewed them as inert. Hence psycology needed to include in it's understanding the phsyiological and nerual events that occur when the mental events occur.
In paragraph 183, Carr explicitly states that he will use "interactionism," which is the common sense model that the mind is distinct from the body (i.e. dualism). That being said, even if he were arguing for mind/brain identism, how would this qualify as scientific evidence that the mind and the brain are identical?
Since this is a new thread, and your making some claims of the mind is seperate from the brain, yes you have to present studies on it, just because you have in other threads does not mean I have to look for them, as again, your making the claim not me.
Once again, I have first-person experience that they are distinct. You are the one who says that this experience is an illusion. If it is illusory, then the onus is upon you to provide evidence that it is.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
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If the mathematical model provides an accurate description, then what is being described is a realm of possibilities (the probability wave) and not an actuality. And if geometrical points accurately describe subatomic particles, then subatomic particles are dimensionless because geometrical points are dimensionless.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
The evidence is your first-person experience of free will.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
That is part of the phenomenon to be explained, not the evidence.
We require evidence that it cannot be generated by physical processes. We certainly have massive evidence that it is intimately tied to physical structures and processes, and affected profoundly by all kinds of physical events, chemicals, etc.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
That's not evidence that consciousness, emotions or thoughts are not controlled physically by the brain, that the brain is affected by them and not the other way around. You can shock the brain in various locations to affect a persons mood, emotions, or mental state as well damage to the brain can cause people to lose their morale decision ability (yes there is evidence to this as well and once i am off my blackberry I will get ya the link to read if you will even bother with it), to have them lose control of their emotions, if emotions, thoughts and etc was not controlled by the brain and that they were some way seperate from the brain then none of this would be affect when the brain is affected, however that is not the case. So again paisley where is your evidence that there they are not affected by the brain? and are not controlled by the physical brain?? Please do present it.
No one is denying that the physical influences the mental. However, you're denying that the mental influences the physical.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Your response implies that free will is illusory. If that is so, then the burden of proof is on you to prove that it is.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Scientific studies on meditation have concluded that the practice yields many health benefits (e.g. the lowering of blood pressure and the decrease of coronary heart desease), psychological benefits (e.g. the lowering or elimination of anxiety and depression), cognitive benefits (e.g. increasing IQs), and even sociological benefits (e.g. lowering of crime).
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Yes I am because so far there is no evidence that the mental state can affect the physical brain, the evidence so far shows that the mental states are all controlled by the brain and the chemicals in the brain.
Internal experience tells us little about the source of those experiences.
The feeling of exercising 'free will' is basically that, another feeling, somewhat related to our feeling of, say, being in love, or the more basic senses of feeling physically uncomfortable, and so on. It is therefore just as subject to querying whether it accurately reflects some reality about the workings of our mind, any more than our physical senses accurately reflect external reality. It is tangential to understanding the nature of mind and consciousness.
'Free will' is a slippery incoherent concept. We certainly have the experience of making choices, but I personally cannot imagine making a choice other than on the basis of the balance of my feelings, urges, desires, beliefs, perceptions, reasoning, intuitions, etc, all of which are prior 'causes'. Where does 'free will' actually come in?
EDIT: I should add that with a little effort I can 'simulate' a 'random' choice, ie one not obviously based on other factors, equivalent to a mental coin-toss, but this hardly seems to me to be a vital aspect of our thinking.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Okay, I think you deserve props for at least being somewhat consistent with the materialistic worldview. That being said, there is evidence that mental states effect physical states. It's called your first-person experience of free will. And the bottom line is that you presuppose it in practice even if you deny it in theory.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
First-person experiences of consciousness have little or no relevance to the study of mind and consciousness? This sounds like behaviorism or eliminative materialism.
Free will comes into play in the form of mental causation. If we grant causal efficacy to the mental, then we must deny the identity of the mind with the brain. On the other hand, if we affirm that the mind and the brain are identical, then we must deny the causal efficacy of the mental.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
I was specifically referring to the particular 'feeling' that leads to the idea of 'free will'. I don't see that feeling as shedding much light on the study of mind and consciousness. It certainly is not evidence that 'free will' is not illusory. The feeling that we have free will is a statement of fact - determining whether that feeling is or is not due to some deeper aspect of the mind which dualists want to point to requires some independent argument. Simply stating that we have this feeling says nothing about the origin or ultimate significance of that feeling. Science studies all sorts of 'feelings' all the time, and we know that they can pretty much all be strongly affected by chemicals, electrical stimulation, brain damage or pathology, including the feeling of personal identity, all of reinforces the idea that mental 'events' are 'just' aspects of neuronal interactions in the brain.
Your usual attempt to classify such ideas into one of your inadequate collection of boxes such as "eliminative materialism" is not worth addressing seriously.
Mental events are the subjective aspect of the underlying neuronal processes, which are 'causally effective'. They are effectively the same thing, just seen from different perspective, ie external vs internal. Therefore mental events are just an internal perspective on the basic causal events which can be externally observed.
In fact, the 'causal efficacy' of mental events is demonstrated by fact that the mind is 'just' an aspect of the one process, ie brain activity, which is 'causally effective'. SO the 'identity' of brain and mind (which is a little bit simplistic) actually means that mental events ARE causally effective.
You still haven't explained where 'free will' actually comes in, or exactly what aspect of our mental processes demonstrates it. The 'causal efficacy' of mental events is not dependent on the 'free' nature of any purposive decisions to take action, which is what is generally understood by 'will'. Even a computer makes decisions to initiate action, as does most of the animal world, at least those which have significant brains. It is the 'free' aspect of 'free will' that I am asking about, and I don't see how that is relevant to the efficacy of mental events to initiate action, which surely requires mental events driven by little more than basic instincts, such as hunger and fear, which don't seem to involve 'free will'.
I know you are not going to be willing or able to wrap your neurones around what I am saying here, of course. That would require you to learn something new, requiring some subtlety of thought and understanding...
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Ok let me get this straight, the evidence is my first person experience that the mental states effect the brain? What about all the other evidence to the contrary? Do we just throw that out? Come on paisley if all the evidence you present is first person experience, and ignore the all the other evidence to the contrary then you are standing on very weak grounds. Please present evidence apart from your so called first person evidence otherwise first person evidence shows that a straw is bent when put in a glass of water.
This is pretty much what your trying to argue and throwing all the other evidence to the contrary.
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If we want to play that game, then let’s do it. I too can claim that your first person experience is evidence that I am right in this matter. Your first person experience arises from how your brain processes incoming data. You don't get to see the processing mechanisms yourself, instead you only get the feelings and experiences that result from their actions. This very clearly means that first person experience is powerful evidence in support of a material mind.
Do you see how just stating that something is evidence for your cause with little explanation doesn't convince anyone? Like the way you just state without explanation that first person experience is proof of some sort of woo-woo spiritual version of the mind. We could do the same thing, and just counter your baseless claim with an identical claim that first person experience is proof that your mind is physical.
I wish that there was some way we could teach Paisley how to argue. Things such as ‘don’t throw out baseless claims and act like they are proof that you are right’ should be obvious for everyone here. Most of us seem to get that, but Paisley consistently misses the whole point of backing up your claims with evidence.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
It would appear that you don't understand the difference between a first-person perspective and a third-person perspective. That I know I am conscious is based on my first-person perspective. That you are attempting to explain consciousness and free will in terms of mechanical processing is a third-person perspective. There is no third-person perspective that has proven that brain events are identical to mental events - none, nada. And any attempt to explain consciousness purely in terms of information processing is clearly missing a key element. Why? Because the explanation implies that computers must have subjective experiences because they certainly have the capacity to process information.
What kind of nonsense is this? First-person experience of free will most certainly constitutes evidence for free will. What? Are the vast majority of human beings supposed to dispense with their common sense notion that they have free will simply because you say it is an illusion? Get freaking real! If you believe that our experience of free will is an illusion, then prove it. Please cite the scientific evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that free will is purely illusory. I'm sure defense lawyers would find this evidence very valuable.
I wish you learned how to argue by not evading the issue. The issue in our last post was mathematical models. Remember? I will now assume that you concede that probability waves and geometrical points (nonphysical, mathematical abstractions) accurately depict matter. Why? Because you have managed to completely evade this issue in your foregoing post.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Yes, my "will" exerts "downward causation" and thereby causes physical events. Call me irrational, but I actually believe I have the power and/or freedom to raise my hand when I "decide" to raise my hand.
What evidence to the contrary? Please cite the scientific evidence that has proven that free will is completely an illusion.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Umm I am not the one arguing using first person experience as scientific evidence that is you, so please give me some evidence, cause your avoiding this part here all together, however for your part here is one http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/mind_decision, now sure it's more basic decisions but still shows a evidence contrary to your personal first person experience.
Bob has also explained it to you. Now yes you have the will to do such a thing as to raise your hand, however those thoughts that cause you to want to lift your hand are in your brain and the neurons and chemcial make up of your brain, therefore still a physical medium. Please show me where thoughts, that the will is not in a physical medium...the brain is some how seperate from what we call "will"
I think we are seeing ever more clearly the glaring 'blind spot' of the Paisley worldview....
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I know the difference.
My 100% physical mind gives my a first-person perspective on life. I don't feel like an outsider look at this, I feel everything happening to me in first person. Those feelings and experiences ARE data processing. Senses bring in input and my brain manipulates that input to produce experiences. This all sounds very physical to me. No ghosts residing in this machine.
I doubt that our current computers feel subjective experiences, in the same sense that I doubt that tardigrades experience subjective experiences, but I don't doubt that we could make computers that do experience. We would need more complex input manipulation to simulate our consciousnesses, but we could do it.
Nope. You are wrong. Do you see how easy it is to match your baseless claims with baseless claims of my own? This is why I said I wish we could teach you how to argue. You don't argue, you just throw out claims and then get mad when people disagree. If you really want to bicker this way, then I'll just match each baseless claim of yours with a baseless denial. Do you see how this gets us nowhere?
Compatibilism. I have already been over this with you. Should I just post a link to the last time we had this conversation? Or are we really going to repeat it again. Maybe I should just start responding to you with quotes from things that I have already said in response to your repetitive question.
Looks like we have already beaten this dead horse pretty badly. Do we really need to go over all of the tired points of that old conversation again?
Still pretending that determinism exempts people from taking responsibility for their actions? We also have already gone over that in the past. Maybe I should just find the old post of mine in response to your tired and oft-repeated claims and quote it here again to save time.
Oh, we are still discussing that? I saw your response to what I wrote, but I thought that it would sound condescending if I actually walked you through why you are wrong in it. If we really need to go through this step-by-step, lets see what you wrote:
The probability wave is not a realm of possibilities. It is the best way we know of to describe subatomic particles and (more importantly for what I use this for) to describe large systems of subatomic particles. Rather than say 'the particle is right here' we say 'the particle spends 90% of its time in this region and 10% of its time elsewhere in the universe except for the wave node where it is never at.' There is some actuality in the system, we just describe that actuality in terms of the likelihood of the particle being in a certain state.
Lets say that an electron spends some time in a low energy state and some time in a high energy state. You could describe that by saying "it spends X% of time in the low energy state and (X-1)% of the time in the high energy state." At any moment it is in only one state or the other, but we describe it only in terms of the probability that it is in a certain state. This isn't some nebulous 'realm of possibilities,' this is a probabilistic description of a system that is in one state or another.
You know, many universities allow non-students to sit in on classes as an observer. You could pay some token fee and be allowed to sit in on physical chemistry of physics courses and learn about this. I only mention that because I feel that I should not have to hold your hand and explain this to you. If you don't have the slightest clue about what you are talking about (and you don't), then either learn about the subject or just stop embarrassing yourself and remain silent on it.
Now there is a tricky question. Are subatomic particles dimensionless points? Are they waves that occupy a volume? Are they one and then the other under different circumstances? Are they both at once? Are they particles that have a volume and waves that occupy regions of space? I don't have a meaningful answer to any of those questions (I think particles that occupy volumes and waves that occupy larger volumes simultaneously, but don't take my word on it) and neither do you. That question is interesting, but has nothing to do with consciousness or determinism. And no matter the answer, it still doesn't justify confusing a mathematical model for the actual physical system that the model describes.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
Here is a course that I took at my university. The professors were nice enough to make powerpoint summaries of their lectures. Most don't bother doing that, but chemistry professors are a bit odd. This was the second class in a three part series. The first class was boring thermodynamics that I had already learned, but this class was a good introduction into quantum mechanics. Oh well, here it goes:
https://eee.uci.edu/08w/40906/lectures.html
Drink deap of this draught of knowledge. And you are now without excuse for posting nonsense regarding quantum mechanics Paisley.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
No argument from either third- or first-person perspective can prove 'that brain events are identical to mental events' - it is not really quite what is being claimed, certainly not by me. I say it is more appropriate to describe 'mental events' as an aspect of brain events as viewed from a 'first-person' perspective. They are what brain events feel like from the first-person perspective.
The rest of that quote is a pure logical fallacy. The explanation that consciousness is a form of information processing implies no more than that computers possibly could have subjective experiences. The observation that they don't appear to, is not remotely 'proof' that information processing cannot explain consciousness. By that reasoning, since Charles Babbage's mechanical difference engines also clearly had the capacity to process information, that implies they should be able to run Microsoft Windows...
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
But I never said that the physical doesn't influence the mental. What I have said is that the mental influences the physical and I know this based on my first-person experience.
Are you referring to an optical illusion or psychokinesis? We know that certain phenomena are actually optical illusions because we can prove that they are by way of demonstration. However, if you believe that free will is illusory, then the onus is on you to prove that it is.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Ok Paisley, let me lay it out for you, you have claimed many times for dualism but never actually given any evidence, can you give evidence, scientific evidence that is, that there is a seperate entity, consiciousness, will whatever you like to call it, that affects the brain and is somehow not tied to a physical medium? First person experiences can be wrong, much like optical illusion can give a person the incorrect view of what is actually happening. You don't actually have evidnce that mental states affect the brain, because you don't get to see how the brain itself is operating. You are merely experencing the effects of the brain in various mental states.
I never said that first-person experience of free will constitutes scientific evidence, but it most certainly constitutes evidence. That I know that I am conscious is first-person evidence (albeit, not scientific evidence) that I am conscious. Indeed, there is no scientific means to validate or measure consciousness. But certainly this does not mean that we have no evidence for the existence of consciousness.
Several points:
1) I am aware of this study and this will be the thrid time that I am responding to it on this forum.
2) This study is not actually new. It's basically the same study that Benjamin Libet conducted in the 1970's (and the article acknowledges this.)
3) Benjamin Libet himself did not interpret his experimental results as meaning there is no free will.
4) Brian Keim (the author of the article) does not conclude there is no free will
5) Haynes (the scientist who conducted the experiment) does not conclude there is no free will.
6) The article states that brain scanners can predict an individual's decision seven seconds before the individual himself is aware of actually making a choice or exercising his will. Now, assuming that this is true, then the experimental results provide scientific evidence for psi phenomena (i.e. psychic phenomena and in this particular case, precognition). Why? Because the experimental results imply that the last home run that Barry Bonds hit was determined SEVEN seconds by his subconscious mind prior to him actually swinging his bat. IOW, the "decision" to swing his bat and how to position it was made prior to the pitcher delivering the pitch. Even with steroids, this is a freaking amazing feat! That being said, I fail to see how evidence for "precognition" supports the materialistic worldview.
Huh? What kind of nonsense is this? First you argue that there is no free will and now you are attempting to argue we do have free will. Which one is it? Either there is free will or it is an illusion. Sorry, but you can't have it both ways!
If we have free will, then clearly the mind is not identical with the body. And I would argue that the vast majority of people (if not all) have the first-person experience that their mind is not identical with their body. The bottom line is that you presuppose free will even as you attempt to argue against it!
Please cite the scientific evidence that has proven that neuronal events are equivalent with mental events.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
I said first-person experience, not feeling. Employing the term "feeling" is simply your attempt to marginalize the experience.
You are taking the same tack as the behaviorists and the eliminative materialists by attempting to marginalize first-person experiences as merely "folk psychology." Fortunately, the behaviorists have fallen out of fashion and hopefully, their stepchild, eliminative materialism, will experience the same fate.
The belief that the mind and the brain are identical is just that - a belief. This is not a scientifically-established fact and I would ask you to quit presenting it as though it were.
If mental events are identical with brain events, then all voluntary acts are purely illusory. Why? Because electrochemical reactions are, on the materialistic view, mechanical and nonteleogical. And since brain events must be reduced to electrochemical reactions, then the brain cannot really exhibit intentional acts.
If you're "will" is not free, then you cannot exercise your will. It's really that simple! Obviously, computers don't have free will. This is why I can say that, on the materialistic worldview, you have reduced yourself to the status of a "robot with consciousness."
By the way, I never denied free will (or consciousness for that matter) to other living organisms.
I realize that I have not been endowed by nature with the same intellectual faculties as you. However, I think I might surprise you with my capacity to learn new things. For example, at this moment, I'm beginning to learn that you're really quite a jerk.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Oh? Which studies?
Cite your paper & researchers, please.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
That's a funny joke Kevin. Paisley presenting evidence for something? That'll be the day.
Why bother presenting evidence when you can just make claims and then repeat them again and again rather than back them up? Paisley has this 'internet arguing' thing all figured out.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
Well paisley, how about this, show me the evidence of your stance outside of I feel, or my personal experience makes it seem. Again it has been pointed out that when it comes to mental states you experience the outcome of those states and the brain activity which can make it seem like the mental or the mind is seperate entity, even I can understand that view, however the evidence so far suggests otherwise. Can you give us some scientific studies that shows that the mind is seperate from the brain? That the mind can somehow function without the brain? I at least gave you one study, do you have any studies to show your position? As for the free will stance I never stated free will I said Will, which I use as the capability to make a decision and have your body respond to it, such as lift my arm for no other reason than I want to lift my arm, again it's within my capablity to do so.
http://www.circadian.org/PPP/chap6.html
http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Carr/Carr_1917a.html
so there are some links, of course you could buy or subscribe to the journal of conscousness studies ( http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs ) if you like to find out more regarding studies of naturalism and consciousness, the illusion of free will, or mental and neural events etc, etc, etc. But yes there are studies out there as well as papers regarding this.
Can you please present your evidence outside of first person experience? Do you have any studies that show that the mind is some how seperate from the brain and can survive without the brain? Or able to function without the brain? Please present Paisley. As I have at least presented some studies.
Below is the link to the Wikipedia article on TM (Transcendental Meditation). The article outlines the health benefits that have been scientifically validated by the practice of the technique.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_meditation#cite_note-18
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
I have never denied that we have sensory perceptions. What I have argued is that we have first-person experience of free will. And clearly, we experience duality - i.e. the mental vs. the physical. This is really indisputable.
I fail to see how an insentient data processing machine becomes a sentient data processing machine by simply introducing "complexity" into the equation. The whole notion is patently absurd.
First-person experience of free will most certainly constitutes evidence for free will. And if you actually think that you're are going to convince anyone that it doesn't by simply saying "no, it doesn't," then you're deluding yourself. I'm afraid the onus is upon you to prove that free will is illusory. Moreover, the reality of the situation is that you presuppose free will even in your futile attempt to deny its existence!
Compatibilism redefines "free will" to be compatible with determinism. Hence, the term. The "free will" that everyone presupposes in practice is "libertarian free will" (causa sui), not compatibilist free will.
By the way, I am not going to digress and discuss ethics. We are debating the first-person evidence of free will. The moral implications is another subject. Suffice it to say that you cannot hold an individual morally responsible if he could not have acted otherwise. The only relevance that this has to the discussion at hand is the fact that society does hold individuals morally responsible and this is based on the fact that everyone has first-person experience of free will.
I hope you really don't expect me to believe that you were concerned for my feelings.
I'm going to embarrass myself and say that the prevailing scientific evidence is that nature is fundamentally indeterminate.
Agreed. You don't have a meaningful answer - not to mention, you have just gone on record and completely contradicted your previous comment. Which one is it? Are the waves real or not? Does a single electron occupy all possible locations simultaneously? How exactly does that work?
Incidentally, I would argue that the collapse of the wave function has everything to do with consciousness.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
A cockroach's relatively simple cluster of neurons that is its brain doesn't give it sentience. Our very complex version of that same cluster of neurons gives us sentience. With enough data processing we get understanding. Now, you don't believe that the brain's data processing IS your understanding and thoughts, so I understand that you don't agree with me on this. If you are right, then no computer will ever be sentient because it only has a physical data processor and it lacks a non-physical component that you consider to be significant. I think the problem is that your claim that sufficiently complex data analysis isn't sentience is patently absurd while you think that my claim that sufficiently complex data analysis is sentience is equally absurd. At least one of us is 100% wrong on this matter and we both can't get why someone would take the position opposite our own.
I have told you again and again and again that I beleive in free will. You harp on this issue constantly as though I don't also agree that free will exists. Free will exists and the universe it deterministic. There is no contradiction in that statement. Should I, yet again, post links that describe compatabilism for you to read up on this idea? I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall here. No matter what I type, you respond as though you haven't read a thing that I wrote. This is at least the third time that I have had to respond to your demand that I need to prove that free will doesn't exist. I beleive in free will, stop demanding that I disprove it.
I am aware of quantum mysticism. I know about how people love to shoehorn quantum mechanics into other ideologies and then pretend that QM proves that their woo-woo beliefs have physical evidence to support them. Raping quantum mechanics in order to get it to conform to a certain brand of Hindu philosophy isn't something that you should be holding up as an example that you are correct. Also, you haven't argued for it. You just stated the claim and then quoted someone else who just stated the same claim. Unsupported claims and arguing in support of claims are two different things.
Should I respond to your quantum mysticism quote with a quote from a physicist denouncing that kind of nonsense?
This quote from Pagels is focusing on just one kind of attempt to rape QM into being support for woo-woo nonsense but the message of it applies to all such attempts to rape QM through willfully incorrect interpretation:
You'll need to show me the exact contradiction. The exact quote of the two contradictory statements would be nice. I suspect that you are bullshitting me with that claim, but I'll take it back if there is an obvious contradiction that you show.
Yes, matter has wave properties. What do you mean "are the waves real?" The wave properties of matter are certainly real. As for electrons, like all matter, they have wavelengths. How do electrons "work"? That is a bit beyond me. Others on this site may be able to answer that. If you genuinelly want to learn about this talk to them or contact a university about being allowed to sit in on classes as an observer. I know how to express certain properties of electrons mathematically, but I think you are looking for a qualitative description of their activity that doesn't contradict your common sense. If you read descriptions of quantum events that contradict all common sense, don't worry. Our common sense is only trustworthy when applied to low-velocity macroscopic objects. Once you approach c or approach a very small scale, common sense stops working. Luckly we have methods that accurately describe fast object ('fast' meaning velocity approaching c) and tiny systems ('tiny' meaning perhaps on the order of picometers).
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India