I'm not a fan of Rand, not that it's important... of wait, that was the premise of your argument. The importance of Rand. Whoops.

It's a sentence, I'll give you that.

Neurological data, studies of brain injuries, etc., that suggest the brain as the organ responsible consciousness. And, alternatively, the absence of evidence for dualism.

Whatever - just choose your words carefully so you don't sound like an ass. From what responses I'm seeing you're not doing so well at that. 

But have you seen what I'm responding to? There's the problem. These people have no idea what I'm talking about. They have not read the OP. They came in with the assumption that they could take any little thing in my OP out of context and it would be okay. It is annoying.

Look, you seem civil. I'm not trying to come off like a jerk. Just understand that on the whole, this forum isn't all that polite.

Yes. Determined by a multitude of factors including information received from various sources over the course of a man's lifetime.  

Yes. If it wasn't for the forcesthat acted on him bringing him to determinism he would not be a determinist.  

By whether or not it coincides with reality. 

In situations where forces have acted upon him to lead him to follow reason and logic, yes. In other situations, No.

The subject, man, you, me, whatever, is not an entity imprisoned by determinsitc forces but is part of the chain of causation itself. We make decisions based on who we are which is shaped by forces such as genetics and environment across time frames. The only way to think freewill is possible is to expect us to be able to be what we are not. I have never known anybody who was what they were not or who did things they would not do. Every choice made is made for a reason and that reason is part of the person making the choice.  

 Cool thread, people, good discussion.

I think Presupp's questions are honest and relevant,  and I also agree with Vessel that this line of questioning is based on a limited concept of determinism, and I'm impressed by Visual Paradoxes reply which rounds off the point nicely-

Taking this group of valid positions into account together:

(1) Rand/Presupp - Deterministic concept of consciousness + Observed Human Psychology --> contradiction

 (2) Vessel - (1) is true because of linearly defined determinism.

(3) VP - AI analogy resolves the above concept of determinism into at least 2 dimensions.

 I come to the conclusion:

A valid deterministic concept of consciousness must be modelled in at least 2 dimensions.

 This might seem like a really simple and trivial conclusion but to be honest, it's really not. It goes straight to the heart of the mnd-body problem and proves decisively that if 1,2 and 3 are true, there must be a neutral monistic mind-body axis at least. ie A field. That's not a trivial thing at all.

It means that the answer to Vessels question: Can You do what you wouldn't do? Can you choose what you wouldn't choose based in the person you are?  

Is Yes, the person you are is an element of a set of equivalent coordinates in a field of self identity. The extra degree of freedom means that deterministic forces at most can constrain the identity to a (2*2) subspace, they cannot choose for it.

The important result here is the topology. Monism in this model means precisely that the field is the actual human self, the whole field. A present identity is like a bubble in a mainfold of deterministic possibilities.  

My apologies, as you said "it doesn't logically follow that the artificially intelligent robot's consciousness has transcended the silicon board", I supposed what does follow, instead, is that the silicon board itself produces a field over which thoughts can be correlated with coordinates in more than one orientation. I did presume that you had contigently thought about alternative answers to the original question in this thread, not just what isn't the answer.   

There is nothing unintelligible about my english, your response is verging on ad hominem. Could you please address whatever I've said that you find objectionable directly, giving reasons.  

Seems like a lot of unecessary verbage. I don't see an inherent problem with the deterministic conception of consciousness and human psychology. I think of will in the most general sense to be the strongest motivating causal factor at any given point in time. I don't create motivating causal factors, they simply happen to me.

For example: I am unable to choose what I wish to believe about the nature of reality or the existence of your particular god concept, but the desire to know truth (innate causal factor) will compel me to weigh the evidence, and belief one way or the other will naturally result from these forces over which I have no control.

It's ironic that I was a determinist (Calvinist) as a Christian but am now one as an atheist for an entirely different reason. I didn't choose to deconvert, it just happened to me, and did so regardless of how hard I tried to hold on to my faith because I was forced to step outside myself and objectively evaluate my deepest held convictions.

I don't understand your original reply either. I don't follow the terminology (axis, subspace, field of self identity). If consciousness depends on physical existence, and physical existence is a chain (maybe mesh would be more apt) of inevitable events, does consciousness act in a way that transcends its apparent physical origins (contradicting determinism), or is it the effect of physical inevitabilities of which it can't be specifically aware (affirming determinism)?

I don't know that there is anything problematic about it. Do you?

It's certainly better than an omnimax creator being which must necessarily rob me of my free will yet hold me accountable. I'll take an illusion over a fantasy any day ;P 

You say that your mind-body axis interpretation is more materially consistent. I'm curious as to your reasoning about how it's more consistent. I see nothing in nature that would enable such an interpretation to be applied to physical systems. Your interpretation seems to be limited to ackward metaphors, even though it doesn't physically work in those either.

(PS: I loved the implied passive-aggressive insult in your first sentence towards me.)

It's your prerogative to say that is what you meant, and if that is what you meant then I would appreciate you refraining from using judgemental language to say it with.

I am saying, of course, that a self referencing thought must have more than one orientation, itself and towards itself. To define something with a second degree of freedom such as this you would use a set of coordinates.

Well you could try reading the whole sentence from the start that may help- The extra degree of freedom means that deterministic forces at most can constrain the identity.... etc.

As I have noted a few times now before and in this post, there must be a field of mental activity for it to be self referencing. The determination of activity on such a field, without using "unintelligible" terms for you, can be like many soccer balls all kicked at once and bumping into each other, or it can be like the multiple directions that one moving soccer ball can go in when you kick it. These are both physically real spaces, the direction energy is carried within them though is determined by different things in each case. In the first field the direction that energy is carried within the field is determined by the outside forces (individually and combined). In the second case the direction that energy is carried within the field is determined by the intrinsic state of the field.

This refers to the concept of self which is formed in the above field. In both cases, this shape is ambiguous, it has no intrinsic structure, either is is chaotically formed by the motion of energy from outside forces, or it is probabilistically formed by the instrinsic state of the field.

Either way, the meaning intended to be conveyed by that sentence is in answer to Vessels question which was - Can You do what you wouldn't do? Can you choose what you wouldn't choose based in the person you are? - to demonstrate that the answer is invariably yes.

In the case that this 'self' is formed by outside forces, and that the energy of those forces cannot be constrained to flow in only one direction, then the field of mental activity must necessarily push against it's own edges. In this case, mental energy can and must by necessity effect the physical energy acting on it, quite directly, so the self, the 'bubble of mental energy' which has swelled up in the neuronal space can break out of itself.

Alternately if you take the field of mental action to be of the latter resonant nature, then it is by definition multiple probable selves, many different bubbles of energy which are equal to each other.

Thus we can do what we wouldn't do, one way or the other, and we can make a choice which we wouldn't choose. Because we have a self referencing sentience it follows that a physical road outside of the deterministic bubble of mental activity must exist.

And just one more thing.. Truce?

We don't have to do anything, remember we have free will.

 We can assume the pattern of science will continue. New scientific discoveries will be made. These discoveries will enable science to explain natural phenomena(like free will and consciousness) that were once mysteries and explained as supernatural by religious people.

It is not called the supernatural by me, it's called superstitious.

We don't know if matter can create free will, we need to understand better what matter is first. You just assign God to every mystery of nature science does not yet understand. This would be your argument if you lived 1000 years ago:

 We don't know of anything that could cause disease, so we must assign god and demons as the cause of all diseases.

Thankyou Vessel, you just made a valuable observation which hadn't occurred to me fully yet. Genetic information is most definitely involved in the intrinsic state. I owe you one, and an explanation, I will get back to you on that soon.

I understand why. This is why I said above, that this can still be s deterministic model, depending on the source of the underlying energy. The reason I come to that conclusion is that in one case mental energy must directly have some physical effect on the structure of consciousness, and in the other case the mental energy can shift between frequencies without changing it structure giving an ambiguity. So in the first case one can build up an impetus to break out of the structure which defines their consciousness, and in the other case one can without altering the structure alter the motion of the energy that defines their consciousness.

In your pool table analogy I am guessing that you could say: in one case the balls can get so energised that they warp the table, in the other case the table can vibrate fast or slow, changing the state of the whole system.

Yeah, just to be clear, this is the model in which the way 'doing something that you wouldn't do' must necessrily occur is through a strong concentration of energy that eventually makes a physical impact on the deterministic environment. This is not necessarily something we can deliberately do or even figure out how to deliberately do. It's just a material possibility given the circumstances that I have imagined.

Now that you have pointed out genetic information in the context of this discussion something clicked together for me and I would like to give it some thought before I answer, I hope you don't mind.

I agree with you here almost entirely, I'm still not sure of the whole story on the forces internal to the self, but I have no disagreement with what you've said so far.

Programmed correctly, and with sufficient processing power, computers can invent new things with great ingenuity. The Economist recently had an article about evolutionary design software that has done such things as create improved airfoils and designs for fibre optic cables. 

Again, programmed correctly, a computer can write, paint and compose music in whatever aesthetic paradigm you want. 

A computer can be programmed to act as if it has emotions. If you wanted to, you could design a computer that would behave exactly as if it really had emotions. For instance it could display facial expressions on the screen. 

What you are pointing to is the fact that computers are now much less powerful and sophisticated than the human brain. This is a quantitative difference. However, qualitiatively, there is no basis for saying that they are any different. I see no difference between human consciousness and and operating system, except that the two are programmed differently as a reflection of the very different platforms they run on. Self-awareness is just a system checking routine that updates the memory with new status profile.

It's actually really easy to excuse consciousness from causal determinism.

Determinism requires time and time may not exist. 

What we know about physics on the quantum level is that all particle behavior is not determined.  How particles interact with each other is determined by physics but that particles will interact with each other is not determined by physics.  At best we can only know the probability that any set of particles will interact in any specific way.  The determinism in nature makes life possible and the mechanisms underlying free will possible, the aspects of nature that are not subject to determinism, such as particle position or momentum, makes free will specifically possible.

I disagree. I do not see how quantum indeterminacy allows freewill. A freewilled choice is not simply a choice that is not wholly guided by causation, there could be random elements and it stillnot be freewilled, but requires that the choosing subject is capable of breakaing a chain of causation willfully. I know of nothing in quantum physics (though admittedly there is probably much I don't know about quantum physics) that allows for this. Is there such a thing?      

There are different levels of causation, within the mind the level of causation that is applicable is how the neurons interact with each other and how they fire.  That will always have some element of unpredictablility and nondeterminism because of the nature of quantum mechanics.  The causation at the level you're referring to, however, is at the level that we experience in the wider world.  This is where the nondeterministic aspect of quantum mechanics and thus nature are percieved by us as free will.  Because we can't see every neuron fire and we definitely can't predict how each neuron will fire we experience the firing of neurons which are associated with ideas and concepts.  We then are able, due to the nature of our "programming", to accept or reject ideas or concepts based on the pathways of other neurons.  Experience plays an important part in shaping future decisions because of this, but so can newly introduced information.  Newly introduced information can interact with other pathways in the brain to produce results that are inconsistent with past behavior.

A person might think it's bad to hurt others but not be aware that insulting others is hurtful.  Thus that person may go around insulting others in what he feels is a joking manner but other individuals feel is hurtful.  One day the individual may discover that insulting others is hurtful, probably because someone finally got fed up with it. This new informatio may interact with the individual's previously held belief that it is bad to hurt others, and the insulting may stop.  Just the first example that popped into my head.  Similar models can be designed based on this to explain the remarkable changes in some people who convert to any given religion.

The nondeterministic nature of matter is not necessarilly essential to free will, per se, but our specific brand of free will relies on it.  Neurons that fire randomly because their behavior cannot be completely determined are responsible for novel thoughts and intuitions.  Otherwise if everything were rigidly deterministic nothing truely unpredictable could happen, a complete knowledge of all physical laws and the current state of all matter would allow for all things at every level to be predicted, and there would be no such thing as free will.