DRFseven

Is there anyone here who seriously denies a mechanistic thinking process? Is there anyone who denies that our decisions are predicated on our thoughts concerning our world? To deny the mechanical process of thinking, one must assert that the undeniable mechanical processes taking place are extraneous, useless; that the lesion studies and functional brain imaging studies showing thinking deficits that correspond to disabled areas of the brain are false. To deny that we think in accordance with our perceptions of what is true is to deny one's own subjective experience, as well as that of everyone else.

In my opinon, those who deny mechanism and predicated thoughts have a big problem on two fronts: If we don't need mechanism, why do we have it? And, how are any thoughts formed without experience?

DRFseven

Come on; where are all the free-willers when you need them?

Kevbo

Our uncertain knowledge of the network forces inherent in the brain and the role that quantum mechanics and uncertainty play into physical constants lets me not make a strong decision one way or the other. Do I think that some version of free will is possible? Yes. I recognize that the brain is the obvious source of thought, and that changes to the brain impact consciousness, but I don't think that the brain is understood enough to make a strong decision about its workings.

DRFseven

But, see, Kevbo, you have said it yourself, "Our uncertain knowledge of the network forces inherent in the brain and the role that quantum mechanics and uncertainty play into physical constants lets me not make a strong decision one way or the other." [emphasis mine]. What you know does not allow your supposedly-for-the-sake-of-argument "free" will to make a decision. If the will were, indeed, free, knowledge would be extraneous because nothing would hinge on it, which is nonsensical, because nothing can be thought about without knowledge. Quantum, schmantum; we already know by everyday old ordinary mechanics that we cannot think at all without experience and that every memory of every experience is biased to the degree that the cellular composition of the involved cell grouping has changed since the experience came down the pike in its "pure" form.

Can you name any decision which might be said to be free?

Kevbo

If I happened to be someone who believed things on no evidence at all, my response would have been completely different. It happens to be my particular tendency to not declare something as gospel without sufficient evidence, though not everyone shares that tendency.

I think it's obvious that experiences shape our views, as do genetics, chemistry, and network phenomena. How these all interact to form a consciousness or a "will," I do not know.

DRFseven

I agree; most declare the gospel as gospel without evidence at all!

But the salient point is that WITH all those things shaping our views, our views certainly aren't free. It's not like we can take those things or leave them; they're all we have to think with.

Experience is coded in light of genetics, chemistry, network phenomena. Without experience, which is coded into memory via automated process, we have nothing but a bunch of expensive weather instrumentation with no weather to process; nothing to predict; nothing to record.

jpbrooks

.....
While I don't deny the existence of mechanistic processes in the act of thinking, there are those such as J.R. Lucas and Roger Penrose who object to mechanism on mathematical grounds. However, this question may be (more fundamentally) connected to the subject of zombies.

DRFseven

But there are objections to those objections; just because we haven't produced AI to duplicate everything the human brain can do, doesn't mean that the essential component is an immaterial force.

Thinking is all about memory, which is defined neurologically as cell changes that reflect data input, and that, in turn, effect changes in behavioral output. Either this is an illusion (and behavioral information that perceptions depend upon previously learned information is false, as well), or our will is not free will.

Interesting Ian

Mechanistic thinking process?? That's an oxymoron if ever I've heard one. What meaning does it have may I ask?

DRFseven

You know, like a gizmo. Impulses enter the gizmo and stuff moves down conveyer belts and gets sorted and flattened under rollers and metal arms with jointed hands pop out and shoot liquid out of squirt guns and things get stuffed into cans, all labeled and everything, while "Industry on Parade" music plays. Mechanical.