VivaHedone

Nowhere, you don't get it:

WRONG. Pain is not seen as neurons and chemicals - these are just the causes of pain. Pain is the sensation of pain. We know that pain exists because we experience it. Pain is by defintion subjective.

Free will, however, is not a sensation. Therefore we don't know that free will exists just because we experience it. Free will is by defintion objective.

The two are not comparable.

I'm going to try and prove my point step by step. What is the cause of you 'applying mental effort to overrule the body's reaction to pain'.

P.S. I'm fairly new to this - what does IMO stand for?

Nowhere357

With respect, Viva, I do have it. You have missed the point.

In my opinion. I try to use it to mean something I probably can't prove, or that hasn't been proven. But I'm inconsistent.

This is semantics. The causes are what we see materialistically. The pain is what we feel. When we scientifically study the body, when the body "feels" pain, all we see is neurons and chemicals. We do NOT see the pain.

I strongly agree.

However, earlier you had said:

and
So it's not so simple.

I will agree with this. But we can also say that up to this point, we don't know that free will doesn't exist, either.

This is incorrect.

Free will:
1 : voluntary choice or decision <I do this of my own free will>.
2 : freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention.

I think it's fair to say that neither definition is objective.

Objective: of, relating to, or being an object , phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind.

Pain is experienced subjectively. Free will is experienced subjectively. So far, they ARE comparable.

Here I want to say, as we explore this, we may find the subjective experience of free will to be false. But we cannot find the subjective experience of pain to be false. I insist that suffering is real. I do not insist that free will is real. (IMO it is, hence my position.)

I have said: "Humans are completely natural beings. You have stated the materialistic view very well, I think. IMO the view is valid, and I will not argue against it." (To Guillaume.)
And "I do not disagree with this." (In reply to your views.)

So it is not necessary to go through the steps: I agree that the materialistic or deterministic view is correct.

The point I feel you have missed is this: the subjective viewpoint is ALSO valid.

I am not claiming yet that I've shown free will to be true. I'm claiming that I've shown the subjective viewpoint to be valid for exploring the issue, and that any results are in ADDITION to the objective, or materialistic, results. Both views are valid, even if they seem to contradict each other.

Pain exists as subjective experience. Pain does not exist in the objective world. This establishes subjective experience as a valid, and necessary, tool for exploration into the nature of mind.

This also establishes that the results of subjective exploration may be valid, even if they seem to conflict with determinism.

In the case of pain, the results of subjective exploration ARE valid, even though they seem to conflict with determinism.

I'm being verbose, and I apologize, but IMO we are at the frontier, and travel is difficult.

I'll stop here, to see if I've lost you yet, before I make my case for free will.

VivaHedone

Am I right in saying that you accept the deterministic view that all of our decisions are entirely caused by things outside of our control? I do not see how that can be compatible with free will. You define free will as:
Both of these definitions are automatically disproved by the theory you claim to accept. If a decision is determined by causes outside of your control, 1) it is not voluntary, and 2) it is determined by prior causes.

You claimed earlier that free will is the ability to focus awareness. Have you changed this view? Because the deterministic, materialistic theory you have accepted would state that any decision to focus awareness would be entirely deterministic, like all other mental processes.

You seem to be arguing that for free will and pain there are both objective and subjective viewpoints. This is wrong on both counts.

The direct causes of pain can be seen objectively and not subjectively. Pain can be seen subjectively and not objectively. This is not just semantics - pain and the cause of pain are two entirely different things. It's like saying chocolate and taste are the same thing.

Free will cannot just exist subjectively, only the sensation of free will. Earlier you conceded that, 'Free will is more than just the sensation, or thought, of free will.' So how can a subjective free will exist? Only sensations exist subjectively.

Nowhere357

I would rather say that all of our decisions can be seen as being entirely caused by things outside of our control.
But yes, I agree with the deterministic view.

This is correct, from the objective viewpoint. My position is that this is not in conflict with the subjective viewpoint. And both POV's are valid.

That is my claim, I have not changed it. But the last few posts started from the beginning again, and we haven't reached this point yet.
Well, lets leave free will alone for now, and concentrate only on the pain concept.

I exactly agree with this. It is incredibly easy to cross points on this subject. I 100% agree that chocolate is objective and taste is subjective.

Viva, that is the point. Taste cannot be captured in a microscope. It is subjective. We really do taste.

Therefore, to fully understand chocolate, WE MUST INCLUDE THE SUBJECTIVE VIEWPOINT. The deterministic view of chocolate is that it is made of atoms. There is no atom of "taste". The deterministic view is 100% correct, and yet is incomplete.

This shows that the subjective viewpoint is both valid, and necessary, in order to FULLY understand chocolate. Or pain. Or any other "primary" or "immediate" subjective mental experience.

Do we agree up to this point?

VivaHedone

In the last few posts I've mentioned objectivity, probably wrongly. We do not know that chocolate exists objectively, we only know that the sensations of chocolate exist. All that we know chocolate to be is a group of sensations - the taste, feel, look of chocolate etc. It is from these sensations that we draw the conclusion that chocolate exists objectively.

However, this is beside the point. It is rational to believe that chocolate exists objectively, because we have the sensation of chocolate, and nothing contradicts this. We give it the benefit of the doubt, because the objective and subjective chocolates - the existence and sensation of chocolate - are compatible.

However, if I were to logically prove that there were no chocolate, even though we could see and taste it, we would have to accept that chocolate doesn't exist - only the sensations of chocolate.

Similarly, I have proved, and you have accepted, that free will does not exist objectively. Therefore any subjective experience of free will is false. It does not constitute free will, but only the sensation of free will.

To show that free will exists, you therefore have not to focus on the subjective experience of free will, but the objective existence of free will. Normally the subjective experience of free will would be enough to conclude that there is objective free will, but in this case, I believe that it has been shown that objective free will does not exist. Therefore you are left with the subjective experience of free will, which you have accepted does not in itself prove the existence of free will.

You cannot hold that there are equally valid deterministic and subjective viewpoints of free will because the two are in direct contradiction - the deterministic proves the subjective wrong. No such situation arises with pain or chocolate, so one can accept their subjective and objective existence.

Nowhere357

You have explained your POV very well, and have succeded in penetrating my thick noggin.

Pain has objective causes, and so we can say pain exists.
Will has no objective causes, and so doesn't exist.

Recall that my focus right now is not to prove free will exists, but to establish subjective awareness as a valid and necessary tool for investigating the phenomenae of mind.

First, consider psychosomatic pain. Does it exist? (It won't work to claim unknown physical causes for psychosomatic pain, else I can claim unknown physical causes for free will.)

Second, if subjective awareness is NOT a valid and necessary tool for investigating the phenomenae of mind, then how do we know pain exists?


BTW this secular web (and theology web) thing is infecting my subconscious. My son tells me I cried out in my sleep: "Why do you say that? What evidence do you have?".

VivaHedone

Pain is a sensation, so if someone experiences psychomatic pain, it does exist. I think it has the same direct physical causes as normal pain, e.g. flow of electrons through the brain, even if we do not know the secondary causes.

Because pain is a sensation. If you feel pain, or any sensation, that it enough to know it exists.

I accept this - but when your sensations are in contradiction of logic, you must accept them to be wrong. For example, normally, subjective experience of chocolate would be enough to convince you that chocolate exists. However, if I could prove that there were no chocolate, you would accept that only the sensations of chocolate exist.

Nowhere357

Everything we mentally experience is related to electron flow in the brain.

Psychosomatic pain has no known physical cause. Yet it exists.
Free will has no known physical cause. Yet it exists.

If you say can the first, I can say the second.

I said:
Second, if subjective awareness is NOT a valid and necessary tool for investigating the phenomenae of mind, then how do we know pain exists?

The mental phenomenae we are investigating, is the subjective awareness of pain.
So you say here that, subjective awareness is NOT a valid and necessary tool for investigating the subjective awareness of pain, because if you have the subjective awareness of pain, then that subjective awareness exists.

You've commited the logical fallacy of the non-sequitur, by inconsistency.

So my position that subjective awareness is a valid and necessary tool for the exploration of mental phenomenae, is unrefuted.

By "wrong", I think you mean they have no objective causes.
I don't disagree with this, but the word "wrong" is loaded. This poisens the well.

Pyrrho

There are three main sources. In the order they were written, they are A Treatise of Human Nature, An Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature (the full title is An Abstract of a Book Lately Published; Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, &c. Wherein the Chief Argument of that Book is Farther Illustrated and Explained), and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

If your interest is only in causation, I recommend looking at the Abstract first (reprinted in the second edition of L.A. Selby-Bigge, revised by P.H. Nidditch, published by Oxford, of the Treatise). My second choice would be the Enquiry (third edition of both of Hume's Enquiries, L.A. Selby-Bigge, revised by P.H. Nidditch, published by Oxford). And last would be the Treatise (the edition previously mentioned). These have been the standard editions for years, but Oxford has come out with newer editions that, it seems, they intend will replace the editions mentioned here as the new standards. They may be better, but I have not looked at them closely enough to have anything very useful to say about them.

I'll go ahead and add that there is a decent commentary on it in Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, though I still advise you to read Hume himself to know what Hume had to say. I am not inclined to agree with Russell absolutely, but he is better than most on Hume, who is frequently misrepresented, and not just his ideas of causation. (I suppose I ought to mention that the Abstract did not originally appear with Hume's name on it, nor is there absolute proof that he wrote it, but it is generally agreed that he did. The Treatise, which originally was also published anonymously, was later acknowledged by Hume as his, so it is not in quite the same category.)

VivaHedone

No, because pain is a sensation - it is entirely subjective. If one experiences pain, then it exists. What you should say is there are no apparent physical casues of psychomatic pain. This is also wrong - the cause of psychomatic pain is electron flow.

Free will, however, is not a sensation. therefore the experience of free will, as you have admitted, is not enough to conclude that free will exists. The sensation of free will is caused, again, by elctron flow.

Subjectivity is by definition how things appear to us. Therefore 'subjective free will' is merely the appearance of free will. You cannot argue that free will exists on subjective grounds, because you then are only arguing that the sensation of free will exists.

Existence is objective. You can only argue that free will actually exists from an objective viewpoint. You have accepted this not to be the case. Therefore I do not see what your actual argument for the existence of free will is.