Bnonn

leyline, I think you're failing to differentiate between subjective experience and objective fact. They're two different layers of abstraction, and each are equally meaningful on their own level. For example, the clock at the bottom of your screen is, in the Windows/*nix API, a function. It is written in a programming language, and has a purpose and meaning. But to your CPU, it is no more than a series of open and closed gates. Even ones and zeros mean nothing to your CPU. They exist at a higher layer of abstraction, and are meaningless.

Similarly, emotions, thought, and subjective experience as a whole is quite meaningless empirically. There is no scientifically meaningful explanation for their existence. In fact, science cannot even quantify them, because they exist on a different level. Science can demonstrate what their constituent parts are, but it cannot describe them any more meaningfully than that, because any additional meaning only exists at their level, not at the objective level. So science can demonstrate that free will does not exist (it clearly does not), yet our perception that it does still has meaning, and our emotions are still important to us. Human life may be totally pointless objectively, but the beauty of consciousness is that meaning is created on an entirely different layer of abstraction. Any rationalist worth his salt will know this, and therefore simultaneously acknowledge the meaningless of their emotions, and the importance of them.

• 3) "Libertarianism" (not to be confused with political views of the same name), the doctrine that certain mental events are uncaused, and therefore free.

If they're uncaused, they are random. If it's random, one has no control over it. How can one call an action that one has no control over "free"?

leyline

Bnonn

"leyline, I think you're failing to differentiate between subjective experience and objective fact. They're two different layers of abstraction, and each are equally meaningful on their own level. "

well i find it kind of odd that you seem to think i fail to find a distinction between subjective experience and objective fact when i am in fact saying that emotion and rationality are radically different in kind! (though not seperate in humans)

Further you then go on to give the impression that you are the one guilty of not making the distinction in your telling phrase

"They're two different layers of abstraction".

I can assure you that to a non determinist to describe emotion as another kind of abstraction is precisely where we differ. Emotion is not an abstraction in my opinion.

With regard to mental phenomena, and i assume you would include emotions you say

"If they're uncaused, they are random. If it's random, one has no control over it. How can one call an action that one has no control over "free"?"

Well that depends upon your range of definition of 'cause'. If as i suspect you feel that the only valid definition is the rationalist one, then you are right to say that anything uncaused in that context is indeed random. Something that the determinist fears as i stated earlier. But who says that the only causes are the scientific ones? There may be others too.

For example, for the sake of arguement let us take freedom of thought. It is quite concievable within a wider definition of cause than determinism, that mental states B or C could follow from A, and both be consistent with the laws of science. Thus there is room for another cause, fundamentally different in kind, that actually chooses one over the other. Of course scientifically such a cause is unnecessary, because both B and C are consistent with its laws. To the determinist however, there has to be only one possible concievable event that follows A. ie. Either B or C. Randomness between B or C (the scientific explanation) is not allowed.

I point out of course that this example only works if freewill is different in kind to material causes, and as such are outside scientific explanation. But as i have said before it is our feelings of freewill that the determinist dismisses out of hand as having any actual significance. Your statement that science will never be able to understand emotions and that this excuses it of knowing that they are not fundamental forces is hardly convincing.

Do you really expect people to draw succour from the fact that your paradigm dismisses the concept of freewill on the one hand, but compensates by doing us the favour of making it scientifically mysterious on the other! Quite apart from being a strange attempt at an emotional smoke screen, it reads like a logical contradiction anyway. I mean if you necessarily don't understand it how can you know that it doesn't have any formative relevance upon the course of the universe?

Bnonn

I don't think you really understood what I was trying to get at. I'm not suggesting that emotions or consciousness are "mysterious" to science. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Science can explain exactly what causes emotions and consciousness. It can describe the brain wonderfully.

What I'm saying is that science does not (by definition) model consciousness as more than its constituent parts. Consciousness is something which can only be described on its own level in any more than scientific terms. This is just the same as chemistry cannot be described as chemistry on the quantum level, or (as I said previously) your clock cannot be described as a clock on the gate level.

You may have read too much into what I'm saying because I'm really stating the obvious. Since you had problems with my layers of abstraction, though, it's possible there was some other misunderstanding. I don't see why a non-rationalist couldn't accept the idea that consciousness is a different layer of abstraction to science, just as there are layers of abstraction within science. It is a self-evident fact, not some kind of logical trickery. There is no conclusion that must necessarily be drawn from this fact; it simply is. A layer of abstraction is simply defined as a method of perception. One's method of perception is different when using chemistry (molecules and bonds) to when one is using quantum mechanics (particles and forces). You can't apply those methods of perception to each other without losing something fundamental.

Hopefully that explains things a little more clearly. Regarding free will; I have seen the argument posited that there could be some kind of "free will force" that makes things appear random when they actually are not. I concede the possibility, but it is hard to take it seriously. It seems essentially like a hopeful attempt to add some kind of metaphysical aspect to human actions when none is necessary (rather like assuming the existence of God, actually). It raises difficult questions (such as "When does an animal evolve to the stage where this mysterious "free will" force affects it?"), and there is no evidence of it existing. Occam's Razor suggests, therefore, that it does not exist.

soulofdarwin

whoops!

I see that I need to amend the above in my prior post to rjak, as otherwise the remainder of my reply to his argument makes no sense. It should read:

Absence of Free Will = Predetermined

sodium

Are you really saying that I'm wrong because materialism is too "extreme" to be true? That's a new one.



I think quantum events are probably partly acausal. This goes against most definitions of determinism; I call myself a materialist. But neither determinism nor materialism says we can't change things. It is that how we choose to change things is ultimately determined by physical processes beyond our control. But it certainly isn't an illusion that you can change things. That perception is accurate.

leyline

sodium

"I call myself a materialist. But neither determinism nor materialism says we can't change things. "

well there are many determinists and materialists that say that we cannot change things by freewill. Maybe you are not one of them.

It all comes down to whether you believe freewill is a 'force' personally available to you, that changes the world in a way that is unpredictable to materialistic rationalism.

If you believe that freewill is describable in materialistic terms, then it isn't a personal force. It becomes part of the universal materialistic description and is subject to the physical laws that materialism posits. If on the other hand you believe that freewill isn't describable within materialistic terms, then by definition materialism reveals nothing about the nature of the force. Even whether it exists or not.

What those of us who emotionally believe in freewill mean by freewill, is not to be constrained by a clockwork predictable universe. ie we don't believe in determinism because the emotional feeling of being constrained by that worldview is significant to us. Significant to the point of rejecting determinsm.

As i pointed out above however, materialism isn't necessarily incompatible with the belief in freewill. Because materialism isn't necessarily deterministic. Those gaps within materialism are wide enough for us emotionalists to recognise that kind of worldview as useful. We also don’t believe of course that materialism will be able to fully describe emotions. (which is not to say of course that emotions do not have physical effects. Else we wouldn’t believe in freewill.)

" Are you really saying that I'm wrong because materialism is too "extreme" to be true? "

no. it is determinism that is too extreme for the person that believes in the significance of emotions WRT freewill. Extremism often illicits an emotionally negative feeling. To many of us that feeling is significant and informs our view of the world. Thus materialism isn’t ‘too extreme’ with respect to freewill. But there are other ways in which materialism is extreme, such as its belief that everything can be described completely in materialistic terms………. but that is another thread.

(incidentally, emtreme rationalism also gives a similarly very significant emotional response. A totally "either/or" attitude is in fact what extremism is. We believe in the significance of 'and' as well.)

sodium

To leyline,

You said,
We feel we can change things. The determinist says that it is an illusion.

I replied,
But neither determinism nor materialism says we can't change things.

You replied,
well there are many determinists and materialists that say that we cannot change things by freewill.

The problem is that your original statement was about not being able to change things, while your new statement is about not changing by "freewill", whatever that means. Don't you see that these are two different assertions?

Now, it is true that we materialists don't believe that our actions are ultimately the result of a personal "force". But that doesn't mean we think that people can't change things, or that emotions don't have effects. You presumably would agree with me that the sun has prior physical causes. But that doesn't mean that the sun has no effects, or that it is "an irrelevance", which was your phrase for how determinists must view emotion.

I understand your belief in non-physical free-will is the result of your "negative feeling" toward the alternative. But perhaps part of the reason you feel so much is at stake emotionally, is that you describe the alternative inaccurately as removing any role for human choice.

leyline

sodium

"The problem is that your original statement was about not being able to change things, while your new statement is about not changing by "freewill", whatever that means. Don't you see that these are two different assertions?"

well yes of course. That is the point of this whole thread. Determinists claim that we can change things, but not by freewill. Those of us who believe in freewill are not happy enough with the limited version of us being able to change things that the determinist allows.

"I understand your belief in non-physical free-will is the result of your "negative feeling" toward the alternative. But perhaps part of the reason you feel so much is at stake emotionally, is that you describe the alternative inaccurately as removing any role for human choice."

PERHAPS!? it is precisely that. Thats my whole point. According to materialists the trusting of our emotions as signifying that determinism is incorrect seems a way out wacky thing to do. But to those of us who trust out emotions as sometimes giving us fundamental knowledge about the world, such as the existence of freewill, is precisely where we differ with materialists. The determinists and materialists may concede that there is some significance to emotions. but not to the extent that their feelings for freewill as a personal non materialistic 'force' is trustworthy. The emotionalist does.

My whole response throughout this thread is that freewill is self evidently true through trusting our emotional response in assessing the "alternative inaccurately as removing any role for human choice". Of course as a materialist you wouldn't trust the emotions to that extent.

sodium

But no one would advocate "trusting emotions" as a way to determine information, when being incorrect can have obvious negative results. For example, no one would say, "I know our army is strong enough to defeat any invaders, because I find the alternative frightening." But in philosophy and religion, because people are convinced that our beliefs don't really matter, or that it might actually be desirable for us to believe things that are false, they are more willing to accept fallacious arguments.

But back to the argument at hand. Let's imagine that you participate in one of those cola taste-tests. You pick the drink on the left. At this point, the person behind the booth informs you that in fact, both drinks are the same, but that a remote-controlled implant was placed in your brain during a recent surgery, and that your selection was actually the result of a switch thrown at the back of the booth.

Most people would react with horror to this information, and I think justly, but some people might give the wrong reason. Many philosophers would say that the problem is that the choice has been shown to have an external physical cause. It is therefore not really the person making the choice. But then it follows that if all choices have an ultimate physical cause, that none of them are really the person's choice, and that this would just be like the taste-test example, but on a grander scale.

But I think this is a mistake. What horrifies the poor subject in the cola test is not that his choice has been shown to have a physical cause. It is that the normal process of making choices, which the subject has come to accept and trust, has been interrupted by a new process that doesn't even seem to have consider his interests. The new process is not an integral and trusted part of his mind, but is alien to it.

Often schizophrenic patients complain that thoughts are being imposed on them, or stolen from them. I think that this can be understood as a reaction to having a brain that malfunctions. If your brain starts giving you thoughts that don't seem consistent with what you see as the normal trustworthy process of your mind, then you will see them as being an external imposition, even though they come from your own brain.

The materialist view is that our normal mental processes, the ones we've come to trust and feel comfortable with, are physical. If some trickster god offered to give me a soul, I'd reject the offer without hesitation. The present situation, of the interaction of particles under physical laws, is what makes me. Perhaps my mind could be implemented by a soul. But until proven otherwise, I would see it as an external immaterial imposition on the normal functioning of my mind.

soulofdarwin

My reference to mysticism in the original post was simply an observation of the fact that theists (mystics) rely on the “free will� argument as a proposition fundamental to their various theocentric belief systems. Bank accounts are real precisely due to their implementation on a medium. The existence of both cellulose and gate arrays etched on silicon is verifiable, exhibits no inconsistency with natural laws, and involves no aspect that is unknowable. Mystical ideas, on the other hand, are incapable of verification, inconsistent with natural laws, and involve no aspect that is knowable.

“Free will� is a perceived attribute of mentality that has no basis in fact. It is not “brain-dependent� because there is nothing in brain function that can be described as giving rise to “free will�. Simply stated, it is just an erroneous idea. It could only take on “mystical� qualities, I suppose, for those who insist on believing that it exists in the face of facts showing the opposite.

“Free will� is an erroneous idea descriptive of nothing. The existence of bank accounts, on the other hand, is readily demonstrable.

To the contrary, all of those fields of science and applied science to which you refer rest on the arrows of explanation that, taken in their totality, comprise the reality of the universe. I am speaking of a hierarchy of physical laws that describe the real relationships manifested within the physical universe, to the extent that we are able to perceive it. We know the reality of the existence of those laws because we can test and confirm their existence without fail each time that we wish to do so. That, after all, is what makes them laws, and gives them their reality. There is nothing mystical about them.