DRFseven

No, actually in order to think, a person must have what is now known as "working memory". Say you receive a stimulus that results in your thinking of some concept such as gravity. That concept would be gone in a flash with no way for you to continue to think about it if those cells (and the cells previously coded to associate with those cells) did not fire over and over.



Even if we're wired for language (and it may be more that we're wired for semantics, with language an offshoot), without learning words, there will never be "word-neurons" in the brain. We have to experience words and meanings before we can use them to think.

Certainly, the mind is not a blank slate in terms of being totally malleable; we are born with certain temperaments, certain capacities, certain "windows", etc. But, still, without experience, which irrevocably changes the cells of the brain to reflect that experience, we will be incapable of thinking; of having any opinion whatsoever, of knowing anything. Try to imagine thinking of ANYTHING without having had an experience that can be recalled.

Quote:

But memories could contribute to thought, without absolutely determining it; there could be some input from memories, and some from random events.

But the "random event" would have no context without memory. It couldn't mean anything. And how could a thought be composed of something other than memories put together? What else could it be?



Of course the result would be unpredictable. Unpredictable, but determined by happenstance.

Could you give an example?

Kip

Hello King's Indian,

Although I sympathize with those who claim that free will is incoherent (although I strongly disagree that this allows them to redefine the term with more internally consistent attributes), I do think the idea is coherent enough for the sake of the controversy and further that the idea must be false. In this sense (we must define our terms!) free will is simply the negation of predestination, psychological determinism, etc. When you ask a libertarian "given the state of the universe at point A, could you have possibly done anything else than X after A" - free will is the refusal to admit "no".

But to address your point, that the concepts you mention are free will and determinism is a distraction. Your argument seems to be:

P1. free will and determinism are ideas that our brain has produced using its intelligence"
[Tacit Premise]: whatever our brain has produced through its intelligence has no privelege over other ideas
C1. determinism has no privelege over free will

This argument (as I understand it) both applies to any idea, not only free will and determinism, and is also patently false. You may as well say "1+1=2" and "1+2=2" are both ideas that our brain produces by its intelligence, therefore neither is priveleged over the other. Do you really think this is true? The mechanisms by which our brains absorbs and organizes information are very complex and difficult to explain - but do you doubt that such mechanisms exist and work properly? If so, I am afraid that your question is approaching an absurdity not worth bothering to answer.

Again, whereas before you claimed that determinism undermines knowledge, intelligence, and sensations, now determinism supposedly undermines "ulterior motives", "suspicions", and "illusions". It does not such thing. The burden of proof is upon you to justify such controversial claims but you have not done so. I am not going to bother explaining why these are not undermined by determinism - mostly because I do not understand why anyone would think so.

Determinism is compatible with the different sense of judgement (this is an important point that others mention - some claim that this difference alone is sufficient to account for a compatibilist position and moral responsibility - I disagree) simply because brains are more complex than thermometers. A difference in degree between complexity accounts for a difference in degree between judgements.


But why is there a need to define us "as more than very sophisticated thermostats"? In a very important sense, we are exactly that.

Most quantum physicists (I think) subscribe that quantum randomness is truly, metaphysically, mathematically, random. Also, if you press most conservative Christians and Catholics, they regard human agents as exempt from the rules of natural law to. This is exactly the sort of free will which my label "hard determinist" opposes.

Again, you assert a consequence (that I would have to "rule out the idea that physical processes could not produce an animal like us that ahs the power to choose its own actions) of determinism but do not provide any argument for this controversial assertion. I am not going to bother refuting you. You need to at least provide an argument as to why you think this is so.

I understand exactly what you mean (and I was aware of this problem when I wrote it). The solution is that "instructive" and "deterrent" theories are not really mutually exclusive. Either instructions are used as deterrents (which I think is true), in which case there is no separate "instructive" category to dismiss or "instructive theories" are qualitatively different than "deterrent theories", in which case they are false (whatever they may be). But this is a distraction and I may be wrong.

Kip

King's Indian

Hello again, Kip!

Even if I find myself shaking my head at certain points, I’m not going to begrudge your ability to write good posts. And so…
In this post I am going to follow your suggestion, and concentrate on definition. I will also look at ways of clarifying what are, in my opinion, confusions on your part. In doing so, I shall always provide examples. My next post to you consists of guidelines that may help us in concentrating on the points which are to me (and I suspect, to you) more interesting. By the way, if you decide in future to use phrases such as “absurdity”, “I am not going to bother explaining[…]”, etc., I shall not comment, except to say such emotive language is the least interesting aspect of your posts. I will accept where my ideas are inappropriate, and I always accept points made explicitly (see below) in good faith.
Choice of Opposing Positions
When discussing your ideas of hard determinism, I notice the positions with which you choose to oppose them are drawn from the strongest, most intransigent definition of “free will”. If, as you say directly above, “the idea must be false”, then discard it. Do not oppose “determinism” to it, because “determinism” will be right by default. You mention “conservative Christians and Catholics” in a quote I shall return to. The point I wish to make here is simple: what have they to do with anything? I understand that you take a historical approach to the controversy, but I shall make the explicit assumption that these battles have been won. No-one of any interest believes that humans are perfectly rational: I certainly don’t, and have never offered an argument on that assumption. As far as your historical analysis goes, you may assume my unstinting agreement.
Mis-Characterization of Opposing Views
An example:
If you notice, I do not assert anything directly. I ask for an explanation that would link two statements that you have made on this thread. I then offer my understanding of the implications of your remark concerning "the purely passive quality" of "subjective consciousness". Moreover, note my assumption that "physical processes" are the only ones allowable. However, if you ask for an argument, I will try and make the point explicitly. If you state something to the effect that “subjective consciousness is a purely passive quality", then I do not see how we have the power to choose our own actions. I mean “choice” in the sense defined by the dictionary: “preferential determination between things proposed”, which does not sound passive (ironically, my shorter OED really does say “determination”, but that merely shows how ambiguous the term is: eg “X is determined to go to the party”). I have taken the time to analyze every point where you say I assert something but cannot show them here for reasons of space. I will do so on request, however. The next example does contain this error, but I will concentrate on another aspect.
Inappropriate Counter-Examples
This is how you answered my point in your previous post. Before addressing the aspect I want to concentrate on, I address two questions.
1) Where in my statement you quoted does it even imply “distraction” ?
2) Why go to the effort to cast my point in logical terms, when you miss a key word? I mean, I explicitly never said that “any” idea could not be privileged, but “contrasting" ones could not. Let me clarify: by contrasting ideas, I mean those that share an appropriate level, one such being “conflicting explanations for self-conscious decision making”.
And now, the point I wish to concentrate on. To make the analogy with “1+1=2” and “1+2=2” is inappropriate: in this case both statements are formed within the consistent system of base-10 arithmetic, and can be judged accordingly. If these two arithmetical statements are analogous to “determinism” and “free will”, then obviously you have to rigorously define and elaborate the consistent system that will allow us to judge the strength of the completing claims. This definition and elaboration is the entire point of this discussion. In such arithmetical examples that you bring up, we are applying the general rules of the system to two contradictory statements. This is a luxury that is denied us in questions of consciousness. What if it turns out that the solution is one radically different to the two conflicting proposals? What if, after all, the appropriate mathematical analogies turn out to be “1+1=2” and “1+1=10”? We may have to accept that both statements are consistent for their systems. Is base-10 better than base-2, or do they both have their level of appropriateness? “Reducibility” does not appear to help us here.
The Avoidance of the Explicit:
This is not explicit.
For explicitness, you have to do more than connect two statements by the phrase “simply because”; you also have to not only say that a difference in degree accounts for something, but explain exactly how.
In closing, I shall present a statement from your latest post.
I find no happiness in saying that I am shocked. Even with my limited knowledge, I know that quantum events are understood statistically. This is not the same thing as “random”. I wondered how you could state this, even with the qualifying “(I think)”, so I decided to take a “straw-poll” on Google. On the first page, by clicking at random, I found:
1) a physicist saying that “randomness reigns” in physics. He goes on to add that this is true only in the sense that “randomness begins where understanding ends”. The bits they understand, however, aren’t random.
2) A statement, to the effect that: “‘Statistical randomness’ is only attributable to infinite sequences”.
I think you should say sorry to particle physicists browsing this, for lumping them in with conservative Christians in your attempt at an answer, by the way.
I will finish here. There are other explicit points that I won’t make for reasons of space: one such being the occasion where you quote something I said, leaving out the word “without” which referred to it directly. This changed its original meaning, as I’m sure you appreciate (again, I will supply this example on request).
I’ll follow this immediately with a post to John, ‘cause he makes me chuckle, and then I’ll offer some suggestions that may help this, and future discussions (where applicable)
If you feel that the above is written with any malice, I assure you otherwise. You may take my reservoirs of kindly patience to be, to all intents and purposes, bottomless. The opening and closing statements of this post are not to be taken ironically.
Take care,
KI.

King's Indian

John, Bona to vada your dolly old eek!I agree completely. I’d even go so far as to say we’re not wired to understand such a place. Nor that I’m particularly interested in going there on holiday, either (I mean, vacation). Bognor Regis was close enough for me. Anyway, I suppose our difficulties in contemplating such undifferentiation leads us to mythologize somewhat, as in the analogous case of mortality and oblivion.
I hope you put some paper down before you did that.
Take care,
KI.

[Sound of champagne corks popping as I realize that I’m becoming a bit shiny at the creases.]

King's Indian

Hi, Kip!

My suggestions. You don't have to follow them, but I thought they might cut down on any, um... unnecessaryness.

1) The burden of proof lies in the one making the positive claim in the OP (here, “hard determinism”, which explains how consciousness is “purely passive”, and has no claim on the decision-making process). Legitimate objections may solely take the form, “Given "Hard Determinism", then explain (x) explicitly, using only deterministic concepts”, or “show how only deterministic concepts link these two (or more) statements made by you”. After such explanations are provided, only then may one discuss implications.
2) No pouting, by either party.
3) In replying to a point, both parties may only quote directly from that point, without assuming that they get it enough to start paraphrasing. Furthermore, both parties are to check that they have not left out such important, sense-changing words as “without”.
4) Neither party is to bother refuting the claims of conservative Christians and Catholics, nor to indulge in pressing them. They might burst.
5) “Free will” to be discarded by all parties as a bit limp. The line is to be drawn between “hard determinism” (Purely passive self-consciousness; no real control in decision-making process) and “minimally conscious decision making activity” (minimally active self-consciousness; at least some real control etc).
6) Both parties accept the view that, however consciousness is explained, this can only be done by physical processes. No need to even mention the supernatural. Unless they could do with a good laugh.

Take care,
KI

PS: Hammurabi? Solon? Moses? Who they?

Kip

King's Indian,

I find that your posts are littered with both confusions and tantalizing interesting thoughts. You advice me to avoid emotional language but I insist that if you continue to make controversial assertsions without providing arguments for them (which you have done repeatedly throughout this thread), I am not going to bother refuting what you do not bother to prove.

But I am more than willing to continue (the topic itself is quite confusing and I am not nearly an expert) and you seem to have good intentions. I assure you that any hostility between us is only a consequence of me have so much to say and so little time/space to say it that my posts are mostly corrections and questions. Any adversarial tone is unfortunate.

I will go over your last post (each one of ours grows longer than the last!) but you recommend limiting the discussion to:

“hard determinism” (Purely passive self-consciousness; no real control in decision-making process) and “minimally conscious decision making activity” (minimally active self-consciousness; at least some real control etc)."

This is the question of epiphenomenalism (sp?). Are all mental phenomena produced by the patterns of our brains? I do not know how to prove that this is the case but I think that upon honest reflect any reasonable can recognize that epiphenomenalism (E) must be true. The question is, if E is false, what is the alternative? I think if you deny E, then you must begin speaking about something immaterial, metaphysical, a soul, a spirit - something that we both agree (I think) does not exist.

Also - you contrast control with hard determinism. But I think determined systems is compatible with (at least relative) control. By this I mean, consider the thermostat. The thermostat is fully determined system that controls the temp in a room. And yet, whoever controls the thermostat controls the thermostat and therefore the temperature. The thermostat is a "middle man" that is purely passive, although it actively changes the temperature, and subject to however we program it. So I do not think my idea of hard determinism is incompatible with all notions of "control". I certainly control my behavior in some sense. But in a more subtle, profoud sense, I only control my behavior according to conditions (environment, genetics) that are beyong my control - and so I would say that these things are really in control (or whatever controls them, God?).

Now to address your accusations (for lack of a friendlier term):

Choice of Opposing Positions:

I fully admit that the notion of free will I negate is rather narrow and not too popular among modern philosophers. I disagree, however, that this notion of freedom is now irrelevant. Creationism did not become irrelevant after Darwin. I am not going to stop opposing Creationism because of Darwin. Likewise, there is a historical tradition of freedom as an inherent property of human beings, different than animals, not subject to physical conditions, qualitative rather than quantitative - and this notion is not true as I hope my essay shows.

Moreover, I try to show in my essay that any other notion of freedom is irrelevant. If we are in control of our actions and do what we will - but something else determines what we will and wish (hormones, genes, environment) then that sense of control or freedom is useless. That person is every bit as subject to fate and manipulation as the other person - but the manipulation has occurred ealier in the past, in a more complex and subtle way.

Mischaracterization of Opposing Views:

Upon reading this again - I do not see the problem. You wrote earlier "I mean, you'd have to rule out the idea that physical processes could not produce an animal like us that has the power to choose its own actions" and I replied "you assert a consequence of determinism but do not provide any argument for this controversial assertion." This seems to me to be a good characterization of your view, not a mischaracterization.

You do provide an argument upon request:

You make an excellent point. In what sense do we "choose". I appeal to the robot thought experiment again. Computers and robots do make choices - even today. And yet, almost no one is prepared to say that robots have free will, because although robots choose - they only choose whatever we program them to choose. So their choice seems to be an illusion in a sense. Human beings are no different. We take input from our senses, our brain processes the information and produces an answer like a robot does. We choose - but our choice, our will, is not free.

So I would disagree with your original claim that a physical process can produce something "with the power" to choose. Robots are determined machines that choose and so are humans.

Next, Inappropriate Counter-Examples.

You ask two questions and here are my answers.

1. You did not imply a distraction, rather, I was showing that your selection of free will and determinism was a distraction because it seemed to me that your argument would apply to any idea, not just determinism and free will.
2. You qualify your argument by saying that "To make the analogy with “1+1=2” and “1+2=2” is inappropriate: in this case both statements are formed within the consistent system of base-10 arithmetic, and can be judged accordingly." But you never made that qualification in your original argument. You simply said why should one contrasting idea have privelege over another if they are both the result of physical processes? 1+1=2 and 1+2=2 are contrasting claims just as much as determinism and free will are, or any two other opposing truth claims.

You ask some "what if" questions at the end of your post that did not make much sense to me (sorry). I do not know about that.

Moving on, The Avoidance of the Explicit:

Your position seems to me to be quite uncharitable. You ask me to "explain exactly how" the human brain produces different judgements than thermometers. I do know exactly how the brain works. If you doubt that there is a physical process accounting for the different type of judgement (which is all I claim), there is not much I can do to convince you otherwise...

I am not sure if you are joking. I only "lumped" the two together because they happen to agree about determinism. I did not imply that the physicists were like Christians in any other respect so I do not owe them any apology, unless accusing people of being indeterminists is an insult - which it is not.

Anyway - I hope I have cleared things up some. I suspect that we are digressing, not progresses, however. Oh well - this is still fun.

Kip

King's Indian

Hello, Kip.

Just read through your latest. I've too many thoughts in my head at the moment to write them down here, except to say that all of them reflect entirely to your credit. Rest assured: if we ever meet, you will not have to buy a drink all night.
"I find that your posts are littered with both confusions and tantalizing interesting thoughts."- To which I hold my hands up. Fair cop.
On reading your answer to my points raised, I can at least acknowledge where my confusions lie, and I am grateful to you for that.
As far as your bone of contention with creationism, or your opposition to ideas that Man is above nature: by all means spice up your posts with any ideas that occur to you on this topic. I'll enjoy reading them, but as my animus towards christianity has more to do with its rotten system of morality, I will only nod my head in agreement at your points, rather than contribute.
Hopefully, this is where it starts getting really fun.
There are some points I'd like your opinion on, but I'll try and get them to the same standard as the argument which you quoted above relating to differing degrees of choice. Here are the directions which my thoughts are going:
1) Wolfram's idea of reducibility. I'm trying to think of ways to "reduce" the aspects of "everyday" life that gives us the idea that we are in control of things, and try to boil them down to processes that are environmental, genetic etc. that operate beyond our level to apprehend them. When I get stuck, I will make the obstacle as explicit as possible. If you find something that doesn't explain itself, I would be grateful if you could indicate why. If you find my efforts remind you of one of your unposted thought experiments, please fill me in.
2) This one occurred to me today: when we use "creativity" in the ordinary sense of the word, we might think of paintings, poetry etc. But perhaps, when we look around us in the real world, the only processes we can point to and unambiguously define as "creative", are physical processes. These are all processes that are blind: ie they do not have a goal, or an aim. One obvious process is evolution. Its products far surpass anything we can make in complexity, and yet its guiding forces are biological, environmental, and statistical. I will try and think how our everyday "creativity" may be explained by these processes.
That should do for starters.
Look after yourself,
KI.

PS Yes, that bit about particle physicists was a joke. I did blink once at "quantum randomness", to be honest, though.
PPS All my effort, and I still end up writing "completing" for "competing".

Kip

Good. I also think this idea of reducibility is fascinating. We can explore the possibilities of deterministic world by considering cellular automata. Indeed, we can adopt the perspective that the universe is one big cellular automata.

The interesting thing about these systems is that both memory and predictions are possible within these worlds. We know how to build cellular automata figures that can both remember previous states of the world and also predict future states. This depends upon the automata rules. As Wolfram shows, some rules cannot be reduced. Their behavior is essentially random and unpredictable, so that the only way to know what happens next in the world is to go to the next state. Other rules are so predictable they are boring. These rules can be very large and complex calculations that produce answers equivalent to simpler calculations. Perhaps all of our laws of physics and science are merely such "reductions" of the more complex, but unnecessary, laws governing our universe.

Possible candidates for cellular automata features are the speed of light for the rate at which the cells "spread" throughout the universe and Plank scale particles for the cells themselves.

So, within this cellular world, if memory and predictions are possible, intelligent systems are possible, at least in theory. A certain pattern of cells (humans are patterns!) remembers previous states of the world and makes predictions about future states, and behaves accordingly.

The lack of teleology (or goal) is a fascinating feature of the evolution. However, I tend to be more sympathetic to ID Creationism here than most people. The best arguments I have heard that evolution must be "blind" are the following:

1. Organisms are not designed, they seem to "just grow"
Quentin Smith
2. Evolution is a process of selected removal. But how can a process of selected removal ever be creative?
Ernst Mayr

You can provide counter examples to both of these examples. In the future scientists will be able to genetically engineer organisms from scratch to grow and evolve into specific organisms. These organism will "just grow" and evolve in the same way that other organisms do. The idea of a designer who uses evolution and selective removal as an indirect mechanism for creation is not impossible (although I doubt any any such designer existed - I am exposing the weaknesses of this argument).

2 is even worse. Has Mayr never heard of sculpture? That is exactly how a sculpter creates, by selectively removing marble from a slab. So the idea of deistic designer who sets up the universe, knowing that the initial conditions and natural selection will produce beings that can fly to the moon and write Shakespeare, seems at least possible. I tend to think that there is far more randomness and inevitability to human origins than these possibilities suggest though. As an atheist, I strongly tend towards the belief that we are cosmic accidents, but I do think some atheists draw conclusions from evolution that are too strong. These people tend to submit to the same temptation for definite answers that seduces Creationists. Human origins remain quite a mystery.

This issue is related to the above (cellular automata) in the sense that you can evolve intelligent systems in automata or design them. No one has yet evolved any because there is no computer big and fast enough to run a large enough automata for enough iterations. You can even have a mix - you can start with simple, unintelligent patterns, although more complex than randomness, that help the original state evolve into intelligent systems. You could also run a large number of possible automata and eventually one of them will be "lucky" enough to produce intelligence. So, we are dealling with questions of statistics and numbers? We need to know both how many worlds are being run and what the probability is of randomness evolving into intelligent patterns.

Regarding our own universe, we know neither. We do not know if there was a designer who was stupid and malicious enough to design this gratutiously large universe with cancer and extinction. We do not know if there was no designer at all and we evolved from pure randomness. We do not know if there was some mix, whether or not simple patterns existed during the Big Bang. And we do not know if other universes exist, which might be all of the "misses" that account for our "hit", without needed a designer.

What do you think? This topic fascinates me.

the_cave

[QUOTE]Originally posted by DRFseven
No, actually in order to think, a person must have what is now known as "working memory". Say you receive a stimulus that results in your thinking of some concept such as gravity. That concept would be gone in a flash with no way for you to continue to think about it if those cells (and the cells previously coded to associate with those cells) did not fire over and over.

Perhaps "thinking" is the wrong term. I just mean "mental activity".

Pure sensation.

I'm not sure I can call happenstance a "determining" event. Maybe some can, but I can't, and I don't see how anything is gained by doing so. Assuming the outcome of the happenstance event, sure, everything after could be determined. But overall, it wouldn't be a deterministic system, because there would be happenstance events. To me, "unpredictability" means the same thing as "undeterminability". Doesn't it?

Sure--I might suddenly decide I want some ice cream, for no real reason, other than some ion went down one channel rather than another inside my neurons (with an equal chance it could go down either.)

Kip

I have updated my essay:

http://www.ece.utexas.edu/~werking/determinism.htm

Here are the new sections:

We can identify two categories of freedom, parallel to freedom of action and freedom of will. These are external and internal freedom. External freedom is such that an agent's decision is not determined by the environment. Thus an agent X possesses external freedom if and only if, in a precisely defined environment A, X can will any of actions K1, K2,...Kn, regardless of how X chooses which K to will. Internal freedom is such that an agent's decision is not determined by his constitution. Thus an agent X possesses internal freedom if and only, in a precisely defined environment A, X can will any of actions K1, K2,...Kn, such that this decision is produced independent of the state of X. External freedom is perfectly compatible with a mechanical system that produces a random number output regardless of the input. Internal freedom is not. A mechanical system will only produce different output, given identical input, provided that the system is in a different state. Human beings possess external freedom. We respond to the same situation differently depending upon whether not not we are sad or happy. Although we may possess external freedom, we do not possess internal freedom.

These definitions show that the relevant question for moral responsibility is is whether or not a person can be responsible for his internal state. We already admit that we cannot hold a person responsible for acting contrary to his constitution and temperament because that is impossible. A happy man cannot be responsible for failing to weep. Moreover, whether or not a person's mood will determine, at least partially, how that person responds to a stimulus. But can a person be responsible for whether or not he is happy or sad? The libertarian might reply "yes, he must be sure to seek happiness and be successful." So whether or not the person is happy depends upon whether or not the person seeks happiness. But can we hold the person responsibility for this internal state of seeking happiness? The libertarian might reply "yes" to this question too. But, obviously, a previous mental state accounts for each future one, and at some point the person cannot be responsible for this previous state, even if only at the extremity of pregnancy because the person is no longer a person. So the person can never be responsible for his current mental state. Holding a person responsible would require a "bootstrapping" that is as impossible as lifting oneself up by tugging upon one's hair. Not only is the person not responsible for acting contrary to his constitution and temperament, but neither can we hold him responsible for acting accordingly.

...

Another perspective that demonstrates hard determinism is a principle I call The Conservation of Information. This principle relies upon physical determinism and the vanishing relevance of quantum randomness outside of the micro scale. The principle states that every state of the universe contains equal amounts of information. Philosophers are quick to notice that one dramatic consequence of determinism is that everything that occurs after the Big Bang is the consequence of the initial state of universe at the Big Bang and the physical laws that govern the universe afterward.

Consider a letter in a bottle that is written in English. Such a message can be sent across the ocean and contain important information. The message could be as precious and significant as we consider life upon earth to be. But consider another letter in a bottle with the same message but written in code. This message is meaningless to an observer who is denied the code. The English message and coded messages correspond to the state of the universe during human existence and the state of the universe at the Big Bang, respectively. If, however, the coded message, which appears random, is coupled with explicit instructions for translating the code into English, the two together become equivalent to the original. Does the first state of the universe have such a translator? Yes, the physical laws that govern the universe are the instructions for translating one state into the next. The same laws of gravity that predict how Jupiter revolves around the sun also dictate the motion of a murderer's knife. According to the Conservation of Information principle, all of history is only the perpetual translation of the same message which has not changed since the Big Bang.

If the principle is correct, holding a person responsible for his or her actions is no different than criticizing this message, which the person did not write and cannot revise. In the same way that society holds the inventors of robots, and not the robots themselves, responsible for any crimes the robots commit, so too society must hold the author of human beings, whether that is God or nothing, responsible any crimes that we commit, and not human beings themselves.