Do we really have choice?

[Arch-Raven]

*This is not in terms of religion*

I was thinking one morning about the idea of choice; do we really ever make decisions in life? One may argue that we do have the power to make decisions, seeing as every day we are presented with events and possibilities. However, when relating this to causality, one can argue that all of our decisions are already predetermined. I am not saying that something "knows" our decision per se. Only that due to past events, when presented with possibilities, no matter how difficult the decision may seem, in the end the decision we make was already going to be made because of the external influences entailed with existence- the people we met, the things we've done, the things that have happened, have all made profound impacts on our lives, and so when making choices, those influences in the end will lead to one decision, the decision we end up making.

Any thoughts?

 

[GofG]

This was discussed at great length in the thread "Free Will vs Determinism".

Free Will and Determinism are a false dichotomy. You should read that thread, but essentially:

you think of there being two possible explanations for why the future will be the way that it: your own will, or physics.

when you look at it this way, obviously physics wins, because we do not have any mechanisms which could possibly counteract physics.

but this is wrong. it actually looks like this:

and so I pose to you this question: is it really our hands that pick things up, or is it simply our fingers and palm? or is it our dactyl bones and flesh and skin and blood? or is it the atoms comprising these tissues? or is it the quarks composing those atoms?

it doesn't matter, since obviously they are one and the same. our hand is the quarks and atoms and flesh and blood and fingers. you are the quarks and atoms and neurons and neural networks and major sections of the brain, just as you are your brain, just as you are your entire physical self.

Yudkovsky: You don't need neuroscience or physics to push naive definitions of free will into incoherence. If the mind were not embodied in the brain, it would be embodied in something else; there would be some real thing that was a mind. If the future were not determined by physics, it would be determined by something, some law, some order, some grand reality that included you within it.

But if the laws of physics control us, then how can we be said to control ourselves?

Turn it around: If the laws of physics did not control us, how could we possibly control ourselves?

How could thoughts judge other thoughts, how could emotions conflict with each other, how could one course of action appear best, how could we pass from uncertainty to certainty about our own plans, in the midst of utter chaos?

If we were not in reality, where could we be?

The future is determined by physics. What kind of physics? The kind of physics that includes the actions of human beings.

People's choices are determined by physics. What kind of physics? The kind of physics that includes weighing decisions, considering possible outcomes, judging them, being tempted, following morals, rationalizing transgressions, trying to do better...

There is no point where a quark swoops in from Pluto and overrides all this.

The thoughts of your decision process are all real, they are all something. But a thought is too big and complicated to be an atom. So thoughts are made of smaller things, and our name for the stuff that stuff is made of, is "physics".

 

[Arch-Raven]

I don't feel that physics is controlling our actions; but rather that physics limits our actions. Physics presents us with what CAN be done, and we simply act according to those boundaries. How we act however may be predetermined by the causality aforementioned. How we act is the effect of the numerous events posed before us in our lifetimes.

To call our thoughts "Physics," which is just a term meaning how things move and relate in terms of physical properties, is flawed in my opinion. Humans act accordingly to the laws of physics- it creates boundaries for them. Yes, our thoughts are created by a series of electrical movements brought about by organic compounds, but it isn't the physics of electricity that causes thought- a circuit does not think. I do not think it is right to simply attribute our thoughts to physics- it's more than that.

 

[GofG]

Yes, a circuit does think. Our brain thinks and it is one big circuit.

 

[Arch-Raven]

^ I am referring to the simple electrical circuit that runs the lights in a basic home.

Yes, our brain is in a sense one large circuit- but it is clearly not just electricity- and so the laws of physics that govern electricity- that allow us to think. There are other things that enable the thought process to occur.

I am NOT saying that electricity has nothing to do with the way we think. I am arguing that it is not just "physics that control our thoughts"

 

[GofG]

What controls our thoughts if not the physics of our brains?

 

[Arch-Raven]

The physics of our brain allows us to think; it sets the limits and the boundaries of what can and cannot be done in our minds. However what we think of isn't controlled by physics; physics is not a puppet master that controls our every thought. The content of our thoughts is influenced by the events we encounter throughout our lifetime, starting with the environment we are put in, and followed by other human interaction.

Any opposition? How can physics control our thoughts? To be able to control something willfully, and without randomness (Not just how something can move, like physics says, but exactly where object A should be and do at Location B), implies the existence of a consciousness. Yes, the laws of physics does "tell" the brain how it can move and act, but it doesn't tell it how it should and does.

To go back to my original point, of whether or not we have choice: Yes, physics does determine how our environment can behave, and how humans can behave, but how it is in reality is truly random. It is this random environment that is inescapable and inevitably going to influence the mind of a human being, that I feel, due to causality, in a way truly "decides" how we will act in life. If we were born unto a different environment with different surroundings, but born from the same parents, we would most definitely and most obviously act entirely different. Our thoughts are completely decided by the influences of the environment, and so when faced with two choices, how those influences have affected us will always lead to one decision- the one you feel is right because of those environmental influences. Of course, also taking a part in deciding thoughts is our genetic material, responsible for the instincts necessary for survival. But these instincts once again only come into play depending on the environment in which we are placed.

 

[GofG]

No. I'm talking about the actual chemical reactions in our brain which are our thoughts and decisions. Those chemical reactions are dictated by the laws of physics, just as our environment is dictated by the laws of physics, from the beginning of time to the end. We are very small parts in a giant churning contraption called reality, the entirety of which is governed entirely by the laws of physics. Physics does not simply limit what we can do, it completely controls what we actually do.

 

[Arch-Raven]

So you're saying that the reason I decided to read Book A as opposed to Book B is because Physics made me? No. Physics is responsible for the chemical reactions in our brains-yes. But physics isn't deciding exactly what we think. Are you supposing that physics is a sort of supreme conscious being that dictates how we think? The laws of physics limit how things can happen in the universe; it doesn't make certain things happen and not other things; that is up to complete probability and chance.

The chemical reactions of our brains are dictated by physics, but deciding reaction A over reaction B is not what physics does- that is determined by the influences of the environment- which is also limited by physics. How the environment behaves is also up to chance.

 

[Dre89]

Arch is right, physics is merely a limitation. Matter and energy determines what happens within the context of physics. They aren't one thing. Hypothetically you could have the same matter with different physics, and vice versa.

 

[GofG]

I am not saying that physics is a conscious being (?). Your argument is that physics does not dictate what we think. I ask you; if our thought processes are not dictated by physics, what are they dictated by? The brain is an entirely physical system.

 

[Vermanubis]

I truthfully don't have a lot of time, so forgive me if I make a comment and run without much response, but I do want to throw a notion out there to reflect upon.

We can agree that the brain is an exclusively physical system, but only if we acknowledge a distinction between a metaphysical mind and a physical brain. A voulu example, but effective nonetheless, if the physicality of the brain (which is presumably responsible for conscious experience) is demonstrable, we should be able to touch ideas, numbers, colors and so forth.

Obviously we can't, so it's directly implied that there's a supervenient "realm" of metaphysics, wherein causality isn't the operative notion. Though this can't fully explain free will, it does necessitate a disjunction between the two realms.

I also kinda wanna go into reflexivity and how that nullifies strict determinism, but that'd take a while, and like I said, I'm putting this out there just so everyone can reflect on it, rather than for me to argue a point since I'm kinda pressed for time.

 

[Arch-Raven]

GofG: I am not saying that physics has nothing to do with the brain. The way in which the brain acts is limited by physics- physics tells the brown how it can and cannot act. Physics describes the limitations of motion in this universe, in other words what can and cannot be done.

Physics dictates how we think, it does not dictate what we think

What we think is dictated by the random environment that is our universe, and so what we think is directly influenced by that environment. In a different environment, different thoughts would occur. It is for this reason, Gofg, I am saying that in a sense, our thoughts depend upon influences of the environment. The content of our thoughts is determined by the environment we are placed in, and so our decisions are thus influenced, and so in a sense, dictated, by the environment we are placed in (who we meet, what happens, which is also random).

Vermanubis:

"We can agree that the brain is an exclusively physical system, but only if we acknowledge a distinction between a metaphysical mind and a physical brain."

Yes I agree completely with this statement, as well as with:

"if the physicality of the brain (which is presumably responsible for conscious experience) is demonstrable, we should be able to touch ideas, numbers, colors and so forth."

What I am having trouble agreeing with is that causality does not play a role in ideas. Ideas are formulated by our mind based on the current physical situation. How the physical situation is oriented is directly influenced by causality, and so by the transitive principle ideas are affected by causality insofar as which ideas are formulated depend upon the environment (The event being a physical occurrence, and the effect being the formulation of idea A).

I fully agree that there is a disjunction between the two realms, I simply feel that causality does play somewhat of a role in the metaphysical one. Yes, the idea of a number is not affected by causality, nor is the idea of a color. What colors and numbers we choose and/or happen to see however is affected by causality. But that's going back into the physical realm and bringing choice back in as well.

 

[GwJ]

A voulu example, but effective nonetheless, if the physicality of the brain (which is presumably responsible for conscious experience) is demonstrable, we should be able to touch ideas, numbers, colors and so forth.

Why do you think that?

 

[Vermanubis]

Why do you think that?

Why do I think what? Why we should be able to touch something if it's physical? Because it's a tautology... @_@?

If everything is physical, then complex things like ideas which are singular only by virtue of categorization should be able to physically interact with other physical bodies. Clearly, a number is not a physical thing; it's only represented by physical things. Therefore, there's a necessary disjunction between the physical, and what I lovingly refer to as the Platonic. In the absence of human observation, singularity and plurality don't exist; just arbitrariness and matter. We ascribe meaning to matter by way of categories, and by extension, numbers, ideas, etc. If not everything is physical, then there's an unanswered question remaining, and one can't definitively say that physics alone governs human thought. It's not a proof by the inverse, rather, a compelling suggestion by the inverse--logical explosion. If A, then B. If not A, then anything but B.

@Arch: I'm not saying there isn't cause, per se, rather, I'm targeting determinism.

 

[ElvenKing]

Why do I think what? Why we should be able to touch something if it's physical? Because it's a tautology... @_@?

If everything is physical, then complex things like ideas which are singular only by virtue of categorization should be able to physically interact with other physical bodies. Clearly, a number is not a physical thing; it's only represented by physical things. Therefore, there's a necessary disjunction between the physical, and what I lovingly refer to as the Platonic. In the absence of human observation, singularity and plurality don't exist; just arbitrariness and matter. We ascribe meaning to matter by way of categories, and by extension, numbers, ideas, etc. If not everything is physical, then there's an unanswered question remaining, and one can't definitively say that physics alone governs human thought. It's not a proof by the inverse, rather, a compelling suggestion by the inverse--logical explosion. If A, then B. If not A, then anything but B.

@Arch: I'm not saying there isn't cause, per se, rather, I'm targeting determinism.

That doesn't target determinism. That, correctly, targets the notion that the feelings and that which are only concepts can be empirically seen. Feelings and thoughts having no empirical presence is no issue to determinism at all; it simply can argue that certain physical processes cause feelings and thoughts which have no empirically verifiable nature.

 

[Vermanubis]

That doesn't target determinism. That, correctly, targets the notion that the feelings and that which are only concepts can be empirically seen. Feelings and thoughts having no empirical presence is no issue to determinism at all; it simply can argue that certain physical processes cause feelings and thoughts which have no empirically verifiable nature.

Let me rephrase: it was meant to create controversy over determinism. Since determinism is a concept borne of physicalism, if something is not purely physical, it busts the determinism theory open.

 

[ElvenKing]

Let me rephrase: it was meant to create controversy over determinism. Since determinism is a concept borne of physicalism, if something is not purely physical, it busts the determinism theory open.

No, it doesn't. It implies that there is a problem because of the connection of determinism to physicalism. This implication is a mislead and does not reflect the reality at all; it is tarring by association: that because there are some of physicalism who do not realise that there are something things which do not have an empirical existence, and these people often profess determinism, that there must be something necessarily wrong with determinism was well, for determinism must be based on denying that there is nothing more that what can be accessed empirically. This is wrong.

Determinism is based on things being caused by physical process, not that everything caused must have a physical existence itself. The option of having the physical produce a feeling of sensation which does not have in the physical world in of itself is perfectly coherent.

Indeed, you likely agree(note: this isn't agreeing to determinism, but rather that physical process cause you feelings which have no empirical marker in of themselves) with this. Do you agree that touching a hot stove is what makes you feel a burning sensation which appears connected to your hand that touched the stove?

 

[Arch-Raven]

Yes I agree with Elven king. Determinism simply states events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state is completely determined by prior states. The physical event simply causes a determined event to occur. That determined event does not have to be purely physical.

Event A clearly causes a metaphysical Event B in many cases. For example:

Event A = Tripping and Falling
Event B = Anger or annoyance

The physical event of tripping and falling caused the metaphysical occurrence of anger to form. That anger or annoyance is something not empirical.

All ideas are borne of physical events- this is inevitable seeing as we consciously exist in a physical world.

 

[GwJ]

Even if the brain is physical, that doesn't mean it's processes must be tangible. Think of this web page. It's there, it's technically physical. If you want to touch it, you can't touch the computer, you have to go to the server it's hosted on and find the specific part that houses that data.

 

[GofG]

Aaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggg

This is exactly what we went through in the last thread.

does anyone here have a degree in neuroscience? If you don't, you probably aren't aware: either physical reductionism is true, our dualism is true. If you want us to have free will, it must be a nonphysical "soul" which is entirely undetectable which gives it to us. The brain is entirely physical, and is macroscopic enough that quantum effects are generally negligible. This means that, like everything else at the atomic level, it is a completely determined system.

if you disagree, then explain how choice happens at the synapse level.

with regard to elven-king's comment on anger or annoyance not being physical: it is entirely physical. how could it be anything but?

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Oh sweet Jesus not THIS again, now just for a different goal.. Sigh.

What Elvenking says, even if there are non-physical things involved with the brain, that in actuality doesn't necessarily do anything to determinism. In fact, if there are non-physical things for anything that only shows that... there are non-physical things. If there are any further consequences as to what it means with big philosophic topics, that will have to be delved into a lot more.

 

[Vermanubis]

No, it doesn't. It implies that there is a problem because of the connection of determinism to physicalism. This implication is a mislead and does not reflect the reality at all; it is tarring by association: that because there are some of physicalism who do not realise that there are something things which do not have an empirical existence, and these people often profess determinism, that there must be something necessarily wrong with determinism was well, for determinism must be based on denying that there is nothing more that what can be accessed empirically. This is wrong.

Determinism is based on things being caused by physical process, not that everything caused must have a physical existence itself. The option of having the physical produce a feeling of sensation which does not have in the physical world in of itself is perfectly coherent.

Indeed, you likely agree(note: this isn't agreeing to determinism, but rather that physical process cause you feelings which have no empirical marker in of themselves) with this. Do you agree that touching a hot stove is what makes you feel a burning sensation which appears connected to your hand that touched the stove?

I can't state emphatically enough that I'm not saying that my proposition states that it voids the concept of determinism altogether. I'm saying that because there is an indication that physicalism is not entirely valid in that which ideas are sacrosanct objects, determinism, being a concept contingent on a physical system, is subject to explosion.

Even if the brain is physical, that doesn't mean it's processes must be tangible. Think of this web page. It's there, it's technically physical. If you want to touch it, you can't touch the computer, you have to go to the server it's hosted on and find the specific part that houses that data.

That's an intuitive approach to the concept. I'll give a few examples as to why that particular line of thinking isn't entirely correct and some of my own:

1) If you touched whatever houses the data, are you touching the atoms from which the idea supervenes, or the idea itself? An idea is a meaningful arrangement--meaning doesn't exist in nature. Its constitutional particles do, but without observation, the idea itself is dissolved.

2) Consider what Hume said in regard to an item and its properties. He made an open challenge, daring a person to conceptualize an item without its properties. Well, he was so brazenly bold in his challenge for a reason: you can't. So what's an apple? Upon close inspection, an apple is really multiple things that we recognize as one--the apple itself doesn't exist in the same way its properties do--it's an idea.

3) Time exists whether a person knows about it or not. It's not unheard of that a person will defend their position by saying one can literally palpate a brain and be touching ideas if they touch the right bits-n-pieces. Everything physical already exists, whether a person is aware of it as such or not. So if you ask a person who has never heard of "time" as we know it, could you fondle their brains to touch "time"? Clearly, the concept is not in their brain, so the electronic impulses responsible for the idea can't be touched. What if no one had heard of time? Time would still exist, but if you could neither touch it in their brains since it did not exist in their brains, and can obviously not touch time, so much as that which it governs (matter), then how could one touch time? The short answer is: you couldn't. So the "brain fondling" argument is nullified. The options are twofold: indulge absurdities and say that things like ideas and time (in the traditional sense that it's simply movement) can directly interact with physical bodies, i.e. be touched.

As I said to Elvenking, this aberrant nature does not negate other ideas, but it presents a new postulate that precludes a definitive conclusion based on the line of reasoning GofG was using, in that which something must be explained physically.

 

[Arch-Raven]

@GofG: Can you touch anger? Anger is but an idea- a metaphysical existence in our minds. We see anger in individuals due to the physical effect caused by the metaphysical event of the anger arising- Either way, anger is something you cannot physically touch or feel; it is an idea that translates physically insofar as the body's reaction to anger (ie. facial changes), but that is just the effect caused by the event of the anger. The anger itself is untouchable.

You continue to talk about the brain as a physical system- ideas however are formed in the metaphysical mind. Yes, the laws that govern the physical brain are the laws of physics- I am simply saying that while physics allows the physical brain to exist, it does not dictate exactly what we think. Our thoughts are produced based on influences with the environment, which, as I previously mentioned, are random and subject to causality and determinism (based on physical events).

@Vermanubis: Yes, I agree; as beings consciously trapped in a physical world, all of the metaphysical events we can understand all come back to physicality. We explain these intangible events physically- this I completely agree with.

 

[GwJ]

That's an intuitive approach to the concept. I'll give a few examples as to why that particular line of thinking isn't entirely correct and some of my own:

1) If you touched whatever houses the data, are you touching the atoms from which the idea supervenes, or the idea itself? An idea is a meaningful arrangement--meaning doesn't exist in nature. Its constitutional particles do, but without observation, the idea itself is dissolved.

Well, let's go back to my example. If you find the physical spot where the web page is (which you can do), are you touching the data that makes the web page or are you touching the actual web page?

2) Consider what Hume said in regard to an item and its properties. He made an open challenge, daring a person to conceptualize an item without its properties. Well, he was so brazenly bold in his challenge for a reason: you can't. So what's an apple? Upon close inspection, an apple is really multiple things that we recognize as one--the apple itself doesn't exist in the same way its properties do--it's an idea.

I wouldn't call it an idea. I think labels are better. Ideas are things that describe something currently non-tangible. Labels describe the tangible as well. So I would say "Apple" is a label we use to describe a collection of material in a certain way with certain properties.

3) Time exists whether a person knows about it or not. It's not unheard of that a person will defend their position by saying one can literally palpate a brain and be touching ideas if they touch the right bits-n-pieces. Everything physical already exists, whether a person is aware of it as such or not. So if you ask a person who has never heard of "time" as we know it, could you fondle their brains to touch "time"? Clearly, the concept is not in their brain, so the electronic impulses responsible for the idea can't be touched. What if no one had heard of time? Time would still exist, but if you could neither touch it in their brains since it did not exist in their brains, and can obviously not touch time, so much as that which it governs (matter), then how could one touch time? The short answer is: you couldn't. So the "brain fondling" argument is nullified. The options are twofold: indulge absurdities and say that things like ideas and time (in the traditional sense that it's simply movement) can directly interact with physical bodies, i.e. be touched.

I think to get anywhere with this, you need to define "time" as you are using it. What you consider to be time is important.

 

[Vermanubis]

Well, let's go back to my example. If you find the physical spot where the web page is (which you can do), are you touching the data that makes the web page or are you touching the actual web page?

I don't understand your point. It sounds like you're asking a question of the same nature that I asked, regarding the distinction between an idea and its properties.

I wouldn't call it an idea. I think labels are better. Ideas are things that describe something currently non-tangible. Labels describe the tangible as well. So I would say "Apple" is a label we use to describe a collection of material in a certain way with certain properties.

Kinda vacuous distinction, don'tcha think? In addition, it's not a correct one. Ideas and labels are both intangible things that describe both tangible and intangible objects.

I think to get anywhere with this, you need to define "time" as you are using it. What you consider to be time is important.

I did.

...things like ideas and time (in the traditional sense that it's simply movement)...

 

[GofG]

@GofG: Can you touch anger? Anger is but an idea- a metaphysical existence in our minds. We see anger in individuals due to the physical effect caused by the metaphysical event of the anger arising- Either way, anger is something you cannot physically touch or feel; it is an idea that translates physically insofar as the body's reaction to anger (ie. facial changes), but that is just the effect caused by the event of the anger. The anger itself is untouchable.

You continue to talk about the brain as a physical system- ideas however are formed in the metaphysical mind. Yes, the laws that govern the physical brain are the laws of physics- I am simply saying that while physics allows the physical brain to exist, it does not dictate exactly what we think. Our thoughts are produced based on influences with the environment, which, as I previously mentioned, are random and subject to causality and determinism (based on physical events).

Anger can be very precisely defined in physical terms. A low level of dopamine causes irritability. A low level of serotonin causes a distinct resiliency to change. When these conditions present themselves during an adrenaline spike, the result is what humans have labeled 'anger'. But 'anger' is just a placeholder word which refers to these chemical processes. As such, you cannot touch 'anger' because it does not exist, not because it exists extraphysically. There is nothing extraphysical (read: supernatural) going on here. We say 'angry' because it's easier than saying 'having low dopamine, low serotonin, and high adrenaline'. I fail to see how our inability to touch anger means that the brain (and therefore all thought and cognition) is not an entirely physical (and therefore determined) process.

If you believe that physics does not entirely control what we think, then explain how we make a choice at the synapse level. You will be unable to do this because it is inherently impossible.

 

[GwJ]

I don't understand your point. It sounds like you're asking a question of the same nature that I asked, regarding the distinction between an idea and its properties.

I asked the same sort of question you asked to ease you towards the actual answer yourself. It looks like you're trying to say that an idea or concept is an actual thing that exists in our brain separate from our physical brain processes and my analogy is explaining why that's not true.

I did.

"(in the traditional sense that it's simply movement)" is not a definition.

 

[Arch-Raven]

"Anger can be very precisely defined in physical terms. A low level of dopamine causes irritability. A low level of serotonin causes a distinct resiliency to change. When these conditions present themselves during an adrenaline spike, the result is what humans have labeled 'anger'."

This logic is flawed. Yes, you can physically touch the receptors that effect dopamine and serotonin levels that are responsible for anger/emotion. Yes, you can physically touch the synapse receptors that lead to a choice. However, you still cannot physically touch "anger". You cannot physically touch a "choice". You are simply touching the physical events that cause the thoughts to arise. These emotions are intangible. You cannot describe how "anger" physically feels. How warm or cold it is, how smooth or rough it is. You cannot describe it's mass. It has no physical presence. It is simply an idea- the metaphysical effect of a physical chemical reaction. Anger is not describable in physical terms- it's effects and the event that causes it can be described however.

"If you believe that physics does not entirely control what we think..."

What do you mean when you are saying that physics controls entirely what we think? Are you saying that it is responsible for the ability of our thoughts to exist, or is physics content-wise controlling all of our choices? Because if you are saying that the physical brain is an entirely physical system, I agree. The reactions the brain undergoes are limited and bounded by physics. Physics defines how the physical brain can work and act. However I do not agree if you are saying that this translates to physics controlling what our thoughts are. Our thoughts are not physical and are intangible. You cannot feel nor describe physically a thought. What we think content-wise is controlled by the environmental influences and settings. If I am living in Antarctica Vs. living on the equator, my thought processes are going to differ drastically- this you cannot argue. The choices we therefore make are all determined by the environment around us. Yes, physics plays a role in shaping and defining this environment- but the environment we happen to be placed in or how the environment developed over time based on which organisms with which genotypes exist is controlled by probability and randomness. Physics just tells us what can and cannot be done, and then how it is done. It doesn't tell us what happens precisely and exactly; this is determined by a number of influences interfering with each other.

 

[Vermanubis]

I asked the same sort of question you asked to ease you towards the actual answer yourself. It looks like you're trying to say that an idea or concept is an actual thing that exists in our brain separate from our physical brain processes and my analogy is explaining why that's not true.

Well, before you try to dismiss what I say with your own questions, go into a bit more detail with each of my arguments. Sophistry isn't useful in this context, and ignoring three different QEDs (the enumerated ones), thinking that you took the meat of the meaning is ultimately how debates derail into arguments of qualification and semantics. Be thorough in your counterarguments, lest we go nowhere.

"(in the traditional sense that it's simply movement)" is not a definition.

Yes it is. It satisfies all the necessary requirements for it to have applicable meaning in the context. Just because it's not a mellifluous axiom doesn't mean it's not principally a definition that suits its purposes. All that's needed is to know that time in this context is being invoked as the traditional conception of time, in that which it's the movement of matter. Since time isn't even the point of the argument, there's no need to be pedantic about its definition.

 

[ElvenKing]

I can't state emphatically enough that I'm not saying that my proposition states that it voids the concept of determinism altogether. I'm saying that because there is an indication that physicalism is not entirely valid in that which ideas are sacrosanct objects, determinism, being a concept contingent on a physical system, is subject to explosion.

No, that is simply not the case. It has no suggestion that there is a problem with determinism at all. You are doing precisely what I identified in my last post: tarring by association. It doesn't void it at all. It has no relevance to the question of whether determinism is accurate.

Anger can be very precisely defined in physical terms. A low level of dopamine causes irritability. A low level of serotonin causes a distinct resiliency to change. When these conditions present themselves during an adrenaline spike, the result is what humans have labeled 'anger'. But 'anger' is just a placeholder word which refers to these chemical processes. As such, you cannot touch 'anger' because it does not exist, not because it exists extraphysically. There is nothing extraphysical (read: supernatural) going on here. We say 'angry' because it's easier than saying 'having low dopamine, low serotonin, and high adrenaline'. I fail to see how our inability to touch anger means that the brain (and therefore all thought and cognition) is not an entirely physical (and therefore determined) process.

If you believe that physics does not entirely control what we think, then explain how we make a choice at the synapse level. You will be unable to do this because it is inherently impossible.

No, we we been over this before. The nature of feelings is that the have no empirical marker showing their presence. You cannot observe pain directly. You cannot observe the truth of 2+2=4. You cannot observe truth itself directly. You might see things that are true, but truth in of itself has no observable empirical nature. It is simply something that is known(which is how can science work, for it is taken that the evidence collected reflects reality. If this were not the case, one would have to reject the accuracy of their observations).

That is why people just have: "Will." when determinism is rejected. The axiomatic capacity to make decision. It is obvious that we take "decisions." That we do things is an obvious part of our experience. If the action is not caused by an external process(resulting in determinism), then it is necessary, by virtue of us doing things, that what we do is caused by the definition of will itself(of course, this is usually posited as being a will being able to make a choice between two or more options, else one would simply fall back into another from of determinism: that one could only ever to the action that was determined by the inherent nature of their will).

Oh sweet Jesus not THIS again, now just for a different goal.. Sigh.

What Elvenking says, even if there are non-physical things involved with the brain, that in actuality doesn't necessarily do anything to determinism. In fact, if there are non-physical things for anything that only shows that... there are non-physical things. If there are any further consequences as to what it means with big philosophic topics, that will have to be delved into a lot more.

Indeed, that the non-physcial can interact the physical is required for free will. Else the non-physical force of will would not be able to move the physical entity of the arm or leg. Else the cup of tea you drink could not make you experience heat. You can never break the link between experience that does not have an empirical marker in of itself and the body. At least without rendering how we live meaningless.

 

[Vermanubis]

No, that is simply not the case. It has no suggestion that there is a problem with determinism at all. You are doing precisely what I identified in my last post: tarring by association. It doesn't void it at all. It has no relevance to the question of whether determinism is accurate.

Let's get a little rigor here.

To make sure we have the same idea of determinism and aren't mistakenly referring to subtly different things, let's define it. Determinism is the idea that everything ever is predicated on the initial conditions of a closed system, in this case, our universe. This is so because physical laws seem to be just that: laws. Matter doesn't think, so it's bound to a linear course.

With that being said, if there's a disturbance in that linear course, i.e., something non-physical, in this case, the reflexive acknowledgement of a preordained fate, which creates irreality--a potentiality--and suddenly that closed system is open. Though not an answer, it is indeed a direct violation of determinism.

I'd also argue that given the presence of quantum behavior of matter, that physical laws are not actual laws, rather, principles in the same way chemistry's fundamentals are. To demonstrate, consider an acid corroding a base. The acid has a lot of hydrogen, so it wants to accept electrons from a base, which wants to give away electrons. Every time we've ever observed a reaction, it's held up with 100% consistency, but that's only because our scope and perception of time is too macroscopic to perceive inconsistencies in an alleged law that operates on a comparatively infinitesimal scale. Electron exchange only occurs when an electron randomly appears far enough in one of the outer orbitals of the atom so that the antipode atom's electromagnetic pull is strong enough to take it. Whether an electron will be in an extreme enough area of the orbitals where the electromagnetic pull is observably random. The only reason an acid dissolves a base 100% of the time is because the electron positioning will have a million opportunities to reach the outer orbitals before we can even bat an eyelash. So as its entropy increases, the likelier it is to dissolve, but it's not theoretically impossible for a base to soak in an acid for 1,000 years and not exchange a single electron. Physical laws only <appear> to be laws by virtue of an incongruous time scale that gives the illusion of absolute consistency, when in reality, they're physical principles.

For the purpose of most things, these time discrepancies <are> negligible enough to eschew, but when considering stringent, uncompromising determinism, it's a remarkable violation. They're laws within the parameters which they are useful, but on a quantum scale, they're principles.

That also coincides with my belief in the metaphysical, but that should demonstrate my point well enough for now.

 

[ElvenKing]

Let's get a little rigor here.

To make sure we have the same idea of determinism and aren't mistakenly referring to subtly different things, let's define it. Determinism is the idea that everything ever is predicated on the initial conditions of a closed system, in this case, our universe. This is so because physical laws seem to be just that: laws. Matter doesn't think, so it's bound to a linear course.

With that being said, if there's a disturbance in that linear course, i.e., something non-physical, in this case, the reflexive acknowledgement of a preordained fate, which creates irreality--a potentiality--and suddenly that closed system is open. Though not an answer, it is indeed a direct violation of determinism.

I'd also argue that given the presence of quantum behavior of matter, that physical laws are not actual laws, rather, principles in the same way chemistry's fundamentals are. To demonstrate, consider an acid corroding a base. The acid has a lot of hydrogen, so it wants to accept electrons from a base, which wants to give away electrons. Every time we've ever observed a reaction, it's held up with 100% consistency, but that's only because our scope and perception of time is too macroscopic to perceive inconsistencies in an alleged law that operates on a comparatively infinitesimal scale. Electron exchange only occurs when an electron randomly appears far enough in one of the outer orbitals of the atom so that the antipode atom's electromagnetic pull is strong enough to take it. Whether an electron will be in an extreme enough area of the orbitals where the electromagnetic pull is observably random. The only reason an acid dissolves a base 100% of the time is because the electron positioning will have a million opportunities to reach the outer orbitals before we can even bat an eyelash. So as its entropy increases, the likelier it is to dissolve, but it's not theoretically impossible for a base to soak in an acid for 1,000 years and not exchange a single electron. Physical laws only <appear> to be laws by virtue of an incongruous time scale that gives the illusion of absolute consistency, when in reality, they're physical principles.

For the purpose of most things, these time discrepancies <are> negligible enough to eschew, but when considering stringent, uncompromising determinism, it's a remarkable violation. They're laws within the parameters which they are useful, but on a quantum scale, they're principles.

That also coincides with my belief in the metaphysical, but that should demonstrate my point well enough for now.

Almost correct(non-physical feelings may interact with physical systems in a causal manner in some instances, only after the feeling has been determined by a physical system though), however, under determinism thoughts are a necessary result of the deterministic physical systems, either the non-physical feeling being merely a by product physical systems acting or a feeling that is determined working together with a physical system to determine what happens next(i.e when you feel X, it triggers Y physical system, for example, jerking your hand away when you feel something that is too hot). Nothing EVER leaves the linear cause. There is nothing but the linear course. The perception of the non-linear is merely an illusion created by our consciousness perceiving that something is going to happen next, yet not having the knowledge of what that is. The problem is NOT that there is a break of the linear course. It is that the full nature of the linear course is UNKNOWN to us in a given moment, meaning it appears that there are more possibilities for what could occur(which is why "choice" is not meaningless, even if if actually have none).

That changes nothing, as there may simply be a different result determined in that instance. You might claim this shows that more than one things was possible in a given instance, but this is not sufficiently supported. One could make the argument that the appearance of a different result was because, in that instance, it was determined to happen a different way than our current understanding expects it would and have an equal measure of support to the person claiming to showed there was more than one possibility, for, as you are looking back on an event which has happened, you have no way to separate whether it happened because it was the determined to be the only result in that instance or because it was one of many possibilities that was selected.

They are principles of human explanation, NOT of determined events themselves. The event that supposedly breaks the "law" might simply by an error in our understanding; that the given understanding is inaccurate to the actual determined nature of reality, meaning the problem is with our "law" of explanation, not with determinism.

 

[GofG]

Kant was a ******

 

[GofG]

How could a nonphysical process affect a physical process? By what mechanism would it do so?

 

[ElvenKing]

How could a nonphysical process affect a physical process? By what mechanism would it do so?

By simply doing so(e.g. it is true feeling pain causes the body jerk away), though it is probably more accurately described as a non-empricically observable process than a non-physical one, as it is taking part in an interaction of the physical. It might be that there is an empirical mechanism by which the reason for action can be further described, but that doesn't solve the problem here. All that happened if that is discovered, is that the question of: "By what mechanism does it work?" shifts: now we ask: "By what mechanism do feelings interact with this newly observed process to cause action?"

There is ALWAYS an axiom up base that cannot be explained in any greater terms than "It simply is." This can never be avoided due to the nature of detective logic. When you are deducing that something must be from something else, the truths that you use to deduce why you conclusion must be have to be so. Of course, you can always deduce you the truths you use to derive at you conclusion, but you'll hit a wall in this eventually, for you get to the point where you have no reason to think something is other than it simply is. Furthermore, as show by the example at the end of my last paragraph, one can never show a mechanism by which feelings interact with empirically observable processes. Why? Because that a given feeling is the result of a particular interaction is not only an assumption itself, but due to the nature of feelings, being feeling without a empirical marker outside of ourselves, any attempt to explain what causes a feeling is always going to to be: "It just does." You'll point to a particular physical working of the brain that causes, let's say dopamine, a feeling and I'll ask: "By what mechanism does that causes the feeling?" At this point you may then go into a long explanation of the role dopamine plays in the neurological system and how it interacts with other elements of the system, but you won't have answer my question at all. You had just listed various interactions and then the feelings that they cause. I want to know WHY that given chemical or interaction causes a given feeling. This will still have to justified by: "It simply does."


Though the feelings causing certain actions in the empirically veritable body was just a comment to cover all bases. The actual feelings themselves might not have any causal role at all, simply be by products of interacting physical systems. However, even in this case there is an interaction between the empirically verifiable and the non-empircally verifiable, as the first must cause the feelings that are of the latter.



The dichotomy between the physical and non-physical is misleading; it should have been more accurately, empirically verifiable compared to the non empirically verifiable, described from the start. To say "physical" vs "non-physical" conjures up the notion of a worldly separation between the feelings of experience and the empirical objects within it that can never be coherent, assuming that we accept the world as interacting in anyway with our feelings.

 

[GofG]

You think there are non-empirically verifiable aspects of the brain?

You are seriously misinformed and I cannot even begin to point you in the right direction. Take some neuroscience courses at your local uni.

Anything physical is empirically testable; if it affects the natural world then it can be measured. If there is anything which is non empirically testable, it must necessarily be nonphysical.

 

[ElvenKing]

You think there are non-empirically verifiable aspects of the brain?

You are seriously misinformed and I cannot even begin to point you in the right direction. Take some neuroscience courses at your local uni.

Anything physical is empirically testable; if it affects the natural world then it can be measured. If there is anything which is non empirically testable, it must necessarily be nonphysical.

Sigh... you have done precisely what I predicted. That doesn't answer the question at all.

It is not a question of the brain(the brain, being an empirical object, is not the focus of the question). It is a question of the feelings that we associated with observations of the brain. We don't observe, for example, the feeling of pain in a direct empirical sense. Sure we can observe when certain areas of the brain light up, when there is a feeling of pain present, and that there a certain chemical present when this occurs, but pain itself is never observed. To draw the conclusion of the origin of pain from we must simply assume that all the observations we see relate to the presence of the pain(there is nothing wrong with this, but it does mean that the feeling of pain itself is not observed as an empirical object) rather than the pain being of some other origin and simply occurring concurrently with our observations of the empirical world in this instance.

Furthermore, even if all those observations are accurate, one can still ask why that system produces that feeling. For example, why does the system produce a feeling of pain rather than any other feeling or no feeling at all? And the only answer that can be given is: "It simply does. That is they way things are."

 

[GofG]

Sigh... you have done precisely what I predicted. That doesn't answer the question at all.

It is not a question of the brain(the brain, being an empirical object, is not the focus of the question). It is a question of the feelings that we associated with observations of the brain. We don't observe, for example, the feeling of pain in a direct empirical sense. Sure we can observe when certain areas of the brain light up, when there is a feeling of pain present, and that there a certain chemical present when this occurs, but pain itself is never observed. To draw the conclusion of the origin of pain from we must simply assume that all the observations we see relate to the presence of the pain(there is nothing wrong with this, but it does mean that the feeling of pain itself is not observed as an empirical object) rather than the pain being of some other origin and simply occurring concurrently with our observations of the empirical world in this instance.

Furthermore, even if all those observations are accurate, one can still ask why that system produces that feeling. For example, why does the system produce a feeling of pain rather than any other feeling or no feeling at all? And the only answer that can be given is: "It simply does. That is they way things are."

You lack the neuroscience expertise to know that you are wrong, but let me assure you, the experience of pain is something which can be programmed into any turing-complete system (the brain included).

Aside from that: if the experience of pain is a nonphysical thing, then what causes it? It supposes humans to be somehow greater than the sum of its parts, for it can create something (the experience) out of nothing.

 

[Dre89]

I think what he's saying though is that you could program a system to simulate the pain response, but they're wouldn't some sentience actually feeling pain.

He kinda has a point in that if you observe the phsyical process of pain, in that you see the pain receptors sending messages to the brain etc. Nowhere is the actual feeling of pain observed.

For example if an alien who didn't understand what pain was watched the process, he would see the pain receptors sending messages to the brain, but at no point would he infer that there is conciousness experiencing an unpleasant sensation, that aspect isn't accessible via simply watching the physical process.

I think that's what he's trying to say. It's certainly not a question of neuroscience. It would be a question of neuroscience if he was actually contesting the nature of the physical process involved, but that isn't what he's doing.