This is a thread to allow discussions about how those lucky enough to have free will make decisions.
As materialism doesn’t explain squat, this thread is a place for explanations from those that presumably have them.
And if they can’t provide them, well, this will be a short thread.
So do phoodoo, mung, WJM et al care to provide your explanations of how decisions are actually made?
sackcloth and ashes, this world is a distraction ,a temptation, we must forgo the temporal pleasures for eternal reward. That is why one must convinced that those who feel differently are miserable.
There you go Walto: a perfect example of what I mean by the horribly misguided notion that atoms behave like billiard balls. In this case Phoodoo apparently thinks all “mix of chemicals” are just baking soda and vinegar or some such. Nothing beyond simple bonds and chemical reacts. Chemistry is all about atoms “fizzing”. Clearly mixing elements in a beaker never ever leads to anything that asks, “do you want fries with that?”; mixes of chemicals can only “fizz”. Yawn…
What I’d like to know is what property/characteristic/element “immaterial stuff” has that allows decision making that matter doesn’t possess.
Your definition of “decide” is “to choose between one possibility or another”. I provided a dictionary definition of “choose”:
a) pick out or select (someone or something) as being the best or most appropriate of two or more alternatives.
b) decide on a course of action, typically after rejecting alternatives.
There is no behavior in those definitions that cannot be performed by software.
A behavior that software demonstrably performs.
Yep. Quite so.
Oh, yea mean you prefer to call it :” A far-from-equilbrium autocatalytic system enclosed within a semi-permeable membrane?” Ok, as you wish.
But if next time I say a bag of chemicals, understand I mean ” a far-from-equilbrium autocatalytic system enclosed within a semi-permeable membrane”, but its easier to type, is that ok?
Now that’s not a strawman caricature, right KN?
Keith asks:
By combining the percepts given through the senses with the correct immaterial concepts. Without the concept the percept is meaningless.
It doesn’t represent information, it gains imformation. Through thinking it gains information about the world and through feeling and willing it gains information about itself in relation to the world.
Through willing. I have just decided to type this sentence in the form in which you see it. I could have said, “I have made a decision to write these words as you now read them” I “made up my mind”. Willing preceds the movement of matter. In what way do you assume matter to have been the instigator of this decision?
Patrick,
Can you tell me, what is the meaning of “definition”, Patrick?
** FIZZ * * POP *
Not without assuming that you’re not posting in good faith.
Since we know you are posting in good faith, as per the rules, I must assume you’re simply so overtired that you are temporarily unable to recognize that only those terms that are contentious, idiosyncratic, or not interpreted identically by all participants require operational definitions.
After you get some sleep, please provide the requested definitions so that we can continue the discussion productively.
Robin,
You don’t like that description either?
We’re still waiting for your better one, captain dodge,
No, of course I don’t like the description. What your “bag of chemicals” implies a silly, archaic, and rather erroneous understanding of chemical interactions. * FIZZ * and * POP * is not the extent of chemical interactions. There is nothing that prevents feedback loops in chemistry. And there’s nothing from there that creates a boundary to feedback loops that are aware of their surroundings. That you seem to think that “bag of chemicals” is tantamount to…say…two hydrogen atoms orbiting an oxygen atom, hydrogen peroxide two hydrogen atoms orbiting TWO oxygen atoms! OOOOO!), or sulfuric dioxide (a sulfur atom orbiting two oxygen atoms! OH MY!) simply demonstrates you haven’t gone very far in studying chemistry.
C’mon Phoodoo…answer this. This is the crux of the issue.
Tis indeed.
phoodoo, where in your holy book does it reveal the truth of which you know but cannot explain? You know how it does not work, but not how it does, apparently.
How do decisions work in phoodoo world?
The whole point of talking about “a far-from-equilbrium autocatalytic system enclosed within a semi-permeable membrane” is that it distinguishes cells from other things that are also “bags of chemicals” — like water balloons. I would hope that such a distinction is not too subtle for you.
In any event: that rather sparse and purely formal characterization I’ve offered — a far-from-equilbrium autocatalytic system enclosed within a semi-permeable membrane — is intended to distinguish the kind of organization that cells have from the kind of organization that (for example) crystals have, or that waves have.
I have refrained from specifying the kind of materials that would satisfy those formal properties because I do not want to insist that all life everywhere in the universe must be exactly like Terrestrial life, which all its dependence on water and carbon. I’m rather saying that life anywhere in the universe is very likely to be a far-from-equilbrium autocatalytic system enclosed within a semi-permeable membrane, regardless of the types of atoms that comprise it.
(Hans Jonas has a lovely discussion of what makes organisms different from crystals and from waves in his The Phenomenon of Life. Highly recommended for those who don’t mind some existential meditation in their philosophy of biology, or conversely.)
But of course that sparse and formal characterization was never intended as a distinction of what makes human beings different from other organisms. After all, even the simplest of bacteria is a far-from-equilbrium autocatalytic system enclosed within a semi-permeable membrane.
Yet I would hardly deny that the line from biological teleology to genuine intentionality and rationality is crossed somewhere in the 3.4 billion years from abiogenesis to the origin of genuine mindedness. It’s simply that one must be attentive to differences — between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, between animals and other eukaryotes, between bilateral triploblastic metazoans and other animals, between chordates and other metazoans, between vertebrates and other chordates, between tetrapods and other vertebrates, between mammals and other tetrapods, between primates and other mammals, between anthropoids and other primates, between hominoids and other anthropoids, between early Homo and other hominids, and between Homo sapiens and other species of Homo.
Of course it’s easy to ignore all those differences and say that human beings are just ugly bags of mostly water, if you really want to. But why would anyone want to?
A few days ago I provided a characterization of naturalism in epistemological terms: degrees of intersubjective verification are a criterion of degrees of confidence in ontological commitment. I did that because I think that, as a matter of proper methodology, metaphysics and epistemology must be seen as reciprocally dependent. (Every characterization of what is real must answer to the question of how we know what is real, and every characterization of how we know what is real must answer to the question of what being a knower is.)
That yields anti-supernaturalism because (if I’m right) ontological commitment to entities posited by religious doctrine is culturally relative and ontological commitment to the entities posited by scientific theories is not.
Given that epistemological characterization of naturalism, I see nothing in my philosophical commitments which requires me to downplay the differences between human beings and the rest of nature. Yet you seem to think that having affirmed that humans are a kind of animal and a part of nature, there is no possibility of stopping short of saying that a human being is nothing more than a collection of particles.
That seems pretty obviously wrong to me in every way.
The account being offered by the anti-materialists here is that the soul has no properties that appear anywhere in empirical science.
Most importantly, it is absolutely free in two senses: it can always originate ex nihilo a new bodily causal chain, and it can always refuse to be motivated by however the body causally affects it. (This ability to refuse to be motivated is actually quite central to how Descartes and Locke define free will, incidentally.)
However, if the soul is completely unconstrained, then what one has is not genuine freedom but arbitrariness, no distinction between liberty and licentiousness, and thus no moral accountability at all.
Hence the immaterialist must imagine the soul to be constrained by reasons, but not by causes. And this in turn means that the distinction between reasons and causes is not epistemological (as it is for naturalists) but metaphysical — not a distinction between ways of explaining, but a distinction between kinds of phenomena to be explained.
The central allegation of the immaterialist has been that if one denies that there is a metaphysical distinction between reasons and causes, then one must thereby deny a corresponding epistemological distinction, hence the materialist cannot allow for reasons in her account — it’s just causes all the way and all the way up. Whereupon, since the materialist cannot allow for reasons in her account of things, she cannot offer her own view as the more reasonable one, and the whole project collapses under the weight of its own performative contradiction. QED
However, the anti-materialists make everything too easy on themselves by insisting that if one rejects the reasons/causes distinction in its strongest, most demanding metaphysical guise then one cannot accept it in any version at all, and then happily cite the most extreme of materialists (such as Alex Rosenberg) in support of this reading. (I often wonder whether Rosenberg realizes that his views are widely taken as a reductio ad absurdum of naturalism.)
What is needed here is simply any version of naturalism which can accommodate the reasons/causes distinction.* And that’s been a philosophical possibility for hundreds of years — certainly since Spinoza, much improved by Dewey, and refined significantly by Sellars.
*Here I want to insist on a ‘normativity gradient’ within a naturalistic process ontology that makes room for proper functions a la Millikan, goals a la Okent, affordances a la Gibson, motives a la Merleau-Ponty, and reasons a la Brandom.
I like the message being sent at UD and here. Brains are highly complex, designed for a purpose, and certainly couldn’t have evolved. What is their purpose? Well, not much, that’s for sure. There’s no way that mere chemicals could account for love, decisions, or anything else very interesting. Apparently they can’t even be “about” anything, quite unlike the also designed (and far less complex) computers made by humans (they might argue about computers, but I only mean they’re “about” things in the sense that they can reference those things, which in principle is what humans do too).
Of course the most basic question to be asked of IDists is why even bother with designing any brain at all? It’s pathetically incapable of anything, while souls do all of the heavy lifting. They have no idea how that is, except that souls can do it, since they do it. Who has to explain the supernatural anyway?
They might object that it’s the “materialist” who is stuck with the “bag of chemicals” for various reasons, while the brain still has important tasks for them (if hardly on the level of what the soul does) because they believe that brains are designed. Well, clearly the “materialist” “believes in” at least as much neural capability as does the “immaterialist”–usually far more–and while the “materialist” could be wrong about evolution, etc., clearly the subject of brain and what it is happens to be close enough to the same to actually be able to discuss brains, rather than having the idiocy of “bag of chemicals” used to prevent any such discussion and to declare victory without ever actually engaging the issues. The trouble seems to be that they know that they’re actually vulnerable (especially in not having a clue as to how decisions are made “immaterially”), so go to absurd levels of reductionism, in order to pretend that it’s a legitimate reductio ad absurdam.
Yes, the brain is far too intricate and impressive to have evolved, but it’s nothing other than a bag of chemicals. It is a reduction to absurdity, but I’m afraid that this is all too common a tactic by IDists.
Glen Davidson
So if “willing” causes matter to move then “willing ” should be detectable.
A true craftsman
Excellent point!
GlenDavidson,
Glen, yes, I think that’s a very nice way of seeing where there’s a divide within the ‘Big Tent’ between the deists and the dualists.
The deists are — officially, anyway — happy to say that a suitable arrangement of material components can implement the functions of perceiving, thinking, wanting, and doing. They would only deny that “chance and necessity” could ever give rise to such a suitable arrangement.
The dualists, on the other hand, would deny that any arrangement of material component could ever implement those cognitive and affective functions. (But, as you point out, dualists would need to explain why the brain as complex as it is, when it plays no role in cognition or affect!)
I will admit that there is something about the hard problem of consciousness that bugs me.
If someone were to say that the brain causally implements all the functional roles of cognition and affect, but that Something Else — the soul or mind — is required for consciousness, in the sense of phenomenal awareness or qualia, there is nothing in neuroscience which prohibits that possibility.
(Though of course there is also no reason to believe that consciousness thus characterized is an entity of some sort, let alone one that can persist past the time of brain death.)
keiths:
dazz:
It depends on the distinction between timeless knowledge and knowledge within time. If someone (anyone) already knows within time at t1 what you will choose at t2, then it is already true at t1 that you will make that particular choice at t2. When t2 rolls around, your choice is predetermined; you cannot choose otherwise.
But since timeless knowledge is not knowledge within time, it doesn’t make sense to say that God knows at t1 that you will make a particular choice at t2, nor does it make sense to say that it is true at t1 that you will make a particular choice at t2. Those two facts obtain timelessly, not within time.
Caveat: As I warned above, this is all off-the-cuff. Having already concluded that libertarian free will is incoherent, I haven’t spent much time thinking about the implications if it weren’t incoherent.
Glen,
And it burns 20% of the body’s energy budget while serving as nothing more than a dumb interface between the body and soul. Think of all the people who’ve starved to death on account of that hopeless energy hog.
A long-ago comment I made to DaveScot (pbuh):
They are only theistic implications if you acknowledge the existence of God. Revelation is a common English word we use it all the time as in.
“Walto reveled to me that he thinks the term revelation has theistic implications that he is uncomfortable with”.
I know of no other English word that has the same connotations and denotations. It would be silly to invent one just to avoid making atheists uncomfortable.
It’s not equivocation it what the word actually means. The problem is not the word it’s that you get squeamish when you hear it.
As far as the contradictions in deneying the existence of God while living as if he exists. You know my position on that.
You are contradicting yourself every time you use logic and appeal to truth with out acknowledging that God exists.
Simply using common English will not make it worse.
Despite that we still manage to communicate and I often learn from you.
I think I would enjoy passing the time with you discussing a whole host of things that aren’t obviously related to your atheism. Our shared Compatibilism for example
peace
Ok…this in particular I did not know. That’s fascinating. So kind of a suspended identity or “self” not beholden to the influences/forces of the physical. Hmmm…ok…
But then, did Locke or Descartes ever consider why so many of our decisions/actions are physically motivated? Or did they just beg that question?
Software does not pick or decide anything. Software merely executes the instructions written into it.
peace
consciousness
peace
And some of those instructions result in picking and deciding, by the definitions you agreed to.
That is like saying that computers have no purpose because that aren’t conscious. That is just silly.
Brains are amazing and complex and vital to us in myriad ways they are just not minds.
peace
no some of those instructions result in one option being taken as apposed to another. Just like a river takes one path instead of another to the sea.
rivers don’t decide and neither does software
peace
Your definition of “decide” is “to choose between one possibility or another”. I provided a dictionary definition of “choose”:
a) pick out or select (someone or something) as being the best or most appropriate of two or more alternatives.
b) decide on a course of action, typically after rejecting alternatives.
Software easily exhibits those behaviors. Simply repeating “No it doesn’t” isn’t a compelling argument. Please explain your objection using those definitions.
I just did. software does not pick and it does not decide because software is not conscious.
If you want to argue that software is choosing you need to explain why a river is not given your assumptions.
Good luck
peace
Then, on your view, what are brains for? What do they do, and how?
Brains do exactly what we can empirically test them doing. They are amazing computational devices.
They do it using all the physical mechanisms that we can empirically observe them using.
They are just not minds
peace
Descartes acknowledged that that function of the senses, when working properly, is to inform us what is healthy or hurtful to the body. But he thought that a properly disciplined mind could always decide not to endorse as true what the senses conveyed to it.
Locke, having a more limited epistemology, thought that the relation between mind and body was forever shrouded in mystery. He was a dualist but admitted that dualism was not fully intelligible.
fifthmonarchyman,
But we can empirically observe brains to be thinking and deciding! Or would you deny that?
fmm,
How do minds make decisions then? How are the range of options available assessed and a course chosen?
Nobody wants or needs to talk about brains. That would be for the other thread. The other thread. How are decisions made in phoodoo/your world? What happens? How is a course plotted? That is the topic in this thread.
It’s fine not to know. Just say that!
There is a great thought experiment in the Robert Wright book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.
It asks you to imagine a world that is just like ours except that consciousness does not exist humans are philosophical zombies .
Brains would act just as they do now but there would be no subjective “self” behind the eyes of the humans scurrying about consuming resources and having offspring .
Then it asks you to ponder what would be empirically different about that world from the one we actually inhabit.
The answer is absolutely nothing empirical would be different . But such a world would be fruitless, empty and dead in all the ways that matter.
peace
Again for the third time it is not an algorithmic process.
Minds decide by weighing options. They weigh options by looking at which is most desirable for them.
nothing difficult, nothing obscure, nothing complex.
peace
It is detectable – in its effects. What made you respond to my post? Was it the chemicals in your brain?
The better question is explain how decisions are made pre-chemical involvement? Is there an array of choices and a chooser? How are decisions made before the chemicals get involved?
Brains don’t decide they are just like rivers, a path is taken that is all. If you disagree you need to describe what exactly is categorically different between brains and all other physical objects.
pace
When it comes to humans no choices are made before chemicals are involved.
peace
The world “revelation” is not actually used there, only mentioned (though you neglected to put in the quotation marks). That word certainly DOES have theistic connotations, especially as you use it, whether “reveal” does or not. I really hope you’re not suggesting otherwise. You use “revelation” very often to suggest some sort of special cognitive status you think some of your beliefs have.
I note that when I think I see a chair, I could be wrong. Are chairs “revealed” to me in perception in spite of that possibility of error. Are your own revelations subject to mistakes?
Can you explain what you mean when you say that brains are computational devices?
Revelation is not an explanation in the same way that design is not a mechanism.
Unless you can start to unlock revelation? Is there a prayer we can say that will unlock a cheat mode? Is there a science of religion? Can we build a ship to the stars in a year using advanced revelation? What do I have to believe and how hard do I have to pray and who to to get that?
It’s just the same bizarre idea that the one to be thanked when the team of doctors save your loved one is god rather then that team of doctors. fmm sees revelation everywhere. But it adds nothing, and has never added anything…
Unless of course fmm you know how decisions are made in phoodoo world? If we knew how decisions were really made perhaps we could optimise the procedure somehow? Or feed it better information? If only there was someone to explain!
Good point. Patrick is reifying software.
Software doesn’t even do that. Software doesn’t do diddly.
It is the computer that executes the instructions. 🙂