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?
You see, folks, materialism does not explain squat. The best and brightest materialists here can at best come up with an argument based on ignorance. The worst flat out contradict themselves and hope no one will notice.
Indeed. We wait a better method.
Says Mung, as he dodges the question and hopes no one will notice.
keiths,
WJM also failed at attacking materialism. And like Mung, he is a functional materialist.
No, I am not claiming that reasons are not material entities, though such an argument probably can be and probably has been made by others.
If reasons, and decisions, and thought and anything else we can conceive of, if all the operations of the human intellect are the product of the interactions of chemicals, there ought to be an objective way to tell them all apart. There would be no need for philosophy of mind and you would be out of a job.
If my reasons are just what my brain is doing at the moment, why is anyone bothering to ask me for my reasons? Why on earth do they care? Are they going to evaluate my reasons using their own chemicals in order to pass judgment on what my chemicals are doing?
My chemicals think their chemicals are imbalanced and incapable of proper judgment. Do my chemicals win?
What’s the point of attacking nonsense?
I started at least one thread on materialism here and when all was said and done no one seemed to want to be labelled a materialist. I don’t blame them.
keiths,
There is not even a question being asked. Non-materialist believe the mind is immaterial. So a decision is made by the mind! The mind is not merely a pattern of chemicals.
This is what is so funny about this post, O’magain doesn’t even realize that the definition answers the question itself. The problem only exists for materialists, you silly fools. Those who believe there is a separation between mind and brain have no such contradictions to worry about.
Not even one of you is smart enough to realize this? Bloody hell.
The question for the “immaterialist” is:
How does positing the existence of an “immaterial” aspect, feature, or component to a human person allow us to understand the difference between voluntary actions and involuntary actions?
and as a preliminary question to that would be
What does “immaterial” actually mean, and what is our mode of epistemic access to the “immaterial”, and why should we believe that our epistemic access here is reliable? (The fly in the ointment here being the transparency of consciousness!)
(Questions for “materialism” on the other thread.)
Its part of the reason this blog exists. Nonsense can he harmful if subscribed to, directly or in advancement opportunity cost.
No, what happens is I see your question and then watch it rapidly sink into the mire of your materialistic contradiction and simply ignore it.
I might think about dodging it if there was some chance it might score a hit.
Is your skepticism of the reality of the material world somehow logically connected to your materialist philosophy?
Mung,
Ask the people who visited faith healers instead of oncologists.
Oh, you can’t. They are dead.
Mung,
Then I take it you don’t want to provide your explanation for fear of contradicting one of your fellow travelers in the big tent?
Interesting….
I can’t provide an explanation for my position because your position says blah blah blah.
That they think this is persuasive really shows the level they are working at I think.
What makes you think there should be access to the immaterial?
Its like all these nutjobs who say, “I would believe in an immaterial God if he would just…materialize.”
Meanwhile God is asking the fish: ” You thought the three stage filtration system, and precise temperature regulators that came on every day at exactly 3 o clock were accidents!
Get the hell out of here now before I send you to a sushi bar.”
It doesn’t. What it says is that voluntary actions are logically possible in the immaterialist’s world.
In a materialists world a voluntary thought is a completely nonsensical notion.
Well, as a Christian, I cannot say they are complete nutjobs. 🙂
keiths repeatedly, consistently,
dodgedignored my challenges to his skepticism in the “Cartesian Skepticism” threads. So no one in this thread need wonder about my responses (or lack thereof) to him in this thread. He’s had his chances.The answer is by what ever means necessary.
What is the interface between a source of information and it’s recipient? It depends
peace
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/09/logic_and_metap103132.html
Only I assume in respects that are off topic and irrelevant.
But when you are trying to muddy the waters anything you can toss in there is worth the effort right?
peace
What exactly qualifies as an explanation from a materialist’s perspective? Why anything that does not involve immaterial entities of course.
Unless you are “openminded” about what you would accept as an explanation your claims seem a bit disingenuous.
If you were openminded as to the kinds of explanations you would accept you would not be a materialist and the debate would be over before it started.
peace
phoodoo,
Can “voluntarily” be emergent or ephi nominal? are you guilty of reductionism? *
ETA – I personally don’t believe in free will.
This is the elephant in the room.
Materialists act as if they are not materialists because it is impossible to do otherwise. This website is a monument to the failure of materialism when it comes to reason and discussion.
If your philosophy is such that you are unable to live for even one day as if it is true it’s time to get a new philosophy.
peace
Are you saying that you hold to compatibilism or that freedom of any kind does not exist?
If it’s the latter why bother trying to persuade here? Are you compelled to do so?
peace
What ever qualifies, it doesn’t involve reasons. That much we do know.
fifthmonarchyman,
I (my mind state, experiences) am part of a bigger system (external stimuli) that collectively collapse to make decisions. It feels like I’m making decisions, but they’re the only decisions I was ever going to make. It is a category error to conflate this with ‘intent’, ‘motivation’ or ‘rationality’: whether you think decisions are made within yourself or within a bigger system you still have the same problems.
*Multiple edits.
noun: decision; plural noun: decisions
a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration.
"I'll make the decision on my own"
synonyms:
resolution, conclusion, settlement, commitment, resolve, determination;
choice, option, selection
“they came to a decision”
verdict, finding, ruling, recommendation, judgment, judgment call, pronouncement, adjudication, order, rule, resolve; findings, results; determination
“the judge’s decision”
the action or process of deciding something or of resolving a question.
“the information was used as the basis for decision”
We come at understanding all things from our perspective backwards, that is to say we have access to our participation but no access to first causes. First causes are a problem for all, but at least the materialists start with one foot in reality.
Richardthughes,
What objective evidence allows you to reach this conclusion?
Well, if the immaterial and the material worlds cannot impinge on each other, then as far as either is concerned the other may as well not exist.
Maybe God created the universe, everything in it and all it’s properties, “laws”, initial conditions and got it all right first time. The universe he created is completely deterministic and needs no correction. Fits the observed facts, no? Didn’t Einstein hold to this sort of Deism?
Interesting. I think what is lacking is any general consensus as to what people mean by “free will”. Can you define the “free will” you don’t believe in?
colewd,
It is consistent with how the world works.
but let’s not have this be another bash materialism thread, it is set up to be explanations of alternatives.
Alan Fox,
That if you “rewound the clock” and let me have a decision again (as I was at that time with the inputs I had at that time) I could ever choose anything other than what I did.
What philosophers call “libertarian free will”.
Richardthughes,
Fair enough. Can you give me some more detail behind ” how the world works”
How much do you think we understand of how the world works? We are inside a system called the universe. Do you think something exists outside that system?
OK, so we arrive at the same point by different means. I assert it is impossible in this universe to re-run any scenario with exactly the same inputs. I think the world we inhabit is not deterministic.
Per my “us backwards” comment:
Physics, Chemistry.
The first cause argument begins with observation about the kind of world we live in. Materialist don’t own reality.
The statement that materialists start with one foot in reality is itself revealing. It carries with it the implication that there is some class of “things” that are not in fact real.
How is it then that the brain can represent that which is not real. Why are such “things” not immaterial? If you want to give a material explanation of such things you have to reduce them to what the brain does. But then they are no different from the other things you claim are real. What is real is just what the chemicals in the brain do.
I think I disagree with Rich that first causes are a problem for all. In a non-deterministic universe like ours, causal chains are an illusion.
Functionally, they do. We don’t teleport to work, levitate out of bed in the morning or ESP the news.
No, it carries the implication that materialism corresponds to how reality works.
How is it then possible that computers can simulate the material? Why are such “things” not immaterial?
Well the thread got off to a bad start then by referencing my statement that material doesn’t explain squat. 🙂
Perhaps materialists don’t have either foot in the real world.
Most but not all the observed facts.
Those that do not fit are the all important facts associated with the incarnation and the history of redemption.
peace
Maybe. At the quantum level its is perhaps stochastic. Gould’s famous “rewind the tape of life” may be true because evolution is more likely to be influenced by quantum effects than cognition. Evolution has more free will than you do – ;)*
*Not really, random isn’t free.
We start with the reality, if we trust our senses are to some extent reliable, that the model of reality that we construct provisionally fits with that reality.
We can imagine the immaterial, create an imaginary world of great richness. That imagination is constructed and exists in the reality of brain cells and activity, story books, films, dvds, but doesn’t make what we imagine real.
Because we have both.
I agree, and this in what I mean by “us backwards”.
Up to a point, Lord Copper? 🙂
I’m with Gould there.
Have you met my wife?
Evolution isn’t random, though. OK, so when I come to my fork in the road, tossing a coin to choose which way is not a free choice. But quickly considering time of day, weather and season, and deciding left or right seems to be an exercise of choice.
phoodoo:
So according to you, it just happens.
phoodoo, earlier:
Oops.
P.S. This sort of thing is why we laugh at you, phoodoo.
But we digress. Back to the OP, please.
This analogy might work if the brain is running a simulation. These things the computer is simulating, do they exist in the computer? Is being a computer a good metaphor for being a materialist?