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?
That’s exactly what you said upthread:
“I would argue that all IC systems are inaccessible by step by step algorithmic means (like darwinian evolution) but that is another topic.”
It appears that you are the one with the idiosyncratic definition.
Regardless, you claimed there was “plenty” of evidence for an immaterial component of consciousness. Let’s see it.
Ridiculous question.
If the majority of folk in your community think that trees are conscious, then the meaning of “conscious” within your community is such that it counts trees as being conscious.
You need to break away from the idea that meanings are rigidly fixed thingies.
As I see it, there is indeed a substantive distinction between electronics and neurobiology. Brains are parts of living things, electronics are not; brains actively maintain themselves away from thermodynamic equilibrium with their surroundings; organisms do not. Etc.
The idea that there’s no ontological difference between machines and organisms is one that I disagree with in the strongest possible terms. The question is how to explain that difference without positing entities that are immune to all known procedures of intersubjective verification.
The meaning of “tree” would also be different in that community. And these differences would be reflected in their behavior. A community that ascribed consciousness to trees would not support indiscriminate logging, for example. Or would put logging the same kind of moral category that we use for factory farms and slaughterhouses. If this community also ascribed rational self-consciousness to trees they would think about logging much as we think about genocide and concentration camps.
So if the majority of my community thinks that material things can’t make decisions (and it does) then I am justified in affirming that materiel things can’t make decisions?
peace
perhaps your categories need to be readjusted in light of the fact that we can’t empirically demonstrate that there is an ontological difference between machines and organisms? 😉
peace
Yes that is correct. Think about the Na’vi on Pandora in the movie avatar or this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_sacred_trees
Do you know of any community that thinks about disposing of computers much as we think about genocide and concentration camps?
If so does that demonstrate that it’s impossible a computer can be a conscious agent?
peace
Do you think that the only possible kind of evolution is Darwinian evolution?
Would you agree with me that Darwinian evolution is inherently algorithmic?
Surely you can tell the difference between a definition and a claim about reality.
At most it demonstrates that no known computer systems are currently recognized as conscious.
I can,
I am wondering if the others here can. That is why I ask the question
peace
just like the trees 😉
peace
No. New mechanisms have been discovered since Darwin’s day.
That depends on exactly what you mean by “algorithmic”. Since you have a history here of using idiosyncratic definitions, I’ll defer my answer until you explain what you mean.
In any case, your original statement was “I would argue that all IC systems are inaccessible by step by step algorithmic means (like darwinian evolution) but that is another topic.” I would be interested in hearing that argument.
Instead of asking inane questions, how about simply making your point clearly and supporting any claims with evidence and logic?
Patrick, to fifth:
fifth,
Please have that tattooed on your forehead, backwards, and carry a mirror with you at all times.
Same goes for you, Mung.
Sigh!
There’s a difference between meaning and truth.
If a consensus of the community accepts a meaning for “decision”, then that becomes the meaning of “decision” for that community.
Could they adopt a meaning such that decisions are impossible? I suppose they could, but that seems unlikely.
It’s a shame that that will not be happening here. Do you know of a site that is more conducive to fruitful discussion? Maybe one where folks don’t assume the worst in others and where outlooks that are not popular are tolerated and positions are understood before they are ridiculed?
peace
Ok
You don’t know much about what folks like me believe do you?
quote:
Of all the creatures in the physical world, only human beings share with God the ability to reason. It is not surprising, then, that when theologians discuss elements of the image of God, reason almost always tops the list.
end quote:
from here
http://www.colsoncenter.org/the-center/columns/call-response/15653-the-image-of-god-and-reason
also check this out
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1093.htm
and this
quote;
We behold the face of the earth furnished with terrestrial creatures, and man, created after Your image and likeness, in that very image and likeness of You (that is, the power of reason and understanding) on account of which he was set over all irrational creatures.
end quote:
from here
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110113.htm
peace
I was a theist at one time (but never a Calvinist).
There are many Christians who do not share that view. And there are more than a few atheists with a similarly anthropocentric viewpoint.
You do know that as a Calvinist I’m obliged to inform you that you were never a Christian or you would still be one
😉
OK but the point is that the orthodox position is that only humans can reason because only humans are made in the image of God.
I’m really not concerned with that except to point out that is not unlikely for a community to hold that it’s impossible for materiel things to decide.
I would hope that there are more objective ways to make that sort of determination
peace
That predestination nonsense is the main reason that I avoided Calvinism.
I would put that differently. God can be said to reason, because we created God in man’s image.
But that’s different from saying that immaterial things can decide. If we ever create a successful AI system, it is unlikely to be the silicon or other material that is doing the thinking.
We know he’s not an atheist though, because nobody here is, right? 🙂
I don’t think that immaterial things can decide in this universe anyway.
It’s my view that people decide and people are a irreducible mix of the immaterial and the material.
It sounds like we have a lot of common ground.
The question is can the material give rise to something beyond itself (the thinking part)? I don’t think it can but I’d like to see your evidence
exactly. 😉
I’d say that he is a rebel just like all of us sans Grace.
peace
I would definitely agree that a sovereign God is not appealing to the natural man. We love autonomy more than we love life
peace
I quite thoroughly disagree; I think that the empirically manifest differences between organisms and machines ARE the ontological differences.
Patrick, to fifth:
fifth:
Oh, please. Spare us the sanctimony. You’ve been posting here for a year and a half, pushing your views, and now suddenly, at the exact moment when Patrick challenges you to back up a claim of yours, you declare that you won’t be responding at such an “unfruitful” venue?
Stop making excuses. If you can’t back up your claim, then admit it.
Neither you nor anyone else in the ID camp can support the claim that “all IC systems are inaccessible by step by step algorithmic means (like darwinian evolution)”.
I hardly think its incumbent upon the immaterialist to prove something is impossible. Its possible that the entire world is made up of rotten orange peels that change their structure when viewed.
It is more up to the materialist to show how something which requires every single part of a complex system, to work exactly together with all its sister parts, before the system has any meaning, can come about in slow step by step accidents. I laugh at the very idea that evolutionist make trying to debunk IC. They claim everything in an irreducibly complex system could simply have been useful in some other slightly less complex system first! They don’t need to explain that simpler system, or what the part was used for before, they can just say…we will look!
I appreciate the ecological aspects of this rationalization, But that is an awful lot of systems and an awful lot of parts to recycle, mind you!
“before the system had any meaning” unpacks full of problems: it may have been a different system, what constitutes systemic meaning?
phoodoo,
Fifth made the impossibility claim…
…so of course it’s his responsibility to back it up.
Typical uninformed phoodooishness.
Educate yourself, please:
The Mullerian Two-Step: Add a part, make it necessary
or, Why Behe’s “Irreducible Complexity” is silly
I’m sure FMM is writing a paper and working towards getting it published.
The inaccessibility of IC systems by step by step algorithmic means.
After all, this would be of some significance in the world of biology. If he “would argue” that position then he presumably has some new information that has not been published before because, as you note, this ground has been covered before. And I’m sure FMM has carefully studied all the objections made to Behe’s claims about IC and overcome them all or otherwise why would he make such a claim?
phoodoo,
I think you and FMM need to talk, as he’s just made the point that that IC system cannot be explained in terms of simpler systems. And you are saying that such systems have been explained in terms of simpler systems (even though your objection is those simpler systems have not themselves then been explained).
Perhaps you could both collaborate on the paper FMM is keen to write, or start a joint OP on the subject? Collaboration is key in science, and I’m sure two fine minds like yours if put together could come up with some significant insights.
No you moron, I am saying that is the materialist’s claim. Of course no self-respecting thinker would actually believe this, this is just what evolutionists think, and what Kenneth Miller tried to argue in the Dover trial. Neither FMM nor I believes this is true.
keiths,
Wow, talkorgins says it is possible. Hooray! What about instead of posting a link, you try summarizing WHY they say it is possible, because I have just read your silly little cut and paste and its pure evolutionists nonsense at its finest. Kenneth Miller would be wetting his pants in delight.
I haven’t time to read all recent comments but I feel I need to remind folks about the rules.
@ phoodoo
I’m giving you some leeway as you are somewhat beleaguered but you know it is against the rules to call other commenters morons.
Alan Fox,
Oh yea, sorry about that, it was a typing mistake. I meant to say he was a maroon. I think O’Magain is from Queensland, right?
phoodoo,
Never took you for a rugby league fan.
In think I recall reading this somewhere
quote:
In order for basic ontological categories to be fixed for all time, unrevisable come what may, we would need to have some mode of access to those categories. We would need to have some way of piercing the veil of phenomena and beholding the noumena, or some way of getting at reality other than by poking and prodding at it with our senses and instruments.
We need, in short, to suppose that we have a cognitive power to transcend all causal transaction with particulars and simply see the fundamental categorical structure of reality.
The problem, however, is simply this: there is no evidence that we have any such power. To suppose that we have such a cognitive power is simply to invoke magic.
end quote: 😉
you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself?
(Rom 2:21a)
peace
I don’t push my views here for the most part with a very few exceptions I simply respond to what others are pushing
peace
So a mind may have been an entirely “different system” and simply became a mind at some point.
The follow up question is why? What is the fitness value of conscious choice rather than unconscious response to stimuli?
peace
Are you saying that in the “world of biology” the only means available for evolution are step by step algorithmic means?
Now that’s the sort of position that would merit a paper in my opinion.
peace
As has been repeatedly pointed out here you and I have a very different Idea about what constitutes an explanation.
😉
peace
A bible verse about reaping and sowing comes to mind.
I have seen conversations with Mung, to pick one example you might appreciate, that were polite, mutually respectful, and productive. I have seen more that are not. My personal view is that the difference is his behavior. He may well disagree.
Based on the history of this site, I predict that your ideas about irreducible complexity would be addressed rationally and respectfully if you presented them clearly, answered questions about them directly, provided evidence for your claims, and didn’t bring religion into the discussion.
Give it a try. It’s a chance to prove how horrible this site is, if nothing else.
Indeed. One could start with evidence supporting the claim that anything “immaterial” is involved at all. Got any?
You have a very different conception of the history than I do.
“rationally and respectfully” are definitely not words I would use to describe most of what goes on here
peace
You are so funny 😉
peace
The tenor of most of the “skeptical” crowd here is well established. There is no need to belabor the obvious
peace
So still no evidence? You should retract your claim until you’re willing to support it. To do otherwise demonstrates a lack of honesty and integrity.
In other words, putting your claims at risk of disconfirmation is not something you wish to try.