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?
What do you observe all the time?
We all know that complex brains without consciousness can exist because our own brains lack consciousness while we sleep.
peace
the interface
quote:
But it is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand.
(Job 32:8)
and
then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
(Gen 2:7)
end quote:
peace
I suspect fmm’s universe is remarkably simple. I’m reminded of a moment in a Philip K Dick story where some characters were in a world created from the mind of one of them. In that world they broke open a cigarette vending machine and found not a supply of cigarettes, but a device that created them from nothing. The guy in question whose world they were in did not understand or know about what really happened inside such a machine, and just assumed somehow they appeared in the machine for him. It’s what explains the comments like “After all this time do you really need me to spell out for you what I think that might be?”
He assumes that what is crystal clear in his world is so for others. Why oh why do they keep asking me to spell out the blindingly obvious he wonders….
I suspect that this mistaken assumption is why you never take the time to actually listen but instead pretend I say what you expect me to say.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
We seem to be two people divided by a common language. A book written by people with vivid imaginations is not an observable fact about how God creates (by my lights). I think we should agree to disagree.
No what explains statements like that is the fact that I make no secret that I am a Christian. So it should be obvious that I would think what Christians think
peace
The book is not the observable fact I speak of.
What’s described in it (the part I quoted) is
peace
And musicians with vivid imaginations, how do they create music?
Mung,
I sense a catch here. But I suggest the process is physical and involves brain activity. Imagining is a physical process.
What evidence do you have for this claim?
peace
What you’re actually doing is INFERRING that mass and energy are conserved in this context, because it’s been found to be conserved in other contexts, aren’t you? How would you set up your equations if somebody insisted that in the case of voluntary activities thought cause physical actions? To insist that they just must seems to be to beg the question.
I’m certainly assuming that the properties of the universe are regular.
I’m not good at thought experiments. But for me there’s no problem. Thought is a physical activity. And it is one that can be observed indirectly. Some parameters can be measured, energy consumption for example.
It’s Occam’s razor. Because we don’t understand a process fully (or at all) is not a reason to make something up. I can’t deny the possibility of uncountable realms of immaterial immaterialness. I’d like to see some impinging on reality before giving it further consideration.
What evidence do you have for this claim?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
That brain activity is an energy-consuming process. That people learn. That brain damage affects cognitive ability.
fifthmonarchyman: now the materialist now has to explain what it is that makes some matter conscious while the vast majority is not.
IOW The materialist needs to explain the thing that separates minds from brains.
Well, why would we start from the assumption that minds aren’t just what brains produce when they undergo various physical changes? Why suppose anything “separates minds from brains” just because some physical things are conscious and some aren’t? Some physical things are red and some aren’t. Some are hot and some aren’t. But we don’t for that reason separate physicality from heat or color.
We are not making something up consciousness is observed and it impinges on our reality at least
Because of conceivability of zombies we have good reason to beleive it is not empirically detectable.
peace
I don’t think you can get much from the first of those three. But the other two require responses, IMO.
But at least it demonstrates that there is conservation of energy in thinking*. Thinking costs physical effort and the brain needs to be fed if we are to think straight.
ETA in thinking
Sorry but they are inconceivable – at least by me.
Alan Fox,
I’d like to see that experiment. The brain does so much stuff that it seems like it’d be tough to control for everything else and say, “See that loss of energy was the thinking!”
But, in any case, FMM seems to believe in some kind of inextricable connection between brains and minds anyhow. I don’t know if the mental stuff is supposed to be epiphenomena or what, but I believe he doesn’t deny brain involvement in consciousness, so I’d think that could explain any loss of energy anyhow.
Again, I really don’t know what he’s saying here, so I should just let him speak for himself…..
you seem to be doing a good job of faking it 😉
peace
We’ve discussed this a lot here. I guess if there was some sort of concerted petition, like everybody from some particular religion praying that Trump be levitated to the moon tonight, and then FWISH! in front of a hundred million eyes and cameras, he slowly rose out of his podium and flew out the window. Up and up until he disappeared from sight–never to be seen again. I’d take that as evidence of something AWESOME.
Well, thanks, but if I misrepresent your position, please correct me!
Perhaps my idea of “thinking” is broad and a bit circular. Thinking is what the brain does. But there is a non-invasive technique called resting state fMRI that allows direct observation of activity while giving the subject controlled tasks that might qualify as thinking exercises.
If your “idea” can not account for the difference between an awake brain and one that is asleep perhaps it could use a little work
Just saying
peace
Patrick,
I agree with Richard. +1 is immaterial.
fifth,
Seriously, fifth? You actually believe that “I can imagine X” implies “X is possible”?
Come on, FMM, sleep states are well researched. With comparative studies on brain activity allowing the subject to be resting or engaged in specific activities, one can observe and measure differences.
fmm,
Once again you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. How does your idea account for the difference between an awake brain and a sleeping one.
If the mind is separate from the brain, and persists after the brain dies then you need to explain why we sleep at all.
And if your idea can’t account for that, perhaps it needs a little work.
No, that seems entirely reasonable. We can observe state changes, and those state changes require energy.
I’ve just imagined things that put his god out of business. By his thinking, he should start to worship me now.
Hah. Not bad, phoodoo!
Did you read the paper?
It might not be possible. But the point is that I know of noting that prevents the possibility.
Do you? speak up
peace
I never said they weren’t
You said that “thinking is what brains do” clearly its more complex than that.
peace
The mind is not separate from the brain in this universe. As I have said multaple times
You need to forget this strawman and try to understand the actual position of your opponents
peace
Or fart!
You weren’t discussing sleeping zombies.
The point remains that just because you can imagine something doesn’t mean it can exist in the real world. You still have no evidence for anything “immaterial”.
Repeating a false claim does not make it true. Your imagination is not evidence.
The +1 you see on your screen is rendered by electrons in a physical LCD and is represented on the hardware running TSZ as patterns on a physical drive. The +1 you are thinking about is instantiated in patterns in your physical brain. Try again:
Please provide whatever you think constitutes evidence supporting the existence of anything “immaterial”.
You really think he was talking abot the +1 ‘you see on your screen,’ Patrick?
What is the mechanism that brings about the instantiation of an idea as a pattern in the physical brain? What does that interface look like?
If you repeat it 10,000 times it does.
Patrick,
That’s not even the same +1 ! Its a different +1 !! So is that.
phoodoo,
+1
Right. Even word types are abstract objects.
walto,
Wait, how many +1’s are there?
Infinity +1?
I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Patrick yourself, phoodoo. He’s got me on ignore; scared, as he is, of evil bureaucrats, who would take away the market’s invisible hand that is imprinted on his brain. (Apparently, there is just the one hand.)
walto,
But every time I look at my screen its a different Patrick.
Its funny though, even with so many, they all seem similarly nuts.
Physics, chemistry, and neurobiology. Google them.
All physically instantiated on your screen.
So I’ll ask again. Please provide whatever you think constitutes evidence supporting the existence of anything “immaterial”.