What is a decision in phoodoo world?

Posted on by

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?

2,199 thoughts on “What is a decision in phoodoo world?”

  2. Dear God,

    As you can see, the need is dire.

    If you won’t send a couple of smart theists to TSZ, where they’re sorely needed — your ways are mysterious, after all — could you at least reveal to fifth that his proper place is in the church bathroom, cleaning toilets, and not in the public eye, making Christianity look ridiculous?

    Thanks,
    keiths

  3. GlenDavidson: What is the sound of one point being missed?

    The point was that “yes look at the cross” is not always a sufficient answer.

    Talk about a point with no purpose,

    I never once claimed that that was all the revelation available. Instead it’s often all the revelation necessary

    The proper response was to show that there is much more revelation available than simply “yes look at the cross”.

    which is what I did.

    peace

  5. fifthmonarchyman: You would have to make an argument that these things have a mind rather than just a brain.

    If you could do that then we would no longer be talking about materialism so it would defeat the purpose

    If we’re talking about my view, then we’re talking about naturalism (as I’ve defined it above), not materialism as you want to define it. But I’m certainly not going to waste my time defending the view that you insist on calling “materialism.”

    In fact, I do think that animals have minds — or more precisely, that many animals are minded beings. They are correctly described as having sensations, emotions, feelings, desires, volitions, and thoughts. And they are correctly described as having mental properties because of (among other things) the kinds of brains that they have.

  6. fifthmonarchyman: Determinism does allow for decisions, materialism does not allow for decisions

    You will have to explain what you mean by that and what evidence you have that it’s true.

  7. colewd: There is evidence that contradicts this which is 2% or greater DNA sequence differences plus other biochemical differences like splicing and gene expression.

    Is it possible that the contradiction is all in your head, and that you don’t understand the subject well enough to spot contradictions?

  8. As I understand it, Jesus told his followers to render unto Caesar. I guess that was fine until Darwin, when Caesar started stinking up the whole joint. Even inside the churches one could detect the faint odor of the zoo.

    But I say unto you science deniers, it’s too late to take back what has been ceded to the academy. The agar simply can’t be put back in the tube.

  9. Alan,

    But there are philosophers still arguing for a regression of cause (Ed Feser is my prime example) who justify their “ground of being” arguments by being convinced there is a continuum of causes for all that we see radiating out from the “first uncaused cause”. It’s so Nineteenth-century!

    The idea that the “first uncaused cause” must be God is bogus, of course, but I don’t see a problem with the idea of a regress of causes in general, particularly when you’re considering the state of the universe as a whole.

    What precisely is your objection?

    When a line of dominoes topples, what is the problem with seeing things as follows?

    The nth domino toppled because the n-1th domino toppled,
    and the n-1th domino toppled because the n-2th domino toppled,
    …
    and the 2nd domino toppled because the 1st domino toppled,
    and the 1st domino toppled because someone pushed it.

    It isn’t a complete causal account, of course, because it omits causal explanations of how the dominoes came to be set up that way and how the initial push came about. However, it is a correct explanation — the toppling of the j-1th domino really is a cause of the toppling of the jth (unless you doubt the existence of causality altogether).

    What amazes me is Jerry Coyne conceding that quantum indeterminacy might have some impact on strict determinism rather than dispensing with determinism altogether.

    The question is whether quantum effects are ever amplified so as to disrupt determinism at the macro level. The answer is clearly yes — every click of a Geiger counter is an instance of this. In terms of the free will debate, however, what matters is whether the macro-level neuronal determinism is ever disrupted by quantum events. Coyne seems to think that the answer might be no. I disagree, because neurons are nonlinear. If a neuron is already close to its threshold, quantum events should be able to push it over the top, thus amplifying themselves.

    In the end, however, determinism is a red herring with respect to the issue of libertarian free will. Random events aren’t instances of libertarian free will any more than determined events are. The whole notion is incoherent.

    KN:

    What we specify as “the” cause of an event is what we are interested in controlling, predicting, or or preventing.

    Alan:

    Simplifying the model to facilitate testing is a sound approach.

    Focusing on a particular cause of interest is not the same as simplifying the model. You can do the former without the latter.

  11. Kantian Naturalist: We were trying to find out phoodoo’s argument for why immaterialism about the soul explains how voluntary actions differ from involuntary actions.

    You are still trying to figure out why a chemical pattern can never make a choice, if the pattern is the response, whereas a non-material entity, that contains intelligence separate from its physical state could?

    That distinction is hard to figure out is it? You are still working on understanding the difference huh?

    Boy it is a tough one to grasp. Why shouldn’t a biological robot have the freedom to do whatever it wants with its chemical pattern, the same way that a free thinking consciousness could?

    Its as if one is asking, why can’t a computer think the same way a human does, what’s the barrier? Hm, why, oh why??

    Maybe a computer actually does have free will! I mean, why shouldn’t it? What prevents it? There is just no reason is there??

    Ok. Philosophy is dead.

  12. OMagain:
    It may be a fact for you, phoodoo, that the universe is evidence of a god, but it’s also a fact you can’t explain how decisions are made in your universe.

    You lose this thread. Objectively.

    Au Contraire, decisions can only be made by something which is separate from the decision itself. A decision can’t decide to make a decision, only a decider can.

    That you and KN and others find that so hard to follow is not my problem.

    You lose.

  14. phoodoo, to KN:

    You are still trying to figure out why a chemical pattern can never make a choice, if the pattern is the response, whereas a non-material entity, that contains intelligence separate from its physical state could?

    No, phoodoo, we’re trying to figure out what your explanation is, and believe me, everyone can see that you’ve been unable to answer and are desperately trying to deflect attention away from that failure.

    If you think that an immaterial soul is calling the shots, then explain how it works. How does the soul gather information? How does it make a decision? Having made a decision, how does it get the body to do its bidding? Details, please — or admit that you have no explanation.

    Fifth’s lame “explanation” for how immaterial decision making works was “I decide to go to Pizza Hut”. Will your answer be as lame? Or will you give the lamest answer of all — that is, no answer?

  15. Kantian Naturalist: If we’re talking about my view, then we’re talking about naturalism (as I’ve defined it above), not materialism as you want to define it. But I’m certainly not going to waste my time defending the view that you insist on calling “materialism.”

    Again as far as I can tell the defining feature of your view is just that you exclude the existence of straw-man deities and demigods that no one believes in.

    If there is something more to it you need to articulate it

    Kantian Naturalist: In fact, I do think that animals have minds — or more precisely, that many animals are minded beings.

    That’s fine then, You think animals have minds and I am agnostic about it but lean in the negative direction.

    Once we are talking about minds we are in the realm of the immaterial.

    How do I know this? Simply because there is no empirical test to determine that you are correct and I am wrong

    peace

  16. John Harshman: fifthmonarchyman: Determinism does allow for decisions, materialism does not allow for decisions

    You will have to explain what you mean by that and what evidence you have that it’s true.

    It’s simple really, Decisions are not the results of material interactions and materialism holds that everything is the result of material interactions.

    If you disagree tell me where to locate a decision so I can weigh and measure it to determine it’s materiel causes.

    peace

  17. phoodoo: Its as if one is asking, why can’t a computer think the same way a human does, what’s the barrier? Hm, why, oh why??

    Maybe a computer actually does have free will! I mean, why shouldn’t it? What prevents it? There is just no reason is there??

    exactly. A moments reflection shows that a computer can not make a decision it can only execute it’s program.

    peace

  18. phoodoo: Can a dog coerce itself?

    No, but neither can we.

    There, I have just explained the entire biological robot conundrum to you in 19 letters. But you still won’t get it.

    If organisms were robots, your analogy would have a point. But they aren’t, so it doesn’t.

  19. How much does the pressure in my bike tires weigh? How about the information displayed by the tire gauge–how much does that weigh?

  20. keiths: Unless you can demonstrate causal incompleteness at the subpersonal level, with the gap being filled by downward causation from the personal level, then all of the operations of the human intellect are the product of physical interactions at the subpersonal level.

    Keiths, I believe that you and I share the ambition of only allowing into our metaphysics what science will allow us to say. But we disagree on what it is the science allows us to say with regard to how to turn the sciences into metaphysics.

    I accept that there is no room for “downward causation” in a truly scientific metaphysics. On that point we do not disagree. Where we disagree is that I do not think there is any room for “upward causation,” either.

    My reason for taking this position is that I think that we can only specify causes relative to a stance taken on salient but real patterns.

    When we take the neuroscientific stance, we are committing ourselves to taking certain patterns as being of neurological activity become salient and we can specify causal relations and interactions (typically nonlinear and reciprocal). Here is where we can specify causal relations as for example, “firing of the optic nerve causes the propagation of impulses in the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus.”

    When we take the intentional stance (I would prefer to say normative stance or discursive stance) we are committing ourselves to taking certain patterns as being of beliefs, desires, attitudes, feelings, assumptions, prejudices, self-expressions. Here is where we can specify causal relations as for example, “being nice to her caused him to get mad at you.”

    Since I think that all causal relations are specified relative to a stance taken on salient-but-real patterns, then for there to be “upward causation” or “downward causation” would require that we can take a stance on our stances.

    Only if we could take a stance on our stances could we then specify how the causal patterns specified by one stance are causally related to the causal patterns specified by another stance. And that is what both downward and upward causation would require.

    But I do not think we can take a stance on our stances — though we can adopt a stance more or less reflectively and mindfully — because a stance is an way of bodily inhabiting the world and comporting oneself towards salient real patterns. Taking a stance on a stance would require taking our way of being in the world as an object of the world. And that, in turn, looks very much like the ambition to see ourselves from a perspective that it is not possible for us to have — the God’s-eye view.

    And when a God’s-eye view is being invoked in order to integrate the sciences into a coherent metaphysics, one has actually left scientific metaphysics behind. Instead one ends up using science as a God-surrogate.

    In lieu of that, I think that what we should do is just allow each stance to have its own ontology, based on the salient and real patterns brought into view by adopting that stance, and not worry about whether we can integrate all the sciences into a single coherent metaphysics. I think that the disunity of sciences (a thesis famously promoted by Cartwright and by Dupre, but not only by them) imposes real constraints on what we can expect from the epistemology of scientific metaphysics.

    And I also think that if we allow metaphysics to swing free from epistemology, or succumb to the Myth of the Given in doing epistemology, then we’re not really doing scientific metaphysics any longer but mere theology (maybe one with physics as a God-surrogate).

  21. fifthmonarchyman: Again as far as I can tell the defining feature of your view is just that you exclude the existence of straw-man deities and demigods that no one believes in.

    If there is something more to it you need to articulate it

    I spent a lot of time yesterday articulating it with as much care and precision as I could bring to the task. If you have a real objection to my view, tell me what it is. But I’m not going to repeat myself just because you didn’t get it the first time.

  22. fifthmonarchyman: That’s fine then, You [KN] think animals have minds and I am agnostic about it but lean in the negative direction.

    And I think that humans don’t have minds. I take “mind” to be a metaphor. Humans are capable of thought, but we don’t need to invent an imaginary organ of thought.

    Once we are talking about minds we are in the realm of the immaterial.

    If minds don’t really exist, then indeed they are immaterial.

    Simply because there is no empirical test to determine that you are correct and I am wrong

    There really isn’t any right or wrong about it. KN and I (and many others) ascribe thinking to animals. But we do not have a precise enough characterization of “thinking” for there to be any right or wrong.

  26. phoodoo: One difference would be that we believe she had a choice, whereas your side doesn’t.

    That’s nothing but a confused interpretation of yours, phoodoo.

  27. walto: That’s nothing but a confused interpretation of yours, phoodoo.

    It is comforting to know there is a constant in an ever changing world

  28. Neil Rickert: And I think that humans don’t have minds.I take “mind” to be a metaphor.Humans are capable of thought, but we don’t need to invent an imaginary organ of thought.

    If minds don’t really exist, then indeed they are immaterial.

    There really isn’t any right or wrong about it.KN and I (and many others) ascribe thinking to animals.But we do not have a precise enough characterization of “thinking” for there to be any right or wrong.

    Interesting post. But what if we take intentionality to be the mark of the mental? Surely some animals will…cogitate…then, no? And, if so, it’d be wrong to deny it?

  29. walto:
    Robin,

    Pretty harsh, Robin. I take it you wouldn’t like your views to be considered tantamount to Stalin’s.

    Hey…if someone can point to a parallel, I say have at it. Actually, I’d be really fascinated by an argument showing where we match up and what such a comparison would imply about me. But then, I’m a curious fellow…

    The thing is, the situation in the article is not an isolated case. There are a slew of people every year harmed or killed in such “revelatory” ceremonies. FMM has stated in no uncertain terms that his revelations are genuine and perfectly known because a perfect god has the ability to put such perfect thoughts in him. These ladies thought the same thing, so I’m curious as to how one tells the difference.

  31. phoodoo: One difference would be that we believe she had a choice, whereas your side doesn’t.

    Funny enough, I don’t believe either of those ladies had a choice, but not because of materialism. I believe they didn’t have a choice because they really, fervently believed in the delusion of demons and the immaterial and just really didn’t…no…couldn’t…understand something simple like the material explanation for viruses and bacteria.

    But here’s the irony: if “you” (that is, devout theistic immaterialists) are right and there really is some immaterial omni-god thing that is the basis of all there is, then there can be no “choice” in any sense of that term. The minuscule-fraction-of-a-Planck- moment that any sort of omni-anything comes into existence, all that it can know it would know. All that it can do would be done. All that could ever transpire would transpire. All in that Planck-instant for it. There would be no “change of mind” for it; it would have no decision power or ability to do anything other than what transpired in the instant of the initial existence. And, as a product of its conceptual framework, all other “living creations” would simply exist as a cascade outcome of that framework. No organism could ever do anything other than what the initial framework laid out. In your “immaterial creator reality”, you are nothing more than an actor who has played a part in the filming of a movie and now, that movie is playing. You have no ability to do anything other than the script of your omni-cidal creator conceptualized. It can no more influence your current actions or outcomes than you can influence the performance in a movie or television show.

    That’s the logical outcome of any actual omni-god. And that’s why I know that no such entities can possibly exist. Thankfully.

  32. newton: It is comforting to know there is a constant in an ever changing world

    I also strive to take pleasure in the little things.

    BTW, I was hoping you might reply to my questions about your cancer obliteration test for theism.

  34. Robin: But here’s the irony: if “you” (that is, devout theistic immaterialists) are right and there really is some immaterial omni-god thing that is the basis of all there is, then there can be no “choice” in any sense of that term. The minuscule-fraction-of-a-Planck- moment that any sort of omni-anything comes into existence, all that it can know it would know. All that it can do would be done. All that could ever transpire would transpire. All in that Planck-instant for it. There would be no “change of mind” for it; it would have no decision power or ability to do anything other than what transpired in the instant of the initial existence. And, as a product of its conceptual framework, all other “living creations” would simply exist as a cascade outcome of that framework. No organism could ever do anything other than what the initial framework laid out. In your “immaterial creator reality”, you are nothing more than an actor who has played a part in the filming of a movie and now, that movie is playing. You have no ability to do anything other than the script of your omni-cidal creator conceptualized. It can no more influence your current actions or outcomes than you can influence the performance in a movie or television show.

    Holy Moly! You and Richard have this whole What If God Were One Of Us? thing entirely figured out!

  35. walto: Interesting post. But what if we take intentionality to be the mark of the mental? Surely some animals will…cogitate…then, no? And, if so, it’d be wrong to deny it?

    I’m skeptical of talk about “the mental”.

    I think it was petrushka, who said that thinking is something like an internal rehearsal of behavior (something like a simulation). And that seems about right. And yes, animals (mammals, at least) do that.

  36. keiths to Phoodoo: If you think that an immaterial soul is calling the shots, then explain how it works. How does the soul gather information? How does it make a decision? Having made a decision, how does it get the body to do its bidding? Details, please — or admit that you have no explanation.

    Thinking is a spiritual activity which actually consumes living matter. Our metabolism is constantly working to maintain our bodily form and activity. The process of thinking does not build up or maintain the body, it does quite the opposite.

    (On a side note, talk of brains in vats is pretty idiotic because there would also have to be very complex extra processes to do the job of metabolism in order to keep the brain functioning.)

    Thinking allows us to transcend time, to look into the past and the future to some degree. And through thinking we arrive at the concepts of cause and effect, material and immaterial, subject and object. To say that the material brain is the cause which produces the effect manifest as immaterial thoughts is to unjustifiably transfer what is applicable to classic physics into the biological world. We can look at Michelangelo’s David and discuss it in terms of causes preceding effects but that would just tell us about the details of the forces of hammer on chisel and chisel on rock. It would tell us nothing about the mind and thinking processes of Michelangelo in relation to the sculpture.

    In Saving the Appearances Owen Barfield wrote:

    It can do no harm to recall occasionally that the prehistoric evolution of the earth, as it is described for example in the early chapters of H.G. Wells’ ‘Outline of History’, was not merely never seen, it never occurred. Something no doubt occurred, and what is really being propounded by such popular writers, and, so far as I am aware, by the text-books on which they rely, is this That at the same time the unrepresented in such a way that, if human beings with the collective representations characteristic of the last few centuries of western civilization had been there, the things described would also have been there…

    When attention is expressly directed to the history of the unrepresented (as in calculations of the age of the earth based on radioactivity), it is invariably assumed that the behavior of the unrepresented has remained fundamentally unchanged. Moreover (and this is, to my mind, more important), for those hypothetical “human beings with collective representations characteristic of the last few centuries of western civilization” we might choose to substitute other human beings–those, for instance, who lived one or two or three thousand years ago. We should then have to write a different prehistory altogether.

    Modern physics shapes our thinking about the world today that gives us a view of reality that is more focused than early humans had, but overall is it more accurate? That is a matter of opinion. We are aware of entities that early humans were not, but on the other hand they were aware of entities that have been lost by us. And by “us” I mean those who see the world from the perspective of the modern western mind.

  37. Neil Rickert: I think it was petrushka, who said that thinking is something like an internal rehearsal of behavior (something like a simulation).

    What behavior am I simulating when I’m trying to remember the name of the actress from the movie Margaret?

  38. CharlieM: Thinking is a spiritual activity which actually consumes living matter. Our metabolism is constantly working to maintain our bodily form and activity. The process of thinking does not build up or maintain the body, it does quite the opposite…..

    Modern physics shapes our thinking about the world today that gives us a view of reality that is more focused than early humans had, but overall is it more accurate, that is a matter of opinion. We are aware of entities that early humans were not, but on the other hand they were aware of entities that have been lost by us.

    Everybody just seems to know SOOOO many things!

  39. Neil Rickert: I think it was petrushka, who said that thinking is something like an internal rehearsal of behavior (something like a simulation). And that seems about right. And yes, animals (mammals, at least) do that.

    Sounds like something I might say, but probably not as well.

    Animals, including people, definitely imagine actions before taking them, and imagine the consequences. It’s what brains do. It seems to me to be the primary advantage of complex brains.

    People talk about freedom and determinism, but I do not believe there is a coherent way to talk about this. I’ve never seen a discussion go anywhere.

  40. Robin,

    If it can be imagined (it can) that an omnipotent God could also allow total free will, then it can occur.

    Little does it matter that your imagination is so confined.

  41. walto: Everybody just seems to know SOOOO many things!

    True enough. In order to satisfy the whole person we crave food and drink for the body, air for the soul, and knowledge for the spirit. 🙂

  42. phoodoo: If it can be imagined (it can) that an omnipotent God could also allow total free will, then it can occur.

    So human imagination is the test of the possible? Hunh.

  45. phoodoo: Little does it matter that your imagination is so confined.

    You’ve not really thought “omnipotent god” through, have you?

  48. Richardthughes: You’ve not really thought “omnipotent god” through, have you?

    I believe that you think you have.

    Actually it doesn’t mean a God that can’t have sex, Richard.

Leave a Reply