Free Will

[RCSaunders]

The bat itself is a set of events that are continually occurring.

That is certainly true. It's called heat. I'm afraid I've missed some point you are making.

[henry quirk]

Thanks for that Henry. PS your order and chaos illustration is excellent.

Don't know if Roger will find it helpful, but since no one was steppin' up, I figured I would.

Yeah, I like that image too. Order is natural.

[Belinda]

The bat itself is a set of events that are continually occurring.

That is certainly true. It's called heat. I'm afraid I've missed some point you are making.

The point I take from Terrapin Station, and I understand what TS means, is an entity is really an event. What we commonly call entities take place, then after a time they stop happening. I suppose the only entity that is not an event is God, or nature.

[Terrapin Station]

The bat itself is a set of events that are continually occurring.

That is certainly true. It's called heat. I'm afraid I've missed some point you are making.

You had said, "the brain itself is not an, 'event,' it is an entity."

I was pointing out that entities, with the possible exception of elementary particles, ARE events--they're happenings. They consist of parts that are in dynamic relations--parts that are in motion. Without those motions, the entities in question wouldn't exist as they do, with anything like the properties they have, etc.

[RCSaunders]

The point I take from Terrapin Station, and I understand what TS means, is an entity is really an event. What we commonly call entities take place, then after a time they stop happening. I suppose the only entity that is not an event is God, or nature.

You had said, "the brain itself is not an, 'event,' it is an entity."

I was pointing out that entities, with the possible exception of elementary particles, ARE events ...

I think what you are both misunderstand is that an entity certainly includes action, that is, aspects that are changing (like the motion of the molecules which is called heat) but what makes an entity an entity is not what is changing (all the events occurring in the brain for example) but what remains the same, i.e. those attributes that identify the entity as the entity it is. All sorts of events continuously occur in the brain, physical, electrical, and chemical, but they are not the brain; they are what the brain does. Without the enitity called the brain, there would be no, "brain activity," at all, and a brain that has been removed from a body is still a, "brain," even when it has ceased to function.

An entity cannot be only an event. For there to be an event something must change or move, which means there must be a, "something." To say an entity is only an event implies there can be change or movement without anything that changes or moves. The something that moves or changes must actually be something with some real attributes, that is, an entity. Sans entities there is nothing to change or move.

There is always something that stays the same about any entity. Whether a ball bearing or a planet, no matter how much behavior occurs in those entities their mass does not change. In a ball bearing the chemical substance it is made from does no change so long as it is a ball bearing, even if it is deformed and changes temperature, and of course its mass does not change.

[Belinda]

The point I take from Terrapin Station, and I understand what TS means, is an entity is really an event. What we commonly call entities take place, then after a time they stop happening. I suppose the only entity that is not an event is God, or nature.

You had said, "the brain itself is not an, 'event,' it is an entity."

I was pointing out that entities, with the possible exception of elementary particles, ARE events ...

I think what you are both misunderstand is that an entity certainly includes action, that is, aspects that are changing (like the motion of the molecules which is called heat) but what makes an entity an entity is not what is changing (all the events occurring in the brain for example) but what remains the same, i.e. those attributes that identify the entity as the entity it is. All sorts of events continuously occur in the brain, physical, electrical, and chemical, but they are not the brain; they are what the brain does. Without the enitity called the brain, there would be no, "brain activity," at all, and a brain that has been removed from a body is still a, "brain," even when it has ceased to function.

An entity cannot be only an event. For there to be an event something must change or move, which means there must be a, "something." To say an entity is only an event implies there can be change or movement without anything that changes or moves. The something that moves or changes must actually be something with some real attributes, that is, an entity. Sans entities there is nothing to change or move.

There is always something that stays the same about any entity. Whether a ball bearing or a planet, no matter how much behavior occurs in those entities their mass does not change. In a ball bearing the chemical substance it is made from does no change so long as it is a ball bearing, even if it is deformed and changes temperature, and of course its mass does not change.

Nobody has ever identified an unchangeable mental or physical "something" which is the essence of an entity. Tooth enamel?

Sans entities there is nothing to change or move.

(RCS)

The essence of temporal existence is change. That means , excepting existence itself, no thing is a thing that changes but every apparent 'thing ' is an aspect of change which seems to have some superficial stability for a while.

Shakespeare :

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself—
Yea, all which it inherit—shall dissolve,
145And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vexed.

[Terrapin Station]

I think what you are both misunderstand is that an entity certainly includes action, that is, aspects that are changing (like the motion of the molecules which is called heat) but what makes an entity an entity is not what is changing (all the events occurring in the brain for example) but what remains the same, i.e. those attributes that identify the entity as the entity it is. All sorts of events continuously occur in the brain, physical, electrical, and chemical, but they are not the brain; they are what the brain does. Without the enitity called the brain, there would be no, "brain activity," at all, and a brain that has been removed from a body is still a, "brain," even when it has ceased to function.

An entity cannot be only an event. For there to be an event something must change or move, which means there must be a, "something." To say an entity is only an event implies there can be change or movement without anything that changes or moves. The something that moves or changes must actually be something with some real attributes, that is, an entity. Sans entities there is nothing to change or move.

There is always something that stays the same about any entity. Whether a ball bearing or a planet, no matter how much behavior occurs in those entities their mass does not change. In a ball bearing the chemical substance it is made from does no change so long as it is a ball bearing, even if it is deformed and changes temperature, and of course its mass does not change.

On my view, "the entity called the brain," as something that's identical through time, is an abstraction.

I don't buy identity through time, a fortiori because what time is in the first place is change, including motion. Further, properties obtain due to dynamic relations of matter. Without the particular matter in question, without the relations in question, and without the processes/particular motions in question, the object in question would have different properties. Brains wouldn't be brains (that is, they wouldn't have anything like the properties we know them to have) without specific sorts of relations and processes. So what makes an entity the entity it is is the matter, relations and processes/motions in question.

Through time, entities do NOT remain the same. They change. Change is what time is, after all. The notion that "That's the same brain," where we're literal about it being identical, is merely a conceptual abstraction. It's a way of thinking about the item in question (a way of thinking that itself isn't identical through time).

Entities ARE very literally what they do (and what they're made of in terms of matter, and the (dynamic) relations that their parts instantiate). All "three" things are necessary for whatever properties obtain. (As is spatiotemporal situatedness, by the way, which amounts to another set of relations.)


If you have the matter that comprises a brain, but in different relations, and where somehow the matter is motionless/at absolute zero (assuming it could still exist in that state), you'd have nothing at all like a brain. If you have the matter that comprises a brain, with the appropriate structural relations, but where somehow you could "freeze it in time," you'd again have nothing like a brain. You need the matter, the relations, and the motions/processes for it to have properties anything like a brain. Those "three" aspects of things are inseparable--again, possibly unless we're talking about elementary particles. So entities are not the entities that we think of them as if they're not doing particular things--processes that are necessary to make them anything like that entity in the first place.

[henry quirk]

I don't buy identity through time

And even so, we persist, have continuity, consistency from moment to moment.

The TS reading this post is the same TS who wrote the post preceding this one, a few minutes ago, and is the same TS who posted in this thread yesterday, yes?

[RCSaunders]

The essence of temporal existence is change.

There is only existence which includes motion and time as a metric that identifies the differences in motion, i.e. direction and distance. There is no such thing as, "temporal," existence. The essence of existence is attributes. Nothing exists without attributes, the qualities, characteristics, or properties which are the things that exist. Motion, and it's measurements, velocity and time, are just one of the attributes of existents.

You are imagining some mystic notion of motion without anything that moves. It's a floating abstraction, as though you could have redness without anything that is red.

[RCSaunders]

On my view, "the entity called the brain," as something that's identical through time, is an abstraction.

The brain is certainly not an abstraction. [Either is a concept.] As a concept, brain identifies that which has the attributes of a brain, which will of course include that characteristics that are changing so long as the brain is alive. But it is an actual thing with those attributes. It is not some mystic collection of events.

I don't buy identity through time, a fortiori because what time is in the first place is change ...

Time is not anything but a means of measuring the relationship between motions. The measurements of the relationships between things that move, i.e. change of position, are velocity and time. Time is no more a, "thing," than velocity is. And just as a way of illustrating the nature of time as a measurement, if there are not at least three things, and at least one that is moving in relationship to the others, there is no time.

The belief that there can be change without there being anything that changes is just mystic nonsense. If there is change, there is something that changes. and that, "something," is what I mean by an entity. As I said to Belinda, if there can just be change without anything that changes that is tantamount to saying there can be "redness," without anything that is red.

[Terrapin Station]

On my view, "the entity called the brain," as something that's identical through time, is an abstraction.

The brain is certainly not an abstraction.

What happened to the "as something that's identical through time" part?

[jayjacobus]

You wrote:

Actually as far as we can tell, every entity, possibly excluding elementary particles if there are such things, are events or processes.

If events are what "parts" do relative to each other those parts cannot be events.

Again, the possible exception is elementary particles (if there are such things). Otherwise, as far as we can tell, every other entity is comprised of multiple parts that are in dynamic relations.

There must be something with some attributes that do something else there is no process of event, even if it is only the behavior of the entities themselves.

I'm not sure I understand the above, but I'm simply saying that "objects," "entities," etc., with the possible exception of elementary particles (assuming there are some), are comprised of parts that are in motion with respect to the other parts. This includes brains. "Event" is a term for "happenings," for things in motion, for processes that are occurring, etc.

We say, for example, that a baseball bat strikes a ball--that's a thing doing something, but I'm pointing out that the baseball bat is lots of things doing something in the first place--it's lots of parts, down to molecules, atoms, etc that are in motion with respect to each other, and that's the only thing that makes it a baseball bat in the first place. The bat itself is a set of events that are continually occurring.

It is true that a bat is a lot of things but once it has become a bat, then for all practical purpose its a bat.

[jayjacobus]

As sit in front of my computer, my minds sometimes wanders. Determinists might say, "No, it doesn't. The computer will not allow that."

[Terrapin Station]

You wrote:

If events are what "parts" do relative to each other those parts cannot be events.

Again, the possible exception is elementary particles (if there are such things). Otherwise, as far as we can tell, every other entity is comprised of multiple parts that are in dynamic relations.

There must be something with some attributes that do something else there is no process of event, even if it is only the behavior of the entities themselves.

I'm not sure I understand the above, but I'm simply saying that "objects," "entities," etc., with the possible exception of elementary particles (assuming there are some), are comprised of parts that are in motion with respect to the other parts. This includes brains. "Event" is a term for "happenings," for things in motion, for processes that are occurring, etc.

We say, for example, that a baseball bat strikes a ball--that's a thing doing something, but I'm pointing out that the baseball bat is lots of things doing something in the first place--it's lots of parts, down to molecules, atoms, etc that are in motion with respect to each other, and that's the only thing that makes it a baseball bat in the first place. The bat itself is a set of events that are continually occurring.

It is true that a bat is a lot of things but once it has become a bat, then for all practical purpose its a bat.

Right. I'm not saying anything like "it's not a bat." I'm saying that things like bats are events/processes as much as they're anything else (such as specific sorts of matter or relations). They're not static things.

[RCSaunders]

On my view, "the entity called the brain," as something that's identical through time, is an abstraction.

The brain is certainly not an abstraction.

What happened to the "as something that's identical through time" part?

An entity's mass does not change and is not an, "event." Do you regard mass as an abstraction or an actual attribute of entities?