Free will, freedom from what?

[Self-Lightening]

"Paper" is not "argument." "Paper" is composed of wood. An argument is composed of meaning,

I see... Carry on! :roll:

Well, meaning is a mental phenomenon. One cannot say, "What is the meaning of this boulder," or "What is the meaning of snow?" One certainly cannot say, "What is the meaning of wood (or of paper)?" Even the black squiggles on the paper aren't meaning -- a person who does not know the language will see the same shapes and letters as somebody who can read them, but not understand any meaning from them.

Then how do you know natural phenomena, as distinct from man-made phenomena, have no meaning? Perhaps a god made them! I'd agree that's most probably not the case, though.

So far meaning in the sense of intention simply. But blank paper, though made intentionally—i.e., with the feeling of intentionality—, is not usually intended to convey something. Enter printed paper. What's the print meant to convey? A mental phenomenon, yes. But a mental phenomenon is simply how a certain physical phenomenon experiences itself. The print is meant to cause a physical phenomenon: a certain brain state or a part of such a state.

So the meaning of something is a mental phenomenon. And physical laws do not account for what meaning is contained on a piece of paper, or in the head of the percipient. All the physical processes add up to no meaning, unless a mind processes them AS meaningful.

Thus, some sort of dualism is inevitable. Strict Materialism or Physicalism, which natural laws can describe, cannot account for the existence of meaning at all. The meaning is real, and it is present: but it's not subject to some sort of physical law.

The "hard problem of consciousness" exists, that much is true. But it's solved by regarding the mental as a necessary accompaniment of the physical. All "matter", then, has mind, although not all "objects" we construe are subjects: a collection of subjects, after all, is not itself a subject. Cf. Integrated Information Theory.

[henry quirk]

сan you disobey the law of gravity?

Fly the...

F5812203-0B37-49D7-9CF8-4B456CA5EB16.gif

..and show gravity who's boss!

[attofishpi]

If you think you can just google until tomorrow what this QM thing is, and then lecture me about it, you might be in for a surprise.

I actually just did a bit of research on what I have been posting for many years on this forum – there was actually a conversation between us on QM (we got along better back then, when you didn’t write me off because I claim to know God exists and have mentioned some “”miracles”” since)

The more recent QM-indeterminacy theory I have regarding Free-Will stems from the Boony’s Room thought experiment I posted on an earlier page…

BOONY'S ROOM: A thought experiment to consider Determinism and Free Will/Compatibilism..

Two identical copies of cricketer David Boon were made unbeknownst to him, in an instant!

The two copies of "Boony", instantly appear facing each other from opposite corners of a white room that is 3 metres cubed, identical in all directions.

There are no causal effects differing in each of the Boony's slightly differing positions in spacetime. Nothing in this thought experiment regarding each version of David Boon once instantiated within the room is different in any way.


What happens next?


Do they both, at the same time, ask the exact same question of each other? Do they end up arguing because they both keep attempting to interject at precisely the same time with precisely the same dialogue?

After five minutes, the pair hear a voice asking them to draw a picture of their favourite fruit on the wall and are told there is a pencil in their left pocket.

Do they both turn and draw on the same symmetrically opposite part of the wall? Do they both draw identical images of the fruit?

Go ahead, explain how quantum-indeterminacy has NO role to play to support conscious minds having free will.

Because by itself it's just predictably random, and free will can't be based on randomness.

So regarding the two David Boon’s in the above thought experiment, they will always remain mirrored?

The brain has more logical gateways than atoms in the universe (apparently) where a consciousness (mind) exists at the level of quantum indeterminacy that can guide (affect) the material brain with decisions it makes. I can't imagine that an individual conscious mind could not think of something different to the other mind, simply because both were instantiated some 5 mins earlier.

If our free will will does rely on something that is random at the quantum level, then our 'will' must reduce the parameters of the randomness until they whittle down to a point where the mind makes a decision.

[Immanuel Can]

I see... Carry on!

Well, meaning is a mental phenomenon. One cannot say, "What is the meaning of this boulder," or "What is the meaning of snow?" One certainly cannot say, "What is the meaning of wood (or of paper)?" Even the black squiggles on the paper aren't meaning -- a person who does not know the language will see the same shapes and letters as somebody who can read them, but not understand any meaning from them.

Then how do you know natural phenomena, as distinct from man-made phenomena, have no meaning? Perhaps a god made them! I'd agree that's most probably not the case, though.

Well, if no God made anything, then nothing objectively has a meaning at all, of course. The most we could say is that people like to imagine there is meaning where there cannot possibly be any objective reality to that impression at all.

But I mean to point to the phenomenon of belief-in-meaning itself: how does a godless universe suddently "decide" to start making some set of its creatures (humans, that is) start believing that meaning exists where none objectively exists at all? That needs explaining.

...a mental phenomenon is simply how a certain physical phenomenon experiences itself.

Think carefully about what you are saying here. You've got the phrase "a physical phenomenon experiences itself." Of what entity, other than man, could you even write such a phrase? Can a rock "experience itself"? Or can a rabbit know what "itself" means? Surely not. Rocks and rabbits are notoriously devoid of philosophical reflection, most particulary the ability to conceptualize themselves as objects of their own philosophy.

So why can humans do this "meaning" thing, and nothing else can? Rocks and rabbits undergo the full range of physical phenomena. But as to questions of meaning, neither has any such thing at all. What you're really doing, when you use the phrase "a physical phenomenon experience itself" is assuming the special existence of a thing called mind (or "experience of itself") in order to argue-away the very existence of that mind.

It doesn't work. In that, in this moment, you're like a man who's sitting on a branch and sawing it off between the tree and himself: if he succeeds, he fails.

The "hard problem of consciousness" exists, that much is true.

Yes, it most certainly exists. But eliminativists (which is the name for the view you're currently espousing here) have to deny that it does. Because the hope that...

...it's solved by regarding the mental as a necessary accompaniment of the physical.

...isn't true, and no serious philosopher of mind today thinks it is. That's why "the hard problem" is still real.

So either you ought, in logical consistency, to simply avoid the hard problem entirely, or you should come up with a much better answer for it; what you can't logically do is both affirm it and use the eliminativist strategy of just saying, "it's all physical." If it's a real problem, you're going to end up admitting there's more than the physical in play.

May I recommend Jaegwon Kim on this subject? Or, as I suggested earlier, how about a couple of chapters of Thomas Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos"?

All "matter", then, has mind,...

Now you've gone with a different solution. This is a kind of mystical or Pantheist view, in which it's the physical that gets eliminated into the mind, rather than the mind into the physical world, as with Eliminative Materialism. I don't think you are going to want to do that, though; it would deny the real existence of the physical world, which would then make nonsense of your earlier claims that the physical world or natural laws actually explain anything. They can't, if they don't exist.

Besides, the proposition that rocks have "mind" is a pretty big strain on common sense, don't you think?

[Atla]

If you think you can just google until tomorrow what this QM thing is, and then lecture me about it, you might be in for a surprise.

I actually just did a bit of research on what I have been posting for many years on this forum – there was actually a conversation between us on QM (we got along better back then, when you didn’t write me off because I claim to know God exists and have mentioned some “”miracles”” since)

The more recent QM-indeterminacy theory I have regarding Free-Will stems from the Boony’s Room thought experiment I posted on an earlier page…

BOONY'S ROOM: A thought experiment to consider Determinism and Free Will/Compatibilism..

Two identical copies of cricketer David Boon were made unbeknownst to him, in an instant!

The two copies of "Boony", instantly appear facing each other from opposite corners of a white room that is 3 metres cubed, identical in all directions.

There are no causal effects differing in each of the Boony's slightly differing positions in spacetime. Nothing in this thought experiment regarding each version of David Boon once instantiated within the room is different in any way.


What happens next?


Do they both, at the same time, ask the exact same question of each other? Do they end up arguing because they both keep attempting to interject at precisely the same time with precisely the same dialogue?

After five minutes, the pair hear a voice asking them to draw a picture of their favourite fruit on the wall and are told there is a pencil in their left pocket.

Do they both turn and draw on the same symmetrically opposite part of the wall? Do they both draw identical images of the fruit?

Go ahead, explain how quantum-indeterminacy has NO role to play to support conscious minds having free will.

Because by itself it's just predictably random, and free will can't be based on randomness.

So regarding the two David Boon’s in the above thought experiment, they will always remain mirrored?

The brain has more logical gateways than atoms in the universe (apparently) where a consciousness (mind) exists at the level of quantum indeterminacy that can guide (affect) the material brain with decisions it makes. I can't imagine that an individual conscious mind could not think of something different to the other mind, simply because both were instantiated some 5 mins earlier.

If our free will will does rely on something that is random at the quantum level, then our 'will' must reduce the parameters of the randomness until they whittle down to a point where the mind makes a decision.

You can't just add two people to the universe, it violates every known physical law.

"The brain has more logical gateways than atoms in the universe"
???

"If our free will will does rely on something that is random at the quantum level"
Free will can't be based on randomness. What you seem to be saying is that we already could have a free will that can exploit the quantum randomness. But it could only do so using other features of QM.

[Self-Lightening]

Well, meaning is a mental phenomenon. One cannot say, "What is the meaning of this boulder," or "What is the meaning of snow?" One certainly cannot say, "What is the meaning of wood (or of paper)?" Even the black squiggles on the paper aren't meaning -- a person who does not know the language will see the same shapes and letters as somebody who can read them, but not understand any meaning from them.

Then how do you know natural phenomena, as distinct from man-made phenomena, have no meaning? Perhaps a god made them! I'd agree that's most probably not the case, though.

Well, if no God made anything, then nothing objectively has a meaning at all, of course. The most we could say is that people like to imagine there is meaning where there cannot possibly be any objective reality to that impression at all.

In the sense that man was not made intentionally and therefore nothing man makes ultimately has any meaning, either, yes.

But I mean to point to the phenomenon of belief-in-meaning itself: how does a godless universe suddently "decide" to start making some set of its creatures (humans, that is) start believing that meaning exists where none objectively exists at all? That needs explaining.

Not really. You're asking what it means that belief in meaning exists, which is circular reasoning. "What was intended by the fact that unintended creations experience intentionality?"... "What was intended to be conveyed by the fact that creations which were not intended to convey anything create things they experience as intended to convey something?"...

...a mental phenomenon is simply how a certain physical phenomenon experiences itself.

Think carefully about what you are saying here. You've got the phrase "a physical phenomenon experiences itself." Of what entity, other than man, could you even write such a phrase? Can a rock "experience itself"? Or can a rabbit know what "itself" means? Surely not.

I have thought carefully about it, and certainly would never be so thoughtless as to preclude rabbits from existing to themselves. And as for rocks, those are examples of what I said after that: 'not all "objects" we construe are subjects: a collection of subjects, after all, is not itself a subject.'

Rocks and rabbits are notoriously devoid of philosophical reflection, most particulary the ability to conceptualize themselves as objects of their own philosophy.

To experience oneself is not the same as being capable of philosophical reflection... A straw rock, or even a straw rabbit, is not a straw man.

All "matter", then, has mind,...

Now you've gone with a different solution.

It's not different at all. It's just a different way of saying the same thing.

Besides, the proposition that rocks have "mind" is a pretty big strain on common sense, don't you think?

"Common sense"!

Mind is simply what it's like to be "matter".

[Immanuel Can]

Then how do you know natural phenomena, as distinct from man-made phenomena, have no meaning? Perhaps a god made them! I'd agree that's most probably not the case, though.

Well, if no God made anything, then nothing objectively has a meaning at all, of course. The most we could say is that people like to imagine there is meaning where there cannot possibly be any objective reality to that impression at all.

In the sense that man was not made intentionally and therefore nothing man makes ultimately has any meaning, either, yes.

That's the point: how does it come about that the purely physical world "throws up" creatures like us, who imagine "meanings," when, according to Materialism or Physicalism, no such thing can exist in reality?

But I mean to point to the phenomenon of belief-in-meaning itself: how does a godless universe suddently "decide" to start making some set of its creatures (humans, that is) start believing that meaning exists where none objectively exists at all? That needs explaining.

Not really.

Yes, really. It's unbelievably odd.

You're asking what it means that belief in meaning exists...

No. I'm asking how it could ever come about in the first place. The Eliminative Materialist owes us some explanation of that, surely. If he has none, then it makes his explanation awfully thin.

But maybe that's inevitable, because Eliminativism is pretty thin anyway.

I have thought carefully about it, and certainly would never be so thoughtless as to preclude rabbits from existing to themselves.

What's your evidence for rabbit self-awareness?

All "matter", then, has mind,...

Now you've gone with a different solution.

It's not different at all. It's just a different way of saying the same thing.

Well, it sounds like a form of mysticism, Pantheism, or at least Idealism of some sort. Because if "all matter" has "mind," then rocks have mind.

What's your evidence for the intellectual dexterity of rocks?

[Self-Lightening]

Well, if no God made anything, then nothing objectively has a meaning at all, of course. The most we could say is that people like to imagine there is meaning where there cannot possibly be any objective reality to that impression at all.

In the sense that man was not made intentionally and therefore nothing man makes ultimately has any meaning, either, yes.

That's the point: how does it come about that the purely physical world "throws up" creatures like us, who imagine "meanings," when, according to Materialism or Physicalism, no such thing can exist in reality?

Well, I suppose I'm just not a Materialist or Physicalist in that sense, then.

But I mean to point to the phenomenon of belief-in-meaning itself: how does a godless universe suddently "decide" to start making some set of its creatures (humans, that is) start believing that meaning exists where none objectively exists at all? That needs explaining.

Not really.

Yes, really. It's unbelievably odd.

You're asking what it means that belief in meaning exists...

No. I'm asking how it could ever come about in the first place.

I admit, you did say "how", not "why". But then, I don't owe anyone an explanation of that, since I reject your very premise: that at some point it didn't exist and at some later point it did exist. Intentionality is of the essence of consciousness.

I have thought carefully about it, and certainly would never be so thoughtless as to preclude rabbits from existing to themselves.

What's your evidence for rabbit self-awareness?

Again with the straw men... That really seems to be your spiel.

"In philosophy of self, self-awareness is the experience of one's own personality or individuality. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is being aware of one's body and environment, self-awareness is the recognition of that consciousness."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness

I was talking about consciousness in the sense of qualia. Thus I said "existing to themselves", not "existing to themselves as existing to themselves". The latter is a special case of existing to oneself as something, which rabbits (self-)evidently do.

Now you've gone with a different solution.

It's not different at all. It's just a different way of saying the same thing.

Well, it sounds like a form of mysticism, Pantheism, or at least Idealism of some sort. Because if "all matter" has "mind," then rocks have mind.

Not necessarily; not as rocks. What I'm saying is that all parts of the rock, at some level, have mind.

What's your evidence for the intellectual dexterity of rocks?

It's an extrapolation, sure. You may want to read my comments in another thread, starting from this post:

https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?p=729439#p729439

[Immanuel Can]

You're asking what it means that belief in meaning exists...

No. I'm asking how it could ever come about in the first place.

I admit, you did say "how", not "why". But then, I don't owe anyone an explanation of that, since I reject your very premise: that at some point it didn't exist and at some later point it did exist.

Well, the Physicalist or Materialist explanation of the universe is that it appeared spontaneously. And matter was generated spontaneously, from energy. And we know that the universe did have a beginning point, even though we can't say precisely when. (We know this from things like universal expansion, entropy, and the red shift effect.) So we know that at some point, the universe didn't exist, and now it does.

And in the Materialist or Physicalist telling of the story, all that existed before the Big Bang was a bunch of gasses and energy...things like quark-gluon plasma and such. None of these chemicals or basic elements had "mind," anymore than a handful of iron or a puff of oxygen would today.

So how did this "mind" thing begin? If Materialism or Physicalism presents itself as the superior way to explain the universe, it owes us that explanation.

I have thought carefully about it, and certainly would never be so thoughtless as to preclude rabbits from existing to themselves.

What's your evidence for rabbit self-awareness?

Again with the straw men...

Well, you hedged your bets by saying that you simply wouldn't preclude it as a possibility, but that's awfully weak, and shifts the burden of proof to the wrong person. Surely it's the one who thinks rabbits can generate meaning who owes us to justify such a counter-evidentiary proposition. In the absence of such evidence, we have no reason at all to go about supposing rabbits can do anything of the kind. Rabbits have, in their aeons of existence, not produced a single artifact, or composed a single argument, or issued a single reflection for public consideration on the meaning of anything. So you are supposing in them a faculty they have never manifested. On the converse side, I'm not supposing anything of them at all that we cannot readily see.

If you haven't precluded the possibility of rabbit philosophy, you surely should until at least one stitch of supportive evidence comes in.

It's not different at all. It's just a different way of saying the same thing.

Well, it sounds like a form of mysticism, Pantheism, or at least Idealism of some sort. Because if "all matter" has "mind," then rocks have mind.

Not necessarily; not as rocks. What I'm saying is that all parts of the rock, at some level, have mind.

That seems even less likely. A rock can, at least, be a bit complex by way of having several different minerals in it: but its more basic minerals, it's "parts," like copper, or iron, or gold...these things surely cannot have mind, can they?

If you think they can, I'll consider your evidence.

[Self-Lightening]

No. I'm asking how it could ever come about in the first place.

I admit, you did say "how", not "why". But then, I don't owe anyone an explanation of that, since I reject your very premise: that at some point it didn't exist and at some later point it did exist.

Well, the Physicalist or Materialist explanation of the universe is that it appeared spontaneously. And matter was generated spontaneously, from energy. And we know that the universe did have a beginning point, even though we can't say precisely when. (We know this from things like universal expansion, entropy, and the red shift effect.) So we know that at some point, the universe didn't exist, and now it does.

That doesn't necessarily follow. We know the universe has always been expanding, but that doesn't mean it ever began to expand.

"Matter" is energy, by the way—more precisely, particles are collapsed wave functions—, which is why I put it in quotes.

And in the Materialist or Physicalist telling of the story, all that existed before the Big Bang was a bunch of gasses and energy...things like quark-gluon plasma and such. None of these chemicals or basic elements had "mind," anymore than a handful of iron or a puff of oxygen would today.

All those things may very well have mind.

So how did this "mind" thing begin? If Materialism or Physicalism presents itself as the superior way to explain the universe, it owes us that explanation.

I'm saying it never began. If this makes me something else than a Materialist or Physicalist (in your sense), so be it.

What's your evidence for rabbit self-awareness?

Again with the straw men...

Well, you hedged your bets by saying that you simply wouldn't preclude it as a possibility,

Wrong; I was talking about you there, saying I wouldn't ever do what you did there.

but that's awfully weak, and shifts the burden of proof to the wrong person. Surely it's the one who thinks rabbits can generate meaning who owes us to justify such a counter-evidentiary proposition. In the absence of such evidence, we have no reason at all to go about supposing rabbits can do anything of the kind. Rabbits have, in their aeons of existence, not produced a single artifact, or composed a single argument, or issued a single reflection for public consideration on the meaning of anything. So you are supposing in them a faculty they have never manifested. On the converse side, I'm not supposing anything of them at all that we cannot readily see.

If you haven't precluded the possibility of rabbit philosophy, you surely should until at least one stitch of supportive evidence comes in.

Bla bla bla straw men bla bla bla.

Well, it sounds like a form of mysticism, Pantheism, or at least Idealism of some sort. Because if "all matter" has "mind," then rocks have mind.

Not necessarily; not as rocks. What I'm saying is that all parts of the rock, at some level, have mind.

That seems even less likely. A rock can, at least, be a bit complex by way of having several different minerals in it: but its more basic minerals, it's "parts," like copper, or iron, or gold...these things surely cannot have mind, can they?

If you think they can, I'll consider your evidence.

As I said, it's an extrapolation. Good luck with that thread.

[attofishpi]

If you think you can just google until tomorrow what this QM thing is, and then lecture me about it, you might be in for a surprise.

I actually just did a bit of research on what I have been posting for many years on this forum – there was actually a conversation between us on QM (we got along better back then, when you didn’t write me off because I claim to know God exists and have mentioned some “”miracles”” since)

The more recent QM-indeterminacy theory I have regarding Free-Will stems from the Boony’s Room thought experiment I posted on an earlier page…

BOONY'S ROOM: A thought experiment to consider Determinism and Free Will/Compatibilism..

Two identical copies of cricketer David Boon were made unbeknownst to him, in an instant!

The two copies of "Boony", instantly appear facing each other from opposite corners of a white room that is 3 metres cubed, identical in all directions.

There are no causal effects differing in each of the Boony's slightly differing positions in spacetime. Nothing in this thought experiment regarding each version of David Boon once instantiated within the room is different in any way.


What happens next?


Do they both, at the same time, ask the exact same question of each other? Do they end up arguing because they both keep attempting to interject at precisely the same time with precisely the same dialogue?

After five minutes, the pair hear a voice asking them to draw a picture of their favourite fruit on the wall and are told there is a pencil in their left pocket.

Do they both turn and draw on the same symmetrically opposite part of the wall? Do they both draw identical images of the fruit?

Because by itself it's just predictably random, and free will can't be based on randomness.

So regarding the two David Boon’s in the above thought experiment, they will always remain mirrored?

The brain has more logical gateways than atoms in the universe (apparently) where a consciousness (mind) exists at the level of quantum indeterminacy that can guide (affect) the material brain with decisions it makes. I can't imagine that an individual conscious mind could not think of something different to the other mind, simply because both were instantiated some 5 mins earlier.

If our free will will does rely on something that is random at the quantum level, then our 'will' must reduce the parameters of the randomness until they whittle down to a point where the mind makes a decision.

You can't just add two people to the universe, it violates every known physical law.

We are not violating anything beyond what we can achieve via manipulation of matter. Currently, we cannot manipulate matter to achieve this hypothetical thought experiment.

Are we not simply an ongoing chemical reaction of specifically arranged atoms?

Thus, David Boon & David Boon are atomically arranged identical to each other (the atoms required weren't created out of nowhere they already existed.) for pedants sake of a 'hypothetical'.

So.

Do the two David Boons remain "mirrored" or does the ONLY difference between each instance of them - the fact that they are individual minds - cause their actions to DIVERGE?

[Immanuel Can]

I admit, you did say "how", not "why". But then, I don't owe anyone an explanation of that, since I reject your very premise: that at some point it didn't exist and at some later point it did exist.

Well, the Physicalist or Materialist explanation of the universe is that it appeared spontaneously. And matter was generated spontaneously, from energy. And we know that the universe did have a beginning point, even though we can't say precisely when. (We know this from things like universal expansion, entropy, and the red shift effect.) So we know that at some point, the universe didn't exist, and now it does.

That doesn't necessarily follow. We know the universe has always been expanding, but that doesn't mean it ever began to expand.

You'll need to rethink that. If the universe is expanding, even if we didn't know the rate (which we do: it's 73.3 ±2.5 kilometers per second) we would know from that fact that it had a beginning. All we would have to do is mentally "rewind" the expansion, and we'd see that the universe had to have begun from a singular point of ultimate density (this is called "the Big Bang"). And even if we couldn't tell how long ago that was, we certainly could tell THAT it was.

And in the Materialist or Physicalist telling of the story, all that existed before the Big Bang was a bunch of gasses and energy...things like quark-gluon plasma and such. None of these chemicals or basic elements had "mind," anymore than a handful of iron or a puff of oxygen would today.

All those things may very well have mind.

I find that suggestion excessively implausible. A base element has never given even the slightest indication of consciousness, in the entire known history of the world. On what basis, then, would you attribute sentience to rocks or minerals? Only by pure imagination, but not on the basis of any facts, obviously.

So how did this "mind" thing begin? If Materialism or Physicalism presents itself as the superior way to explain the universe, it owes us that explanation.

I'm saying it never began.

And yet, scientifically, we know it did.

[Atla]

I actually just did a bit of research on what I have been posting for many years on this forum – there was actually a conversation between us on QM (we got along better back then, when you didn’t write me off because I claim to know God exists and have mentioned some “”miracles”” since)

The more recent QM-indeterminacy theory I have regarding Free-Will stems from the Boony’s Room thought experiment I posted on an earlier page…

BOONY'S ROOM: A thought experiment to consider Determinism and Free Will/Compatibilism..

Two identical copies of cricketer David Boon were made unbeknownst to him, in an instant!

The two copies of "Boony", instantly appear facing each other from opposite corners of a white room that is 3 metres cubed, identical in all directions.

There are no causal effects differing in each of the Boony's slightly differing positions in spacetime. Nothing in this thought experiment regarding each version of David Boon once instantiated within the room is different in any way.


What happens next?


Do they both, at the same time, ask the exact same question of each other? Do they end up arguing because they both keep attempting to interject at precisely the same time with precisely the same dialogue?

After five minutes, the pair hear a voice asking them to draw a picture of their favourite fruit on the wall and are told there is a pencil in their left pocket.

Do they both turn and draw on the same symmetrically opposite part of the wall? Do they both draw identical images of the fruit?






So regarding the two David Boon’s in the above thought experiment, they will always remain mirrored?

The brain has more logical gateways than atoms in the universe (apparently) where a consciousness (mind) exists at the level of quantum indeterminacy that can guide (affect) the material brain with decisions it makes. I can't imagine that an individual conscious mind could not think of something different to the other mind, simply because both were instantiated some 5 mins earlier.

If our free will will does rely on something that is random at the quantum level, then our 'will' must reduce the parameters of the randomness until they whittle down to a point where the mind makes a decision.

You can't just add two people to the universe, it violates every known physical law.

We are not violating anything beyond what we can achieve via manipulation of matter. Currently, we cannot manipulate matter to achieve this hypothetical thought experiment.

Are we not simply an ongoing chemical reaction of specifically arranged atoms?

Thus, David Boon & David Boon are atomically arranged identical to each other (the atoms required weren't created out of nowhere they already existed.) for pedants sake of a 'hypothetical'.

So.

Do the two David Boons remain "mirrored" or does the ONLY difference between each instance of them - the fact that they are individual minds - cause their actions to DIVERGE?

They will diverge because of randomness, not because of free will.

[henry quirk]

Are we not simply an ongoing chemical reaction of specifically arranged atoms?

I don't think so.


The universe is nothing but particles. All those particles follow laws of motion. They aren’t free. The brain is made up entirely of those same particles. Therefore, there is nothing in the brain that would give us freedom. These particles also don’t understand anything, they don’t make sense of anything, they don’t grasp the meaning of anything. Since the brain, again, is made up of those particles, it has no power to allow us to grasp meaning or understand anything. But we do understand. We do grasp meaning. Therefore, we are talking about qualities we possess which are not made out of energy. These qualities are entirely non-material. -A. Einsten, in the afterlife

Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second. -John Lennox


We're not simply bundles of ongoing chemical reactions of specifically arranged atoms. We can't be.

[promethean75]

"On what basis, then, would you attribute sentience to rocks or minerals?"

That was the magic truffles talking so you'll have to forgive Saully for that one. When he eats those things he says the damndest stuff sometimes, and u can't blame him for that.