Philosophy Now Forum

Arising_uk wrote:Who or what is doing this watching?

Some kinda consciousness matrix, beon, spirits and whatnot. For those of the atheist persuasion, time itself.

Arisin' wrote:Determanism.

What you mean by that? I reckon a computer program with some randomization added, such as multiply'n operations by the date n' time, is still predictable, determinable, but beyond the human's instrumental capacity to predict exactly, but we can get a general idea. It's the heisenberg principle, but it's still caused and linear, even if it don't seem so. And if it's truly random? Slightly less linear, but still caused and linear. And if it's truly spontaneous? Well then the tree grew from nothin. It's not like the tree had any role in the matter. It's not like the tree willed itself into existence or made a choice to exist. Or a decision to spring up from nothin. Or a choice to grow...

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:Some kinda consciousness matrix, beon, spirits and whatnot. For those of the atheist persuasion, time itself.

You said, "Your brain sees some light, your brain filters it, and you experience the energy produced by your brain. You don't actually "do" anything, you just watch your brain go through natural processes." what I was asking was who is this "you"?

Arisin' wrote:What you mean by that? I reckon a computer program with some randomization added, such as multiply'n operations by the date n' time, is still predictable, determinable, but beyond the human's instrumental capacity to predict exactly, but we can get a general idea. ...

I'm talking about computational neural-nets, we can set the goal and the program has no choice but to try and achieve it but we cannot, beforehand, predict which nodes its going to use to get there, so determined but non-deterministic. Schopenhauer said pretty much the same thing about humans, "Man can indeed do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants.".

It's the heisenberg principle, ...

Bugger all to do with this principle.

but it's still caused and linear, even if it don't seem so. And if it's truly random? Slightly less linear, but still caused and linear. And if it's truly spontaneous? Well then the tree grew from nothin. It's not like the tree had any role in the matter. It's not like the tree willed itself into existence or made a choice to exist. Or a decision to spring up from nothin. Or a choice to grow...

It also has no choice in how to achieve its function as there is no intentionality nor 'mind' in a tree.