Philosophy Now Forum

Obvious Leo wrote:In modern neuroscience the mind is modelled as an evolving and self-determining system in much the same way as a biosphere is. We select concepts on the basis of their adaptive fitness and incorporate them into our world-view. If they make the world more comprehensible to us then they become a part of our cognitive map and if they don't then they are rejected, exactly in the same way as natural selection operates in biology. Thus rather than being passive observers of an objective reality being enacted all around us we are actually active agents creating our own version of reality within our own consciousness. This is hardly breaking news since I know of very few philosophers who would claim any different. All I'm saying is that this rather obvious Kantian doctrine is now well supported by empirical science. Sadly the physicists have been a bit slow to catch on.

i think you're confusing our version of determinism (or predeterminism) with "fatalism". no determinist would ever say that we play no role in the world, but rather the role we play is caused by forces outside of our actual control (in your example, we do create our own reality in our consciousness, but not with what we freely choose). this seems to be what you are saying as well, unless you're contradicting yourself by saying "at no stage have I denied the fact that reality is fully deterministic" (that nothing is uncaused), then saying that it's not fully deterministic because we have "free" (uncaused) will.

SoB has a problem with the premise, “2. One cannot be conscious of a thought before one thinks it.” He believes that it is possible that more research might prove it false. He does not understand that A priori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori knowledge is legitimate. If I say that a dog must exist before it barks, I know that that statement is true. I do not need empirical data to confirm it. *Similarly, it is self-evident that low level (neurons firing) action must exist before high level functioning.

raw_thought wrote:Here is that post , if you agree with Dennett , that consciousness is not about sensations, feeling etc. It does not matter if that is your definition or not. My argument still holds!
“…causation operates both top-down and bottom up…”
Obvious leo
Perhaps an analogy will help. The image on your computer screen is the top level. Suppose it is attached to a monitor that “recognizes” the color blue. When the screen turns blue it sends a command to the computer hardware that makes the screen turn red.
True, the color blue on the screen facilitates the screen becoming red. However, the blue image on the screen was completely determined by the computer hardware (bottom level). I do not see how that is an example of free will.

Anyway, I am sure that SoB will respond to this post by calling me an idiot, squirrel on crack…etc. like he has before. SoB does not understand that a childish rant in response to a philosophical argument only impresses children.
* No matter how much more knowledge we obtain about dogs and barking, it is still self-evident that a dog cannot bark before it exists. Similarly, no matter how much more knowledge we have about “consciousness” and “thinking” it will still be self-evident that one cannot be conscious of a thought before we think it.

raw_thought wrote:it will still be self-evident that one cannot be conscious of a thought before we think it.

I agree that this is self-evident but only a Newtonian reductionist troglodyte could possibly conclude that we must therefore live in the middle of a Laplacian nightmare like a collection of mindless automatons. Complex physical systems are exclusively deterministic but they are not just determined from the bottom up. They are a complex web of causal feedback loops which operate both bottom-up and top-down through an integrated hierarchy of informational complexity. We cannot be aware of a thought until after we've thought it but this act of awareness itself then becomes a causal agent. The problem with "free" will arguments is the superfluous adjective. Free of what?

raw_thought wrote:it will still be self-evident that one cannot be conscious of a thought before we think it.

Obvious Leo wrote:I agree that this is self-evident but only a Newtonian reductionist troglodyte could possibly conclude that we must therefore live in the middle of a Laplacian nightmare like a collection of mindless automatons. Complex physical systems are exclusively deterministic but they are not just determined from the bottom up. They are a complex web of causal feedback loops which operate both bottom-up and top-down through an integrated hierarchy of informational complexity. We cannot be aware of a thought until after we've thought it but this act of awareness itself then becomes a causal agent. The problem with "free" will arguments is the superfluous adjective. Free of what?

leo, i'll reply to your post politely and in a civilized manner, in good faith, and i expect the same in return; otherwise, i'll take off the gloves, again.

the answer to your question "free of what?" is: intentional cause (free of intentional cause). since we can't be aware of a thought until after it enters our awareness, we cannot have intentionally caused that thought (unless you use circular logic), even based on "complex web of causal feedback loops which operate both bottom-up and top-down through an integrated hierarchy of informational complexity.", at least the initial thought in the equation (which determines every ensuing thought, action, behavior, decision, etc.) was not intentional.

the only way for any of our choices or decisions to be "free" or "not determined", is if they were random/coincidental/spontaneous, and therefor "indeterministic". everyone's gotta realize that "deterministic" and "random" absolutely contradict each other (anything not deterministic is random, and anything not random is deterministic), making it impossible for both to be true at the same time and in the respect (by virtue of the law of no contradiction), and rendering a third possibility impossible (thanks to the law of excluded middle). based on this, i'm sure you realize that neither (determinism, indeterminism) entails any accountability, and that any type of freewill that entails true accountability is logically impossible.

The words "free" and "indeterminate" are not synonymous constructs. Your confusion rests on a misunderstanding about the nature of determinism because you conflate determinism with pre-determinism. Consciousness can be entirely deterministic and yet be free when we regard it purely as a PROCESS, because processes are definable only in terms of events occurring in time. We are agreed that we cannot be aware of having had a thought until after we've actually thought it but then you commit a logical fallacy. Consciousness is a continuous stream of neuronal activity, only the tiniest fraction of which ever makes it to the pre-frontal cortex and thus to our awareness. Thinking a thought and being aware of thinking a thought are two entirely different things and the vast majority of the thoughts we've ever thunk have never made it as far as our conscious awareness but this does NOT mean that our conscious awareness has played no part in formulating them. In cognitive neuroscience this distinction is understood in terms of "executive function" and there's nothing in the least bit controversial about it. You'll never find a neuroscientist getting himself embroiled in a free will argument because of these notions of causal domains and hierarchical functions but a detailed explanation of such ideas lies well beyond the scope of a forum such as this. However it can't just be me who occasionally finds himself standing with the fridge door open and wondering "What the fuck did I open this door for?"

Obvious Leo wrote:The words "free" and "indeterminate" are not synonymous constructs.

actually, they are essentially the same thing; refer to my latest post here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17259&start=30#p232663

Obvious Leo wrote:Your confusion rests on a misunderstanding about the nature of determinism because you conflate determinism with pre-determinism.

i honestly don't see what "predeterminism" (you probably mean predestination) has anything to do with anything.

Obvious Leo wrote:Consciousness can be entirely deterministic and yet be free when we regard it purely as a PROCESS, because processes are definable only in terms of events occurring in time.

"free" can't mean anything but "indeterminate"; again, refer to the post to which i linked.

Obvious Leo wrote:We are agreed that we cannot be aware of having had a thought until after we've actually thought it but then you commit a logical fallacy. Consciousness is a continuous stream of neuronal activity, only the tiniest fraction of which ever makes it to the pre-frontal cortex and thus to our awareness. Thinking a thought and being aware of thinking a thought are two entirely different things and the vast majority of the thoughts we've ever thunk have never made it as far as our conscious awareness but this does NOT mean that our conscious awareness has played no part in formulating them. In cognitive neuroscience this distinction is understood in terms of "executive function" and there's nothing in the least bit controversial about it. You'll never find a neuroscientist getting himself embroiled in a free will argument because of these notions of causal domains and hierarchical functions but a detailed explanation of such ideas lies well beyond the scope of a forum such as this. However it can't just be me who occasionally finds himself standing with the fridge door open and wondering "What the fuck did I open this door for?"

do you accept that 1. we have absolutely no control over the very first thought that initiated all subsequent thoughts? and 2. no matter how the deterministic system works, it still can't undermine the initial thought in any way?

I hate free will arguments so I'm giving up. Unlike in the Newtonian contraptions we have sitting on our desktops the determinism in consciousness is non-linear, which means that consciousness is self-determining via a neural network of evolutionary algorithms. You might think of it as a computer with an operating system but with no programme, which is therefore required to write its own software. I'm not an expert on this stuff by any means but I've studied it extensively as a well-informed amateur. In other words I know just enough about it to know that I don't know enough about it to lecture others on the subject. You've got quite a few years of homework in front of you, alpha, because minds are bloody complicated things. I wish you well with it because it's worth the effort.

@ leo;

one last question; are you somehow saying that someone might do something in the future that affects them in the past?

alpha wrote:@ leo;

one last question; are you somehow saying that someone might do something in the future that affects them in the past?

You send a shiver down my spine at the mere suggestion, alpha, since I've been battling against the knuckleheads in physics over the same issue for decades. In their Newtonian reductionist confusion they don't know what self-determinism means either, which explains why their models make no fucking sense. Set your mind at ease because the world has not gone mad. Effects are ALWAYS preceded by causes in an orderly and generative fashion but the key word in this statement is "generative". Causes generate effects but then the effects become causes which generate further effects which then become further causes etc etc ad infinitum. To this self-evident truth you must then add the "butterfly effect" because self-determining systems are always multi-causal which means that further down the causal lineage an effect can be raised to a power of its initial suite of causes.

Try not to get too hung up on the idea of an "initial cause" because such a notion is a logical absurdity, being synonymous with an uncaused event.

A good example of the butterfly effect in human behaviour is road rage. Sometimes the tiniest indiscretion on the part of another road user can quite literally send somebody insane. You can't physically drive somebody crazy by forgetting to put your blinker on but such a simple oversight can be the straw that breaks the camel's back in a mind which is on the brink of a neuronal meltdown. This is an example of where the will collapses and why I dislike the use of the adjective "free".

When I was a young bloke one of the favourite mantras of the sisterhood was that all men think with their dicks. It's pretty hard to deny that there's an element of truth in this, although I've noticed that it's become less true as I've got older. However only very few men are pathological rapists whose sexual imperatives lie beyond their conscious control. When we consider questions of the will I reckon it's helpful to keep such pragmatic considerations in mind and accept that in this complex debate the will is exactly what it appears to be. In any event this is the position of the science in this matter and it's hard to imagine how a society could operate unless it adopts the assumption that people are accountable for their own behaviour in almost all cases.

All arguments to the contrary fail for different reasons but getting people to understand those reasons is not always easy.

alpha wrote:@ leo;

one last question; are you somehow saying that someone might do something in the future that affects them in the past?

Only an entity free from the constraints of determinism could do this: this is impossible.

Obvious Leo wrote:In any event this is the position of the science in this matter

this is the position of the non-newtonian science on this matter.

Obvious Leo wrote:and it's hard to imagine how a society could operate unless it adopts the assumption that people are accountable for their own behaviour in almost all cases.

i'm not saying society can necessarily function without the notion of some sort of responsibility, but that doesn't make anyone truly responsible, because of the causa sui problem.

alpha wrote:@ leo;

one last question; are you somehow saying that someone might do something in the future that affects them in the past?

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Only an entity free from the constraints of determinism could do this: this is impossible.

no arguments here.

Obvious Leo wrote:and it's hard to imagine how a society could operate unless it adopts the assumption that people are accountable for their own behaviour in almost all cases.

alpha wrote:i'm not saying society can necessarily function without the notion of some sort of responsibility, but that doesn't make anyone truly responsible, because of the causa sui problem.

i just wanted to add that even animals are held "responsible" in some way; people reward and punish their pets all the time; just ask hobbes lol. sometimes even animals must be killed if they become a threat to humans, but that doesn't make them truly responsible or truly guilty and so on. it's just a necessity to minimize damage. i call this "notional accountability"; you may call it what you wish.