![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 14 to 38 of 38. Go back in thread:
Posted by Susan47 on December 5, 2004, at 21:43:29
In reply to I love you guys, ......us all here ....together (nm) » Susan47, posted by 64bowtie on December 5, 2004, at 13:58:45
Posted by verne on December 6, 2004, at 1:03:26
In reply to Free will conundrum explored, posted by 64bowtie on December 4, 2004, at 12:11:18
I'm not sure how much exploring the free will "conundrum" you are open to when in your later posts you indicate you are on the free-will side of the paradox and never really had any question to begin with.
Martin Luther made the case for no free will in his letters and debate with Thomas More. Mathematicians and scientists have since entered the debate and sided with Luther.
I won't continue the argument here but let me pose the question. If you've been knock-down, struck-by-God self-less, who is calling the shots?
There is nothing about the self and "free will" (which are interchangable) that has eternity in it or will surivive the world. Free Will is a fiction of life on earth.
This is not to be mistaken with the "freedom" the New Testament writer, Paul, talks about. This is a freedom of surrendering the self and will.
The idea that you can "do it your way" and be "cool", from the rat pack to the "say-it-and-claim-it" churches, does not mean you can pack it with you into heaven. You simply can not take it with you. You can't take ANYTHING with you.
Whatever you think you did in your "free will", will perish with you when you die. Perhaps, a monument or two, a few kind words, will survive for a time, but in the end, whatever you dreamed up, and imagined as "free will", is long forgotten. Your "free will" has limited play on earth; imagine how it will do in the afterlife where time is irrelevant?
What you are doing may work in the world but it has no eternity in it.
verne
Posted by GeishaGirl on December 6, 2004, at 2:13:14
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored, posted by verne on December 6, 2004, at 1:03:26
I find all of this dialogue very fascinating. However, I prefer the romance of not analyzing consciousness with science. It loses meaning and magic for me the other way. I feel like no one will ever really figure this stuff out for sure. And I don't really want to know for sure. It would take all the fun out of life for me. Too boring. I've always been a romantic at heart, though :)
Posted by 64bowtie on December 6, 2004, at 5:09:32
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored, posted by verne on December 6, 2004, at 1:03:26
>
> I won't continue the argument here but let me pose the question. If you've been knock-down, struck-by-God self-less, who is calling the shots?
><<< Verne, I'm not certain how to comment on your question other than to say I've never been nor needed to be "knock-down, struck-by-god self-less". I let God alone to be what God is, and in turn, God let's me alone to be who I always am. This ain't an Oki-stand-off between me'n'God either. The alternative would require magic, since I am the hands'n'feet for God's works in my life.
Shouldn't this be on the Faith board anyway?
Rod
Posted by verne on December 6, 2004, at 9:47:26
In reply to Me'n'God » verne, posted by 64bowtie on December 6, 2004, at 5:09:32
Rod,
I was drinking last night (all week actually) and got a wee bit cranky. (trying to stop) I mean, I would have argued the world is flat just to be cantankerous.
I don't know what I said on the free will question (won't torture myself to read it) but it was probably nonsense. Please ignore it.
Gee, I'm being uncivil to myself this morning.
verne
Posted by partlycloudy on December 6, 2004, at 9:55:16
In reply to Please Ignore My Previous Post » 64bowtie, posted by verne on December 6, 2004, at 9:47:26
Don't you wish there was a Morning-After-Please-Delete!! button?? There's been a few times when I did not recognize what I'd posted as mine...
Sheepish, but sober,
pc
Posted by verne on December 6, 2004, at 10:06:33
In reply to Re: Please Ignore My Previous Post » verne, posted by partlycloudy on December 6, 2004, at 9:55:16
Yeah I do. The next morning I have to do damage control. Got banned for life at one site for my drunken quarreling; at another, I discover my posts were heavily edited by the moderator.
I used to make regrettable phone calls and leave long messages if I got the answering machine. When I ran out of people to call, I started calling foreign countries where it wasn't 3:00am.
Well, back to my hang-over. Brutal this morning. The beer count was too high: 16 or so. My daughter is visiting Wednesday so I must quit today and get back on my feet.
verne
Posted by partlycloudy on December 6, 2004, at 10:28:06
In reply to Morning After » partlycloudy, posted by verne on December 6, 2004, at 10:06:33
Posted by Susan47 on December 6, 2004, at 16:56:44
In reply to Morning After » partlycloudy, posted by verne on December 6, 2004, at 10:06:33
Don't feel badly about your drunken posts, I think that's part of the process here at Babble. DB is kind enough to let us get away with quite a bit, really, when we're off center; maybe he understands? Anyway, I think I need to re-read myself sometimes when I've been off, because it gives me good insight into what substances do to my thinking process. Don't you guys find that too?
Posted by AuntieMel on December 6, 2004, at 17:31:12
In reply to Morning After » partlycloudy, posted by verne on December 6, 2004, at 10:06:33
I have a friend who, when he gets a few too many in him, will start praising "Mick and the boys" (The Stones) and dare anyone to insult the Queen. A couple more and he decides it's time to call his mum (usually around 4am UK time. I don't think he ever gets her, though he's made a whole lot of wrong number calls.
Posted by Mark H. on December 6, 2004, at 20:20:44
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored » 64bowtie, posted by alexandra_k on December 4, 2004, at 20:08:55
>> But then if I do not choose my beliefs and desires, if I do not (in effect) choose myself then how is it that I can take ultimate responsibility? There still seems to be no room for free will.
Dear Alexandra,
These thoughts about free will remind me of Dylan Klebold, the teenager who decided to kill himself at Columbine High School and to take as many of his teachers and classmates with him as he could. I think he had free will. I think he could have stopped himself right up until the time that he started pulling the trigger. I don't believe that he was predestined by genes, upbringing or fate to kill 13 people and himself.
More to the point, I acknowledge all the would-be Dylan Klebolds out there who actively choose non-violent ways to deal with their anger and frustration every day.
This is free will in action: people choosing not to act on destructive impulses, in contravention of their instincts, beliefs and desires. Self-restraint may be the ultimate expression (if not proof) of free will.
With kind regards,
Mark H.
Posted by alexandra_k on December 7, 2004, at 3:56:36
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored » alexandra_k, posted by Mark H. on December 6, 2004, at 20:20:44
> These thoughts about free will remind me of Dylan Klebold, the teenager who decided to kill himself at Columbine High School and to take as many of his teachers and classmates with him as he could.
Yes, the notion of responsibility (of praising and blaming) does seem to be intimately connected with the notion of free will. B. F. Skinner, on the other hand, thought otherwise, and I shall use him as an example just to show that there is another way we can look at cases like these. He showed (as many others have done) that the libertarian notion of free will is nonsensical, however we should still hold people accountable for their actions. Why are they accountable if they are not free?
Well, Skinner thought that if we deliver a punisher to people who emmit innapropriate behaviour then we decrease the probability that they will emmit that same response in the future in similar situations. This means that Skinner thought that rather than punishing people because they FREELY CHOOSE their actions, we punish them because by making that the consequence of the behaviour we reduce the likelihood that the person will do it again.
Then there is the idea that by locking people up we are actually preventing their future reoffending.
Then there is the idea that other people learn by modelling. We may refrain from doing those same things because of the consequences of that act that we observe vicariously.
In short: just because there may be no free will (in the ordinary sense) it does not follow that we should not praise and blame. Praising and blaming have consequences for future acts, so we should indeed deliver those consequences. (Though, of course strictly speaking we cannot choose either to do this or to refrain from it!)
>I think he had free will. I think he could have stopped himself right up until the time that he started pulling the trigger. I don't believe that he was predestined by genes, upbringing or fate to kill 13 people and himself.
I think that IF something different had happened in his life before the point of the action (for example IF he had had a therapist to talk to, IF he had empathised with his victims) THEN - there could have been a different outcome. But what I do want to say is GIVEN THAT the situation was what it was, he couldn't have done otherwise.
To me, that is what is so tragic about it.
If he had somehow survived that I do think that he should have been prevented from reoffending. He should also have adequate treatment so that he realises that that sort of behaviour is unacceptable (as that might be what tips the balance for next time - either in his case, or in the case of someone modelling him).
> More to the point, I acknowledge all the would-be Dylan Klebolds out there who actively choose non-violent ways to deal with their anger and frustration every day.Yes, that can be a hard struggle for some. It is lucky for them that their genes and environment have resulted in their ability to rise above.
Okay, this is from Skinner "Beyond Freedom and Dignity". He also had a go at writing a novel "Utopia" which is on creating the ideal society through altering reinforcement contingencies. "1984" was a reaction to the notion of such a society. I think there is a commune type place in the US where people have tried to realise Skinners vision, however.
Just for the record, I am not a Skinnerian.
I believe that the ordinary concept of freewill is contradictory and thus we cannot have that. Basically, something in our notion needs to give if we want to accept that
- people have free will
- having free will means that one could have done otherwise
- the physical state of the world at one instant causally determines the state of the world at the next instant.
- if the physical state of the world determines the behavour, then the behaviour could not have been otherwise unless the physical state of the world had been different.(and the introduction of quantum indeterminacies doesn't help us with free choice - see my other post.)
Now it may not help my case that I have picked probably the most extremist anti-freewill person to assist me with my case.
I believe that FIRSTLY we need to do conceptual analysis to figure out what we mean (or really what we should mean by 'free will') e.g., as Dennett does in "Elbow Room: Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting". Then the challenge becomes accounting for how it is that that arose out of the purely physical world (e.g., through the processes of natural selection as talked about in "Freedom Evolves"). But that is just my 2cents worth. I think we can have both - but it does involve changing the concept first. Maybe its cheating, but maybe the only way to solve the problem of how free will is to dissolve the problem.
Do away with free will as 'could have done otherwise' and headway can be made.
Yours respectfully.
Posted by alexandra_k on December 7, 2004, at 4:04:48
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored » Mark H., posted by alexandra_k on December 7, 2004, at 3:56:36
Posted by Mark H. on December 7, 2004, at 14:09:40
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored » Mark H., posted by alexandra_k on December 7, 2004, at 3:56:36
> Do away with free will as 'could have done otherwise' and headway can be made.
Dear Alexandra,
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I'm probably not up to fully understanding your argument. I'm sure I used to be much smarter.
Clearly, you understood what I meant. "Could have done otherwise" and especially "can choose to do otherwise" are at the core of my experience and understanding of free will.
I'm reluctant to ask (out of respect for your time), but how would doing away with this concept of personal responsibility allow for headway to be made?
Best wishes,
Mark H.
Posted by alexandra_k on December 7, 2004, at 20:04:21
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored, posted by Mark H. on December 7, 2004, at 14:09:40
ok. If having free will requires that we COULD HAVE DONE otherwise, then it turns out that we have no free will. Science has simply shown that to be empirically false. e.g.,
The notion here is that your conscious experience of free choice is causally irrelevant to producing the behaviour you emmit. Science has shown it to be so. (I should perhaps say that some have attempted to critique this interpretation of Libet's experimental results, but I buy it.)
So IF having free will means that one could have done otherwise THEN it follows that we have no free will. Skinner was right :-(
There is no progress to be made on the problem on this analysis of the concept of free will, because it turns out that freedom is an illusion and we do not have it.
BUT - Surely we have free will! If we want to retain that then...
free will cannot mean that we could have done otherwise. Sure we have a phenomenological experience of making a free choice, but science has shown us that that experience occurs AFTER we have already started to move in the way that we eventually consciously experience as having 'decided' to do. The conscious experience of making a decision is causally irrelevant as the 'decision' has already been made.
So now we need to look at what we should mean by free will. Now you might want to say that nobody forced that guy to kill all those people. Nobody was holding a gun to his head. We usually say that people are not free if they are prevented from acting on their beliefs and desires because of environmental restrictions. So here being free is relative - if you can act on your beliefs and desires without others preventing you or making you do something then you are free in a sense. e.g. the person in jail is not 'free', whereas we are.
Then there is the case where (according to Hume anyway) kleptomaniacs are not free because they are in the grips of a compulsion. Here the idea seems to be that they have a first order desire to steal, but they also have a strong second order desire - they wish like anything that they did not have that first order desire to steal. Here they are a slave to their first order desires and so (according to Hume) they are not free. But then if someone had the first order desire to steal and their second order desire was that that first order desire was fine - well then they are acting freely.
This is a little odd, because here we are saying that the person is free when their first and second order desires are in synch - but in the 'could have done otherwise' sense of free will, we never freely chose those beliefs and desires (neither the lower or higher order ones).
But then that is irrelevant to this conception of free will
Don't get me wrong, many problems remain. I just considered it to be progress because we need to decide what we mean by freedom, and well, if we want to be free then we need to define it in such a way so that we can have it!
Now that was a confusing ramble.
I am sure I used to be more lucid...
Posted by 64bowtie on December 8, 2004, at 0:48:49
In reply to Please Ignore My Previous Post » 64bowtie, posted by verne on December 6, 2004, at 9:47:26
Posted by 64bowtie on December 8, 2004, at 1:00:14
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored » alexandra_k, posted by Mark H. on December 6, 2004, at 20:20:44
Posted by alexandra_k on December 8, 2004, at 13:49:14
In reply to Go gettem Mark!!! Thanks!!! (nm) » Mark H., posted by 64bowtie on December 8, 2004, at 1:00:14
I realise that I missed your point.
I am so in the grips of a theory that I find it hard to think laterally about some problems.I hope you don't find my rambling to be disrespectful.
Posted by Mark H. on December 8, 2004, at 19:51:03
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored » Mark H., posted by alexandra_k on December 7, 2004, at 20:04:21
Still thinking about what you've written... not ignoring you!
Mark H.
Posted by Mark H. on December 9, 2004, at 18:38:20
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored » Mark H., posted by alexandra_k on December 7, 2004, at 20:04:21
Dear Alexandra,
Even if my neurons start firing or my muscles start moving before I am conscious of having made a decision, my ability to affirm and renew that decision repeatedly in the future (or to make a different decision) is suggestive of free will. Free will takes place within a larger context, certainly, and subject to the constraints of the environment, which is inclusive of personal biology, upbringing, beliefs and life experiences, among other things.
Personal freedom may be an illusion in the ultimate sense, then, but it exists within relative reality, doesn't it? Ask anyone who has successfully quit drinking. Resisting a compulsion -- or making an altruistic choice -- requires going against something akin to instinct. Absent free will, who would ever donate a kidney or do without food in protest of an injustice? Freedom is being able to change the implementation or direction of that neuronal impulse that preceded thought or action.
Perhaps we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of free will, and it becomes a matter of belief. To whatever extent, we are free to choose our beliefs based on the experiences they are likely to create for ourselves and others. If a belief in "no free will" leads me to nihilism and despair (or illusions of not being accountable for my actions), then it is not a very helpful belief. If a belief in "free will" makes me more optimistic, and I conduct myself in ways that make me a more compassionate person, then that belief is useful, even if it is empirically false.
I've done a little editing for a Skinnerian behaviorist, and I find that my personal belief about behaviorism is that its premises are flawed but its effects are often laudable. So I have no problem practicing the techniques of cognitive-behavioral therapy, for instance, and benefit from doing so, even though I reject the idea that negative thoughts necessarily precede negative feelings.
You wrote: "We need to decide what we mean by freedom, and well, if we want to be free then we need to define it in such a way so that we can have it!" I couldn't agree with you more.
My clumsy analogy is that we are like captains of ships at sea, bound to the water, traveling in agreed-upon shipping lanes, dependent on our schedule and crew, yet we still control the helm. Whether we deliver our cargo on time or run the ship aground depends on the freedom we have to influence the outcome. To loop back to where I began, isn't freedom to influence the outcome a practical definition of free will?
At another level, I think your thoughts on free will and mine likely converge in religion, but I doubt I'm smart enough to go there with you. I really enjoy the way you think and express yourself, and I appreciate the time you invest in these discussions.
With kind regards,
Mark H.
Posted by Mark H. on December 9, 2004, at 18:57:41
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored » Mark H., posted by alexandra_k on December 7, 2004, at 20:04:21
Bad me! I didn't mean "empirically false"; I meant something closer to "ultimately false." I apologize for my confused thinking and sloppy usage.
MH
Posted by alexandra_k on December 10, 2004, at 1:22:27
In reply to Re: I Wish We Could Edit Posts » alexandra_k, posted by Mark H. on December 9, 2004, at 18:57:41
I think 'empirically false' works...
Posted by alexandra_k on December 10, 2004, at 16:39:08
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored » alexandra_k, posted by Mark H. on December 9, 2004, at 18:38:20
It sounds like you are quite keen on Hume's line. I hope that the higher / lower order beliefs / desires stuff wasn't too confusing. A lower (or first order) belief or desire is about something or other. A higher (or second order) belief or desire is about one of the first order beliefs / desires.
So let us suppose I have a stong urge (first order desire) to drink alchohol. If I act on that immediately then there is a sense in which I am not free. I am a slave to my impulses. If I consider things a bit more, however, and reflect on the pro's and con's and discover that I have a strong second order desire that I wish to god I never had that first order desire to drink - and I do not drink in response then there is a sense in which I am free.
Why? Because in a sense for an act to be MY free choice it has to be determined by me. The more of ME (of my beliefs and desires) that come into play before I act, the more the act is truely mine.
(None of this helps solve the paradox of libertarian free will - but I guess we have already agreed that we can't have that, so we are looking to explore what it is that we do have instead???)
So...
> Even if my neurons start firing or my muscles start moving before I am conscious of having made a decision, my ability to affirm and renew that decision repeatedly in the future (or to make a different decision) is suggestive of free will. Free will takes place within a larger context, certainly, and subject to the constraints of the environment, which is inclusive of personal biology, upbringing, beliefs and life experiences, among other things.
Yeah. In the 'could have done otherwise sense' none of that helps. But with respect to what I have been talking about that makes a lot of sense.
Instead of trying to get the 'common' man to define terms (and getting into all sorts of horrid paradoxes) some philosophers think we need to start by considering our ordinary use of language. In our everyday talk we consider acts to be more or less free and so from there we try to work out why some are whereas others are not.
> Personal freedom may be an illusion in the ultimate sense, then, but it exists within relative reality, doesn't it? Ask anyone who has successfully quit drinking. Resisting a compulsion -- or making an altruistic choice -- requires going against something akin to instinct. Absent free will, who would ever donate a kidney or do without food in protest of an injustice? Freedom is being able to change the implementation or direction of that neuronal impulse that preceded thought or action.
Higher order desires... Though even our higher order desires are determined, so it doesn't help with the possibility of them being otherwise from what they are...
> Perhaps we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of free will, and it becomes a matter of belief. To whatever extent, we are free to choose our beliefs based on the experiences they are likely to create for ourselves and others. If a belief in "no free will" leads me to nihilism and despair (or illusions of not being accountable for my actions), then it is not a very helpful belief. If a belief in "free will" makes me more optimistic, and I conduct myself in ways that make me a more compassionate person, then that belief is useful, even if it is empirically false.Yes. Many have argued that even if it is false that there is free will, pragmatically speaking we need to live our lives as though we have free will anyway. I do not think that it follows that not having libertarian free will leads to nihilism and despair, though. It has for me in the past, but I don't think that this attitude logically has to follow. I don't believe in libertarian free will anymore. I am happy to consider that everything that happens is determined by laws of nature that are outside my control. I am happy to consider my conscious experience to be causally irrelevant for action. I am along for the ride.
I need experience no deep and debilitating guilt for my past bad behaviour - given my place at the time it was inevitable. Thanks to experience I now know better.
> freedom to influence the outcome a practical definition of free will?Sure, if I act on my beliefs and desires then I act in a way that is (in a sense) determined by me. At the very least it is my act.
I think we agree :-)
I am pleased to have someone to talk to about this stuff. If you have never studied formal philosophy (and even if you have) you are a natural! Because you obviously care about these issues, and you express yourself clearly and comprehensibly indeed.
I have had a go at the god issue on these boards.
There are some arguments for the existence of god (and why they fail) on the faith board archives.
My arguments against the existence of god got redirected to the social board, so they are archived there.Same problem again, the traditional theistic conception of god leads to a paradox and so we cannot have that kind of god! Something has to give if we want it to be at least possible that god exists.
If you are interested I would be happy to talk about that.
Or maybe that is more than enough thinking for a while!
Take care :-)
Posted by Mark H. on December 10, 2004, at 20:28:57
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored, posted by alexandra_k on December 10, 2004, at 16:39:08
Dear Alexandra,
I like the way you cut through to the essence of things so quickly. My thinking seems to have stalled this afternoon, and everything I write reads like crap. I don’t know whether to drill down into some of your ideas or just to sit with them for awhile. I need to confess that I don’t understand the basic paradox: “So IF having free will means that one could have done otherwise, THEN it follows that we have no free will.” How is that so? I sense that you’re on to something important, but it seems circular and impenetrable to me at the moment.
The idea of a higher/lower order of beliefs makes sense to me, in much the same way as the three ego states of Transactional Analysis (Parent – Adult – Child). Of course I don’t believe that the “inner child” exists as a separate entity, but it is useful in running my life not to discount its needs. My experience with pretending my ego states are not in conflict at times has resulted in my parent/adult intentions and priorities being undermined by my child ego state. (I find the forced simplicity of Transactional Analysis useful, because it counters my tendency to over-intellectualize.)
Today my lower order desire to respond to you right away has not been overridden by my higher order desire to give more time to considering your responses. :-)
What is consciousness? How is it different from awareness? Who is it that is experiencing these states? Where is my “self” located? I think you said it very well when you wrote, “I am not so sure that consciousness and free will can be accounted for, and I don't think that there are any even remotely satisfactory accounts of these phenomena that do not change the topic in order to explain them....”
That’s why I tend to bludgeon the topic with practical examples and chosen beliefs.
Then there’s mutual projection: at the moment you were kindly attributing to me a knack for philosophy, I was thinking that you would be a natural Vajrayana Buddhist.
Just think: 100 gods and goddesses to worship and interact with, but no creator. All phenomena as completely empty yet radiantly full in their display. The inherent purity of all phenomena. And with much practice (so I’m told): the direct experience of timeless awareness. Seems like it might be right up your alley.
The French Vajrayana Buddhists are (of course) influenced by post-WWII existentialists like Sartre. In a discussion between the Dalai Lama and a French filmmaker, the latter kept pressing His Holiness to say definitively once and for all that there is no God. To my delight, instead he said something like, “Perhaps He is directing us to have this conversation right now.”
Have a great weekend.
With kind regards,
Mark H.
Posted by alexandra_k on December 17, 2004, at 5:39:22
In reply to Re: Free will conundrum explored » alexandra_k, posted by Mark H. on December 10, 2004, at 20:28:57
Hey. I'm sorry I have taken so long to reply to your post. I thought about it a lot, but then some stuff went down for me.. You may want to print this out cause it's very long. Feel free to ignore as much of it as you want, to ask another question, and / or to tell me more about Buddhism :-)
> I need to confess that I don’t understand the basic paradox: “So IF having free will means that one could have done otherwise, THEN it follows that we have no free will.” How is that so? I sense that you’re on to something important, but it seems circular and impenetrable to me at the moment.Lets say that I am walking along a line in a caf eyeing up a piece of cake and a peach (example stolen from Nagel "What Does it all Mean"). Now:
FREEZE TIME (and let it be called t1)
If determinism is correct then one could use that frozen instant to calculate everything that will happen in the universe forever and ever into the future (according to Laplace's vision) - oh, if we didn't have these tiny finite minds, that is. The future is fixed just like the past is fixed. Ironically we would be able to use t1 to make perfect predictions of the course that the future must take, but not the past. Indefinately many pasts could be consistant with producing t1. This is becasue different causes can have the same effect.Okay, that time stuff was a bit of a digression. But: given the state of the universe at t1 what happens at t2, t3, t4, etc etc is determined and fixed. Move foward an instant to t2 and here we have initiation of action which scientists can measure. At this point we have just started moving for the chocolate cake. Move foward another instant to t3 and you have the 'conscious experience' of making a choice for chocolate cake rather than fruit.
So: the way things are at t1 completely determine the way things are at t2. And t2 occurs before t3. So given all that it seems that:
1) We cannot believe that the state of the world at t1 determines the state of the world at t2, and that given the state of the world at t1 we could have done otherwise at t2. If free will requires that, then we cannot have free will.
2) We also cannot believe that given the state of the universe at t2 it is our 'conscious experience of choice' that causes the action. This has been falsified empirically and thus we cannot have that kind of free will.(I have simplified things rather a lot by ignoring quantum indeterminacies. It is very controversial whether an indeterminacy at the sub-atomic level leads to indeterminacy at the atomic level anyway. But whether it does or does not, whether god 'plays dice' or not, there is no hope for free will in indeterminacies. Whether my actions are determined by determistic or probabilistic laws there is still no room for 'could have done otherwise' free will. It would hardly help the ordinary notion of free will if my beliefs and desires at t1 didn't determine my action at t2. The everyday notion of free will is incoherant.)
You might be thinking 'well a full description of the state of the universe at t1 will include my beliefs and desires which determine what I do at t2. IF my beliefs and desires had been different (if, for example I desired fruit more than chocolate) THEN I would have acted differently at t2. Thats a very good response. It is just that given the way the universe actually was at t1 (given the beliefs and desires that you actually had) you could not have done otherwise. Had your beliefs and desires been otherwise then the description of t1 would have been different.
Sometimes it is hard to figure whether you are missing something or if it is that you understand it fine but are worried about further points. Sometimes students go nuts saying they don't understand and it turns out that they get it fine, they just think they must be missing it because they do not understand how someone could be crazy enough to believe that. I have that at the moment over the reality of possible worlds. (Possible worlds are real, apparantly. Not actual, but real nonetheless just causally isolated from ours. So they cannot even cause us to believe in them! What sort of crazyness is this!!??)
> The idea of a higher/lower order of beliefs makes sense to me, in much the same way as the three ego states of Transactional AnalysisHey, thats interesting I never thought of it like that. I guess they are just different postulated 'structure of minds' postulated in order to explain internal conflict (and lots more too no doubt).
> What is consciousness? How is it different from awareness?
Sometimes the two terms are used interchangably. Sometimes (even scientists) use each term in an idiosyncratic way according to their own operationalised definiton (if you are lucky) and sometimes they change their mind over what they mean by the term through the course of the paper. It lets you draw grander conclusions than you are entitled to, though I suppose it is inadvertant really. The short answer is that many people consider that there can be 'unconscious awareness'. Implicit knowledge (know how) can fall into this category. Or when you are driving and are so wrapped up in your thoughts that you aren't conscious of driving through a large chunk of town. You are 'unconcious' of your surroundings, but you are aware of them on some level so as to stop at lights and not hit anything.
Who is it that is experiencing these states? Where is my “self” located?
Now thats a philosophical question! Descartes attempted to doubt all of his beliefs that could possibly be doubted so as to find out whether any of his beliefs might be immune from doubt. He thought these beliefs that were immune from doubt (the indubitable beliefs) may be able to secure the foundation of human knowledge if it could be shown that most of the ordinary beliefs that we consider to be knowledge could be deduced from these indubitable 'bedrock' propositions. In this way he hoped to secure human knowledge from sceptical worries forever.
Now if he had attempted to doubt all his beliefs one at a time then he would have died before completion. But Descartes, being a smart fellow divided the whole of human knowledge up into two kinds:
1) A-Posteriori beliefs - beliefs about the external world (empirical or scientific knowledge). How can you know you are not dreaming right now? Or to put a more modern spin on the situation how do you know that you are not a brain being kept alive by evil scientists who are feeding you computer simulations of an external world - how do you know you are not in the matrix? This is dream doubt.
2) A-priori beliefs (beliefs that do not require experience such as logic or math). How can you be sure that an evil genius is not interfearing with your reasoning / thought processes so that you are led to error each time you attempt a deduction, proof, or counting of suff etc? You cannot and this is the evil genius / demon argument.WARNING: Don't get too caught up in Cartesian Sceptism. Doing so has led to many a first year (including myself) to go crazy.
Then what he found was that no matter how much he doubted everything there was one thing that was immune to either the evil genius or the dream doubt. The more he doubted, the more he realised that he was doubting. Because doubting is a form of thinking it followed that the more he doubted everything the more sure he became of his existance as a thinking (doubting) thing.
From that we get 'cogito ergo sum' which is usually translated as 'I think therefore I am'. This is a terrible translation, however. By 'cogito' Descartes had more in mind than thinking, he included perception, or any conscious cognitive process, but the real issues with the translation are that:
1) The 'therefore' sounds like he is trying to do a deduction. But it doesn't work as a deduction becasue the evil genius argument shows that deductions are dubitable.
2) WHO IS THE I HE HAS SHOWN TO EXIST???Now it is possible that you were created right NOW and that all your 'memories' were simply implanted into your mind. So he has not shown a thinking thing to persist through time. He has also not shown that there is a thing, a haver of thoughts. So he hasn't proven the existence of a self, or an I - all he is really entitled to is 'thinking (cognition) is going on'.
The location (even the existence) of the self is controversial. I like my own account, but anyway :-)
Dennett considers the neuroscientists search for the self / mind in the brain. You go up the optic nerve, round and round the cortex, and leave on the firing of a motor neuron. On these travels through the brain where is the self, the mind, or the place where it all comes together? Many neuroscientist has concluded: there is no self. But I think, rather, how is neuroscience supposed to help us with the nature / existence of the self?How does studying the hardware help us with the nature / existence of the computer program?
The self must surely be supported by physical processes, but that is not to say that it is a thing in the brain. One way of looking at it (currently in favor) is that the brain is the neural 'hardware' or 'wetware' and the self or the mind is like a high level program realised or implemented on the brain. You can study programming fairly much independently of hardware, and likewise you can study mind or self fairly much independently from neurology.This allows for the possibility of genuinely intelligent robotic creatures with mental states as real as ours. Or to get even more fancy, it allows for the possibility that we may be able to capture someones 'self' as a program, and implement them on a different physical system (e.g., a robot) after they are dead. But then why wait till then, and will the real slim shady please stand up? There are lots of crazy thought experiments on the nature of the self and the notion of personal identity, especially continuity through time. Even ones relationship to ones counterparts (real people on these other possible worlds).
> the direct experience of timeless awareness. Seems like it might be right up your alley.
If I had to pick an established religion I would be a Buddhist. Meditation is great. Every bit as vivid as LSD if you do it for long enough!
Anyways, ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!!!!!!
Have a great weekend
This is the end of the thread.
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