Do you believe in mental causation?

[Atlas]

Well, what I'm saying is everything is sort of like on "instant reply," and our intent wells up from those things which have happened previously ... subconsciously in other words. In fact I see myself doing this all the time, almost as if a "precursory" signal was being sent out, and quite often I will override my intent and not "follow through." And, while I agree much of this is "reflexive," that isn't to say we don't participate in things consciously, and that we don't engage our will, otherwise we wouldn't have a mental record of it.

This is what's difficult about Ian's question. "Mental" can mean any brain activity or it can mean the conscious thought of Subjective Idealism and many more things, I'm sure.

Merc has asked you for a definition of terms and you'd rather go with elastic "common understandings" that disable a conversation from getting past your comfort level.

Using your common understandings - there is so much that happens at the subconscious level. That is totally automatic. Without an intervening conscious idea it's easy to discount mental causation.

In preparing to go to work, the "causative idea" might be expressed simply as: "My keys."

You may begin a mental search, find them mentally (subconsciously) on the bedroom dresser. Somehow this gets translated into a navigation command to your body. You walk into the bedroom - you do not trip over furniture, you do not try to fly or walk through walls - you use the stairs and the doorway.

Concepts and experience have combined to afford us easy passage to our keys in an unconconscious action. The trip impacts our consciousness like our subsequent drive to work does. Most of our actions are automatic.

Where exactly is the cause. Is it found in the real world as a need to survive? - "Get Money" kind of thing, which gets strung out into some infinite sequence of cause and effect? Some of which is conscious.

All of it seems related to brain activity at some level. Even our breathing. It's hard to say just how much of it leaves a record.

 

[Iacchus]

Is there anything that says I "have" to go down the street and rob the bank? If so, then why have I yet to do this?

 

[Atlas]

Is there anything that says I "have" to go down the street and rob the bank? If so, then why have I yet to do this?

I think you have attained an efficient competence about retrieving your keys. You can act automatically, emotionlessly, unconsciously and achieve your goal.

If starvation pushed you to the brink where 3 squares in prison was preferable to starving in freedom you might choose then to risk a bank robbery. Any outcome, including being shot to death, might seem preferable to your current state.

Here though is it not survival that "causes" both the contemplation and the act? Surely it takes a conscious act to write the note: "Give me the money. I have a gub."

But knowing you, embarrassment and hilarity would ensue as the bank personnel yukked it up as to how Woody Allen did it first and funnier.

 

[Iacchus]

If starvation pushed you to the brink where 3 squares in prison was preferable to starving in freedom you might choose then to risk a bank robbery. Any outcome, including being shot to death, might seem preferable to your current state.

Yes, but what if there was more than one bank in town, and I had a "choice" as to which one to rob?

By the way, I think that was spelled, "gum."

 

[Mercutio]

Is there anything that says I "have" to go down the street and rob the bank? If so, then why have I yet to do this?

A proper answer to this would necessitate a functional analysis of your behavior and environment. There are a number of possibilities, of course. There may be nothing at all that says you "have" to do this. You put more words in quotes, so I am not certain how you are defining "have" in this case. (Typically, such terms as "have to", "want to", "need to", and the like, are fairly poorly correlated with our actual behavior, and most are only inferred circularly after our behavior. Again, the "the power of Will" thread discusses this in more detail.) You may feel you have to, but also feel you cannot, due to external or internal constraints--the threat of punishment may be very salient. You may feel you "have to", but have no clue about how to begin. You may feel you "have to", but be lazy.

This feeling of "have to" is pretty darned useless, when you examine it as we use it. As Atlas has already suggested, a much more powerful predictor is found in your environment. In addition, we may manipulate environmental factors to determine any causal relationship; we cannot do that with inferred mentalisms.

Now, a quick question (let's see if you can answer it simply): When you asked if there was "anything" that says you have to... were you asking about an internal or mental "anything", or an external or environmental "anything"? I am genuinely interested in what you were looking for--please try to give an actual answer, rather than a platitude and/or question with a smiley.

 

[Pangloss]

Metacristi's article made reference to a discussion (not shown) having to do with pain and a robot's "mind". The mention of this did make me think of a robot whose reactions and behaviors mimiced that of a human. Certainly such a creation could be talked about as behaving according to "mental directives" such that it would pull it's "hand" out of a fire when a hand sensor registered high temperature, but we would attribute all activity to mechanistic cause, wouldn't we?

Pangloss, I ran across this short (1 page) article of a different type of quantum computer being built. It seems to be able (in theory) to spontaneously assemble answers to complex problems. I'm not promoting it as a model for brain activity only as another case for mechanistic models being able to activities of a brain/mind.

This is great, Atlas, thanks. I'm currently doing a lot of reading on neurobiology, and computer analogues present a constant attraction (whether valid or not!). It reminds me also of the recently announced intention by IBM to build a computer model of the entire human brain. It's happening in Switzerland, so I guess we can expect a brain that thinks on time (you may groan NOW).

 

[Iacchus]

This is great, Atlas, thanks. I'm currently doing a lot of reading on neurobiology, and computer analogues present a constant attraction (whether valid or not!). It reminds me also of the recently announced intention by IBM to build a computer model of the entire human brain. It's happening in Switzerland, so I guess we can expect a brain that thinks on time (you may groan NOW).

Yet all you need do is open your eyes, and the answer is there. In fact it's blatantly obvious.

 

[Mercutio]

Yet all you need do is open your eyes, and the answer is there. In fact it's blatantly obvious.

Try that at a library some time, Iacchus. You might be surprised by what is there that you have missed.

 

[Atlas]

Yet all you need do is open your eyes, and the answer is there. In fact it's blatantly obvious.

The answer that is obvious to you does not address our questions.

 

[Iacchus]

The answer that is obvious to you does not address our questions.

If it wasn't for the conspicuous fact that I exist, what else would there be to know? Obviously the Universe was so designed, that it could be readily understood ... based upon the conspicuous fact that we're here that is.

 

[Atlas]

If it wasn't for the conspicuous fact that I exist, what else would there be to know? Obviously the Universe was so designed, that it could be readily understood ... based upon the conspicuous fact that we're here that is.

What puzzles me is not why I'm here... What puzzles me is why you're here too. Clearly something has gone wrong in the universe.

 

[Mercutio]

If it wasn't for the conspicuous fact that I exist, what else would there be to know?

If you did not exist, you would not know anything else. Or even, for that matter, that you do not exist. Um...ok. Your point?

Obviously the Universe was so designed, that it could be readily understood

Not obvious at all, and you have not demonstrated that you understand it at all, let alone "readily". Your notions are often held in defiance of observed data. Your ignorance of those data keeps you safe from this knowledge, but the fact remains that you, Iacchus, do not have a good understanding of the universe. Your claim that it is "readily understood" is very easily dismissed.

... based upon the conspicuous fact that we're here that is.

Well, gee. If you define the entire universe as "that which exists in Iacchus's imagination", then I suppose it is readily understood. Fortunately for the rest of us, the people who really are interested in these matters have quite different definitions.

 

[Iacchus]

If you did not exist, you would not know anything else. Or even, for that matter, that you do not exist. Um...ok. Your point?

Neither would I be "here" to tell you about it.

 

[Loki]

Ok ... I'm finally convinced. Iacchus is Franko. Or channeling Franko.

Or perhaps he and Franko both attended the same pre-school, where their childhood innocence was bludgeoned into the amusing, slightly sad, and somewhat intriguing* personality we see today. Perhaps we should not underestimate the impact of that early autumn morning when the door of their safe little 4 year old world was opened to reveal "Miss Fendor", the substitute teacher with a passion for chocolate glazed jam donuts and a fistfull of free tickets to "Dyanetics On Ice - the Musical".

L. Ron moves in mysterious ways....

( * here the word 'intriguing' can be most accurately translated as meaning :

'Deep', in the same way that Brittany Spears' lyrics are 'thoughtful'.

'Clever', in the same way that bricks thrown at moving cars are 'subtle'.

'Perceptive', in the same way that the marble-tiled floor in the ensuite of room 734 at the Singapore Hilton is likely to become a world chess master.

'Humourous', in the same way that Adam Sandler's "The Longest Yard" is a documentary on the modern prison system.

'Compelling', in completely the opposite way to which Mercutio is.
)

 

[Pangloss]

Yet all you need do is open your eyes, and the answer is there. In fact it's blatantly obvious.

Whoa there a nanosecond. There's good reason to be suspicious of the obvious, especially of the blatant variety. After all, it's blatantly obvious that the sun wakes up in the morning, then flies across the sky before it goes to sleep at night.

 

[Iacchus]

Ok ... I'm finally convinced. Iacchus is Franko. Or channeling Franko.

Or perhaps he and Franko both attended the same pre-school, where their childhood innocence was bludgeoned into the amusing, slightly sad, and somewhat intriguing* personality we see today. Perhaps we should not underestimate the impact of that early autumn morning when the door of their safe little 4 year old world was opened to reveal "Miss Fendor", the substitute teacher with a passion for chocolate glazed jam donuts and a fistfull of free tickets to "Dyanetics On Ice - the Musical".

L. Ron moves in mysterious ways....

( * here the word 'intriguing' can be most accurately translated as meaning :

'Deep', in the same way that Brittany Spears' lyrics are 'thoughtful'.

'Clever', in the same way that bricks thrown at moving cars are 'subtle'.

'Perceptive', in the same way that the marble-tiled floor in the ensuite of room 734 at the Singapore Hilton is likely to become a world chess master.

'Humourous', in the same way that Adam Sandler's "The Longest Yard" is a documentary on the modern prison system.

'Compelling', in completely the opposite way to which Mercutio is.
)

Oh, and I thought that it was all relative and, that meaning was only what we make of it.

But seriously folks ...

 

[Iacchus]

Whoa there a nanosecond. There's good reason to be suspicious of the obvious, especially of the blatant variety. After all, it's blatantly obvious that the sun wakes up in the morning, then flies across the sky before it goes to sleep at night.

So then, why is it so hard for you to accept that reality is just an elaborate dream of God's?

 

[Atlas]

So then, why is it so hard for you to accept that reality is just an elaborate dream of God's?

Where is the merit of such an acceptance? If we assume as science does that objective reality exists witout reference to any magic sky god dreams it can tease out of that reality understandings that produce the great inventive achievments of the modern world.

What additional value can be had by saying "but you know what, it's all God's dream and magic can happen but not any useful magic and not anything that can be even demonstrated that might show the dream theory is valid."

 

[Iacchus]

Where is the merit of such an acceptance? If we assume as science does that objective reality exists witout reference to any magic sky god dreams it can tease out of that reality understandings that produce the great inventive achievments of the modern world.

What additional value can be had by saying "but you know what, it's all God's dream and magic can happen but not any useful magic and not anything that can be even demonstrated that might show the dream theory is valid."

It's a valid question. How do we know that it all isn't some sort of elaborate illusion?

 

[Mercutio]

It's a valid question. How do we know that it all isn't some sort of elaborate illusion?

It is a useless question. If it is an illusion, it is one that has remarkable staying power, and is indeed indistinguishable (to us) from an actual reality. So...when you look at the actual consistency of evidence over centuries of close examination, we can re-word your "valid question" as follows: How do we know that what we think of as reality is not, in fact, an illusion that is utterly indistinguishable from reality?

And that is a useless question.