Materialists......

[UndercoverElephant]

"It is my supposition that minds are processes in brains."

I mean "are", as in "really, really are" (Feel free to add more "really"s if it helps clarify the meaning).

No, this has not clarified the meaning. Adding more "really"s isn't going to help. Are you trying to say "are identical to" or "are necessary for"?

It's easy to be misled by experiments which put one kind of modified galvanometer or another on the bonce and demonstrate electromagnetic activity and say "This is neural process". Of course, it's nothing of the kind. It's a recording of electromagnetic activity. We could record the signal- but we would not have "mind" on tape. Mind IS the process. The instant the process stops, mind does not exist.

That does not mean X is Y. It means X supervenes on Y. Subtle difference, but important. Brains are necessary for minds.

Well, pretty girls are interesting in themselves, but my point was that I can't see where my free will rests in this case.

You don't have any in this case. You have unfree will. Your ego/biology is in the driving seat.

If the unconscious can't have free will because " it doesn't even know what it's doing "- *(An assumption I would seriously question)- and my conscious mind has no choice in the matter, we appear to have an impasse. Where is "my" free will in this case? You mean I only have freedom in restricted areas?

Free will is freedom from hard determinism. It is the freedom to act against what your biology is telling you to do. When you resist the temptation to do something you really want to do, simply because you know it is wrong and you feel a moral duty not to do what your biology is telling you to do, that is free will. If you are doing it because you are scared you'll get caught and go to prison, it's not free will.

 

[Tricky]

Brains are necessary for minds. (less words).

What else is necessary? (fewer words)

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Why did he suppose there is any such thing, in the first place?

Because he knew how powerful George Berkeley's arguments for subjective idealism are and he saw positing a noumenal reality as the only coherent way to counter them.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You see "ordinary," "some or all," and "posited by common-sense," right? Those are qualifiers.

Yes, but they aren't going to help you. If you allow some mental terms to "slip throught the net" then you lose the benefits of being an eliminativist in the first place. It becomes pointless. You've gone back to being a dualist-in-a-not-very-good-disguise.

We've had this argument before, and we still can't find a clear definition of eliminative materialism. Heck, I bet there are varying degrees of it.

Yep, and everything which isn't 100% eliminativism is incoherent.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Damn! I forgot about gravitons.

The strange thing is......Even though I have no idea where Franko got his idea about gravity and consciousness being deeply linked together, Penrose agrees with him. Penrose claims conciousness is a manifestation of quantum gravity in the microtubules.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

What else is necessary? (fewer words)

That's the million dollar question. It cannot be answered without a coherent explanation of the relationship between subjective and objective. It may not be possible to answer it without a coherent metaphysical interpretation of QM.

 

[hammegk]

I've noted that when people dismiss either Dennet or Dawkins,

Dismissing the epistemology underlying their work makes no logical sense.

I am annoyed by all this pedantic blustery sematic games in an attempt to prove an unprovable claim.

Why do you have faith epistemology addresses ontological choice? It does not, and can not.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Tricky and Paul

The questions you are asking seem to indicate that you are looking for something to add to the materialistic view. This is typical of the way this issue is thought about by materialists and why they tend to think that anything which isn't materialism must be dualism. But materialism can be wrong without actually needing to add anything to the material. Instead, what needs to happen is that the entire materialistic picture is taken and placed in a new context. When relativity came along it didn't add something to the Newtonian picture. Instead, it picked it up and placed it in a new context. I think something similar needs to happen. You do not need to add anything to materialistic picture. Instead, you have to find a new context for that materialistic picture. Since materialism has no recognisable foundations of its own, this is less of a problem that one might initially think it is. In other words, it is possible that when the bigger picture is glimpsed that you will look at the part of it that corresponds to the materialistic worldview and say "Well, we were sort of right all along, we just didn't have the whole answer."

 

[Tricky]

What else is necessary(for minds to exist besides brains)?

That's the million dollar question. It cannot be answered without a coherent explanation of the relationship between subjective and objective. It may not be possible to answer it without a coherent metaphysical interpretation of QM.

Would you accept "nothing else is necessary" as an answer? After all, by all evidence, that seems to be the case.

The questions you are asking seem to indicate that you are looking for something to add to the materialistic view. This is typical of the way this issue is thought about by materialists and why they tend to think that anything which isn't materialism must be dualism. But materialism can be wrong without actually needing to add anything to the material. Instead, what needs to happen is that the entire materialistic picture is taken and placed in a new context.

Your statement that brains are necessary for minds seems to imply that there is something more than just brains. Is that a correct interpretation?

When relativity came along it didn't add something to the Newtonian picture. Instead, it picked it up and placed it in a new context.

I disagree with this statement. Einsteinian physics added much to the understanding of physicis beyond Newtonian physics. To expand something, you must add to it. However if as you say that a greater understanding of the way the brain works, or even a greater understanding of physics and QM in general would lead to a greater understanding of the mind, then I agree wholeheartedly. I think it will show, to an even greater degree, that the mind is an emergent property of the brain. I do not believe that metaphysics would have any impact on such an advancement of knowledge, based on my observaton that it has not, to this point, provided any useful information.

 

[hammegk]

Would you accept "nothing else is necessary" as an answer?

As has been discussed again and again, some do, some don't, most don't ever think about it, or if they do, accept dualism in some guise or other.

It's a logically defensible position to accept your statement as long as one examines and is willing to defend all the implications of that choice.

For a materialist, the question "Does free-will exist?" can logically have no more value than the question "What is a square circle?". Some contemplation may provide other examples the materialist should argue must have zero probability of being meaningful.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Would you accept "nothing else is necessary" as an answer?

No. That answer would be misleading.

After all, by all evidence, that seems to be the case.

This statement is also misleading. I explained why in the previous post.

Your statement that brains are necessary for minds seems to imply that there is something more than just brains.

No, I explained what it is was implying.

Einsteinian physics added much to the understanding of physicis beyond Newtonian physics.

And the correct solution to the mind-body problem would add much to the understanding of the way reality is put together. But it it would not neccesarily add anything inside the materalistic framework, just as Einsteinian physics didn't add anything inside the Newtonian framework. What changed for Newtonian physics was the context not the content.

To expand something, you must add to it. However if as you say that a greater understanding of the way the brain works, or even a greater understanding of physics and QM in general would lead to a greater understanding of the mind, then I agree wholeheartedly. I think it will show, to an even greater degree, that the mind is an emergent property of the brain. I do not believe that metaphysics would have any impact on such an advancement of knowledge, based on my observaton that it has not, to this point, provided any useful information.

Such an advancement of knowledge would have to be metaphysics.

 

[Belz...]

That statement can lead to confusion. What you call "the Universe" is experienced by you. But what is actually external to your experiences isn't necessarily what you call "the Universe". It's something, but not the same thing as the thing you experience.

That's treading dangerously close to sophism to me.

Yes, that does seem true. Unless you are lifegazer.

I'm not.

It claims the matter self-exists. It claims that "matter" is what ultimate reality is made of - so it's not made of anything else. Instead, it claims that everything is made of matter, and matter self-exists.

I'm still not clear as to what "self-exists" means.

 

[Belz...]

This might help to make it less meaningless:

http://www.hedweb.com/witherall/zero.htm

According to Geoff? Something very like mathematics, with 0 understood in the way Hegel understood Nothingness and Beingness.

As I've said before: we might want to consider the thought that "nothingness" may, in fact, be impossible.

Hegel, among others, ended up equating these two concepts. Absolute Being turns out to denote absolutely nothing. Being and Nothing are part of the same dynamically intertwined concept. According to Geoff, ultimate reality is mathematics plus this Being/Nothing, which takes the place of Zero in the ultimate reality.

Who to the what, now ?

 

[Belz...]

Free will is freedom from hard determinism. It is the freedom to act against what your biology is telling you to do.

How ?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I'm still not clear as to what "self-exists" means.

It means "exists without dependence on the existence of anything else". God, should God exist, must self-exist. God could not be dependent for his own existence of the existence of something else. Very few people are denying that the empirical/phenomenal universe exists, in some way. Lifegazer does, but as a result ends up in the absurd position of claiming "reality isn't real". The question is whether or not there is a universe external to our perceptions which self-exists in the way God would.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

As I've said before: we might want to consider the thought that "nothingness" may, in fact, be impossible.

My own position is that absolute nothingness cannot exist and can never have existed. The concept is effectively eliminated from my system because I equate zero with infinity. Absolute nothingness is equivalent to the totality of everything.

Who to the what, now ?

?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

How ?

By a sheer act of will. It is impossible to give you a more comprehensive answer until and unless you've got a fairly good grip on the rest of what I've been saying. As has already been explained, within the materialist conception of reality this idea is meaningless/impossible.

 

[Soapy Sam]

No, this has not clarified the meaning. Adding more "really"s isn't going to help. Are you trying to say "are identical to" or "are necessary for"?

Geoff, we can play this game for ever. I mean minds are processes in brains. If I choose "are identical to", will you ask me what I mean by "are" in the phrase "are identical to"? I mean minds are processes in brains. If you really, really don't understand that, I'm sorry that I do not know how to make it any clearer.

Free will is freedom from hard determinism. It is the freedom to act against what your biology is telling you to do. When you resist the temptation to do something you really want to do, simply because you know it is wrong and you feel a moral duty not to do what your biology is telling you to do, that is free will. If you are doing it because you are scared you'll get caught and go to prison, it's not free will.

That is a disappointingly trivial definition. I had supposed "free will" to mean an ability to come to decisions about anything- which I thought well answered by Haldane's comment that the universe may not only be queerer than we imagine, but may be queerer than we can imagine.

If "free will" is simply the willingness to accept imposed moral constraints in a situation where violation would go unpunished, then the only way to exercise free will in a universe possessed of an omnipotent god (who sees every sparrow fall and every boy with a bow and arrow) would seem to be by deliberately breaking said being's commandments, well knowing what lies in store. ie Satan displayed free will while the other archangels just kept their mouths shut and went with the flow. A disturbingly human picture. Or do I mistake your message ?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Geoff, we can play this game for ever. I mean minds are processes in brains. If I choose "are identical to", will you ask me what I mean by "are" in the phrase "are identical to"?

No, that's not what I'll do. If you say "is identical to" then you have clarified what you mean by "are/is". The problem is that it is quite easy to show that brains processes and mental states are not identical. Two things X and Y are identical only if each and every property of X is identical to the corresponding property of Y. The Evening Star is identical to Venus. But brain processes and minds, far from sharing every property, don't share any at all. So if you mean "identical to" then you must be wrong. [EDIT: CORRECTION] It may be that both minds and brain processes share an informational structure - that is they can both be reduced to a set of information and it may turn out to be the same set of information in both cases. This is compatible with my own position.

I mean minds are processes in brains. If you really, really don't understand that, I'm sorry that I do not know how to make it any clearer.

If it means "identical to" then its wrong. If it means something else then what does it mean? I am not just being pedantic here, this is not mere word play.

That is a disappointingly trivial definition. I had supposed "free will" to mean an ability to come to decisions about anything- which I thought well answered by Haldane's comment that the universe may not only be queerer than we imagine, but may be queerer than we can imagine.

Coming to decisions is not an act of will. Decision-making is a cognitive process which is being driven by the brain. The will does not make decisions. If you think about it there is a time gap between deciding to act and actually willing the act.

If "free will" is simply the willingness to accept imposed moral constraints.....

NO! That would not be free will. If you are acting according to anything imposed upon you then it cannot be free. You have to act out of a sense of moral duty - a sense which was not imposed.

...in a situation where violation would go unpunished, then the only way to exercise free will in a universe possessed of an omnipotent god (who sees every sparrow fall and every boy with a bow and arrow) would seem to be by deliberately breaking said being's commandments......

It may be better if we leave [the Christian] God out of this.

, well knowing what lies in store[/I]. ie Satan displayed free will while the other archangels just kept their mouths shut and went with the flow. A disturbingly human picture. Or do I mistake your message ?

I don't want to answer this because I don't know how you interpret this piece of mythology. For me, "Satan" represents the ego and the evolved tendency of humans to act selfishly. When we are "tempted by Satan" we are simply being motivated by our biology. Given that I do not believe in archangels as actual beings, they can't really have free will.

 

[Soapy Sam]

To me, it's just a story. No actual meaning at all.

Let me quote yourself from above- " ... When you resist the temptation to do something you really want to do, simply because you know it is wrong and you feel a moral duty not to do what your biology is telling you to do, that is free will. If you are doing it because you are scared you'll get caught and go to prison, it's not free will."

But how do we "know" something is "wrong" unless we are told so? If I start making up my own mind about morality, I might rationally establish a morality of self-interest. Is a child "wrong" when he wets his nappy? Not from his point of view.
Morality is a herd property, imposed by the group.Whether i't's a god or the group hardly matters though. If there is imposition, then by your definition there is no free will in moral behaviour; there is free will only in immoral behaviour.