Materialists......

[UndercoverElephant]

If I am not who I think I am then I am nobody.

Or nothing?

If my actions did not stem from this conscious self then they did not originate from me.

I wish to seperate your mind from the thing which observes your mind and wills your actions. For me, the difference between a brain process and a mind is that a mind is the relationship between a brain process and a thing I call zero and equate to infinity. So we have a potential confusion about the term "conscious self". We have the content of the mind, which is determined by the configuration of the brain, and we also have this "I" thing which is nothing/being/Zero. When you say "me" you mean a mixture of both. In different senses, both these things are you. But one of them is individual and finite and the other is universal and infinite. One is the source of free will because it is infinite. It is also nothing because infinity and nothingess are a combined concept.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

The explanations I've heard involving QM make it sound as if the brain is some sort of receiver for mystical QM-based thoughts.

You are beginning to sound like Kevin.

So no experiment can distinguish these monisms.

Not empirical experiment, no.

That means we have to find a logical proof of one of them.

0 = 1 + -1.

I agree, if you allow some folk psychological mental terms to slip through, you've got a problem.

If you allow any terms which actually refer to your mind to slip through, you've got a problem. That is why the people defending eliminativism as sane are deluding themselves. It really does require that minds don't exist, and there really isn't any way of properly expressing mental terms using physical ones.

Wait, you just used the verb is. What is Penrose really saying? Do you seriously find this more satisfying than "consciousness is a brain process?"

Yes. It's not illogical.

And I won't mind saying that, since I'm not discussing this because I think I'm right. I'm discussing it because I don't think there is any difference between all these monisms, but I await the greatest logical proof ever devised by mankind.

0 = 1 + 1.

Geoff

 

[chriswl]

Ultimately, the critical causal factor is our own experience of what it is like to be a conscious being. We need reason to understand that there are other conscious beings but it is our own experiences of life and our feelings of moral duty to other conscious beings which we assume to have had similar experiences of life which leads to our belief that what we should act morally (there is no reason for solipsists or p-zombies to act morally.

But p-zombies do act morally. It is part of their definition that they act exactly like conscious humans. If God assured you that half of the people on Earth were p-zombies you would have no way of knowing which ones they were. You certainly couldn't tell by observing whether or not they were good people.

 

[Soapy Sam]

...And I won't mind saying that, since I'm not discussing this because I think I'm right. I'm discussing it because I don't think there is any difference between all these monisms, but I await the greatest logical proof ever devised by mankind.
~~ Paul

Or indeed a solitary shred of evidence.

The sensory system feed a human brain the processed input from around 10 million bits of data per second.

The conscious mind handles around 50 bits / second.

There is an immense mismatch. The conscious mind is simply incapable of making most of the decisions humans actually make in a realtime context.

Subliminal perception is real.
Subliminal cognition is not only real, but by far the majority of what happens in the brain.

The concept of free will is a conceit which is long out of date.

When we act morally in most cases we do so because human morality is designed by humans to let humans do what they would do anyway and to find excuses for the exceptions, which is why priests are not burned at the stake for molesting altar boys.
When we act immorally , it is generally because we enjoy it (read "we are wired that way") We rarely act immorally because, however much we hate it, we think it's the right thing to do".

 

[Tricky]

0 = 1 + -1.

You're a very smart guy in many ways, Geoff, but your insisted repetition of this mathmatical definition and your claim that it is a logical argument, make you look barking mad. Please do not follow the lead of Franko, Lifegazer and Iacchus who all made similarly vacuous arguments.

0 = 1 + 1.

And if you have some sort of Tourette's affliction that makes you repeat it, try to get it right.

 

[nescafe]

0 = 1 + -1.

Ugh, please cease with the pseudomath. You want to cast your metaphysics in the language of mathematics, great. But unless you have a theoem proving 0 equivalent to Absolute Inifinity (or some cardinal subset thereof), please don't pretend that it is anything but a metaphor that some of us find tedious and gratingly stupid. If you do have such a theorem, please send it to me -- I will take back all those nasty things anyone has said about you after accepting the Gauss Prize and Fields Medal.

 

[articulett]

Then by all means, eliminate mental states. I think various terms involving the word mind will stick around as names for brain states, at least in science. In philosophy, it's probably best to eliminate the word completely, since it's laden with dualistic notions.

In any event, in the scientific context, none of this denies that people experience fear. It's just a question of what fear really is.

~~ Paul

And may I add, fear requires an amygdala--a brain structure. They can destroy it in mice, and then the mice are no longer afraid of cats. Fear evolved as a protective mechanism--in the brain--not free floating boogey-men (or scientology thetans...)

 

[UndercoverElephant]

But p-zombies do act morally. It is part of their definition that they act exactly like conscious humans.

Then I don't believe they can exist, for this reason.

If God assured you that half of the people on Earth were p-zombies you would have no way of knowing which ones they were. You certainly couldn't tell by observing whether or not they were good people.

This is all complelety hypothetical. It can just as easily be used to argue that p-zombies are impossible as it can be used to argue that empathy depends on being conscious.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You're a very smart guy in many ways, Geoff, but your insisted repetition of this mathmatical definition and your claim that it is a logical argument, make you look barking mad.

Sorry about that, but I have no better way to answer the question. If you cannot see a correspondence between...

Materialism
Neutral Monism
Idealism

...and...

1
0
-1

...then you aren't looking hard enough.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Ugh, please cease with the pseudomath. You want to cast your metaphysics in the language of mathematics, great.

I want to use a symbolic device to answer a question. Why is it such a problem?

But unless you have a theoem proving 0 equivalent to Absolute Inifinity (or some cardinal subset thereof), please don't pretend that it is anything but a metaphor that some of us find tedious and gratingly stupid.

I am sorry about that, but every time somebody says "all three monisms are equivalent" then I will respond with that equation regardless of how stupid you and tricky think it is. Would you be happier if I linked to a yin/yang image instead?

If you do have such a theorem, please send it to me -- I will take back all those nasty things anyone has said about you after accepting the Gauss Prize and Fields Medal.

How many times do I have to tell people it is a symbolic device and not a piece of alternative mathematics?

I think what we have here is not so much a case of Geoff posting fake mathematics as we have some people being unable to understand something very simple in an "accidentally on purpose" sort of way. Not only do you know that it's not pseudomath, I suspect you also know precisely what it is supposed to mean.

Materialism, Idealism and Neutral monism are not equivalent because they are related to each other in a very specific way. "0 = 1 + -1" is a symbolic representation of their relationship. I will continue to use it.

 

[69dodge]

Hang on a minute, '69 . (Can I call you '69?)

Ok.

If I'm saying morality is imposed by a group and you say it's genetically determined, we ain't leaving Geoff much room to manouevre. He's damned if we do and danged if we don't.

I'll agree that morality is remarkably similar world wide, which supports genetic determinism, but I think it is imposed by peer pressure.

When I said it's biology, I didn't mean to take sides in a nature-vs.-nurture question. I just meant that, however someone's brain got to be in the state it's in, it's that state alone that determines what they'll do, and not something extra called "will".

 

[articulett]

Ok.

When I said it's biology, I didn't mean to take sides in a nature-vs.-nurture question. I just meant that, however someone's brain got to be in the state it's in, it's that state alone that determines what they'll do, and not something extra called "will".

It's hard talking to "dualists" who see perception as some otherwordly thing...

Mirror neurons are in, large part, responsible for feelings of empathy. If someone has no conscience, you can't make him have one. Mirror neurons are known to have something to do with the hormones in the brain and are more abundant in women than men and in parents vs. non-parents.

The dualist never really say what or how they believe "differently" while putting down us "less-ethereal" sorts. We've evolved the "feelings" and brain structures we have because it's been evolutonarily advantagous--we don't choose our gender or the parents we are born to, but we make choices, based on the preferences, tendencies, and learning that we have experienced. Humans are pretty much like every other animal--not a robot--but our choices are limited by a concrete reality of choices we can choose from.

So Hammegk and Justgeoff--you are "dualists of sorts--so tell us how you think differently--you've repeatedly describe materialists as "robotic" or zombie like, but that seems to be because you have a poor grasp of what it really means or you don't want to get it, because you want to believe in your "dualistic" theory because it makes you feel better (or superior). Instead of telling us what we believe (an you are very off from my perspective), tell us how you believe differently. And why? Anything other than personal experience? or "an inner feeling?". Do you believe you will exist in some manner after this life and that you have a predetermined purpose for this existence? We can understand the concepts without all the monisms and crap. We grew up in the same world where the majority of people think pretty much like you. But if your goal is to know that which is true--I think you are blinded by your pet philosophies and obfuscating terms. To me, it just seems that you can not accept that you might be wrong so you restort to telling us what we think so you have a nice straw man to attack. tsk tsk

 

[69dodge]

No, I didn't say that. Rational thought plays a big part, and the capacity of human beings to think rationally is the result of biological processes. It is only the will itself which transcends biology, not the processes of gathering knowledge which is required before moral action is possible.

What makes you think that your desire to act morally is not also the result of biological processes?

It's just one more desire among many others. If biology suffices for all the rest, why don't you think it suffices for this one?

Sometimes we don't do something even though we really did want to do it - and we refrained from doing it for the sole reason that we knew it was wrong.

We refrained from doing it because we knew it was wrong and we wanted to do right. That's a want, just like any other; so why are you convinced that it isn't biologically based, just like all the others?

As Bertrand Russell said in his Nobel Lecture:

All human activity is prompted by desire. There is a wholly fallacious theory advanced by some earnest moralists to the effect that it is possible to resist desire in the interests of duty and moral principle. I say this is fallacious, not because no man ever acts from a sense of duty, but because duty has no hold on him unless he desires to be dutiful.

 

[Belz...]

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.

Well, Geoff, we still don't have a clear definition of "will". We know it's not random, and we know it's not deterministic, but that's it. The rub is, we don't even know if such a thing is possible.

It means "exists without dependence on the existence of anything else".

"Anything else" is also problematic, because if you look at it a certain way, there IS nothing else as far as the universe goes. But I don't think the universe "self-exists" if there's something (i.e. the oft-mentionned singularity) that is necessary for it.

God, should God exist, must self-exist.

Only SOME versions of God.

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.?

Zero and infinity are two different concepts. Your vaunted "1" and "-1" are just mathematical constructs, and infinities don't cancel one another. Also, the aforementionned "near-infinities" at the birth of the universe don't actually become infinities if you move "backwards" in time from that point. So I don't see how you can come to that conclusion.

 

[Belz...]

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.

Which, again, says nothing about whether the "will" is part of the brain or not.

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.

But any and all decisions HAVE to be based on something. Different countries and cultures have different moralities, sometimes drastically so. If there was some sort of universal, objective morality, you'd expect more uniformity, no ?

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.

Actually, it's clear to me that this story is about obedience VS free will. Humans chose the latter, and rightly so. "Satan", though not actually identified in that story, isn't the bad guy.

I disagree strongly. I think that is just a shadow of morality - a placeholder for true morality. True morality comes from thinking about the issues for yourself and acting as you genuinely believe you ought to act.

Again, that doesn't point to anything else than biological processes.

This is, IMO, what the mythology of "eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil" is all about. Before evolution finally produce a creature capable of rational thought, no free will was possible.

I'm sure a lot of animals would disagree.

 

[chriswl]

Chris: But p-zombies do act morally. It is part of their definition that they act exactly like conscious humans.

Geoff: Then I don't believe they can exist, for this reason.

I thought you might say that. The problem is, it seems entirely logically possible that something could exist that just copied the outward behaviour of a human being. Even if we allow that some human actions are not deterministically controlled and are the result of "free will" the p-zombie could give the appearance of free will by substituting randomness.

This is not the same thing as saying genuine free will is randomness. But to reconcile your notion of free will with empirical science you have said that free will appears, from the outside, as randomness and is thus allowed for by quantum physics.

Perhaps in introducing quantum randomness at crucial points in the p-zombie's decision making process we will unwittingly cause it to be conscious, because we would be tapping into the mysterious quantum processes that you think underlie consciousness. But we can easily bypass this problem by modelling the appearence of quantum randomness by a merely pseudo-random process.

 

[Belz...]

Sorry about that, but I have no better way to answer the question. If you cannot see a correspondence between...

Materialism
Neutral Monism
Idealism

...and...

1
0
-1

...then you aren't looking hard enough.

Okay. Now you've lost me.

 

[hammegk]

.. A disturbingly human picture. Or do I mistake your message ?

Your mistake is assuming free will is a human attribute. "Will" is the attribute of all that exists and/or ~exists.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Ok.

When I said it's biology, I didn't mean to take sides in a nature-vs.-nurture question. I just meant that, however someone's brain got to be in the state it's in, it's that state alone that determines what they'll do, and not something extra called "will".

This is just an assumption that determinism is true. If determinism is true then whatever state the brain is in was (empirically determnined). You don't even need to bother with that sentence though, because if determinism is true then free will doesn't exist, by definition. If free will does exist then your statement is false, by definition.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

What makes you think that your desire to act morally is not also the result of biological processes?

How many other animals can you think of that act morally?

It's just one more desire among many others. If biology suffices for all the rest, why don't you think it suffices for this one?

Because this one acts against our biology and against our self-interest. Moral actions benefit the whole or "the other", not the individual. There are cases from the animal world where this applies, but only in the case where an animal helps one of its relatives or tribe. These cases are the result of evolutionary group selection. When people like Dawkins apply these theories to human altruism and moral behaviour then they enter dangerous territory.

We refrained from doing it because we knew it was wrong and we wanted to do right. That's a want, just like any other; so why are you convinced that it isn't biologically based, just like all the others?

Because doing the right thing is often not what we want. Moral decisions are not toss-ups between two things we equally want to do. They are a decision between something we want to to, but shouldn't, and something we don't want to do, but should. So I don't accept your question as valid.