MoFo's Religion

Because we can just not have free will. Perfectly consistent with scientific observation and logic, requires no supernatural invocation.

Also, there's a new contradiction that comes from your latest claims. You keep saying that the way the universe behaves is far too complicated to understand, which is true, even if it's not generally relevant to the point I'm making. So the question is: how can you say we have free will just because it kind of feels like we do? If it's so insanely complicated, why can't choice be an illusion? The same thing you use to defend one part of your argument invalidates another. You want to posit complexity and uncertainty when it suits you--when we're talking about cause and effect--but ignore it when it doesn't--when you want to say feeling like you have choice must mean that you do.

What on earth are you talking about? The idea that some parts of the physical world can choose how to react to other parts is a completely wild new theory with no empirical evidence behind it. That's not my opinion, dude.

So the matter in your brain is special somehow, which is why the things it does aren't predetermined, yes?
The problem with this is that you say "act like." I don't say they act the same; they're very different. I say they're made of the same basic building blocks (show me one molecular difference. Go ahead), and there's no reason to believe (and here's your entire claim, in a nutshell) that the stuff in your head is special stuff that operates under different rules than other stuff.

I sure have. But none of it contains evidence that some physical matter can choose whether or not to react to things around it. And that's the thing you don't get: the fact that we don't know much about how things react poses no problem for my argument. Either some matter can sometimes CHOOSE how to react, or not. This is a logical statement, not a scientific one. It's not a statement contingent on us being currently ignorant of how things work.

Yes you are. The idea that some physical matter CHOOSES whether to respond to stimulus is a supernatural idea. It's supernatural because it has no observational evidence to support it and because there's lots of empirical data to contradict it. Period.

I love how you try to make your position sound reasonable and straightforward by saying "we think," which skips over the entire issue.

Yoda, even if you get Will.15 to renounce free will as an 'illusion,' what then generates that illusion as it exists? You will surely substitute God, but why is this necessary? Why not another, as of yet unknown, material basis? Nevertheless, this is not the argument I am making. That's just the endless postponement of free will to scientific discovery. No, I argue for the immediacy of free will from the structure of being.

What you're saying is essentially "we can't get free will for free, so we need God."

I'm saying we don't need to steal at all: we pay a price which I have been calling "supplement." What needs to be explained is the One-effect constitutive of will -- that is, why we experience will as we do, which we certainly do. Again, to say free will is an illusion says nothing at all. It merely calls free will the name "illusion" for which you then substitute the name "God."

Your argument is flawed, even if Will.15 can't tell you why. I can tell he hasn't really thought about the problem outside of these forums, which is perfectly normal.

That's an odd question; indeed, why not some other unknown, material basis? That's entirely possible. It might be an illusion that results from a known process, or an unknown process. I make no claim either way, I just claim that it's an illusion. Again, from a materialist's point of view.

What you're describing sounds identical to "soft" determinism, which tries to get around the problem by subtly admitting free will doesn't exist in the way we often use the term, and then just saying that the illusion of choice we have can be called free will. That's reasonable, but it's not an argument against determinism.

It's more than that. There's no way he's going to like your "supplement" theory. He will predictably regard it as a bunch of philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Which means, from his perspective, my argument isn't flawed at all. He needs to articulate an explanation given the other things he professes to believe, and therein lies the futility.

I don't think it's flawed from my perspective or yours, either, mind you. But that's a separate question.

Aye, it is normal. Slightly less normal: posting terrible arguments about kittens and rocks instead of just admitting he hasn't thought much about it and bowing out gracefully.

I begrudge no one for deciding not to think of these things too much. But I'll begrudge them plenty for not thinking of them, and then talking a whole bunch about them anyway.

There is no argument 'against' determinism if you accept deterministic grounds: cause and effect are exhaustive of the possibilities of being. Soft determinists already accept deterministic grounds, so they have to revise the object of consideration in order to say anything at all more than the postulates of determinism already say. This ultimately, as we both know, amounts to them saying nothing at all.

Clearly, I don't think the concepts of cause and effect express anything necessary about being, and I'm not so sure any 'atheist' actually does. Here's why. Almost all atheists will have the following view of science: science is constantly revising itself. When atheists state "I believe in science," they are talking about a process, not a body of facts. That statement alone expresses perfectly an intuitive grasp of 'supplement to being.'

The fact that science has to 'move' in order to grasp Truth, shows that Truth exists on 'different dimension' than science. It follows that it is the very movement itself of science that we can call Truth. What else supplements the granted Truth of science but its willingness to move?

It is in this space of movement, the utterly indeterminate space of the Multiple, that h a r d c o r e freedom exists absolutely.

The passage from one object (molecule) to another (consciousness).

Tell these guys there is no such thing as free will.

http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/physics/

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Yeah, Gol and I talked about that a few pages back. Quantum indeterminacy poses an interesting potential challenge to determinacy, but it doesn't suggest free will.

Since I figure there is an extremely small chance that you actually read that before posting it, I'll let you down easy: it doesn't back you up. It suggests the same thing Gol and I concluded: that quantum indeterminacy may mean some things are really random, but that also means we can't control them.

Also, I can't help but point out that a few posts ago you were harping on about what "a scientist" would say (nevermind what this hypothetical scientist would say about your magic brain matter, apparently), and now you've posted a link full of scientists who said the exact same thing.

I'm not sure if you have the Girl Guides in American, probably not!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Guides

Anyway, they're dropping the motto...for God and the Queen (something like that)

As I've repeated tried to explain, materialism states that all objects are illusions with respect to being. What needs to be accounted for is the One-effect. To say it is an illusion does nothing at all but to give the existent Thing the name "illusion." How then does that illusion come about? That's what I'm interested in, the genesis of a singular, comprehending will from pure multiplicitious being.

Your argument is flawed, because it's not even an argument. It's just one result of the key postulate in the materialist framework: that all objects are illusions, that only the Multiple is. The illusion is failure to perceive the gap between existence and being. Existence is an illusion. That's all fun and good, but like Sedai once said, then how do you explain that we eat sandwiches?

The One-effect can't be accounted for by other Ones (i.e. molecules, motivations, drives), it can only be accounted for by the passage from Multipe to One.

I'm sorry, but it's time for you to drop this cliched view of 'materialism' that hasn't made sense to anyone since Newtonian mechanics was overturned.

Being is not a machine. We only understand between in mechanical terms.

Yup.

Correct. They believe in the process of science to yield empirical observations about the physical world. But they also believe there is nothing beyond the physical. Which means everything is either measurable, or would be measurable if we were better at measuring. Anything that defies this sort of observation or measure, not just in practice but even in theory, would have to be what we would call supernatural, I think.

Why would the process of trying to glean truth through science create any kind of space for choice to exist? I don't see the connection. Also, the fact that science has to "move" to get at the truth just means we guess wrong. There's nothing necessarily metaphysical about this that implies the two are on different "planes." Again, to a materialist.

Also, the last sentence kind of assumes the point of contention; the whole idea is that consciousness is just an emergent phenomena, not a material thing in and of itself. The fact that we've named it doesn't mean anything.

Well, what I posted is not definite scientific fact; it is what some scientists think, because, like economists, sociologists, and the rest, they are not in perfect agreement, and that article argues, if you like it or not, that it is explaining free will. It also says many scientists disagree. You can say they are not really explaining the physics of free will. They say they are. I am not saying I accept what they say either. Like I said, I ain't no scientist, but I believe a rational explanation must always take precedence over other explanations. Evolution makes more sense than God created Adam and Eve after he made the world in seven days. Just because you reject an explanation, or someone else does, doesn't invalidate it anymore than your belief free will is supernatural.

Where do they say that? I only see them saying that things may be random. It's not choice if you brain is making decisions randomly.

A fine position. The problem is, the simpler, more rational explanation would not lead you to believe in free will, because there's no evidence of it, and plenty of evidence to contradict it.

So how about you confirm the following: you're saying that the stuff that makes up your brain is special and not subject to the same physical laws as other stuff, right? I've asked this a few times but you seem to avoid actually answering it. I dunno if you don't like how it sounds when it's actually presented to you, but that's what you have, in fact, been saying.

Yup. Which is why at no point in this argument I've said "you should reject this idea because I do." I'm giving you reasons you should reject it based on what you say you believe. You want to hang on to empirical scientific data and believe something with no empirical scientific data to support it. That doesn't fly.

You're talking about the One. The thing you keep calling the 'physical world' is just realm of the One. I keep saying that the One is not, that only the Multiple is, and that the movement of science above all demonstrates this, and you keep saying that this suggests God.

It's all very strange, since if the One is not, then the remainder -- the 'unmeasurable' -- is simply Multiple.

This is your major confusion: to be outside existence (the realm of the One) is not to be supernatural. To be outside existence is to remain inside being (the realm of the Multiple).

To be outside being is to be supernatural (the realm of God).

The Materialist position says that the nature of being (the realm of the Multiple) implies there is no possible 'outside.'

This is weird. First you tell me that the thing I'm describing--the "physical world"--is the One. Then you say that the One is not physical. But I didn't say it was. In one fell swoop you're telling me what word I should be using, and then telling me that that word is wrong. I'm sure this is unintentional, but re-read the above and you'll see what I mean.

Which leads me to a question that probably sounds more adversarial than I mean for it to sound: why do we need these terms? I understand that sometimes we need new terms in philosophical discussions to define new ideas. But the purposes of this are always clarity, and I don't think these terms are adding to clarity. Moreover, I think they might be superfluous. Why not "Metaphysical" and "Physical" instead of "One" and "Multiple"?

I think you really need to define "supernatural," then.

If I'm understanding you correctly, things like abstract concepts are not physical, but neither are they supernatural. If that's what you're saying, I'd say: to a materialist, yeah, they are physical. Not in a way we can easily detect, but ultimately they are the byproduct of physical interactions.

Meaning, something is supernatural if it can exist without any physical basis whatsoever?

Right. They don't believe in anything outside of the physical. So, what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to say they should? Are you trying to show how they can not believe in anything outside of the physical, but still have free will (if so, how?)? I'm not at all clear on what you're arguing for, except that you seem to always be arguing that people are not using these terms correctly. But to what end, I can't tell.

You haven't given me anything to even remotely question there is free will. Free will is an illusion? I am supposed to find that persuasive?

Oy, again with the links that don't say the things you say they do. That doesn't purport to explain the physics of free will. Not even abstractly. In fact, it says the opposite. Even after going on about randomness and the idea of changing your mind, it concludes with this:

"Note that the evaluation and selection of one of these possibilities by the will is as deterministic and causal a process as anything that a determinist or compatibilist could ask for, consistent with our current knowledge of the physical world."

If you go on to read their definition of "adequate determinism," (I assume you haven't) you'll see that the whole thing is just a form of compatibilism.

It's simpler to believe in something there's absolutely no empirical evidence for, as opposed to the explanation there's reams of empirical evidence for? Say what?

There is literally as much evidence for your belief in free will as there is for someone who claims they can psychically sense an animal's emotions. Their argument is exactly as valid; it has no empirical evidence to support it, their only evidence is in how it feels to them, and it contradicts many things we can observe through physical experimentation.

No, you're not paying attention to the question. My question assumes what you just said is correct, and then it asks: BECAUSE you believe the "functions" are different, that means you think that the stuff that makes up your brain is special and not subject to the same physical laws as other stuff, right? That's what it means to say it "functions" differently. Your brain gets special rules, either through what it's made of or how it's arranged. There's no way around this conclusion, even though you really seem to want to avoid it.

By the way, it's incredibly telling that, while you argue for these ideas, you strongly resist actually confirming them when I read them back to you in simple terms.

No. You're supposed to find the fact that you're positing special molecules in your brain that don't react like other molecules to be persuasive.

I think that planet news is presenting his mini masses in a New Latin to keep the "faithful" (including his own) unenlightened.

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What you understand or possibly could understand about the physical world is the realm of the One. The physical world is a world composed of objects. One-ness is equivalent to object-hood.

When we speak about existence, we speak about the physical world. When we speak about being, we speak about both the physical world and that which is not the physical world.

Lemme draw a couple pictures.

"Metaphysical" means what exactly? What does it mean to you? It means different things to different philosophers. For example, if you mean metaphysics what Heidegger meant by metaphysics, then you are still talking about objects, so you are still in the realm of the One. Honestly, I don't really care what it means, because there's no need for it. It could be called "Bob" for all I care.

The reason why "One" is used to stand for the World of physical objects is because it relates existence to the number one. Again, I could call it "Hubert" if I wanted. It brings mathematics into fold as a discourse on being. Your guy Nash totally understands the centrality of the concept of One in talking about being, but what exactly he means by it is a different story.

Anyways, One-ness is as simple a concept as you can get. For me, it's the primordial concept of existence. To exist is to have One-ness. To be is to be Multiple. If you exist, you can be counted. Like counting... one, two, three. It's a very intuitive name for what the realm of existence is.

I can't define it in any terms or ideas I subscribe to, because it makes no sense. It's impossible. There is only the Multiple and the illusion of the One. There are no other configurations of being or existence. 'Outside' is an inherently contradictory idea. Even giving you a definition of it would force me to use senseless notions like 'outside' or 'transcendent.' Only immanence is possible for the materialist. That's why it's a truly atheist view. It's not agnostic about God like, say, science is. It totally prevents any concievable notion of God.

Can you count concepts? Like, can you count the number of concepts that you use? Yeah. So they are One. Can you count the number of abstract concepts you know? Can you say "this thing here is an abstract concept that I am articulating to you right now?" Then it is One. It's that simple.

The Multiple is that which breaks down the One so that it no longer exists. The materialist claim is that any One can be broken down into Multiple, so that, in the end, only the Multiple is. Amazingly, you seem to be open to the idea that everything can be broken down into the Multiple (definitely an attribute of someone who's rigorously considered a lot of things philosophically!), so it simply follows from this property of existence (it's destructibility) that only the Multiple is.

NEVERTHELESS, as you know, we can concieve of a lot of things as One. This is not just because they are 'useful,' unless you mean useful in a very strong sense in that we could not really have any thoughts or activity at all in a world that recognizes the Multiple. In some sense, the fact that the Multiple is 'unusable' makes the emergence of the One a given. The One is simply that orientation within the Multiple that makes the Multiple 'usable.'

All you need to explain then is the One-effect, and the materialist explanation is that you can find the One-effect as a property of any so-called object.

Plato's explanation for the One-effect is the transcedent Ideas. Aristotle's explanation for the One-effect is the hylomorphic model of form and matter.

These are all valiant attempts, but they aren't really necessary. All you need is the Multiple. The Multiple sustains its own illusions. This is the materialist stance.

At this point, you need to stop saying 'to the materialist.' You can just say 'what I think a materialist is,' and the moment those two match up, then you get my view.

... no

The physical is the realm of the One. The Multiple is ALWAYS outside the realm of the One. The One, the physical, is not exhaustive of being.

Free will is simply that will (will is an object, a One) which acts from its own Multiple supplement. The reason why I insist on maintaining the legitimacy of the ideas of Truth, Beauty, the Good, Freedom, etc. is precisley because you think these can only be justified by God.

To be totally vulgar I can just say THE MULTIPLE IS GOD, but this is totally misleading, because it's nothing like God. It merely encompasses the OUTSIDE where you think God is.

The feeling that there is 'something more' to physical existence is TOTALLY JUSTIFIED. There's just no need to go to God. The Multiple is already there. There's no room for God.

So you want to say all molecules are the same? The molecules in the grass are just like the molecules in the human brain?

What about Titanium in your brain? lol!