On Freewill;BB post;FRDB

My position is as follows (and bear in mind these are my present beliefs. If Determinism is true and all of our actions are wholly determined by natural laws of cause and effect, and if in fact we are not free agents, and if in fact the sense of having two or more realizable courses of action in a given situation is an illusion, then there is no freewill period, a possibility which I do not believe to be the case but which I do not discard out of hand):

Freewill, if it exists at all, is in full swing throughout virtually every waking moment of a person's life, given that we are talking about a normal, intelligent, rational, healthy individual. Life is an ongoing process of action and reaction, of thinking and deciding, of planning, reflecting, speculating, shifting perspectives, changing one's mind, reexamining things, evaluating and reevaluating situations, all the time, on a major or minor scale. Freewill is the ability to consciously choose a course of action from among two or more realizable alternatives. This applies to each and every situation, each and every event, however minute, in a person's conscious, waking life. It does not suddenly cease to exist when a person is in a crisis situation. In fact, it exists even more so, since a crisis situation requires - to a much greater degree than watching a movie or eating a bowl of ice cream - clear thinking and careful decision making. What you are suggesting is precisely the opposite, that when a person is compelled to make a decision (or forced to do something he would rather not do and which he would not have done had not the circumstance necessitated it) in a moment of crisis is exactly the time that that person is not acting of their own freewill. This position of yours makes no sense. Imagine trying to convince a soldier or a policeman, for instance, that they are not acting of their own freewill as they go about their jobs on a daily basis, because their jobs put them in situations of crisis as a matter of routine, situations which require intense training and extraordinary decision making skills? Is the couch potato thumbing through channels on TV acting of his own freewill? Yes? He is, but the man who dives from a bridge into icy water to save a drowning victim is not? If this is the case, then the words free and will are bereft of any meaning they could possibly have. At least for me.

As for the mugging victim, the facts are simple: Y forces X to make a decision. X can literally do any number of things, depending on what X is capable of. He can fight Y, he can take the gun and shove it up Y's fundament, he can run off (many muggers will not shoot if a victim runs, they are thieves, not killers), or he can try to talk Y out of it. Do you see this, kennethamy? This is one of those moments of crisis that require clear thinking and careful decision making. This is one of those moments where freewill comes into play, in a major way, not a minor one. This is a moment where the ability to chose wisely from various options is most crucial. Freewill is far more intensely in operation and is far more vital to one's survival here than when one is at a restaurant wondering which entree to go for. Can you see this?

In this situation X is compelled to act, but is not compelled to any particular action. In other words, I do not see compulsion and freewill as being mutually exclusive. One can be compelled to act and yet free to act. As in my mountainside/boulder/tree/man analogy. The tree is not an agent, it is not free to move away from the boulder, it cannot be compelled to move away; the man is an agent, he is free to move. You can say he was free to move or he was compelled to move, it amounts to the same thing: the ability to move. Freewill is the ability to choose and act, whether under compulsion or not. Compulsion is irrelevant to the issue, unless we are talking about acting freely in a political and not a metaphysical sense.

I'm reminded of Sartre's expression, "condemned to be free." I suppose some people do feel that way, because being a free individual confers upon a person an enormous responsibility, a lifetime of action and decision making. Many people choose to opt out of this responsibility and escape into determinism: I couldn't help it. It's not my fault. It wasn't to be. It wasn't in the cards. Others do not. They take their freedom as a rare and precious opportunity to do something extraordinary. I wish I were more like them.

Thoughts on Hume; FRDB

My main objection to Hume is one that I've voiced before on FRDB, which is, I think he's full of hot air.

It's easy to say, and I will copy your paraphrase, TP: there is nothing in our sensory experience corresponding to our ordinary notion of the causal relation..., but it's quite a difficult matter to invest any kind of truth in the words. In my experience, I can't imagine what Hume means by saying such a thing. I remember when I first read Hume, when I was new to philosophy: I took his propositions to be true, because he is a large historical figure and one of very high esteem and reputation. I remember reading in the introduction where the author said that Hume had "taken a wrecking ball" to the old and established axioms and presuppositions that had held sway in his time. Who was I to argue? I read the words and tried to reconcile them to my experience in life, but when I failed to be able to do that, I didn't blame Hume, the great philosopher, I blamed my tiny little brain instead.

Being older now, and having read a great deal more, I suggest that Hume's skepticism is little more than a bloated, naked emperor swaggering flatulently down the road to human understanding. The idea that the data we collect from our senses, and the manifest proofs of the objective reality of that data, which occur across every moment of every day in our normal lives, cannot give us any real knowledge of causation, is completely without support, and utterly devoid of reason.

If you want to feel more secure in your understanding of cause and effect in the material world, if you sincerely take David Hume's pronouncements seriously, all you need to do is take a sharp knife, put the cutting edge to your palm, and draw the blade downwards toward your wrist, while applying a good amount of pressure. You will instantly have all the proof you need that extremely acute metal objects will, in fact, cause an incision in your skin and flesh, and a subsequent loss of blood, not to mention a strikingly vivid and unpleasant sensation in the area incised.

I know, that's the same as Sam Johnson's famous refutation of Berkeley, kicking at the stone. But that is really all that's required. And that's the truth of the matter. Of course this takes all the fun away from people who like to pretend that they make reality up in their heads, who, for some unknown reason, need to believe that the massive and beautiful engines of the cosmos depend on their own miniscule wink of consciousness for their very existence.

Review of Legion; posted @ Amazon

Though I've revered the film, The Exorcist, for years, I only recently decided to start reading William Peter Blatty's books. I wish I hadn't waited so long! I was pleasantly surprised, when I read The Exorcist, at how well-written the book was, how economical, concise, and how breezy a read. That might sound daft, considering the horrific content of the novel mentioned, but it's quite true nonetheless: the book was a breeze, as far as actual time spent with it is concerned.

On to Legion, which is the sequel to The Exorcist. I had only a vague idea of a film that was made based on the novel, but no real familiarity with the story. What chiefly interested me in the novel, besides the obvious reason that it was penned by Blatty and associated with themes I revere and enjoy, were some of the reviews here at Amazon. As a lover of philosophy, naturally I was not intimidated by the frequent mentions of the novel's protagonist William F. Kinderman's forays into philosophical ruminations. Some have referred to these ruminations as "navel-gazing" asides, distractions, or interruptions in the narrative; but on a deeper understanding of the author's faith and intention in the work, such broodings and mentations are as welcome in the novel as Hamlet's are in the play of that name.

The ideas of good and evil, of cosmic or divine justice, the sad fact of catastrophic human suffering, the capacity of the human nervous system with respect to the toleration of pain, as well as the effects of suffering on human psychology, are integral and essential to Mr. Blatty's work, and of keen corrolation to the details of criminal investigation and pathology.

I'm glad that I had the voice and image of the great Lee J. Cobb in my noggin as I read the book. I'm certain that this was a great help in my enjoyment of it. I don't see the character as a Jewish stereotype, nor do the occasional Yiddish terms and phrases bother me. As a Christian, I have a deep love for the Jewish people and a great interest and love for Judeo-Christian culture, theology, history, and literature. My favorite book, object wise, is my beautiful edition of the Tanakh. I truly don't understand the objections to the Kinderman character in this novel. He is a man of high intelligence and is deeply humane and compassionate. Incidentally, a carp in a bathtub should be so off-putting? So what? We have traditions. Give the book a read, you might like it. Couldn't hurt.

Legion is terrifying, but it's also a pleasure, and important.

Review of Adam Bede posted @ Amazon

What about Seth?!! was all I could think as I neared the end of the George Eliot novel, Adam Bede. Being a second son, and certainly not as good looking as my older brother, and a couple inches shorter no less, how could I not sympathize with Seth Bede, the younger brother who, by the amazing machinations of a brilliant writer, Mary Ann Evans, manages to let his feelings for a woman he admires dwindle away to irrelevance while simultaneously supporting his elder brother's burgeoning affection for that very same woman?

As crazy as it may sound, I am now going to try to explain why Mary Ann Evans was such a great writer, and why her subtle genius points the way to the very reality of nature itself, though it is to many an uncomfortable reality, and to some others still, a hostile, and even malevolent one. I will admit, I was rooting for Seth all the way through the novel. He was enamoured of Dinah Morris, but was keenly aware that she did not return the feeling, and yet still hopeful that in time she might come to love him and think of him in a romantic sense. How many men (and women) have lived in that kind of melancholy hopefulness? I know I have, and many times. It's not easy. In fact, it's an extremely harrowing and painful experience, and I do not recommend it to anyone. But that's the way things are. Nature, despite man's civilization and refinement, is as it always was. There are certain things that are immutable, unalterable, and constant, no matter how clever or sympathetic our race manages to become.

Evans was not a physically attractive woman herself, at least not in the common sense of the term. I am sure she was keenly aware of this, and I'm also sure that she was governed in her art by a kind of Spinozan submission and reverence to the natural order of things, and, far from letting that diminish or spoil her intelligent zest for life, she gave it exquisite expression in some of the most venerated and popular novels of all time. Adam Bede, her first novel, is a crystal clear example of such literary expression. Before I go on, I do not mean to suggest that physical appearance and personal charm are the sole criteria upon which we humans base our judgments and affections toward others; that would be narrow-minded and silly; but, whether we like it or not, such attributes do in fact exert a strong force and influence when it comes to sexual attraction. It may not be fair, but that's the way it is.

For all intents and purposes, Adam Bede is the classic alpha male, though Evans gives him a serene and genuinely sensitive side that would be entirely missing from a protagonist in a novel by Ayn Rand, another candidly plain looking woman who took Evans's honest and often sacrilegious reconciliation with nature to what many would say was an irrational extreme; but no more of that. Evans is such a good author that every reader would know that if Seth had claimed to still be holding a candle for Dinah, Adam would not have pursued her. As it happens, Seth comes to feel quite literally happy about the fact that his older brother has stolen the heart that was once the object of his affection. He is happy to be brother to Dinah and uncle to Adam's children. Many have suggested that this was sort of an authorial cheat, or foul play on the part of Evans, that in real circumstances the younger brother would most certainly be deeply hurt by the doubly-painful knowledge that not only did his beloved not find in him a man that she could love as a husband, but in fact had fallen in love with his older brother instead! Wouldn't any man be hurt by such a turn of events. I know I would.

But that's the difference between life and art. Art, in the hands of a genuinely good artist, is a means of not only understanding, appreciating, and celebrating the rich pageant of life, but also of coming to terms with painful truths and realities which a lot of us would rather not confront; and which cause certain well-intended but misgiven people to wreak nothing but havoc by the often absurd pseudo-intellectual deconstruction or denial of long confirmed fact and simple common sense.

My heart will always root for Seth, but my intellect allows me to see that Adam was the obvious object to which Dinah would fix her affection. We second-born, homelier, shorter little brothers will generally just have to deal with it, get over it, and move on.

But, wait a minute. Or, as Monty Python would say, "and now for something completely different! -

The Hetty Sorrel and Arthur Donnithorne characters, who I haven't even mentioned, are a whole 'nuther dimension in this wonderful novel, and serve to remind us, though this may sound contrary to what I've already said, that all that glitters is not gold. Which is to say, at least with respect to Hetty, physical beauty, or material perfection, does not always adorn a beautiful soul, and that the reptilian part of the brain must always be moderated by sound reason and rationality.

And that's that, and it is what it is.

And A is A ('cos God says so).

BB post; free will, communication

j: I guess that's the nub of the problem. Some people seem to think that a "you" exists independently of the brain.

So far I've had no luck in getting anyone to locate that "you" which seems to be something like cloud computing.

No, this I, this you, this self, is the consummation of everything about the organism: the brain, the body, the experiences, the memories, feelings, intelligence, skills, talents, everything. I am more than the sum of my parts, as are you, but that isn't to say that I exist independently of my brain.

Mind you, there are poorly written posts and many confusions and misunderstandings. There are assumptions, insinuations, and innuendoes, and all of the things that make for a lack of good communication. I'm just as guilty as anyone else on this I suppose, but from here on in I will do my best to be clear, to carefully read and edit my posts (hoping others will do the same), and to refrain from being naughty on purpose.

What I believe we "free willers" are trying to say is that nature's technology (to steal a phrase from whynot) is ages (many of them) ahead of our own. The smartest humans who ever lived have not figured out how consciousness, sentience, identity, arises in the organism. There are many theories, there is much knowledge, but there is no literal understanding of this phenomenon as of yet, at least not here on Terra Firma.

Nature and the processes of evolution have brought about quite an astounding organic machine called a human being. At least it astounds me, and it should astound every other person, but it could very well be that there is nothing particularly noteworthy about us to other beings in the universe; in fact we may seem puny to other life forms, or perhaps amusing, or cute; or we may be something like a pestilence. Or a food source at some point in our future? Who knows?

Consciousness, identity, ego, person-hood, self-hood, these are amazing tools, the result of unimaginable ages and ages of evolution. To call them illusory is an insult to nature, and a very grave mistake, for they are the very things that have brought about science, progress, and civilization. The theory of Rights (to name just one human invention) makes no sense without the I's and You's of the world having the intelligence, the will, and the moral fortitude to write it out, to understand it, and to obey it.

If you guys aren't calling consciousness, ego, self-hood, determination, identity (all the ingredients for the property of human actions called free will) illusions - manufactured by brains as a useful means of propagating the human species - then I apologize, but it seems I have seen that very idea stated quite explicitly many times in this sub-forum.

Or is it just the word "free" that's troublesome? Like toker, (I believe, though I could be wrong) I don't care if the term free will is discarded forever. Free will is will, there is no difference. If it aint free, it aint will. The will being defined as the ability to govern one's actions deliberately, with reason or without, in accordance with one's desires or in defiance of one's desires. For good or for evil.

Let us understand one another, if we are to have some progress in this sub-forum.

Contra Metzinger; PSM; frdb; gb

This kind of knowledge cannot be applied to resolve an ontological problem. Therefore if we are "thinking" about our subjective experience then we are identifying with a model of subjective experience rather than actually "being" subjective experience and this does not solve an ontological problem.


One could finally argue that this philosophy destroys itself, and perhaps that is a good thing. For in the final analysis, when the ontological problem is resolved, there is ultimately no need for any philosophy.[/QUOTE]Welcome back, MP.:)


IMO, the lastest exploration on the 'subjective primacy' is from Metzinger.
Note the thread [URL="http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=304787"]'Being No One'[/URL].


Metzinger got rid of the ontological permanent self and replaced it with a modeled self, i.e. the Personal[Phenomenal, not personal;TP's error-gb1.13.2012] Self Model (PSM) as adapted by a specie of organism.


The apparent independent external world and all phenomena are correlated within the framework of the Personal Self Model interdependently interacting with other self-models.


These personal self models are not creations of any entity, but rather, they are random 'freak' resultants of evolutions that happen randomly to acquire self-consciousness as an adaptive feature.


The above, imo, explained away the ontological issue.
But nevertheless, philosophy is still necessary as a tool to be used by these personal self-models (individually and a group) to understand its own 'machinery' to enhance (with some sense of autonomy and will) further its adaptivity in the course of its evolution.[/QUOTE]



There is a much easier solution: first, grasp the fact that the "apparent independent external world" is real, not apparent. There really is an external world which exists independently of the subjective self, and/or the conscious mind. This solves the so-called "ontological problem", by recognizing that there is no problem. The next thing to do is forget about this personal self-model. The person you are is real: you are a real, physical object, a biological organism made up of matter; and you are also sentient and sapient: you are intelligent and understand that you are an individual biological organism with a specific identity, and that what exactly you are is not a matter of personal choice, but is an objective fact. Who you are, as in what kind of person you would like to be, is more of a mixed bag: partially set in motion by a variety of external factors and genetic make-up, plus your own plan for your life, your hopes and dreams. Therefore, you do not need a model of yourself to understand yourself. A model is a representation of something real: the model is therefore less real than the thing it represents. This is true in regard to all models. Logically, therefore, your PSM cannot be more real than the organic individual that you are.

You do not need to fabricate a model of yourself in order to interact with and understand an apparent external world, which by definition is merely a model of reality fabricated in your mind. You don't need one mental model of a real thing to understand another mental model of a real thing. All you need is a real thing (Yourself) interacting with the real world (Reality). This tends to work just fine, until you open philosophy books and try to make sense of the impressive-sounding nonsense they usually contain. Just watch a small child examining the objects in its immediate environment. No PSM there, and no Apparent External World to conflict with the real thing. Just existence, curiosity, and happiness.  

9/14/2011

Bigmouthing @ frdb; gb

The theological notion of free will is used in two ways, I think, one in a good way, and the other in a bad way. The good way it's used is: it imputes free agency to people, it imputes an understanding of morality and a moral responsibility for our actions. In other words, God does not foreordain the actions of people; how people choose to act is up to them. This absolves God from ultimate responsibility for human behavior. However, this set-up is complicated by the notion of Original Sin.

For if we are free in our actions then we are free in our actions, but if Original Sin is true than this "stacks the deck" against us as moral agents. We do not inherit this sin nature by virtue of choice, and yet we are to be held accountable for our actions, which are heavily influenced by this innate tendency for behaving badly. A rational person must see the problem with this.

How can a person be punished for his actions if his actions were influenced from the start by an innate predilection for naughty behavior? It is obviously not just. After all, God does not have this innate tendency for naughty behavior, so it is no wonder he is never inclined to do something naughty. So why would a perfect being such as God judge a far lesser being harshly because said being acted in accordance with this sinning nature, the presence of which is clearly not the lesser being's fault? It does not wash.

So the good way in which this term free will is used in a theological context is that it grants free agency and moral responsibility to humans; the bad way it is used in the same context is that it removes culpability from God, which cannot be rational in light of Original Sin, which was brought about by some magical trees God made and a naughty snake God also made. God cannot be judged innocent of the flourishing of human sin, no way, no how (unless we do away with the concept of Original Sin, but even if we do that, we still have problems).

An interesting side-note to this is: God knows this, and his knowledge of this is the reason for Christ's torture and death. Hence, all we need to do is recognize that God apologized for his error by enduring punishment and cruel torture, and he did this through Christ's (His own) atonement on the cross. If we can believe this and believe on Christ we can be saved. Why we can't be saved and on good terms with God without all this razzle-dazzle (to borrow a phrase from kennethamy) and the need for faith, is the real and ultimate theological question.

*

Now, the reason I argue that the denial of free will is dangerous in a secular context (the real world), is because:

Vast groups of people can be controlled only if they allow themselves to be controlled, or if they are controlled by brute force.

Absent brute force, a really useful (and oftentimes awful) philosophical and political ideology must be introduced if one intends to control the masses. History is full of such attempts. Religion is the biggest and most successful non-brute-forceful means of keeping people in order. This isn't to say that certain agents of religion haven't resorted to brute force, of course they have, lots of times; but over-all religious doctrines are devised as a means of encouraging good behavior and discouraging naughtiness without the cudgel; or at least as much as possible without it.

It worked before and it's still working for a good number of people. Note the posters in certain threads who admit that without God's command and God's morality they would do any number of nasty things. We must take such people at their word, if you ask me.

Another ideology (or ideologies) is Statism, or collectivism, or socialism. And in the case of WW2 Japan, extreme militarism. None of these methods of socialization could possibly be set in motion without the consent of the people being governed (and this is not to say that the stick is never used: it is, as is the mere threat of the stick, but it can be easily seen that a bad idea is just as dangerous and has equal if not greater motivating force than a stick or a gun). The best way to get this consent is to convince them that individuality, selfhood, ego, and all those other good things, are actually bad things (or falsehoods).

Convince people today that the really smart folks have figured out that consciousness and selfhood aren't real, that what we think is going on in our own minds is a fiction, an illusion; that we are nothing more than biological, organic machines (some of us "arrogantly-programmed to boot), and you are well on your way to installing your tyrant of choice. It can happen as long as people choose to let the three wise old bald men sitting at the top of the Ivory Tower in Academia decide what is true and what is not.

Every living human being has a right to philosophy, to big ideas, to reasoning and thinking. I'll close with something Frank Zappa said:

"If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to a library."

BB post; GB; FRDB 9/2011

There is no evidence of an actual, concrete God or gods, just personal intuitions, speculations, feelings, a strong desire for ultimate meaning and purpose; plus, the God-meme is deeply embedded in human culture and tradition, in fact it may even be in our DNA to a certain degree, although I wouldn't bet money on it. Just a thought. But because there is no evidence for it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. God may exist, in a way which no human mind can comprehend. Spinoza wrote that the nature of God surpasses human understanding. It requires genuine humility to consider this proposition, and I enjoy considering it. Considering it doesn't mean I believe it. God may or may not exist, and I will probably never arrive at any certitude about it, in either direction, pro or con.

But, there is evidence of a self, of the ego, of autonomous agency. Generally speaking, we know who we are, what our name is, when and where we were born, and all of our memories pertain to things we have experienced in the first-person, and this first-person narrative is almost always linear and coherent; and, amazingly enough, our knowledge of ourselves and the facts of our history almost always coincide with what others know about us, and with what is recorded as hard data.

The self, the ego, the "I", are not substantive, or material in any way: they are items of subjective experience: qualitative, abstract, but nonetheless, they are real, in the same respect that language, forms of music, the concept of currency, are real, despite the fact that they are human inventions and do not exist as tangible things in reality.To posit the idea that there is no self, there is no "I", is perfectly fine, as long as you clarify what you mean by that, and as long as you really understand what it means. It does not mean that there is no positive sense of personal and distinct identity in a human being, and it does not mean that people do not consciously and with deliberate intent go about the living of their lives.

Telling someone there is no god may or may not be true. Telling someone there is no "self" and there is no "I", may be true, but only if those terms refer to material entities posited as existing independently of the physical body. If they refer merely to qualitative, subjective aspects of human experience, then telling someone the "self" and the "I" do not exist would be patently false. Ergo, if you tell someone that they have no self, and that the "I" they use in speech refers to nothing but a phantom, an illusion, then you should fully expect that person to take offense, unless you are willing to clarify exactly what you mean when you say such a thing.

If a person takes issue with something you tell them, bear in mind that it may not be because their fragile egos have been hurt, or because they are narrow-minded, stupid, afraid, uneducated, intolerant, or any of those things; they may be taking issue with you for the simple reason that you have said something which does not make sense to them, either because they do not understand it, or it is out of context, or it is phrased improperly, or because it is simply false.

Opposition to your philosophical, moral, ethical, political, even personal issues, may be just as intellectual as they are emotional. One of the hardest things to do in this kind of public discourse is to distinguish between a reasoned argument and an emotional argument, and to recognize that an argument can be (and usually is, for most of us) both emotional and reasoned. If there were an exhaustive, objective study made on the topic of bulletin board discussions, I would bet a week's pay that most people try their hardest to keep their emotional feelings at heel while participating in them. Of course there are trolls and crazy people all over, but I have faith in my species and I do believe that most of us are doing our best.

A good quote, in remembrance of Servetus

To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man.

—Sebastian Castellio, Contra libellum, # 77, Vaticanus

From a letter to Olivia, 9 March 2011, re: Spinoza

...I know about those melancholy states. As it happens, Spinoza has much to say about such states, and I found myself agreeing with just about everything he wrote on the subject. His system of thought was as much about mental health and happiness as it is about God and the nature of the universe, in fact he is considered by many to be one of the first in that particular area of life-management, mental health, and self-help. If you can, look online, or in the library or bookstore, for two short early works by Spinoza called, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, and Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being. These are the only two that I have read in their entirety so far and I am thus far very pleased and sometimes astounded by the fact that this man composed his work about 350 years ago, and that he lived only to the age of 44. What an amazing scholar he was, a good man, enlightened, a master teacher. I used to say that if I could go back in time and meet only one person, it would be a toss between Gustav Mahler and John Keats. But now I can safely say that it would be my master, Baruch Spinoza.

Bear in mind, Spinoza's God is not the emotionally-driven, jealous God of the Bible, but a holistic, naturalistic Being who is Creator-and-created at once and in-One, the all-encompassing, intelligent architect of the Cosmos and of every living thing that ever was or will be. His God is one that surpasses human understanding, but Spinoza goes about his proofs of the existence (and absolute necessity) of this Being with such surety and skill that I found myself utterly consumed in the process. I, who have always been a defiant atheist, a libertarian, a defender of freedom in all of its kicking and struggling forms, types, and manifestations, gradually found myself being overwhelmed by an intellect far greater and also far more benevolent than my own. It was easy to submit my heart and mind to these ideas, written by a man nearly four centuries ago, especially since my life's experiences had prepared the way already. If conceding to the profound and beautiful intellections of a human being could bring me such a measure of peace and contentment, then try to imagine how fulfilling, how absolutely joyous, is my submission and total surrender to God. It is only in this complete surrender that I have finally found my freedom, my true happiness, my purpose.

I can't define this God, can't tell you His name, or anything like that. This is not a Sodom and Gomorrah type God I am embracing here, but a holistic, cosmic, eternal, inexpressibly magnificent, benevolent, and perfect Being who has everything in perfect order, despite appearances. In recognition of such a Being, taking stock of one's imperfections is the easiest thing to do. None of us are perfect, we are all flawed. No state or government can be perfect. We humans make mistakes, small ones and GIANT ones. But we are coming along. We are learning. We are getting closer and closer to the Source, the Divine Ground, as Huxley called it. Enjoy the journey and be at peace!

BB Post: as Embers of Servetus. More on ego, autonomy, consciousness

While it is certainly true that consciousness and behavior, and brain-function in general, is far more complex than most people realize, I don't think even the brightest people in neuroscience and neuropsychology have a good enough handle on the brain to be able to justify the hypothesis that the subjective sensation and intuition of conscious autonomy is an illusion.

There have been many studies over the past few decades, most notably by Benjamin Libet, which indicate that the sensation of being conscious of making a choice actually occurs after the brain has already made the decision: that the sense of autonomy is a sort of constantly updated narrative conducted by the brain to afford a feeling of self-control and free agency when in fact there is no control or free agency (freewill). Despite the seemingly overwhelming data giving credence to this idea, I don't buy it. And there are still plenty of well-credited scientists and psychologists who don't buy it either.

 I'm with thinkers like David Chalmers and John Searle when it comes to consciousness and behavior: I think what causes consciousness in the brain's mechanism is not yet understood, in fact I think we are far from grasping it. This is what keeps the field of A.I. in a sort of limbo: the inability to manufacture anything like sentience or consciousness in a machine. I believe nature's technology is many orders of magnitude more advanced than man's technology, and it's sheer arrogance to think that since we can't fully understand how consciousness, high intelligence, and free agency arises in humans, then the normal (not to mention manifestly common across generations, nations, and cultures) sensation of autonomy and self-generated action, as well as the ego and sense of self and identity, is "an illusion".

Natural vs. Human rights

Ack! for the love of Pete!

I self-banned at my favorite shit-shooting forum because it was taking up too much of my time and I wanted to force myself to stay away: but my silly neurons and dendrites will have none of it, so here I am viewing a thread about 'natural rights', and so far not a single contributor to the thread has recognized the distinction between natural right and human right. Before I continue, YES! the concept of a 'right' is man-made, and nature does not traffic in 'rights'. Rights, like language, like currency, like modes of musical composition, are the inventions of conscious, thinking, reasoning beings, and are not inherent in, nor intrinsic to, nature. This we know, but since certain people seem to suffer from amnesia every single time the subject of rights comes up, we are forced to reiterate and remind everyone of this fact from the start, in the hope that some tiny seed of this fundamental truth might take hold and find root in the rich and balmy soil of the brains of our potential interlocutors.

Now, a natural right to exist is that which every living entity possesses, and by this we mean only that all such entities are given leave to sustain and promote their existence by whatever means necessary; by 'whatever means necessary' we mean just that: a natural right to exist is the right to kill and eat other entities, to seek, exploit, and horde resources, to act, in whatever way an entity can, to survive. There is no question of privilege or entitlement, no penalty or punishment, no moral quandaries, no ethical responsibilities or considerations whatsoever. Might makes right, in nature. The laws that govern the overwhelming majority of unreasoning, living organisms in the cosmos are force and happenstance.

So much for the definition of 'natural rights'. Now we come to the definition of human rights. These rights are also called civil rights, individual rights, etc. Man, as an intelligent, rational, reasoning being, is not provided by nature with certain instincts particular to most other animal species: he has no inherent, automatic knowledge pertaining to how he must act in order to survive. He has drives, urges, and predilections, but these are not instincts, as many incorrectly assume. A bird knows how to make a nest by virtue of instinct; a man may well desire shelter and dryness and warmth, but he is not provided with the knowledge of how to build a house, an igloo, or a tepee. He must learn this knowledge for himself, and such information is remembered and passed down, rather than being encoded and inherited genetically.

That being the case, as man began to become civilized he reasoned that since he is not endowed with certain animal instincts he must be allowed to abide by the governance of his own mind, he must be at liberty to learn and to seek out the means for his survival, and to pursue whatever course he chooses that seems adequate to ensure that those means be attained; however, this right which man grants to himself, by virtue of inter-subjective, voluntary, social cooperation and agreement, carries with it a necessary negative aspect, which is that he may do only that which is rational and reasonable to sustain his own life, and not any action whatsoever, as it is with his natural right, which, it needs to be stressed, he still possesses, with respect to his dealings with lower animals who operate solely in the realm of natural right. Natural rights, or, the laws of nature, do not have this negative aspect. That is the distinction between the two terms, right there. If an individual wishes to possess the right to his life and to the pursuit of happiness, he is obligated to understand and obey the restraint which the negative aspect of that right imposes upon him, which is, that he may not interfere with nor violate the right of any individual to possess and to benefit from that very same right which he himself wishes to possess.

And so it goes, yadda yadda, etcetera, and so forth. Why can't people get this straight?

7/25/2011

On Morality; BB post

Originally Posted by G: Since I've realized that I was a moral nihilist I have no longer claimed that anything is moral or immoral. But this does not, as I have found, interfere with things like, say, vegetarianism which I practice. One can be entirely empathetic with other sentient beings without the idea "killing sentient beings is wrong" or "eating meat is wrong." Thoughts?

 

My opinion is that you've set up a false dichotomy, i.e: if there are no objective, moral absolutes, then there is no such thing as moral or immoral. But this is obviously not the case since you can empathize with other organisms, and that empathy is the result of a real quality you possess which we call morality. I would call it a moral sense, as some philosophers have named it. That there is no hard, brute fact called morality to examine, and by which to measure degrees of the intuitive beliefs and suppositions we call morals, is not a problem, as there are no hard, brute facts about a great many qualities which are nonetheless real qualities, experienced across the board by the greater majority of humans throughout history: love, hope, fear, grief, etc.

Take language itself: languages are human inventions. There are no absolute, objective linguistic facts against which we measure the utility of speech. We have modes of speech which have developed over vast periods of time, and complex grammars built up around them, fixed rules that are in a certain sense objective, in that they apply to all users of language regardless of subjective feelings or perspective (for instance, "shovel" is a noun and a verb in English whether I like or not), but which are nonetheless human inventions that exist only by inter-subjective social agreement and custom.

I think the sort of thinking implied in the OP is a remnant of religious thinking, and not the other way around as many would suggest. If you think about it, what fuels religious thinking, and in particular modern Christian reformed theology, is the idea that only God is perfect and absolute. Humans fall short of the perfection of God in every sense; they are crippled from the start by an inherent predilection towards reckless and "sinful" behavior. Since they can never know moral perfection, they are fatally and irrevocably flawed and can have no moral guidance other than obedience to the moral law set down by this mysterious and perfect Lawgiver.

The thing to remember is that there is no perfect, personal lawgiver*, and that Nature doesn't traffic in morality. Morality is a human invention, and is thoroughly unnatural. We should be proud of the fact that we've invented it and that we are able to live up to it at least some of the time.

To say that without absolute, objective moral facts there is no such thing as morality is the same as saying "without God, all is permissible." It's an old lie that needs to be put to rest.

**Methinks I was in error there. 18 July 2011 GB

BB post: as Gulielmus Beta : Free will/dubious phrase

Yes, I think the phrase free will is dubious in and of itself (in and of itself does not mean separate from [as in not including] any of its specific definitions, but that it contains or is comprised of all of its definitions, hence its dubious-ness). It arouses doubt and uncertainty because one cannot be certain in what sense it is being used. One of the reasons there is such debate over the phrase free will is precisely because it has so many definitions and means a variety of sometimes vastly different things. For instance, the accepted definition among at least a few of us in this thread: the ability to consciously choose from among two or more realizable options, is much different from the compatibilist definition ventured by a few, which refers chiefly to an action which is not compelled. While these two definitions are substantially different, each is useful in its own way, and the fact that they are not in agreement doesn't take away from their respectful usefulness. But to just toss out the phrase without defining it, there is not a great deal of usefulness there. If there were no threads here on the subject, and a person started a thread which began, "Do you believe in free will?", the first thing to be at issue would be: what exactly does free will mean?

I think we could say that a great many common terms and/or phrases are dubious in and of themselves and often require a good deal of pinning down. Take the word God. God is a famously dubious term and there is a different definition of God for practically every individual; yet this doesn't mean that a Calvinist's definition of God is dubious or non-useful to the Calvinist nor, for that matter, to the person with whom she is conversing. It is useful insofar as it conveys a particular, generally well-defined Being.

Your last question: "How does the term ''free will'' relate to the drivers of human behaviour?"

I would say that free will relates to the actions which are the result of those drivers, and not the drivers themselves. Or more simply: it is not a driver of behavior, but is an attribute of behavior. I have these "drivers" all at work in my brain, and I have a set of wants, desires, predilections, predispositions, what have you. Out of this comes the act of choosing. The act of choosing is free in that while I will necessarily choose one option, which option I in fact choose is not necessarily forced upon me nor inevitable. The act of choosing involves will in that it is an act of conscious intent. Hence, free will.

BB post: as Gulielmus Beta : Mind/body/dualism

In my many discussions of the mind/body problem, extending to off and online activity over the past 15 years, I have resolved only recently that there is no mind/body problem. The duality, mind and body, exists, insofar as we have an objective existence as a physical body which can be observed and analyzed by others, and a subjective existence which is internal and private, and cannot be literally shared with another person. We can share our subjective experiences by way of communication: conversation, philosophy, and poetry, for example, but we cannot literally allow someone else to experience what we experience inside ourselves.

This duality is sometimes embraced wholesale, as it was by Descartes (I think) and by people who believe in a soul as distinct from but operating in conjunction with a body. For some this soul is God-given and does not arise by any biological process that can be remotely identified or understood, and yet to others the soul or spirit refers simply to consciousness and its abstract, intangible content, its workings and motivations.

I have come to believe that the best approach to the mind/body problem is to understand that a whole person, a sentient, intelligent human being, is the consummation of its objective and subjective components, its quantitative and qualitative "parts". i.e: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is not the mind and body operating in some distinct and/or independent fashion; it is both, operating together to form a unified entity or being. In this sense it is a trinity, or tri-unity.

This triunity, or union of three, can be observed in so many different things, not just organisms. Take a chair. A chair is at first an object made up of parts in an organized fashion. It has quantitative parts: wood, nails, varnish, leather (and these extend to statistical properties which are not material but nonetheless objective and not subject to opinion: size, weight, height, breadth); and it has qualitative parts or properties: it is pleasing to observe, as a piece of art or design; it has a function, a utility; it has a name, a purpose. The chair is neither its physical, or concrete parts alone, nor its abstract parts (which could not exist without the ordered design of its material parts, except as concepts in the mind about a thing called a chair, which would require by necessity having seen a chair or having invented the idea of a chair), but is all of these material and non-material components and properties taken together to form a whole.

If we extend this way of looking at things (and I admit that is all this is, a way at looking at things) to something like the Christian concept of the Trinity, it is more than a little illuminating.