Science of Self (Humans)

by dhw, Saturday, March 15, 2014, 19:41 (3693 days ago) @ romansh

DAVID: Emergence is not a helpful word because it is used to express something we do not understand. 
ROMANSH: The difference with synergism is that we do have some understanding of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts or at least the understanding we feel is within grasp.-I can only repeat that the materialist me finds the term useful as a description: consciousness and self emerge from interactions between materials which individually could not produce such phenomena. I can't see its application to dualism, but perhaps David can.
 
Dhw: We draw boundaries round ourselves and others, but I'm not sure how arbitrary they are. [...] the totality of my parts is still me, temporary though they and I undoubtedly are.
ROMANSH: So what it the boundary for say dhw? Your skin? Particular body parts? Your brain, do you include your nervous system in that? Is it your thoughts? I understand the pragmatic view that the self exists. It's the philosophical belief of the self exists I don't understand.-As I said, the "totality of my parts": skin, body parts, brain, nervous system, thoughts, emotions, memories. That does not mean permanence. But temporary does not mean unreal, or arbitrary. I would argue (pragmatically and philosophically) that I possess an individual combination of characteristics, physical and mental, which distinguish me from others and constitute my "self".-Dhw: ...your contention seems to be that our thoughts are the product of our bioelectrochemistry as well", which to me means that our bioelectrochemistry manipulates our bioelectrochemistry. 
ROMANSH: Is there not plenty of evidence that at least this true. We can apply things that manipulate our biolectrochemistry ... oxytocin and a nice single malt are a couple that come to mind.-It's certainly true. Our brain sends messages to the rest of our body all the time in order to produce deliberate actions. (BBella's post concerning the influence of emotion on cellular behaviour also illustrates the point.) But the question we are grappling with is whether our cells produce the thoughts as well as triggering and implementing the actions that are the result of the thoughts, and as well as being aware of producing the thoughts that trigger the actions etc. Nobody knows how this could work, just as nobody knows how dualism could work. -ROMANSH: Remember Dhw I am not claiming consciousness. I take a look at Choprian (and David's) view of conscious and contrast it with Blackmore's where by implication we might assume nothing is conscious and ask what is the difference. I can't help thinking they are just different sides of the same coin.-Perhaps I tend to be more pragmatic than philosophical on this issue! Are you claiming that you are not or might not be aware of what you are writing in these posts? Awareness = consciousness, and although there are different levels (e.g. being conscious of being conscious), if we cannot agree on this basic premise, we cannot continue the discussion on whether there is such a thing as free will. You can't have free will without consciousness, even if having consciousness does not mean having free will.-ROMANSH: If our definition of free will is we make conscious choices ... assuming consciousness exists we have free will. No problem. But hard determinist asks is there any thing in our lives that is independent of cause?-Yes, that is the big question, and I agree that compatibilism is "a quagmire of evasion", because as I said before, the line between "cause" and "compulsion" is impossible to draw. One can simply argue that our decisions are CAUSED by our bioelectrochemistry (and/or our environment, our history, our experiences etc.), which COMPELS us to act in a certain way.
 
ROMANSH: This is an ancient dilemma and nothing new. But if we still insist on freedom, even a little bit of limited free will, we end up in the world of libertarian of free will!-I don't think we can deny cause and effect, but most of us do feel that we have freedom, and so the compatibilists play with questionable distinctions, and the libertarians fall back on dualism or latterly on the weirdness of quantum mechanics. Nobody has a clue, which is why I cannot make the assumption, as you do, that consciousness, will and the self are purely physical.-*****-ROMANSH: At work I am known as a contrarian.-COLLEAGUE: No you're not.