Science of Self (Humans)

by dhw, Monday, March 24, 2014, 19:37 (3685 days ago) @ romansh

ROMANSH: So very simply what I am saying is (trying to say): The left hand side of the equation equals the right hand side. so if: The whole is greater and does not equal the sum of the parts
Fix the equation.-Why must you have an equation? I've tried to explain what people mean by consciousness being an emergent property. If the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, obviously the two are not equal so there can be no "equation". What does that prove?
 
ROMANSH: Yes my definition does make free will impossible or at least an incoherent concept. We can redefine it all we want ...-You seem to think that your definition making free will impossible is standard. I have a large number of dictionaries and philosophical reference books, and none of them offer a definition that specifies independence from the UNIVERSE! (God and Fate are pretty popular, though.) So who is "redefining" it?-ROMANSH: ...the original concept of doing things independent of cause and the consequences of this does not go away.
-Agreed. You cannot have something to choose from if you don't exist and if the alternatives don't exist.
 
ROMANSH: Skirting the issue with alternative definitions does not avoid determinism.
-My definition does not avoid determinism either. Your definition amounts to a statement that free will does not exist. Mine makes no statement either way. It merely states what people MEAN by free will, and that is the purpose of definitions. Whether or not it exists is then the subject of discussion.
 
ROMANSH:Yes I have a sense of 'moral' responsibility. I also have a sense of the colour blue. Do I think the colour blue actually exists. I have my severe doubts.

I also have my doubts about free will, but I act as if I had it.-dhw:I did not say that the something "immaterial" does not respond to cause. If it did not respond to cause, there would be no choice to make. 
ROMANSH: I would argue and yet rivers 'choose' a path as the meander across a plain. Of course you will say they are not conscious. David might say everything is conscious, I say the concept of conscious is irrelevant. Whether I have conscious or not it is responding to cause
.
And I said so in the passage you quoted! However, I see consciousness as indispensable to free will, and so if you believe we are not conscious, then of course you cannot believe in free will. For me the issue is whether our conscious decisions are always forced upon us by factors outside our control. -ROMANSH: The unique combination of phenomena that is me does not arbitrarily stop at my epidermis dhw. It took a whole universe to make you and each everyone of us.

I have never disagreed with this. But that doesn't justify your definition of free will as something clearly impossible, and it doesn't mean that what the universe "made" has no autonomy (which is the heart of the free will debate). -ROMANSH: If I don't take this seriously? I perceive myself as taking it seriously. Indeed. Otherwise I would not be here?-
You wrote, with reference to something immaterial: "I sincerely hope you are not suggesting we should take this at all seriously?" I do, and I explained why I do.-ROMANSH: I have explained this ... simply because I can never be sure and I take an agnostic stance. But end of the day in the pragmatic world I have take up the mantle of a believer or disbeliever. I have chosen the latter; because I trust my logic more than I trust my perception.-Of course we are all agnostics once we accept the fact that we cannot KNOW the truth. No problem for me if you believe your logical cells have forced you into disbelief against the wishes of your perceptive cells, but I can't help feeling that expressions like "I have chosen" and "I trust" sound rather self-conscious! -dhw: I would suggest that if you managed to convince everyone that nothing they do is their responsibility, you might find yourself living in a society that is even more chaotic than the one we live in now. But if you are prepared to limit the discussion to a philosophical level, I would say the default position ought to be that we just don't know.

ROMANSH: This is utter supposition. The sun is responsible for hurricanes. Do you wish to argue against this? You put, I would say, a very poor interpretation into my mouth and then try to beat it. I am sorry if this comes across in a negative way.
-You asked why we should have free will and not lack of free will as our default position. I offered you a possible answer! But perhaps I should have said "we", not "you". My apologies.-ROMANSH: I could argue we might live in a society without retribution and guilt ... much of the nonsense that traditional Abrahamic religions give us.

That too is a perfectly reasonable answer, and it would also apply if we adopted the default position of "We don't know".