Science of Self (Humans)

by dhw, Thursday, March 13, 2014, 11:53 (3910 days ago) @ romansh

ROMANSH: Again DHW we go off in many different directions here.-Too true, and I'm going to summarize some of the points as I see them (you may disagree with my viewpoint!) before moving on to what I consider the nub of the matter.
1) You consider "emergence" to be a non word, and prefer "synergism", which means the same thing. Well, so long as we understand each other...
2) When you say "the absence of self", you don't mean the self doesn't exist, but the self is not what it seems to be. I have described what I mean by the self (see also below), and you have not disagreed (yet).
3) Like Blackmore, you think we are not "actually conscious". I think we are, or we would not be having this discussion.
4) You say the compatibilists (who go back at least 250 years!) have subtly changed your definition of free will to incorporate "conscious", as in "the ability to make conscious choices". I don't know of anyone other than you who would associate the term with choices that are not conscious ... though of course that does not mean that we have such an ability.-Here is the main point I would like to discuss with you: I wrote that "I cannot ignore the fact that I consciously weigh up options before I take certain types of decision."-ROMANSH: This assumes that your "weighing up" is actually conscious. Your bioelectrochemistry did it for you unconsciously quite nicely without your assistance thank you. Unless you are suggesting your thoughts are somehow manipulating your bioelectrochemistry? -Our thoughts "manipulate" our bioelectrochemistry all the time. That is how we perform our deliberate actions. But your contention seems to be that our thoughts are the product of our bioelectrochemistry as well. (I'll refer to cells from now on, for brevity's sake). So our cells manipulate our cells. And I hope you won't deny that we are conscious of our deliberate actions (otherwise, as I said, we wouldn't be having this conversation), which according to you means our cells are conscious of our cells manipulating our cells. And that statement alone shows that I am conscious of this consciousness, which means our cells are conscious of our cells being conscious of our cells manipulating our cells. All of this may be true. I do not know how consciousness works. And that is why I am unwilling to make assumptions, as you do (see below).-With regard to free will ... the ability to make conscious choices ... I was confronted with a striking example yesterday. I am currently working against strict deadlines to complete some translation work. However, it was a beautiful day, and I looked into my wife's garden and saw the blossoming trees and the profusion of flowers that she had planted. And the thought came to me (uncontrolled) that it would be nice if I put some of her flowers on her grave. (She died two months ago, and "I" grieve for her ... "I" being my unique combination of body, emotion, memory, reason, will, experience, past history etc.) I faced a clear choice: reason told me that I couldn't spare the time; emotion told me to go. I chose (controlled) to go. You may quite rightly argue that whatever unconscious factors influenced that decision may have been beyond my control, and that is why I say I do not know if I have free will. But since you assume that consciousness, will and self are physical (as stated in your latest post to David), I would like you to explain HOW you think my cells are physically manipulated by the loss of my wife (or indeed by any other experience or outside influence), and HOW you think my cells produced the conflict I have described between the cells I call my reason and the cells I call my emotions, and HOW you think my cells resolved the conflict through the cells I call my will, independently of the cells I call my consciousness.
 
Just to repeat my own view on this: I am not discounting your theory. I simply do not understand how such a process could work, and therefore I make no assumptions and remain open to the (for me) equally inexplicable possibility ... exemplified by NDEs and OBEs and other psychic experiences ... that there may be a form of personalized energy that is not restricted to the cells.