Science of Self (Humans)

by romansh , Sunday, March 16, 2014, 17:29 (3692 days ago) @ dhw

dhw
OK Emergence - if we are using the term where a particular set of conditions a behaviour emerges or that set of conditions results in - no problem. if you literally mean the whole is greater than the sum of the parts ... this is literally contrary to the first law of thermodynamics. You better have some pretty good evidence to corroborate this possibility dhw.-Temporary does not mean unreal, agreed. I have never claimed that and I have tried to make that extremely clear. I am using illusion and delusion as having separate meanings. But when we say temporary are we not taking two arbitrary points in time and space and saying that is me?-The totality of my parts? Does this include the flora and fauna that make up our bodies? Does it include the DNA from othe species, are you refering to your parental DNA? Everything that is what I consider my 'self' has come from outside of myself. Ideas, DNA, food, matter, energy you name it - they come together in me and are spat out as ideas, DNA, food, matter and energy.-Do cells produce our thoughts? Our cells are our thoughts I would argue. That nobody can explain how a particular dualism works after two millenia or more might just be a clue here. Nobody can explain (reasonably) how an Abrahamic god might work either, it does not mean I have to accept it as a hypothesis worth further consideration.-Caused versus compelled ... I think this belies being stuck in a libertarian quagmire as opposed to a compatibilist one. There are many benefits to a lack of belief in free will ... the primary one being we can cut some slack to other people and at a push ourselves too.->> 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.-If you truly mean that you cannot deny cause and effect, then the second part of the paragraph does not make sense to me. My apparent consciousness, will and self can be manipulated by (interacts with) the physical. Are you denying this?
Even if these things are somehow immaterial they have to "one" with the physical ... otherwise they may as well be not here. ->> ROMANSH: At work I am known as a contrarian.
> COLLEAGUE: No you're not.
Not any colleague of mine dhw