Ourcellves? (Identity)

by dhw, Thursday, April 10, 2014, 20:11 (3879 days ago) @ romansh

Dhw: I have failed miserably in my attempt to explain what I see as a logical fallacy in the materialist argument that we consist only of our cells (and their interactions), and that since our cells are not of our making, we cannot have free will. My point is that in that case, the cells and their interactions ARE ourselves, and so their decisions are OUR decisions ... cells and self being indivisible.-ROMANSH: No DHW, if I may; where you have failed is not in your explanation of what you see as a logical fallacy but how you framed the logical proof. 
It starts with "our cells".
It fails on two counts ... 1) it begs the question of are they ours in any meaningful way. A good portion of mine come potatoes, roast lamb, and assorted fruit and veges. So framing the question as in this way it is not terribly surprising. and 2) when dealing with Cantorian sets if they are in some way self referential the proof is on dodgey ground.-Are our cells ours "in any meaningful way"? What are your criteria for "meaningful"? Your cells do not come potatoes, roast lamb etc. Your cells process potatoes etc. to make them part of you. And we might argue that in similar fashion all the influences that shape us and our decisions are "digested" by the individual in his/her own individual way and acted upon in his/her own individual way. This, it seems to me, enables us to say that whatever conscious decisions we take are our own, and not those of our bodies or of the influences that may have shaped our thinking, since all of these are synonymous with our selves. I don't know how far I can take this argument in relation to the chain of cause and effect, but potato-eating does not seem to me to dent its logic, and I'm sorry but I really don't think the mathematical complexities and equations of Cantorian set theory are likely to clarify your objections for a non-mathematician like myself. I'd be grateful if you would explain them in terms of cells, consciousness and self. Of course if you claim that our cells are not ours, or we are not conscious, or there is no such thing as the self, you can automatically exclude the possibility of free will as you did in your definition.
 
dhw: Forget the poetry for a moment, and please explain in clear prose what you think the "much more" consists of. After all, a reflection is just an image, but like yourself and others I am trying to find out what more "we" might be that cannot be subsumed under the activity of our cells. 
ROMANSH: Much more = the universe.-If we are much more than our cells, and much more = the universe, we are the universe. And I am none the wiser.