thoughts on determinism

[Ben_JS]

Robert Sapolsky recently released a book called ‘Determined’ which basically argues for determinism that lacks free will.
He has also done a series of guest interviews (in video podcast form) promoting the book, where he discusses the topic and all sorts of questions relating to it.
You can search his name of YouTube and perhaps the book name, and you’ll find a slew of those podcasts where he details his beliefs.

Given that there is a stark imbalance between those who argue for and against this position,
I think Professor Sapolsky does a justice to the affirmative position - and accurately portrays and argues for it.
I am glad and thankful he has lent his insight and reputation to this cause,
thereby giving the position more academic credibility.

If you want some strong material,
I’d highly encourage looking into his book,
or at least some of his guest podcast interviews.

[iambiguous]

Materialism, Freedom & Ethics
Philip Badger constructs a materialist ethical theory, with the help of John Rawls.

Other philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), have an even more tortured relationship with the positive/negative liberty divide. Kant famously defended the death penalty on the grounds that in not executing the murderer we fail to treat him as a properly free agent who is fully responsible for his actions.

Unless, of course, he was never able not to defend it. And some are compelled to insist that there are “no tortured relationships with the positive/negative liberty divide” in a wholly determined universe. Or, rather, any that we perceive other than as just another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality.

Animals might act out of automatic responses and ‘passions’, but human beings have the capacity for rational reflection, and their will is the origin of their actions. But Kant’s morality was based on the dualist rejection of materialism in favour of the claim that the human will acts from outside the physical (‘phenomenal’) world.

And how does he demonstrate this? In a “world of words” of course. Also [compelled or not] he brings it all back eventually to God. His own rendition of soul to soul.

Nevertheless, some philosophers, such as Isaiah Berlin, worried that Kant had opened up space for a corrosive idea. If the part of us that’s governed by physical causes is, as Kant suggested, our animal passions, it follows that reason, and so free moral decision-making, involves the part that isn’t.

Again, the part where Kant “somehow” connects the dots here between mere mortals and “God [as] outside of humanity’s full experience, perception or grasp.” What’s crucial however is that free will itself is derived from God. And then “somehow” reconciled with His omniscience.

Yet equating freedom with reason opens up the possibility of saying that some people are more rational and hence more capable of exercising freedom than others.

Objectivism let’s call it. And then, as they say, the rest is history. One or another rendition of Orwell’s, “who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Though even this involves a leap of faith to free will.

To wit…

If I decide you are less rational than me, it might lead me to treat you with mercy; but it might lead me to treat you as a lesser being. For Berlin, who had personally seen the horrors of the supposedly ‘rational society’ that emerged from the Russian Revolution, this was the road to ‘personal re-education’ by way of the Gulag.

So, autonomously or otherwise, tap me on the shoulder when that changes.

[iambiguous]

Materialism, Freedom & Ethics
Philip Badger constructs a materialist ethical theory, with the help of John Rawls.

Rawls, Freedom & The Public Good

I certainly think that some choices in our lives are quite beyond the legitimate reach of the law or of state action to curtail them. To Mill, these choices are our ‘private’ or ‘self-regarding’ ones. The big questions here relate to which kinds of choice should qualify for this category, and what justification we might find for leaving some things off the list.

On the other hand, let’s not forget this article pertains to the main focus of the current issue: “Freewill versus Determinism”.

Thus, as some determinists themselves are compelled to argue, all “choices in our lives are quite beyond the legitimate reach of the law or of state action to curtail them”. Choices become legitimate as soon as they are chosen. Either by the individual or the state. All categories are necessarily subsumed in the only possible reality.

From my own rooted existentially in dasein frame of mind, it is the compatibilists who accept determinism…except that “somehow” there are these “internal components” embedded in their own brains that allow them to believe in what “I” construe to be “free will determinism”. Only I suggest further that this frame of mind in and of itself is no less entirely compelled by their brains.

Unless of course I’m wrong. Not only that but given free will I have the capacity to change my mind given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge.

And, as well, John Rawls is no exception.

Thus, all of this…

The philosopher who helps us most with this is, arguably, John Rawls. In his 1971 book A Theory of Justice, Rawls sets up a dynamic struggle between abstract principle and what Hume and Adam Smith called our ‘moral sentiments’, in order to help us decide which principles we might reasonably agree to be constitutive of a just society. Not surprisingly, Rawls picks a version of what he calls ‘the liberty principle’ as being of primary importance to a just society.

…is no less a reflection of the only possible reality. Well, given the only possible reality of course.

Rawls does not argue, as the utilitarian Mill did, that liberty is good because it leads to good consequences – although it might incidentally do so. Instead, in a Kantian manner, he claims that as rational beings we are bound to claim a certain amount of liberty for ourselves, and justifies this by arguing that, as rational beings, we are capable of self-government.

We’ll need a context of course. And, perhaps, the philosophically correct definition of liberty? A meaning that all rational [and thus virtuous] men and women are obligated to embrace?

However, on pain of contradiction, we have to grant the same liberties to all who share the same capacity for rational choice.

Conflicting goods let’s call them.

[iambiguous]

Spinoza & Other Determinists
Myint Zan compares different ways of denying free will.

The following sentences appear in a letter written by the great Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677):

“Further conceive, I beg, that a stone while continuing in motion should be capable of thinking and knowing, that is endeavouring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of his own endeavour and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and it would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined”. (Letter to G.H. Schaller, October 1674).

First, I digress.

There are those among us who do believe that stones – that everything? – acquire consciousness.

Now, how on Earth would they go about demonstrating this?

In the interim, even if the stone has acquired consciousness, it may well be that an awareness of itself as being completely free is in turn no less an illusion. And its desires, much like our own, are no less an inherent manifestation of Schopenhauer’s own conjecture here.

Then this part: stones and morality?

These three sentences in Spinoza’s letter determine (pun intended) that he was a philosophical determinist. Without distorting Spinoza’s message, we could rephrase it this way: “If a stone in motion were to have human-level consciousness, then the stone, like some humans, including philosophers, would think that it is moving out of its own volition and free will, although it isn’t."

How then does this not suggest Spinoza’s own assessment in and of itself isn’t just another inherent component of the only possible reality? Would Spinoza acknowledge this in turn? While, as with all the rest of us, acknowledging that the acknowledgment itself is “somehow” embedded in this:

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was “somehow” able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter “somehow” became living matter “somehow” became conscious matter “somehow” became self-conscious matter.

[iambiguous]

Spinoza & Other Determinists
Myint Zan compares different ways of denying free will.

If one fast-forwards from the late seventeenth century to the late twentieth century, in a lecture in March 1990 the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking also expressed an opinion about free will. Hawking argued that the concept of diminished responsibility in British criminal law should be abolished. Under this legal concept a few defendants’ criminal culpability, and hence their punishments, can be reduced, in certain exceptional circumstances. Even more rarely, they might be held legally ‘not guilty’ if the law or the Courts assume that these defendants do not have adequate comprehension of, or control over, their actions. The concept of diminished responsibility can also be seen in the rare cases where criminal defendants are found ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’.

This just shows us how convoluted these things can become. Clearly if none of us have any actual autonomy regarding anything that we do then others who still hold us responsible do so only because they too are in the same boat. Whereas if we do possess some measure of volition, there are still going to be any number of factors in our life that are beyond our either fully controlling or even fully understanding.

Thus I’d be curious to know how Hawkings himself might have reacted to my own “free will determinist” assumptions.

The thrust of the thinking behind Hawking’s proposal to abolish this legal concept of diminished responsibility is that since all the actions of all human beings are determined (that is, predetermined), why give special preference to those criminal defendants having the defence of ‘diminished responsibility’?

If all of our actions are “determined [that is, predetermined”] how was that not applicable in turn to Hawking? He was compelled by his brain…a brain wholly embedded in the only possible reality, just like ours…to propose that “society” abolish this legal concept of diminished responsibility. And society on cue does so. Or on cue does not.

Hawking seems to be saying, “Don’t accept only a few criminal defendants’ claims that ‘We could not have helped ourselves’, because other criminals, indeed all human beings, cannot help themselves in all their actions, either.”

Then back to how I react to that one way, while others react in an entirely different way. And yet what still seems more relevant to me is that the criminal defendant, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, you, me and everyone else here are just more dominoes toppling over in but one of nature’s countless sets of circumstances. Circumstances that unfold given the immutable laws of matter.

Next up: the reality…

However, in Great Britain the doctrine of diminished responsibility has not been abolished; nor, as far as this writer is aware, has the doctrine been abolished in former British colonies, from Australia through India and Malaysia to Zimbabwe.

What, the laws of matter work differently in former British colonies?

[iambiguous]

Spinoza & Other Determinists
Myint Zan compares different ways of denying free will.

I’d ask, if Spinoza were to come back, would he agree with Hawking’s version of philosophical determinism?

You know what’s coming…

He’d come back only if he were never able not to come back. And, as with Hawking’s version of determinism, his own reaction to that would in turn be wholly determined by his brain…wholly in sync with the laws of matter. Then my reaction to that and your reaction to my reaction…fated? destined?

Further, after studying modern criminal law and criminology, would he agree with Hawking’s suggestion that the legal doctrine of diminished responsibility be abolished?

How is this not basically the frame of mind that libertarians would embody in discussing this? Studying something when you could freely opt not to. Agreeing with others only because you were never able not to agree with them.

I venture to suggest that there may be shades of differences between Spinoza’s and Hawking’s deterministic philosophies, but they’re not that far apart.

They are as far apart as they must be – can only be – determinists are themselves compelled to argue.

Both hold that free will is an illusion. On the other hand, Spinoza’s and Hawking’s metaphysical determinism is very different from and incompatible with the metaphysics of Augustine and Calvin.

Cue the Christian God, perhaps? Conjuring the argument that human freedom is still an illusion given His omniscient point of view.

[iambiguous]

Spinoza & Other Determinists
Myint Zan compares different ways of denying free will.

Calvinistic vs Augustinian Predestination

John Calvin (1509-1564) was a seminal French/Swiss theologian of the Protestant persuasion. One of Calvin’s theological doctrines was his concept of ‘predestination’. In short, only those who believe in Christ can be saved, but the Christian creator deity has, in his discretion, chosen in advance who to save by leading or allowing them to believe in Christ. From my understanding of this, Calvin seems to have meant that whether or not a person believes in God was pre-determined by that God.

See what I mean?

What could possibly be more important to Christians than pinning down whether or not they are predestined by God to be saved? Yet any number of Christians demur here. On the contrary, they insist, everything revolving around Judgment Day revolves in turn around our having the capacity to freely choose to accept Jesus Christ as our own personal savior.

Even an omniscient God is moot when it comes to that.

Hence for example, if the atheist Richard Dawkins has chosen not to believe in God, and indeed to be critical of the idea or ‘construct’ of God, that non-belief of Dawkins (and one would add, of millions of others worldwide) was also pre-determined by the deity himself. This is a very specific type or application of the denial of free will.

Any Spinozians here? Please note how, in your view, Spinoza himself might have reacted to those like Dawkins. Given his own assessment of determinism, would or would not Dawkins have had the capacity to opt freely to believe in God? The Christian God? Did Spinoza himself have this capacity? Or did Calvin’s God predispose/predestine him [like all the rest of us] to do only that which he [we] are never able not to do?

A comparable (though not necessarily similar) special pleading can be seen in varying degrees in other dogmas and ideologies, some of whose tenets may otherwise be opposed to Calvin’s ideology. Non-belief in God was the will of God himself according to Calvin.

So, here and now, I do not believe that Jesus Christ is my personal savior. But for a few years way back when, I did believe that. Both times that was the will of God? And if Non-belief is the will of God how on Earth can Calvinists justify eternal damnation in Hell?

One take on it: soteriology101.com/2021/11/11/c … -and-hell/

In a different-but-not-that-different assertion, Marxists might assert that inbuilt ‘class biases’ lead people to oppose Marxism. A few Freudians might also state that those who disagree with Freud and his theories are showing psychological ‘resistance’. And a few radical feminists’ catch phrase is that many people, including many females, most liberal and cultural feminists, and almost all males, institutions, religions, political ideologies and philosophies, are dominated by, or suffused with ‘male constructs’ they themselves had no part in constructing or deliberating upon.

Then back to the part where all of this factors into the argument made by the hardcore determinists that everything that every Calvinist and Marxist and Freudian ever though, felt, said or did they were never able not to in the only possible world.

[iambiguous]

Spinoza & Other Determinists
Myint Zan compares different ways of denying free will.

Neither Calvin nor Spinoza were privy to these philosophies [above], which emerged a few centuries after their deaths; but indeed, Spinoza’s concept of Deus sive Natura (‘God, or Nature’) was itself a radical departure from the Abrahamic concept of the personal deity – so much so that Spinoza’s Amsterdam synagogue expelled and anathematised him for his unorthodox philosophy.

Of course, being "expelled’ is better than what happened to others down through the ages who dared to challenge the powers that be. Religious or otherwise. And, indeed, my own thoughts on all of this are all the more radical in suggesting that moral and political and spiritual value judgments are themselves rooted existentially in dasein in a No God world.

That is, if our value judgments are, in fact, a manifestation of free will at all.

Spinoza’s God, and his ‘intellectual love of God’, is not related to Calvin’s predestinationism. Though both Spinoza and Hawking were philosophical determinists, the identity of the ‘determiner’, so to speak, was not Calvin’s deity – nor the deity of the Catholic theologian Augustine of Hippo (354-430), either.

Instead, the “determiner” is still ensconced deeply in all that we do not – cannot? – understand about this:

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was “somehow” able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter “somehow” became living matter “somehow” became conscious matter “somehow” became self-conscious matter.

And then the gap between being a “philosophical determinist” and a determinist compelled to argue that everything we think, feel, say and do reflects the only possible reality.

[iambiguous]

Spinoza & Other Determinists
Myint Zan compares different ways of denying free will.

There are many shades of differences between the theologies of Augustine and Calvin, since the former was a Catholic theologian and the latter a Protestant one. As a philosophical determinist, Spinoza did not accept free will.

Let me ask those here who believe that – click – they do understand Spinoza’s assessment of determinism, how he might have responded to someone like me back then asking him if the “shades of difference” noted above were actually just six of one and half a dozen of the other. In other words, Augustine was compelled by his brain to “choose” the Catholic faith and Clavin was compelled by his brain to “choose” the Protestant faith. Then Spinoza’s own brain compelled him to “react” to both only as he was never able not to react.

After all, it’s one thing to reject free will when you actually do have the option to accept it. Did he? Do we?

Apparently, though, one traditional shared response of Christians to the existence of evil is based on the concept of free will. But in this writer’s opinion, free will is somewhat anomalous or problematic in light of the concepts both of Calvinistic predestination and Augustinian divine foreknowledge. If human life is fixed by God, how can free will operate?

Indeed, once we come around to God and Religion, it gets all that much more problematic. First, there’s the question of whether or not we do have the capacity to demonstrate the existence of a God, the God…the entity who installed free will in our souls. But then, even if we merely take a “leap of faith” here that He did, we are then confronted [in regard to Christianity] with how to reconcile an omniscient God with human autonomy.

[iambiguous]

Spinoza & Other Determinists
Myint Zan compares different ways of denying free will.

Makkhali Gosala’s Amoral Fatalism

The ancient Indian philosopher Makkhali Gosala, who died around 425 BCE, preceded Augustine by about 800 years, Calvin by about 2,000 years, and Spinoza by about 2,100 years. One notable aspect of Gosala’s philosophy is his fatalism.

Fatalism is just one more word that comes to mean different things to different people in regard to human autonomy. Same with words like destiny. Or cynicism or nihilism. Do they mean only what our brains compel us to think they mean or “somehow” did our brains actually acquire the capacity to shape our fates and our destinies in such a way that obviates or transcends cynicism and and nihilism?

Anyone here believe this? Okay, given a set of circumstances that precipitates conflicting value judgments that precipitates conflicting behaviors, let’s explore that empirically.

According to scholars, Gosala’s views are mainly known through statements made in the texts of a couple of religions dominant in his times, Buddhism and Jainism. Apparently both the Buddhists and Jains of Gosala’s time considered him, if not a deviant, then at least entirely outside their traditions.

Okay, but how far outside them? Isn’t that what everyone has to take into account when confronting one of the many, many One True Paths other than their own? Thus, for the Christians among us, what might be the fate of Buddhists and Jains souls on Judgment Day? And, of course, the equivalent for Christian souls from the vantage point of Buddhists and Jains.

Gosala seems to have espoused the view that human beings are preordained to suffer. He discoursed about the futility of human effort, and denied the consequences of good or bad deeds. Gosala even denied the operation of karma, which idea was already long-established in Indian philosophy and theology.

The view he “espoused”. In other words, one more spiritualist predicating everything he thinks, feels, says and does on what he believes is true “in his head”. In fact, that’s why there can be so many of them…they simply have to have “faith” it’s all true. And as history confirms over and again that faith can be blind as a bat.

Besides…

Karma can generally be defined as consequences in both present and future lives of present volitional actions and those volitional actions from past lives. Variations on the idea can be found in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. A few Buddhist texts indicate that the Buddha himself condemned Gosala’s views as the ‘meanest’ or ‘most low-based of the doctrines among the many preachers of many sects’ of ancient India, more than 2,500 years ago.

Let those Eastern folks squabble over something that means practically nothing at all to the God of Abraham.

Besides, absolutely everything that we do we do because we were never able to opt not to. Karma is inevitable but it has nothing at all to do what mere mortals “deserve”.

[iambiguous]

Spinoza & Other Determinists
Myint Zan compares different ways of denying free will.

The denial of the consequences of volitional action can be designated as ‘fatalism’ in both ancient Indian and contemporary contexts. His isn’t the predestinationism of Calvin, which is based on the Creator’s will, nor is it ‘predestination’ in the Augustinian sense of God already knowing what will happen. To the extent that this writer can discern, Gosala did not say that fatalism emanated from the will of the Creator. Ostensibly, the fatalism is just there.

Just there. In what sense? Is it “just there” because God put it there? Is it “just there” because “somehow” nature managed to conjure it up in the course of sustaining biological evolution here on planet Earth? With God it’s “just there” all the way up to Judgment Day? With nature it’s “just there” for no teleological reason at all?

And then those determinists who argue this: that “even denial of the consequences of volitional action” is just another inherent manifestation of the only possible world. And that those in both the East and the West are entirely interchangeable here given that they are in turn just dominoes toppling over on cue. The cue embedded in the laws of matter that encompass nature.

Then this part…

Spinoza denied free will, but he was not a fatalist in the mould of Gosala, nor an espouser of predestination like Augustine or Calvin. Unlike them, Spinoza did not attribute his determinism to God, but rather, because everything that happens takes place through natural laws.

Again, if that is the case, how is Spinoza denying free will and the author claiming this does not make him a fatalist not reflect just two more inherent components of a wholly determined universe.

If it is, of course.

If “everything that happens takes place through natural laws” – including mere mortals inventing Gods! – what part of everything gets excluded?

Cue the free will determinists among us? Cue the compatibilists insisting that even though Mary could never have opted freely not to abort Jane, she is still morally responsible for doing so?

And while Makkhali Gosala, because of his fatalism, did not enjoin moral efforts, this is not the case in the moral philosophy of the determinist Spinoza. Indeed, many philosophers and other admirers of Spinoza throughout the world are of the view that he was one of history’s most moral philosophers. This to me is only an apparent paradox in the deterministic philosophy of Spinoza.

It’s certainly a paradox from my own frame of mind “here and now”. Spinoza enjoins morality while at the same time never being able not to enjoin it? Then back to the assumption that I make about Spinoza’s moral convictions themselves…that, as with all of us, they are derived in large part from the historical and cultural parameters of his life. From his own personal experiences.

[Lorikeet (Satyr)]

The woman on PN thinks Will is something “in the body”…like the Chrisitan soul.
This is what it understood by my explanation of ‘will’.
This is what it understood by Schopenhauer’s definition of will.
It’s some-thing, physical…
Where is this “thing” located? She asks…as if she caught me in an error.

It must be like an organ or something…Where is it?

Man, giving these fuckers any attention is a waste.
Why is this retard even on a philosophy forum when her IQ must be like 80…

[iambiguous]

@iambiguous post_id=708283 time=1714516616 user_id=4948

The Illusion of Illusionism
Raymond Tallis sees through a physicalist confusion.

Consciousness has always been a serious embarrassment for those who believe that everything is physical and that physics is the most authoritative account of the material world.

On the other hand, as some particularly hardcore determinists might insist, the embarrassment anyone might feel about this – or, for that matter, anything else – is merely one more inherent manifestation of the only possible reality.

Then what? How do philosophers go about establishing that, on the contrary, human consciousness really is “above and beyond” matter? After all, not even scientists are able to accomplish this. In fact, isn’t this why so many simply accept the explanation that free will revolves entirely around our God-given “souls”?

There is, it seems, nothing in matter or energy as seen through the eyes of physics that explains how a part of the material world might become aware of itself and the world surrounding it, as is the case with conscious subjects, such as readers of Philosophy Now. Physicalism cannot account for the emergence of minds from a purely physical reality.

Okay, but there was once a time when, “through the eyes of physics”, Einstein’s space-time continuum, dark matter, dark energy, quantum mechanics, etc., were not understood to be crucial components factored into whatever, going back to the explanation for the existence of existence itself, reality itself might be.

In other words, there’s what scientists think they now know about the human mind “here and now”, and what they might know about it a hundred years from now? a thousand years from now?

As for speculations coming from philosophers, how are they not still basically just arguments? Words defining and defending other words.

[iambiguous]

The Illusion of Illusionism
Raymond Tallis sees through a physicalist confusion.

Physicalist philosophers often try to tame the conscious mind by reducing it to the locus of functional connections between incoming sensory stimuli and outgoing bodily behaviour. Consciousness then becomes a tapestry of causal pathways passing through the nervous system of the organism.

So much more to the point [mine] to what extent are physicalist philosophers [or any other philosophers] able to take their arguments – their definitions and deductions – to the scientific community in order to confirm that indeed how they construe the brain functioning is in fact how it does function.

The part, in other words, where it can all become truly surreal because it is the brain that is faced with the task of explaining itself.

Given that the links in this causal chain are physical events, most importantly neural discharges, the conscious mind can then be fitted comfortably into the physicalist world picture, so the physicalist claims.

Again, from my frame of mind [compelled or not], the dilemma revolves more around attempts to discover if the claims being made [by anyone] are in and of themselves wholly determined given the only possible material reality. Even pursuits by the scientific community may well be only what they could ever have been.

Quite rightly, this does not satisfy many philosophers.

Same thing? Could not the satisfaction and dissatisfaction that philosophers feel [about anything] not in turn just reflect the only possible reality?

David Chalmers famously distinguished between ‘the easy’ and ‘the hard’ problems of consciousness. While functionalist stories, he argued, may account for some overt behaviour associated with being conscious, it cannot deal with the experiential (aka phenomenal or subjective) dimensions of consciousness – the ‘what it is like to be’ an entity having awareness. His hard problem is how brain activity can produce conscious awareness at all.

This reminds me of the arguments that go back and forth in regard to artificial intelligence. Okay, the machines can beat a Grand Master at chess. The “easy” part?" But what about human emotions and psychological states? What about acquiring a sense of humor, an understanding of irony? Or the absence of a physical body, the equivalent of the id, the super-ego, the subconscious and unconscious mind?

As for “deal[ing] with the experiential (aka phenomenal or subjective) dimensions of consciousness” given free will, look at all the philosophers here who cannot deal with my own defense of moral nihilism…dasein, Benjamin Button, the gap, Rummy’s Rule.

[iambiguous]

The Illusion of Illusionism
Raymond Tallis sees through a physicalist confusion.

Be that as it may [above], most philosophers think that the phenomenal, or quality of sensation, of ‘what-it-is-like’ consciousness – qualia, such as the smell of cheese, the sight of red, and the feeling of pain – present an especial challenge to physicalism.

Of course, that’s the point I come back to over and again: that philosophers will tell you what they think about this. On the other hand, haven’t philosophers been telling us what they think is going on when the brain thinks about thinking about things like this now for literally thousands of years?

And the fact that brain scientists themselves are still grappling to come up with a way to most rationally grapple with a brain given the task of explaining itself…? And to the best of my knowledge they too have failed to resolve it.

There is nothing in neural activity – which physically speaking is simply the passage of ions through semi-permeable membranes – that accounts for these experiences. After all, similar neural activity in the spinal cord, the cerebellum, and most of the cerebral cortex, is not associated with consciousness.

Okay, the libertarians among us might argue, “somehow” when matter evolved into biological life here on Earth, that life “somehow” evolved into us and we “acquired” free will. Yet how is that not but another “leap of faith” for philosophers?

Nature vs. God? With God, everything can be reduced down to His “mysterious ways”. But what is any less mysterious than connecting human consciousness to Nature?

[HumAnIze]

Thank God I abandoned academia on instinct immediately after suffering barely enough to finish undergrad. Not sure why I even stuck it out that much, pre-programming I suppose.

Thoughts on “determinism”? Show me something “non-determined”, something that has NO causality or reason for why it is what it is. Explain exactly how that can be. And how there are no other possible rational explanations we might not yet know of. Use logic to exhaust all possibilities except “no logic” as the final result somehow proven by logic itself.

These fuckwads can’t see or even just intuitively sense the pure retardism of the ideas they entertain. Fuck.

Philosophy is the reason humans are so fucking dumb. Everyone else has an excuse: they aren’t philosophers. But the philosophers, they should and do know better.

[iambiguous]

The Illusion of Illusionism
Raymond Tallis sees through a physicalist confusion.

Enter the illusionists. The most lucid and committed among them is Keith Frankish, who embraces ‘strong illusionism’. According to Frankish, “phenomenal consciousness, as usually conceived, is illusory”.

More to the point [mine], do the illusionists themselves enter into all of this of their own free will? After all, if we embrace or conceive only that which we were never able not to embrace or conceive…?

In case you’re wondering whether you read that correctly, he adds, “According to illusionists, our sense that it is like something to undergo conscious experiences is due to the fact that we systematically misrepresent them (or, in some versions, their objects) as having phenomenal properties.” So phenomenal consciousness is an illusion – the product of introspection misrepresenting cerebral events. This remains true even when the phenomenal experiences are projected onto external objects – as when we see a red apple or locate a pain in our foot.

Here, I am not at all sure what “for all practical purposes”, given day to day interactions with others that precipitate conflicting goods, this means. Anyone here able to connect the dots between this particular world of words and the experiences they have had? All the while having to assume that one can accomplish this of one’s own free will. A leap of faith given the gap and Rummy’s Rule.

In this way, illusionism denies any need for radical theoretical innovation to deal with phenomenal experiences – because they are illusory.

Or so some philosophers will argue. Others however will argue just the opposite. On the other hand, if there is no real distinction between theory and practice here, then what? Then back to being stuck or being “stuck”. Or, for particular compatibilists, being “stuck”?

The challenge now becomes, not to explain why experiences have phenomenal properties, but why they seem to have them. And so the problem of phenomenal consciousness is replaced by the illusion problem; of how it comes about that we misrepresent complex physical events in the brain as simple phenomenal ones.

In my view, the challenge here revolves first and foremost around accepting the fact that neither science nor philosophy has yet to come up with anything in the way of a resolution. Even explaining how – why? – the brain can go about resolving this given all that we still do not grasp about the existence of existence itself, raises a ton of uncertainty.

[iambiguous]

The Illusion of Illusionism
Raymond Tallis sees through a physicalist confusion.

There is an obvious objection to illusionism. How can I be wrong about the existence of something for which I have inescapable evidence? Of course, I can be mistaken as to the existence of something that I believe is out there because of my experiences: I may incorrectly think I have seen a red apple. Or I may incorrectly classify it as a plum. I cannot, however, be mistaken that I have had an experience of a colour (even though I might misname it because I have a poor grasp of colour terminology). But while phenomenal consciousness can be mistaken as to its description or its object, it cannot be mistaken as to its own existence

This seems to be another rendition of “I think, therefor I am”. On the other hand, might it not be, “I think only what my brain compels me to think, therefore I am behaving only as I am able to behave.”

It’s not that he is classifying an apple as a plum incorrectly. After all, if his brain has compelled him to do so what does if really mean for all practical purposes to be either correct or incorrect? Someone may note that he has done so. But only because they were never able not to note this.

Though, again – click – I’m always willing to concede I am simply unable “here and now” to grasp this in the most reasonable manner.

The belief that I am seeing a pink elephant may be erroneous; but not that I am having the experience of seeing a pink elephant.

Then around and around in circles the hardcore determinists and libertarians seem to go in reacting to this. Some will believe one thing, others another. Then the manner in which the compatibilists claim to…reconcile determinism and free will? He had to classify the apple incorrectly but he is still responsible for doing so?

But believing what you do is one thing, demonstrating that what you believe [correctly or incorrectly] you believe autonomously another thing altogether.

In short, a phenomenal experience does not have to be veridical to exist, or to have happened, or to require explanation. My being wrong about the intentional object of my experience does not prove that I did not have the experience.

Nor, in my view, does it prove that because you believe/think you had a particular experience, this means you must have experienced it freely. We’re no less stuck trying to explain the gap between what we do believe is unfolding “in our head” here and all that we simply do not comprehend about the manner in which the human condition fits into an explanation for the existence of existence itself.

[felix_dakat]

@iambiguous

This seems to be another rendition of “I think, therefore I am”. On the other hand, might it not be, “I think only what my brain compels me to think, therefore I am behaving only as I am able to behave.”

…and so on in infinite regression. That doesn’t change the fact that I am aware of my thoughts. That can’t be an illusion to me which I think is the author’s point. But, right, the thoughts that you are aware of might be determined.

@iambiguous

But believing what you do is one thing, demonstrating that what you believe [correctly or incorrectly] you believe [quote=“iambiguous, post:398, topic:49220, username:iambiguous”]
Nor, in my view, does it prove that because you believe/think you had a particular experience, this means you must have experienced it freely. We’re no less stuck trying to explain the gap between what we do believe is unfolding “in our head” here and all that we simply do not comprehend about the manner in which the human condition fits into an explanation for the existence of existence itself.

You perceive it before you believe or don’t believe it. You might think you decide to believe it or that belief is determined. But, before you can catch yourself the perception is there.

What we take ourselves to be is what we seem to see. If you take yourself to be a body then the world seems to be made up of physical objects. If you take yourself to be a mind then the world is made up of ideas.If you take yourself to be awareness than the world is nothing but awareness. What is and what is not are both imaginary.

The person you think you are is an imagination. Who others tell you they think you are—the same. All are impermanent objects of awareness.They come and go. Awareness permanent snd unchanging is all there is.

[iambiguous]

The Illusion of Illusionism
Raymond Tallis sees through a physicalist confusion.

The obvious problem for anyone denying the existence of phenomenal consciousness is that they have to doubt something whose existence is indubitable.

Unless, of course, a more obvious problem is that Tallis does not grasp [cannot grasp] how [let alone why] it is our brains compelling us to deny it. Doubt and certainty then reflecting both sides of the same wholly determined reality.

[quote]Just try doubting the reality of toothache when you’re in the grip of it.

While such experiences may not portray what’s going on in your brain, they are no less real for that. [/quote]

That’s not my point, however. I’m just not sure if my point does in fact reflect anything in the way of…of what exactly? Unlike most, I often find myself coming back time and again to this:

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was “somehow” able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter “somehow” became living matter “somehow” became conscious matter “somehow” became self-conscious matter.

In other words, I will almost certainly go to the grave just as bewildered about the reality of human existence as I’ve ever been. Whereas others here might go to the grave absolutely convinced their own understanding of the human brain really, really is the correct one.

And what does it mean to argue we don’t grasp what is actually going on in the brain when we experience things, but that this doesn’t make them any less real? And – click – how far are we today from grasping the human brain fully? 10%…20%…90%?

Barely scratched the surface?

There is no appearance-reality gap for the sufferer from toothache, or indeed for any ‘hard’ (to explain) conscious experience. The other phenomenal experiences that you have while you are looking about you as you sit in the waiting room, clutching your jaw, are no less real, either.

Now all he has to do is find a brain scientist who, step by step by step, can explain precisely how our material brains did acquire the capacity to experience things autonomously. I am myself “here and now” convinced that this is certainly possible. As with most others, there’s a “deep down inside me” self that “just knows” I have free will. But that’s hardly the same thing as actually demonstrating it.