The Illusion of Illusionism
Raymond Tallis sees through a physicalist confusion.
[quote]The Experience of an Illusion
Even if its explanations of the nature and purpose of phenomenal consciousness were valid, illusionism would not make consciousness, and in particular phenomenal consciousness, any easier to fit into a physicalist world picture. To the contrary, it becomes a more awkward customer[/quote]
All the while, however, he’s in the same boat the rest of us are in: speculating about how to speculate about his own interactions with others given all that he simply does not grasp about the human brain itself going all the way back to, what, the Big Bang? God?
If the physicalists are compelled to explain phenomenal consciousness only as they are able to, why might it not be that Tallis is reacting to them given the only manner in which he is able to?
What doesn’t change [click or not] is the profound mystery embedded in matter able to “somehow” become conscious of itself as matter able, in turn, to acquire moral “convictions”.
And if, instead of color, the experience revolves more around, say, the war in Gaza or Ukraine…? What can or cannot be called an illusion there?
And if somehow matter in a No God universe did manage to evolve into living, self-conscious entities – us? Who can really know for sure what it is or is not capable of? It simply remains what may well be the most profoundly problematic mystery of them all. One that we will all probably go to grave merely believing “in our heads” whatever we happen to believe is true about it.
What about your question Why? That question, and the required potential inherent in the ability to ask that question, is why philosophers are ultimately the smart ones, as opposed to people that “do not ask” and thus ‘assume’ the world around them to be determined.
Why ask why… Why existence?
Your question originates from the assumption that existence is fundamental, while the Why question doesn’t. There is an aspect that must precede existence, for that question to be possible. Some say ‘cannot be defined’ and leave it, others name it God and formalize a whole religion. But the possibility of the Why question of philosophy is evident.
Philosophy can make a case for evident applicability of the Why question, and as such legitimize their business. The validity of a chosen philosophical path can be questioned, and with a Why question fundamental to a philosophical endeavour, that ‘ought’ to be, and is where one finds the foundation of true morality. The philosophical Why results in Aristotle’s eudaimonia, which is a state of ‘philosophical contemplation’ with as a result ‘the highest human virtue’, namely, alignment with the moral good.
The Illusion of Illusionism
Raymond Tallis sees through a physicalist confusion.
Actually, as with any philosophical speculation that takes us back around to grappling with the human brain itself, there is in fact no “starting point” other than a particular set of assumptions someone makes about relationships that evolved over literally millions of years. Instead, he makes arguments about physicalism in much the same manner that physicalists make their own arguments. But we are all embedded in “the gap” here. And the part where we don’t actually know what we don’t even know about where human beings here on planet Earth fit into an explanation for the existence of existence itself. We don’t even know if the human brain is capable of grasping that. Some just make all of this more trivial than others.
On the other hand, physical scientists, employing the scientific method and working with ever more sophisticated fMRI technologies, are still unable to pin down whether or not human consciousness is actually autonomous. Unless, perhaps, a link can be provided challenging that.
The truth. The truth here? Tallis can provide us with a scientific assessment establishing that human interactions are unequovocally not just embodying the illusion of free will? He’s just here to provide us with a philosophical confirmation?
Okay, then back to dreams. My own are bursting at the seams with mental fictions. The “interactions” in the dreams are created by the brain itself. We wake up noting that none of it really happened at all. Except “in our head”. Indeed, how many times have we woke thinking, “whew, it was just a dream!”.
Let’s try this…
In regard to your own interactions with others, what do you propose he means above?
Or, going back to my own main interest here…connecting the dots existentially between the behaviors we choose and moral responsibility…how do we go about determining what either is or is not wholly determined by the laws of nature?
This makes me wanna get back on my Descartes Emerson days.
In his 1637 work Discourse on the Method for Rightly Conducting Reason, Descartes introduced a provisional morality consisting of three or four maxims. For example, one maxim states that people should obey the laws of their country, follow their religion, and govern themselves with moderate opinions. Another maxim states that people should be decisive in their actions and follow doubtful opinions with consistency.
Emerson was different in that every individual needs to be self-reliant and thus not depend upon others if he or she is to be free and to live life fully.
Together you get golden rule that you must treat others the same way as you intend to be treated.
And whatever governance you proclaim will never be publicly accepted or rejected.
The Illusion of Illusionism
Raymond Tallis sees through a physicalist confusion.
Indeed. And how does that not revolve mainly around this:
Though I’m the first to admit a part of me is no less able to scoff at determinism. Like most of us here, I “just know” deep down inside that at least up to a point I really am calling the shots here. But that doesn’t make my brain any less material. It is still nothing less than a profoundly problematic mystery. Which is why so many invent God to make it go away.
And then it’s brain activity all the way down. But down to what? God? the Universe itself? As for the brain deceiving us, that happens to me every night. For hours on end “I” am “out in the world” with those I knew from the past…family dreams, college dreams, Army dreams, work dreams, etc.
Asserting things like this given “the gap” is something many philosophers might do. It’s always fascinating to speculate about the human brain. On the other hand, it’s the human brain itself doing the speculation. Thus, what may well be “behind” illusionists, physicalists, materialists, idealists, realists, etc., is nothing other than what could never not be behind it.
It’s as though Mother Nature is shooting a film and we are all compelled to act out our scripted parts. But, unlike with God, we’re just not sure if there is any teleological component embedded in the laws of nature. We’re not even entirely sure if our lack of certainty itself is not just one more inherent component of Reality.
The Illusion of Illusionism
Raymond Tallis sees through a physicalist confusion.
Ultimately, what lies behind illusionism and physicalism remains the profound mystery embedded in how the human brain is able to create a self-conscious awareness of itself in the first place. If it’s not a manifestation of God, then would it not need to reflect a component subsumed in the material universe itself…a factor that “somehow” made it all possible?
Also, something that explains quantum interactions and the staggering vastness of the universe.
Again, come back to it all in a hundred years. The only question is this…will the physicists have finally resolved it all? Will they be able to demonstrate that their resolution is in fact the real deal and not just another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality? Or will they still have to fall back on philosophers for other equally important components.
Back then to the gap between what Tallis construes the most basic level of understanding is here and all that would need to be grasped about human consciousness in order to close it completely. Then the surreal reality of how, yes, awareness certainly seems to be “delivered” by some entity that may well have acquired a true autonomy. Or maybe the mystery of existence itself ultimately comes down to information and knowledge that our own brains, even if autonomous, are simply not sophisticated enough to grasp.
It’s all still no less mind-boggling once you go out far enough into the deep end of the reality pool.
Come on, admit it. The existence of the human brain, the human condition and existence itself, while utterly fascinating to explore philosophically are still far beyond the reach even of the hard sciences.
On the other hand, sure, if philosophers ever do concoct a brand new argument allowing them to intertwine their theoretical conjectures about the human brain and their own actual interactions with others, I’d be particularly interested in that.
Determinism versus Determinism
Nurana Rajabova is determined to sort it out.
Then the parts that [compelled or not] fascinate me the most:
1] Figuring out how particular compatibilists are able to convince themselves that, even though we are determined to do what we could never not do, we are still morally responsible. Unless, of course, this argument too is just another inherent component of the only possible world.
2] Trying to grasp the frame of mind of those like Sam Harris. In other words, those who seem to accept that we do live in a wholly determined universe…and yet “somehow” their arguments must prevail because they really are the best arguments. But how can things be thought of as better or worse in a world where they could never have beed otherwise? Other than because we think of things like this in turn because our brains compel us to.
And around and around and around we go. If some come to believe this because they are compelled to while others come to reject it because they are compelled to…? What about the implications of that?
What does it mean to live in a world where something is shattered, where others are blamed for shattering it, but both the act of shattering it and the reactions to the shattering are just inherent and necessary manifestations of the only possible world?
Determinism versus Determinism
Nurana Rajabova is determined to sort it out.
That’s more or less me “here and now”. Then the part, however, where I flat-out acknowledge how the odds that my take on all of this is the correct one is almost certainly very, very, very remote. All someone need do is to bring back the fact that I haven’t a clue regarding how the human species fits into the existence of existence itself. And, of course, neither does anyone else here.
What I wouldn’t give for someone to actually explain this to me in such a way my own frame of mind here begins to crumble. I begin to see what I keep missing in the arguments of others. I begin to see the likelihood of moral responsibility “somehow” being applicable to human interactions.
On the other hand, back to this…
I come here one day arguing that I finally do grasp how one can be compelled to behave as they do but still be responsible. Only how do I know for sure whether in doing so this isn’t just another inherent manifestation of a wholly determined universe?
In the interim…
I know that I wonder about this all the time. Again, however, I wonder if all that I profess to know, I was never able not to profess to know.
determinism is incompatible with free will, but sovereignty is not, because it is a co-concurrence (between necessary & contingent beings) made possible by the omnitranstemporal eternally subsuming contingent beings
You are not missing anything the complexity involved is what frightens people, the belief in free will is in itself a simplification of the complexity of existence. It is nonsense of course, but it turns the mind-boggling complexity into something we can deal with as sin and blame. Sin is the foundation of the church, and blame is the foundation of the judicial system, it is more comfortable than dealing with overwhelming complexity or reality. I think most people given to thought would agree that all is process, what you did yesterday largely determines what you can do today.
If one were to embrace determinism one would notice an increase in one’s compassion for others, even as we often do for the animals in our lives. Like the animals in our lives, we too are reactionary creatures, the physical world acting upon us is cause to all reactive creatures and our reactions constitute causes that affect the physical world.
Another interesting thing about process is that the present always opens backward to wonder. We living our lives forward find we only begin to understand it backwardly. To reactive creatures there is no such thing as human action, there is but human reaction, for all behavioral movements must be motivated from the outside, and motivation spells reaction, not action.
Often in discussions on determinism, there are concerns about what to do with people who are dangerous to others and society at large. I do not think this is a problem. These people must be restrained as in when we believed in free will, but with an entirely new perspective and greater compassion for those conditioned negatively in the journey through their early life. I think also that embracing determinism would profoundly engage the mind affecting the way one views and has one’s life in the world, a much more profound experience than the belief in human action/ free will, what that might do to the gray matter of the population at large is up for speculation. Just the evolution of increased compassion in the face of life’s harsher realities would be a most interesting development.
The very act of expressing an opinion about the free will versus determinism question, assumes the ability to make a decision about it. At the very least dialogue must act as if free will exists even as it admits it’s merely an illusion.
Just as you are the expression of the complexities of the historical past in the present, so you as an agent bestow upon the world the sum of history as it relates to your evolutionary history. You are affected, react, and in reaction, become a cause in the world. Life reacts to the larger reality of the physical world and the cosmos. One truth is, one might have some choices of reactions but reaction is what you are, reaction is being, and being is a cause in the world, reaction is the method of being the world.
It is privation to defy self=other, and the most powerful being always chooses it—freely giving up what we typically consider “omnipotence”—for strength that does not miss the point. That is the fullness of being.
I think of determinism in a somewhat different way, instead of thinking that things are determined from the beginning of time, one needs to reflect that life is in the moment and only in the moment. The perspective changes or should change, when one realizes that the organism is the summation of its past. Still, each organism has a different past, and in the moment is contributing to the history-making of himself and others as organisms in the eternal now/the moment. This can be seen in a limited sense in that we live our lives forward but we can only understand our lives backward. Only in our moment looking backward is our life determined, all the given historical aspects that lead to the moment/being were happenstance.
There is a level of seeming continuity in the regeneration of the organism/moment, producing many forms but being of one essence. One’s sense of identity is not true to its essence for the samsara/ the whirlwind of cause and effect or cause and reaction gives us identity relative to context. Determinism is so as a summation of being but the compound of historical aspects contributing to that summation were not, this is still determinism to its final product, the now is the totality of the present relative to its past and its present. The historical notes as an analogy, produce a most particular melody playing in the present as its behaviors. The compound of evolutionary context determines the score of the overall behavior of the instrument’s behavioral functions in the present, it can be no other way in the present and in its ongoing presentation of behavioral notes.
That’s at most soft determinism. In hard determinism you are not an agent. That you seem to be is an illusion. Your reactions are as much determined as the reactions of a billiard ball struck by another on a table. Choices seem to occur because we are not aware of the causal chain that produced them. We make exception to scientific determinism for humans and have built a system of law on it based on a traditional pre-scientific contested model of human nature.
Determinism versus Determinism
Nurana Rajabova is determined to sort it out.
For example?
Again, Mary aborting Jane. What might the author’s point be in regard to Mary aborting her unborn fetus solely because her brain compels her to? Are the laws of matter themselves capable of producing arbitrary interactions. Connecting the dots between, say, quantum mechanics and the human brain? Assuming there is no God around to explain it instead.
And the logic of it all might appear to accept contradictory things, but that is only because the logic itself is just another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality.
Okay, and when I suggest that compatibilists do these things only because they were never able not to do them? Yes they encourage people to live as though they had free will – click – but only because they were never able not to.
Yes, that is basically what “I” believe “here and now”. But I am no more capable of actually demonstrating this materially, phenomenologically, empirically, etc., than those who believe exactly the opposite. The compatibilists seem to posit these mysterious “internal components” of human consciousness that “somehow” resulted in human autonomy.
Sure, maybe. But arguing this into existence philosophically? How is that perhaps not just scratching the surface?
Determinism versus Determinism
Nurana Rajabova is determined to sort it out.
Back to the definitionists. True philosophers, many will argue, cannot discuss compatibilism rationally until they first come to agree on the definition of it. But how does that not too become ineffably entangled in the profound mystery embedded in this:
You bring your definition to the discussion as though the act of bringing it, like the act of defining something itself is not as well but another inherent component of the only possible reality.
Same thing though some determinists will be compelled to argue. Hume was no less inherently motivated by a material brain no less inherently in sync with the laws of matter. Nothing Hume ever thought, felt, said or did was arbitrary. Nor could they have been ever been contradictory.
Instead, click, the focus is still on those who aim to explore all of this scientifically, and those who have, instead, taken a leap of faith to God and religion.
Only when we are able to determine empirically whether in defining something we are defining it of our own volition will any of this possibly be resolved. Unless, of course, that’s how it all unfolds “in our heads” as just another necessary manifestation of the only possible world.
Felix.
No argument with what you’ve said, I was trying to stress the fact that all organisms are reactionary creatures, this alone negates free will. How could one have free will when the larger reality of the ever-changing world governs one? Evolutionary adaptation depends upon the organism’s plasticity to the changing physical world. Our choices are made on a more fundamental level of our biology and only makes choices apparent to consciousness after the matter is decided.
Determinism versus Determinism
Nurana Rajabova is determined to sort it out.
[quote]Determinism in the Ordinary Sense
The first account of determinism, which is determinism taken in the ordinary sense, takes a unitary approach to the universe. According to this account, all things in the universe are connected by threads which are the laws of nature. The laws of nature act on the natural world only according to a path determined at or by the first cause, which may be the Big Bang or God, depending on one’s beliefs. [/quote]
Matter is matter is matter? Unless, perhaps, there is a God? And the beauty of religious convictions is that the only thing required is that you do believe what you profess to believe. That makes it true for millions. Whereas if we are compelled instead to to take it all the way back to the Big Bang…?
Where to even begin in explaining that.
Same thing? With most religions, God not only has the capacity to choose, but His choices are themselves derived from both an omniscient and an omnipotent starting point. Can we say the same thing about the Big Bang, though? Or about philosophers and scientists?
Calvinism? And, perhaps, the equivalent of that among other denominations?
Also, the part here where some argue that human autonomy is simply not reconcilable with an omniscient First Cause.
As for how to grapple with human autonomy going back only to the Big Bang? That’s even more mind-boggling [to some of us] than a God, the God.
Determinism versus Determinism
Nurana Rajabova is determined to sort it out.
Then [for some] back to this: are they defending it only because they were never able not to defend it? Do they resist only because they were never able not to resist?
You tell us. And in such a way that we are convinced of our own free will to accept it. And, in fact, of our own volition, we spread the word.
How exactly does the brain create the mind? And why do millions upon millions around the globe assume the only plausible explanation is God?
Scott Adams. Remember him? He once advised white folks to “get the hell away from black people”. As though he was ever able not to?
And that, of course, becomes the whole point. How can good and evil not be interchangeable in a world where even our individual reactions to the behaviors of others is no less destined or fated?
Again, however, there will be those who want to believe this because then they are off the hook for, well, everything, right? And others who won’t because damned if they are going to even consider the possibility that all the great things they have accomplished are as well beyond their control.
Now, let’s try to grapple with all of this in regard to, say, the Alec Baldwin/Rust trial. The case was just dropped. But how is that a good thing or a bad thing if it could never have been otherwise? Some will be appalled, others ecstatic. Taking all of their cues from Mother Nature.