Psience Quest

(2023-06-08, 03:00 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Here it is -> Kastrup basically accepts the randomness-determinism dichotomy that we reject.

Hmm, kind of. It's all confused terrain because (1) "determined" is commonly used in two different (relevant) senses, and (2) on one of those senses, the dichotomy is anyway defused - and irrelevant.

The problematic sense of "determined" is "necessitated". The non-problematic sense is "caused".

On the non-problematic sense, the dichotomy is irrelevant so long as it is the agent itself that "determines" its choice - that is, that it is the agent that causes its own choice without that choice being necessitated, i.e., without that choice being in some sense forced upon the agent.

Two key questions then are: which sense of "determined" is Bernardo using here, and is he thereby endorsing a dichotomy that we (or at least I) would not endorse?

There's a strong clue in this from his essay:

"[A]ll determined choices [...] always result from dispositions or necessities that precede them."

It looks to me there that by allowing for "determined" to mean not just "necessitated" but "necessitated or disposed" he escapes to a meaningful enough extent the problematic sense - maybe.

I also find it interesting that he makes a point that seems similar to one you've made on past occasions in the context of free will: "when we say that a process is random, we are merely acknowledging our ignorance of its potential underlying causal basis."

In any case, given that Bernardo, too, emphasises that free will is predicated on the agent "determining" its choice, I'm probably comfortable enough saying that his defence of free will is compatible with ours (or at least with mine).

Finally, I think it's worth noting that he is explicitly arguing for free will here!

(2023-06-09, 12:30 AM)Merle Wrote: [ -> ]

(2023-06-08, 09:07 AM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]Can it be a mere coincidence that sticking a hand in a fire hurts, or that sexual activity feels good? Such a suggestion strains credulity.

Can you imagine a species for which sticking one's hand in the fire felt good and sexual activity hurt? Natural selection, surely, would not favor such a species.

So why is your credulity strained that nature selected things the way it did?

A quick note up-front: I was quoting that which you've quoted me as having written directly.

You seem, though, to have missed the point that the author of the essay was making: that if conscious experiences are wholly determined (in the sense of "necessitated") by a non-conscious (physical) substrate - a brain or similar - then it doesn't matter how they feel, because they don't have any effect on anything anyway, including the behaviour which enhances or diminishes our survival.

Natural selection would not be operating on (irrelevant because casually impotent) feelings but on brain patterns which determined survival-promoting behaviour, regardless of how those brain patterns (and the behaviour they caused) felt.

We would, then, have no reason to expect survival-promoting behaviour to feel good, and survival-diminishing behaviour to feel bad, because how it felt wouldn't change anything about the way we acted (so as to enhance our prospects of survival) given our naturally selected brain states.

I can imagine that you might want to challenge this point, and there probably are good ways to challenge it, but you have to first understand it before you can do that!

(2023-06-09, 11:38 AM)Merle Wrote: [ -> ]Let me frame the questions that David and I are discussing in a different way. I would like to see more responses to this.

Question: Do the following need souls to do what they do? 

My answers are shown in red. Please feel free to post back with your answers, which do not need to be limited to just yes or no.

1. Waterfalls: no
   
2. Bacteria: no 
   
3. Sunflowers: no
   
4. Jellyfish: no
   
5. Ants: no
   
6. Toads: no
   
7. Monkeys: no
   
8. Chimpanzees: no
   
9. Homo erectus: no
   
10. Humans: no
    

I think that the reason why you haven't had any straightforward answers to this question is that it's poorly framed and based on terms that you define idiosyncratically.

It is poorly framed because whether or not an entity has (or, as you put it, "needs") a soul depends^[1] on whether or not it is conscious (and because "do what they do" is a strange way of referring to that which is potentially experiential), so the better framing of the question is:

Which of the following are conscious?

That's also a more interesting question for me (and others on this board) because I'm (we're) interested in exploring what the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness are. On that matter, you seem to have concluded that a sufficient condition for consciousness is having a functional brain (because, in your view, consciousness - or mind - is simply the "actions" of the brain), and seem to be satisfied to leave it at that, and not to explore the possibility of any other sufficient and/or necessary conditions for consciousness. I have concluded that having a brain is not (in and of itself) a sufficient condition for consciousness, as I explained in this reply to you (which you ignored).

[1] Consciousness entails having a soul - at least by one meaningful definition of "soul" in this context - because, according to that definition, the soul is the subject of consciousness, and consciousness necessarily has a subject. You, though, are working with a different understanding and definitions: that consciousness does not entail having a soul, and that it is merely the production of the workings of the brain. Hence the futility of trying to answer your question: it is predicated on your own terms, which are different than mine (and, I suspect, than those of most members of this board).

(2023-06-12, 12:27 PM)quirkybrainmeat Wrote: [ -> ]Are there even any modern day philosophers of mind that are epiphenomenalists? At least from what I know most use it to fill gaps on their theories instead of stating consciousness is purely epiphenomenal.

I don't know. I find all of this fascinating but I do very little reading of the philosophical literature, so I'm not up to speed on what's popular, what's not, and how these ideas are being used by modern-day philosophers.

(2023-06-14, 12:55 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]Hmm, kind of. It's all confused terrain because (1) "determined" is commonly used in two different (relevant) senses, and (2) on one of those senses, the dichotomy is anyway defused - and irrelevant.

I'm just seeking clarification as sometimes the words 'defused' (as in an unexploded bomb) or 'diffused' (as in dispersed, spread out) occasionally are swapped by accident. Though I suspect you said what you intended to say. Thanks.

(2023-06-14, 01:30 PM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]I'm just seeking clarification as sometimes the words 'defused' (as in an unexploded bomb) or 'diffused' (as in dispersed, spread out) occasionally are swapped by accident. Though I suspect you said what you intended to say. Thanks.

Yep, I did mean defused as opposed to diffused.

Looking a bit at the discussion Merle linked and other threads on christianforums.net I would say the debate sections are pretty toxic, with militant atheists and christians often using personal attacks with insults against each other such as "woomonger" and arguments such as saying ID enables climate change denial. The atheists seem to be more agressive while christians "passive"

(2023-06-14, 12:37 AM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]If the brain is Material/Physical in the way Materialist/Physicalist define those terms, as in made up of some stuff that has no fundamental mental character, it cannot have thoughts or memories or subjective feelings or utilize logic. Even you seem to recognize this when you note that nails don't have Consciousness, you just need to realize the same problem of getting Consciousness from Matter extends to brains.

I disagree. Brains can and do have thoughts, memories, subjective feelings, and utilize logic.

Monkeys have thoughts, memories and utilize crude logic. They also appear to have subjective feelings.

Do you or do you not think a monkey has to have a soul to do what it does? If it doesn't need a soul to do what it does, your argument falls apart. For then monkeys do these things with their brains without a soul. If instead, monkeys must have a soul to do these things, where do you draw the line that below which actions can be strictly physical?  That argument tends to move the entire world into a state of animism where the world is filled with souls manipulating it.

So either way, you lose. So what will you do? Avoid the question, hoping it goes away, and nobody notices what you are doing?

Quote:If you want to get around this, you'd have to give us an actual metaphysical picture of the physical that gives us a convincing reason to believe the material brain can do the things Tallis & Rosenberg say is not possible - have thoughts about anything.

Sure. Here is a video of cats doing cat things. It seems obvious to me that the brains of these cats are thinking thoughts and that cats have memories.  Do you agree?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FQsIfE7sZM&t=23s

Quote:As for laws of physics - Where are they? How do they work? Why don't they change?

No God, No Laws by Nancy Cartwright


Do Physical Laws Make Things Happen? by Stephen Talbott

Regarding the question in the title of your second link, refer to Betteridge's Law of Headlines.  The answer is "no".

Both links misunderstand what physical laws are. Physical laws are not commands. God did not tell protons they need to have a positive charge or they will go to hell. No, "physical laws" is just the name we give for the way things work. We live in an orderly world which can be understood by realizing that certain things act certain ways. That does not require a lawgiver.

Quote:As for the accusation of believing in "magic", I think that arguably applies more to the varied times you've waved away problems by saying "I don't know" while insisting that Souls Need Brains ->

Magic versus metaphysics by Feser

Excuse me, but I am not accusing, I am asking. I told you that before. Can you please tell me how belief in a non-material something that does what you claim is different from saying it is done by magic? I note that you have given us no answer. Again, if it is true that no physical thing can have conscious thoughts--an assertion you have not proven--then how would a soul doing this impossible thing be different from magic? If you cannot tell us how it differs from magic, why not?

Again, there are many things that science does not know. When we get to that, we should answer, "I don't know". There is nothing wrong with that.

When we come to things that we don't know, we can assume one of two possible answers:

1. 1. There is some physical explanation that may or may not involve new physical principles and may or may not ever be known that explains this, or 2. "God of the gaps" that is, we find a gap in physics, so we need a god or soul or some other entity to fill in the gap.

If #1 is the correct answer, then there is no magic. If #2 is the correct answer, then we are in your boat, where the answer is virtually indistinguishable from magic.

My money is on option 1. 

"God of the gaps" has been used to explain many things in the past. And yet the gaps keep getting smaller, and physics takes over more of the space once credited to gods. If you want to insert souls or gods into any place where there is an unknown, then prepare to do a lot of moonwalking, appearing to walk forward but constantly going backwards.

That is the difference between our views. I am confident that the answer is #1, but I am not absolutely certain that sometime we might have to fall back on option #2, in which my view would look as much a magic as your view does to me. 

But my money is on option 1.

(2023-06-14, 04:42 PM)Merle Wrote: [ -> ]Sure. Here is a video of cats doing cat things. It seems obvious to me that the brains of these cats are thinking thoughts and that cats have memories.  Do you agree?

Are you deliberately avoiding the real issue or do you not understand the point at all?  Our brains certainly process information but that does not imply consciousness as unconscious computers do that.  What we want from you is an explanation of how unconscious matter can be responsible for consciousness.  Comparing us to animals does not answer the question.

(2023-06-14, 12:55 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]Finally, I think it's worth noting that he is explicitly arguing for free will here!

I don't know if what he is arguing for would be considered free will as most of us understand that term.

I do think it gets a bit confusing since Kastrup, as I understand him, also thinks ultimately there is only the Single Subject at the Ground of Being level and all other minds are ultimately illusory in some way. The Absolute Idealism claim.