Neuroscience and free will

It seems to me, if there is a fundamental difference in the properties of two different sorts of things, these different sorts of things are in different existential categories. An analogy: solids have the property of having a fixed stable shape, whereas liquids have the property of liquidity. If a substance flows like a liquid then it is in the liquids category not the solids category. If a substance has a fixed shape then it is in the solids category. Having fundamentally different properties means belonging to fundamentally different categories of existence.

Yes, but you wouldn't argue that solids and liquids are in fundamentally different spheres of existence, particularly since one can become the other. I'm fine with consciousness being different from a rock, but not fine with it being different from all material things.

One of the fundamental properties of consciousness: the qualia of perception. As far as we can tell observationally and experimentally, a salt crystal or a watch don't subjectively perceive the color red, or anything for that matter. There is no reason to imagine that indefinitely complexifying the watch or salt crystal will somehow suddenly imbue them with the qualia of perception. And consciousness doesn't have mass or complicated observable material structure, or even length, width and depth, like watches and salt crystals.

Computation doesn't have mass, either. I'm just not willing to go with "no reason to imagine ..." It may very well be true, but I don't think we have sufficient understanding to be sure.

~~ Paul

Computation doesn't have mass, either. I'm just not willing to go with "no reason to imagine ..." It may very well be true, but I don't think we have sufficient understanding to be sure.

~~ Paul

The "elephant in the room" additional factor that has been mostly ignored in this discussion is the existence of a great body of empirical evidence from paranormal phenomena that the human mind is nonlocal in some sense and is not tied to and purely a function of the physical brain. I know you mostly deny this evidence and it is another debate in itself, but it directly figures into and trumps this mostly philosophical discussion. Because this is actual empirical evidence that actually shows that the mind is ultimately not material or purely a function of material processes, can exist in another realm separate from a mostly nonfunctioning physical brain, and therefore really is of an entirely different order of existence. This evidence furnishes ample additional substantiation for the "no reason to imagine" phrase. Perhaps my wording should have been "every reason not to imagine".

This seems to be a category error. The "constant comparisons" you mention are at base merely logic operations that could be carried out by a complicated data processing machine. There is nothing inherent to this logical processing that would make it conscious or capable of perception. I could write a computer program to make comparisons of different input variables with other variables or constants, measure and record the differences, store the comparison results in a wrap-around top-down table, then compare the current results with past results and finally with a formula compute the error value and using it modify the previous used algorithm for the next iteration (feedback). This program would not be conscious or self-aware or capable of perception - it could not be. 

Concerning knowledge: the term assumes a conscious agent, where knowledge is what it is that a conscious agent knows, while patterns are simply information.

I kind of feel like you're reading past what I've written and not really responding to my statements exactly, but attaching my statements back to a straw materialist man and responding to that.

I keep trying to re-write what I've written in order to address your comments, but I feel like in this case, the more the words the less the meaning... and I should be working now anyway! So I'll leave it at that.

I kind of feel like you're reading past what I've written and not really responding to my statements exactly, but attaching my statements back to a straw materialist man and responding to that.

I keep trying to re-write what I've written in order to address your comments, but I feel like in this case, the more the words the less the meaning... and I should be working now anyway! So I'll leave it at that.

When I try to understand your posts I keep getting down to what seems to be an underlying materialist stance. Perhaps I am misinterpreting what you say, but being an engineer, I tend to take the literal meaning of your words.

When I try to understand your posts I keep getting down to what seems to be an underlying materialist stance. Perhaps I am misinterpreting what you say, but being an engineer, I tend to take the literal meaning of your words.

I'm an engineer too

One thing I am trying to point out is that anything that has an explanation (this causes this casues this...) is mechanistic. It is based on things that reliably repeat. Things that repeat reliably we assign words of solidity or hardness to convey immutability and from these words we get materialism. So ultimately anything that has an explanation can be brought under the tent of materialism.

But I believe there is an aspect of reality that has no explanation. There is a prime cause that lies on the border of the mechanism at the dead ends of the causal chains. Consciousness and will and experience lie on this border. They exist in between mechanisms.

So my experience is my experience and is un-explainable, ineffable, and unique. But as soon as I attempt to explain it or explain anyone else's consciousness, it is immediately brought down into the domain of mechanism and material.

Materialists claim that the fundamental reality is rock-like reliability and repeatability and solidity and objectivity. This is flawed because of (1) the limitations of induction and (2) the exclusion of all data that is not reliable or repeatable under the assumption that it is noise or flawed and (3) definitions are entirely subjective so how do we know whether anything repeats at all unless we choose to define arbitrary boundaries that include or disinclude?

My patternist viewpoint is that the fundamental reality is pattern and patterns do not exist without subjective experience and subjective choice about where to draw the boundaries that form the patterns. So consciousness is inherent in everything. I am not saying consciousness is primary and matter is built on consciousness or vice versa. I am saying consciousness operates on the boundary or the interface between a duality - between mechanism and... something else which is ineffable. That something else is given many names but once it begins to be described it is brought into the realm of material and mechanism. So we can only orbit around that ineffable thing - the oneness of being - with poetic language and metaphor.

I'm an engineer too

One thing I am trying to point out is that anything that has an explanation (this causes this casues this...) is mechanistic. It is based on things that reliably repeat. Things that repeat reliably we assign words of solidity or hardness to convey immutability and from these words we get materialism. So ultimately anything that has an explanation can be brought under the tent of materialism.

But I believe there is an aspect of reality that has no explanation. There is a prime cause that lies on the border of the mechanism at the dead ends of the causal chains. Consciousness and will and experience lie on this border. They exist in between mechanisms.

So my experience is my experience and is un-explainable, ineffable, and unique. But as soon as I attempt to explain it or explain anyone else's consciousness, it is immediately brought down into the domain of mechanism and material.

Materialists claim that the fundamental reality is rock-like reliability and repeatability and solidity and objectivity. This is flawed because of (1) the limitations of induction and (2) the exclusion of all data that is not reliable or repeatable under the assumption that it is noise or flawed and (3) definitions are entirely subjective so how do we know whether anything repeats at all unless we choose to define arbitrary boundaries that include or disinclude?

My patternist viewpoint is that the fundamental reality is pattern and patterns do not exist without subjective experience and subjective choice about where to draw the boundaries that form the patterns. So consciousness is inherent in everything. I am not saying consciousness is primary and matter is built on consciousness or vice versa. I am saying consciousness operates on the boundary or the interface between a duality - between mechanism and... something else which is ineffable. That something else is given many names but once it begins to be described it is brought into the realm of material and mechanism. So we can only orbit around that ineffable thing - the oneness of being - with poetic language and metaphor.

I'm not sure I follow everything you are explaining, nor entirely agree with the bits I do understand, but I do appreciate the thought you have put into your ideas. For example, I am more inclined to the view that consciousness is indeed fundamental and that matter is a manifestation of consciousness but I think you make a great point in suggesting that as soon as we try to make the ineffable effable, we cross the line and invoke mechanism.

The "elephant in the room" additional factor that has been mostly ignored in this discussion is the existence of a great body of empirical evidence from paranormal phenomena that the human mind is nonlocal in some sense and is not tied to and purely a function of the physical brain. I know you mostly deny this evidence and it is another debate in itself, but it directly figures into and trumps this mostly philosophical discussion. Because this is actual empirical evidence that actually shows that the mind is ultimately not material or purely a function of material processes, can exist in another realm separate from a mostly nonfunctioning physical brain, and therefore really is of an entirely different order of existence. This evidence furnishes ample additional substantiation for the "no reason to imagine" phrase. Perhaps my wording should have been "every reason not to imagine".

I'm not sure why it necessarily shows that the mind is not a material process. But yes, it is an interesting fly in the ointment.

~~ Paul

One thing I am trying to point out is that anything that has an explanation (this causes this casues this...) is mechanistic. It is based on things that reliably repeat. Things that repeat reliably we assign words of solidity or hardness to convey immutability and from these words we get materialism. So ultimately anything that has an explanation can be brought under the tent of materialism.

There just seems to be a giant leap here, with no particular connection, between the word 'explanation' and the word 'materialism'. I'd say that all explanations are tentative models of what is really going on. The only area where we have definite and firm descriptions are those of mathematics and logic. And those are not material at all.

When it comes to the world we live in, there are lots of things which are repeatable, we can explain them, but does that make them material? It simply doesn't follow. Or it is an arbitrary assignment of terminology, in which case anything can be labelled as anything, but that doesn't get us very far.

There just seems to be a giant leap here, with no particular connection, between the word 'explanation' and the word 'materialism'. I'd say that all explanations are tentative models of what is really going on. The only area where we have definite and firm descriptions are those of mathematics and logic. And those are not material at all.

I can see how this would sound like a giant leap if made all at once, but I tried to explain that at length earlier... If an event has a causal chain, that is what I am calling an explanation. If there is no causal chain then there is no answer to how or why. Paul has said that he cannot imagine something having no causal chain attached to it and that is understandable as the mind balks at something having absolutely no explanation. If something follows a causal chain then it adheres to rational rules of logic and is repeatable and - with sufficient computation and knowledge of initial conditions - deterministic and is able to be examined scientifically as a mechanism. If something truly doesn't have an explanation then insanity/creativity/magic has entered the universe. So things that lend themselves to being studied scientifically - things that have explanations - have the qualities that fit under the tent of materialism which considers things to be inanimate objects and mechanisms. So anything that is able to be studied scientifically is ultimately no threat to materialism. What is not able to be studied scientifically is anything capricious or unique.

The question at the heart of this thread is: are we truly free to will things as we choose or are our choices merely massively complex deterministic processes which appear to be free because we are not sufficiently advanced to analyze all the mechanisms involved... but theoretically if we could build a supercomputer model of the brain and body and all the tiniest particle physics involved... would it be able to predict a choice? If so, then we are merely mechanisms and free will is an illusion. But if we have true free will then something other which is capricious and entirely unpredictable and has no explanation enters into the mechanism and alters the causal chain.

When it comes to the world we live in, there are lots of things which are repeatable, we can explain them, but does that make them material?

Can you give an example?

Radio waves might in some sense be considered immaterial, but they are still in the domain of materialism. They are still treated as predictable objects (waves and particles).