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friedmacguffins
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20 May 2017, 3:02 pm

friedmacguffins wrote:
We are self-aware.

Lintar wrote:
Yes, self-awareness is what makes all the difference. We can't say that we are at the mercy of blind, purposeless forces, and therefore lack free will, because we are not billiard balls constrained by simple classical rules of causality: too many people who argue for the absence of free will tend to think in purely Newtonian terms, a paradigm that has been shown since the 17th century to be hopelessly inadequate when it comes to describing systems that are anything more than extremely simple.

Let's say that the billiard balls become self aware, and recognize that they are on the table, being stricken by the cue.

Are they unintelligent, just because they are moved by outside sources?



Lintar
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20 May 2017, 7:39 pm

friedmacguffins wrote:
friedmacguffins wrote:
We are self-aware.

Lintar wrote:
Yes, self-awareness is what makes all the difference. We can't say that we are at the mercy of blind, purposeless forces, and therefore lack free will, because we are not billiard balls constrained by simple classical rules of causality: too many people who argue for the absence of free will tend to think in purely Newtonian terms, a paradigm that has been shown since the 17th century to be hopelessly inadequate when it comes to describing systems that are anything more than extremely simple.

Let's say that the billiard balls become self aware, and recognize that they are on the table, being stricken by the cue.

Are they unintelligent, just because they are moved by outside sources?


An absurd hypothetical. One of the defining features of a billiard ball is that it doesn't have any of the ablities that we have (like intelligence). That was one of the points I made. I did so to highlight the point that we are different from most things in our universe, and that is why we have free will. We are special, whether you like it or not.



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20 May 2017, 10:37 pm

I also dislike determinism, but I have to acknowledge it's effects. It also makes for better public policy than free will.


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20 May 2017, 11:38 pm

If you're giving up because you believe in determinism then it was fated to be so.



jrjones9933
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20 May 2017, 11:59 pm

Aristophanes wrote:
If you're giving up because you believe in determinism then it was fated to be so.

Maybe some people just aren't made to accept determinism. :lol:


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21 May 2017, 2:47 am

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
I have to post this again I think. Below is a lecture from Mike Silberstein, a philosopher of science and not a woo-peddler in the slightest, putting on his steel-toed boots regarding both panpsychism and strong emergence.



Well, I watched part of the video, with a great deal of scepticism.

When I came to the mind-matter problem a little more than 7 minutes in the video, I googled it and a simple google-result lead me to this answer to the mind-matter "problem":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosoph ... dy_problem

Quote:
Each attempt to answer the mind–body problem encounters substantial problems. Some philosophers argue that this is because there is an underlying conceptual confusion.[69] These philosophers, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and his followers in the tradition of linguistic criticism, therefore reject the problem as illusory.[70] They argue that it is an error to ask how mental and biological states fit together. Rather it should simply be accepted that human experience can be described in different ways—for instance, in a mental and in a biological vocabulary. Illusory problems arise if one tries to describe the one in terms of the other's vocabulary or if the mental vocabulary is used in the wrong contexts.[70] This is the case, for instance, if one searches for mental states of the brain. The brain is simply the wrong context for the use of mental vocabulary—the search for mental states of the brain is therefore a category error or a sort of fallacy of reasoning.[70]

Today, such a position is often adopted by interpreters of Wittgenstein such as Peter Hacker.[69] However, Hilary Putnam, the originator of functionalism, has also adopted the position that the mind–body problem is an illusory problem which should be dissolved according to the manner of Wittgenstein.


Turns out the entire video is based off false assumptions and with absolutely no scepticism at all.



Last edited by thinkinginpictures on 21 May 2017, 3:12 am, edited 2 times in total.

thinkinginpictures
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21 May 2017, 2:55 am

Lintar wrote:
thinkinginpictures wrote:
Scientism tells that material reality is all there is, and scientism is science, it is based on facts, not wishful thinking.


Scientism isn't to be equated with the scientific method though, or even with 'science': it is a purely philosophical paradigm upon which many who like to call themselves 'atheists' and/or 'materialists' base all of their other beliefs upon, including the ones they think were arrived at scientifically. Science itself has many assumptions built within it - for example, that there is an objective reality 'out there' somewhere, that the past is real, that solipsism is false, that 'science' can ultimately explain everything there is worth knowing about (which is what you believe, I believe).

No 'Thinkingpictures', science does NOT tell us "that material reality is all there is", because it CANNOT. That's not what it's for. It has its limitations which, by the way, specifically preclude it from being used in such a manner (i.e. in the investigation of purely philosophical questions). By definition it has to confine itself to the examination of physical reality, but some (actually many, like yourself) seem to believe that this tool (for that is what it in fact is - a tool, a method of enquiry) can be used for anything and everything. As the saying goes, "If all you have is a hammer, then everything will look like a nail".


Scientism is not to be equated with the scientific method? Well, you are wrong again!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

Quote:
Scientism is a term used to describe the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or the most valuable part of human learning—to the exclusion of other viewpoints. It has been defined as "the view that the characteristic inductive methods of the natural sciences are the only source of genuine factual knowledge and, in particular, that they alone can yield true knowledge about man and society".


And just for people to know, I am not an atheist, but I do believe good Scientists like Richard Dawkins have good points needed to be considered seriously.



techstepgenr8tion
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21 May 2017, 10:40 am

thinkinginpictures wrote:
Quote:
Each attempt to answer the mind–body problem encounters substantial problems. Some philosophers argue that this is because there is an underlying conceptual confusion.[69] These philosophers, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and his followers in the tradition of linguistic criticism, therefore reject the problem as illusory.[70] They argue that it is an error to ask how mental and biological states fit together. Rather it should simply be accepted that human experience can be described in different ways—for instance, in a mental and in a biological vocabulary. Illusory problems arise if one tries to describe the one in terms of the other's vocabulary or if the mental vocabulary is used in the wrong contexts.[70] This is the case, for instance, if one searches for mental states of the brain. The brain is simply the wrong context for the use of mental vocabulary—the search for mental states of the brain is therefore a category error or a sort of fallacy of reasoning.[70]

Today, such a position is often adopted by interpreters of Wittgenstein such as Peter Hacker.[69] However, Hilary Putnam, the originator of functionalism, has also adopted the position that the mind–body problem is an illusory problem which should be dissolved according to the manner of Wittgenstein.


Turns out the entire video is based off false assumptions and with absolutely no scepticism at all.


All this does is push it back to inscrutability. It suggests that conscious processes happen but they're a way of explaining what matter's doing. If they go that route than they've joined that panpsychist camp. If they'd adamantly argue that only neurons can provide consciousness then they're in the strong emergence camp and I'd have to argue further that they're going to have a problem dealing with slime molds and eukaryotes, cases where single celled organisms are partaking in sexual procreation and in some cases showing signs of what we properly have to call learning. They could be neutral monists as well but nothing of that sort is clarified or suggested. In essence to just say 'Its there - accept it, don't ask why because there is no why' doesn't square with scientific or philosophic inquiry - it's really a leap back into mysterianism if taken seriously.

I also think I might quote from your Wiki article the standpoint that the speaker in that video advocates in the end since the seven minute mark was the limit of your credulity:

Quote:
Neutral monism
Neutral monism, in philosophy, is the metaphysical view that the mental and the physical are two ways of organizing or describing the same elements, which are themselves "neutral", that is, neither physical nor mental. This view denies that the mental and the physical are two fundamentally different things. Rather, neutral monism claims the universe consists of only one kind of stuff, in the form of neutral elements that are in themselves neither mental nor physical. These neutral elements might have the properties of color and shape, just as we experience those properties. But these shaped and colored elements do not exist in a mind (considered as a substantial entity, whether dualistically or physicalistically); they exist on their own.


The particular view he proposes, along with Harald Atmanspacher:

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Con ... _emergence

Quote:
Contextual emergence characterizes a specific kind of relationship between different domains of scientific descriptions of particular phenomena. Although these domains are not ordered strictly hierarchically, one often speaks of lower and higher levels of description, where lower levels are considered as more fundamental in a certain sense. As a rule, phenomena at higher levels of description are more complex than phenomena at lower levels. This increasing complexity depends on contingent conditions, so-called contexts, that must be taken into account for an appropriate description.

Moving up or down in the hierarchy of descriptions also decreases or increases the amount of symmetries relevant at the respective level. A (hypothetical) description at a most fundamental level would have no broken symmetry, meaning that such a description is invariant under all conceivable transformations. This would amount to a description completely free of contexts: everything is described by one (set of) fundamental law(s). Indeed, this is sometimes called (the dream of) a "theory of everything", but it is equally correct to call it – literally – a "theory of nothing". The consequence of complete symmetry is that there are no distinguishable phenomena. Broken symmetries provide room for contexts and, thus, "create" phenomena.

Contextual emergence utilizes lower level features as necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for the description of higher-level features. As will become clear below, it can be viably combined with the idea of multiple realization, a key issue in supervenience (Kim 1992, 1993), which poses sufficient but not necessary conditions at the lower level. Both contextual emergence and supervenience are interlevel relations more specific than a patchwork scenario as in radical emergence and more flexible than a radical reduction where everything is already contained at a lower (or lowest) level.

Contextual emergence is intended as a structural relation between different levels of description. As such, it belongs to the class of synchronic types of emergence (Stephan 1999). It does not address questions of diachronic emergence, referring to how new qualities arise dynamically, as a function of time. Contextual emergence also differs from British emergentism from Mill to Broad. An informative discussion of various types of emergence versus reductive interlevel relations is due to Beckermann et al. (1992), see also Gillett (2002).

Finally, it should be emphasized that contextual emergence is conceived as a relation between levels of descriptions, not levels of nature: It addresses questions of epistemology rather than ontology. In agreement with Esfeld (2009), who recently advocated that ontology needs to regain more significance in science, it would be desirable to know how ontological interlevel relations can be addressed. Contextual emergence, which decisively depends on epistemic contexts, is not designed for this purpose. (A possible option to relate epistemic and ontic stances along the lines of Quine's (1969) ontological relativity is due to Atmanspacher and Kronz (1999).)


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jrjones9933
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21 May 2017, 11:16 am

Nice. Another road leads to complexity.


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friedmacguffins
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21 May 2017, 11:28 am

You are able to see the determinism, that there are fixed absolutes, and have feelings about it, good or bad.



techstepgenr8tion
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21 May 2017, 11:54 am

I'm going to add - the interplay of science and philosophy these days is largely protagonist/antagonist. Philosophy, particularly philosophy of science, is there to analyze the data and forge new hypothesis. In that case direction is provided by consideration and design of new experiments. At other times, particularly on political third-rail issues, philosophy becomes the piece that perhaps annoys science enough to put funding into the issues that it would rather not touch but has to now to avoid public loss of prestige and demagogery obscuring the authority of the scientific community. Consciousness seems to bother people as much as IQ studies and race differences, largely for similar reasons - they're political high-explosives.


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21 May 2017, 11:56 am

Respectfully, the studies have a political agenda.

There is nothing so controversial about truth in the abstract,



techstepgenr8tion
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21 May 2017, 11:59 am

friedmacguffins wrote:
You are able to see the determinism, that there are fixed absolutes, and have feelings about it, good or bad.

What absolutes? If anything's fixed I see mostly boring gray tones with the occasionally interesting spike of something closer to a true color but still far from being any sort of absolute. If we're having a discussion of platonic ideas and archetypes and the kabbalist in the room can't see it that's worrying for the proposition.


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21 May 2017, 12:05 pm

You don't think there are laws of morale and of nature? Why is it a bad thing to say?



techstepgenr8tion
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21 May 2017, 12:21 pm

friedmacguffins wrote:
Respectfully, the studies have a political agenda.

There is nothing so controversial about truth in the abstract,

You do realize that there's nothing anyone can do about that? If science isn't hard-nosed and even dogmatic, or requesting extroardinary evidence for certain claims that are deemed extraordinary in relation to current theories, then the hard sciences would look every bit as bad as the soft sciences. We wouldn't just be debating whether schools should have evolution or intelligent design, we'd also have a lot less clarity on whether there was grounds to exclude feminist theories of social structure, evolution based on Nordic white-race mythologies, equally strange Afrocentric Theory of Everything, and the means that the education system, or society in general, would have to stand up to such absurdities would be on very questionable ground. Heck - look at the way things are right now, we can barely handle all the SJW obscuration of reality WITH hard-nosed science intact!

My apologies if I'm sounding particularly Hobbesian and pessimistic, but I agree with Jonathan Haidt on a lot and most resoundingly that human beings can't trust their own faculties for intellectual honesty, they get far worse if they're living in an echochamber of their own beliefs, and I think all of that - not just religion - is just as likely to pull us back to the dark ages.

This is also part of why I have no qualms with poking holes in what I see are unresolved, really dogmatic assertions, made in certain corners of the scientific community because I think they're bad for science in that it's an argument for what shouldn't see funded inquiry and similarly I see where increasingly sober people in the scientific community are really getting to point where they don't buy into the notion that the rules of quarks and leptons are the cause of everything we see. I clearly think 'God did it' is a far worse answer even because no one has a clue what the heck their on about with the G word or what the heck it even means. Someone whose a committed and formal Jew, Christian, Muslim, Mormon, etc.. might shoot me down on that and say 'What are you talking about? It's right here in the holy books!', at which point I would have to side with the atheists on this point - prove to me that anything you're pulling out of your holy book to make your arguments squares with reality.

That said I've seen a few complaints here and there about 'complexity'. The sad truth here - life is EXTREMELY complex, the human condition and all the different bodies of political and dogmatic politic are even worse. Unfortunately you can't touch on anything meaningful to another person, especially another person who disagrees with you on one point or another, unless you're willing to dive into complexities. If they make your life feel more whole in your own private experience of things that's fine, just that they sink like rocks under any scrutiny - even by luck they happen to be right - because conversation about ideas is a dialectic process and you have to know a heck of a lot about what you're proposing or defending to make any difference in a conversation other than giving peoples biases more evidence and reinforcement.


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techstepgenr8tion
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21 May 2017, 12:23 pm

friedmacguffins wrote:
You don't think there are laws of morale and of nature? Why is it a bad thing to say?

Because you left your description of absolutes so wide open that you could have meant absolutely anything by that statement.

My only absolute - time fixes the arrangement of objects and events in such a way that metaphysics, degrees of complexity, etc.. have no bearing. That's the only black and white detail. After that everything can arise from incredibly complex (thus gray) derivations from fundamental natural laws (I made no arguments against their existence) and all of those are fixed in time and space. To be fixed in time and space is causal determinism. It doesn't matter if that cause is a previous cause from the big bang the way a Newtonian would suggest, some quantum wave of causality looping around in odd way, background noise or static in the system (get your Julia sets out), or the sylphs, salamanders, undines, and gnomes of Franz Bardon and Rudolph Steiner. If its happening in time and space it has no freedom because its always dependent on, and really inheriting its identity from, something that came 'before it' either horizontally, vertically through some degree of supervenience, or even more obliquely through less understood loops of effect whether quantum or 'occult'.


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