New bag. Wedding Cake. Not bad, but it is like a sleeping pill with a 3 hour delay. Zzzzzzz

Yeahbut, the infinite number of other universes in other timelines and dimensions may not recognize this universe as an intrinsic person within the totality of existence. In which case, it would have to be bestowed.

Now you're bringing quantum theory into this?

One thing at a time, sir.

I was just having fun!

What a grouch. :p:

still a person :vikingsmi

Yes, you are.

Now, exactly what it is that makes you a person rather than a bio-robot?

We kinda touched on those qualities or characteristics up-thread, self-awareness mebbe bein’ chief among them.

What is self-awareness? A loop? A mirror?

You should watch some Krishnamurti on you tube. He goes deep into questions like that. Deeeep.

For all intents and purposes, we have what may as well be considered free will. Within the boundaries of what our perception of the nature of reality and consciousness is, we're completely free to make whatever choices the boundaries of our imagination can think of. It's like bowling in a bumper lane, except we're literally not able to see outside the lane and we think what's inside that narrow little strip is a limitless field of choices that we have 100% control over. Hubris and arrogance. We're!! Number!! One!!

It's a cheap, easy joke to say "herp derp this guy thinks we don't have free will." You're joking, I hope.

Unless they reboot the game.

Flint
 

I'm a big proponent for our having (being) free wills (specifically: agent causation [which is to say, I stand in opposition to determinism]).

What I'm wonderin': How do you square "We’re running a program written in the code of unfolding proteins." with "we're completely free to make whatever choices the boundaries of our imagination can think of."

The two notions seem at odds to me.

I like the bumper lanes analogy

I can only give personal experience

It's like, I'm pretty antisocial; raised as an only child with no father, and pretty neurotic, introversion is my gig. I avoid parties, because all too often, I'm the guy who doesn't know what to do there, and then I just make everyone else uncomfortable.

But as a human, I am built to be social, and cannot live without other people.

In my worst situation, jobless, without a relationship, stuck in a shithole, I would wind up not seeing any human being in a week. And then, when I would finally interact with someone, like a bank teller, I would strike up a five minute conversation, if it was possible.

Then I would look back at it, and think, who the hell was that? Because that's not me. I don't just talk to a teller for five minutes. I've never done that in my life. But I couldn't help it one bit.

So for me, bumper lanes are: built by Darwin to be social, built by early conditioning to be antisocial.

You're just exerting normalizing pressure on yourself when you label yourself Introvert or Whatever ist.

Categorizing ourselves separates us from each other. We think it gives us the opposite. Under all of it, though, we all bleed red blood.

They're not. And the reason is, in a nutshell, because things are very, very complicated. A hundred thousand million billion times more complicated than we will ever figure out, given our best tools and best methods of investigation. We're not designed to understand it, and we never will. The Grand Design that creates us and gives us life, whether you call it God, whether you call it science, it's way, way, way too complicated for us to get even a mere inkling of understanding what's actually going on. And no matter how many gene sequences and neurochemical pathways we follow the trail of, we are chasing an answer that is not obtainable by us.

We're not designed to know the answer, but one thing I deeply believe is that just because we are ignorant of something doesn't mean that it's magic.

We can study of bacteria and say that it consumes nutrients because that's what it's programmed to do, of course it doesn't have self-awareness, it's just performing a robotic series of actions. That seems obvious to us. Ourselves, however look at how many different, amazing, creative choices we can make, of course there's no way that could just be a range of choices we're designed to do, right? Because it "feels" like we're in control, and we have all this consciousness and fancy cognitive ability, never mind that we don't actually understand how any of it works. So, since we don't understand it-- of course it must be magic! Only Magic and Supernatural Voodoo could animate us to do all the wonderful, amazing things we do. Since we don't understand *the entire process from beginning to end* it has to be magic? That argument just doesn't hold water for me.

Everything is explainable. Everything happens for a reason. Including every single thing that it's possible for a human being to do in their entire lifetime. That's the way the universe works. The idea that we are special and exempt from the laws of the universe is literally ludicrous to me. And the argument for "free will" is that it "feels" like we have it? Ha ha ha!! That's a paper that we'd get an "F" on, in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the trait of "free will" is useful only as a variable to find a more efficient/successful path when adverse circumstances make it necessary. A creature with free will is never going to survive as well as one with instincts adapted to its environment--it will make the wrong choice more often than the creature that has evolved a set of deterministic behaviors.

You can't get rid of free will entirely, because then you lose the ability to adapt if the environment suddenly shifts. But it's a losing bet, in the short term. Free will is the "random mutation" of behavioral evolution, that's all.

“it "feels" like we're in control”
 

Cuz mebbe we are.

#

“Free will is the "random mutation" of behavioral evolution, that's all.”

Or mebbe free will (the agent) is sumthin’ more, sumthin’ better.

As Flint sez: “We're not designed to understand it, and we never will.” If this is the case, then I choose (with good reason, I think) to see human beings as sumthin’ ‘more’ instead of ‘less’.

please, note the poll
 

votes are anonymous: you can vote honestly

me: I say we’re sumthin’ more

That poll is kinda like the American political system, reality is unrepresented.

If you have a third option, one you think is more ‘realistic’, please, offer it up.

Third option is what I've been saying. We have free will to make a prescribed set of choices from a limited set of options that we were designed for.

If you don't believe me, go ahead and sneeze with your eyes open. This should be easy for God's ordained pinnacle of creation.

...

What the poll is really asking-- whether people believe we're full of magic Supernatural Voodoo power that's special and different and better than every other single thing in the entire universe. What are the odds!

A human being is...

O …a Pepper: I'm a Pepper, he's a Pepper, she's a Pepper, wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?

“Third option is what I've been saying. We have free will to make a prescribed set of choices from a limited set of options that we were designed for.”

That’s not free will. That’s determinism. Free will (i.e. agent causation [the only free will worth havin’]) is about sussin’ out one’s own reason (not selectin’ from a ‘menu’, or - worse - just thinkin’ one is selectin’ from a ‘menu’); free will is about bein’ a ‘cause’ and not merely an ‘effect’.

What you describe is no better than what a Rhomba or a roach does.

Now, if you wanna argue for ‘your’ limitations: have at it. Me: I’d rather argue for my (and your) options & possibilities.

#

“If you don't believe me, go ahead and sneeze with your eyes open. This should be easy for God's ordained pinnacle of creation.”

Being a free will doesn’t mean one can ignore autonomic biology (any more than a free market means everything on display is gratis).

No, I can’t stop my eyes from closing durin’ a sneeze, but I can work hard to not sneeze in the first place (avoid the dust, pepper, pollen, etc.), and when I feel a sneeze comin’ on, I can pinch my nose and mebbe stop it before it happens.

And: I never said nuthin’ about god or about people bein’ the ordained pinnacle of creation, so, outside of you paradin’ your *prejudices, I don’t know why you’d vomit that up.









*’free will’ is one of those ‘Rorschach tests’: folks tend to overlay themselves on the topic, even as they claim to be adherin’ to ‘fact’. In my experience: pro-free will folks skew toward capability, self-direction, and self-responsibility; their experience of themselves in the world is that they’re autonomous (even in constraining circumstances [especially in constraining circumstances]) and that they exercise control (over themselves, if nuthin’ else). Anti-free willers (includin’ those who see free will as ‘prescribed’ tend to, in my experience, skew in the opposite direction.

“What the poll is really asking-- whether people believe we're full of magic”

If that’s how you wanna interpret it, that’s fine: but that ain’t what I asked.

Your body weighs exactly the same dead or alive.

So the something else is weightless or imaginary?

There was a dwellar who had that notion as a signature:

ya don't have to bring the entire universe into this

But limitations aren't bad, because within those bumpers is a marvelous game.

If the "bumper lanes" mean there's little point to our choices, then life would be exactly the same experience, whether we were active, aimed for things, and made choices... or just let our lives drift. If you cannot fail, why bother to bowl with accuracy?

Like, we know what happens when someone doesn't take responsibility for themselves. We see them slowly fail, all the time. We've seen it right here. If that's part of the deal, then the game is afoot and our free choices matter.

“Your body weighs exactly the same dead or alive.”

Weighs the same, sure, but is not exactly the same, yeah?

#

“So the something else is weightless or imaginary?”

Mebbe the sumthin’ more is ‘function’ not ‘subtance’.

Consider ‘walking’. Walking is what legs do. Walking is an action. Without legs there’s no walking.

Mind/self/I-ness/agency/personhood/free will might be the same: it’s what a particular and peculiar arrangement of matter ‘does’.

Call it nondeterministic (not random or limited or prescribed!) computation, if you like (I don’t).

This is tedious.

Look, there's more molecules in one teaspoon of brain cells than there are grains of sand on every beach in the world. We can't possibly understand or predict every chemical transaction they're making in even one microsecond of brain activity-- much less understand how this relates to consciousness, perception, or decision making.

But there's only TWO options to explain what they're doing: #1: they're obeying the laws of physics, like every other object in the vastness of the universe, of which we're just a tiny, insignificant speck. Or #2: they're animated and organized by something special, something that defies the natural laws and therefore must be transcendent-- MUST be supernatural. That's it. Either we arise from natural processes, or we arise from MAGIC.

If you believe that the universe has laws and order, of which we are a part, does that mean that we're cartoon zombies who don't think or feel, and we just blindly move from one robotic task to the next? NO, BECAUSE THAT'S FUCKING STUPID.

What IS an automaton is each individual brain cell that makes up the processes of consciousness. None of them act against the laws of physics. And from them, something emerges which is us-- and it can think and make choices, and have free will. And we DON'T and might NEVER understand that.

But between point A (brain cells follow natural laws) and point B (humans have free will), there is NO MAGICAL INTERVENTION.

THEREFORE, how is human free will NOT a function of the laws of physics which govern the universe?

THEREFORE, what is free will? It is a vast web of winding pathways through a labyrinth of a million, billion choices and options that are reset every microsecond of time that passes. It's huge and incomprehensibly complex, because WE'RE the ones trying to explain ourselves TO ourselves. I don't think that's even theoretically possible. But if a being of more cognitive complexity than us viewed us through a microscope, don't you think he'd just see little bacteria swimming around, eating, drinking, fucking, writing novels, forming religions, and all the other basic little bacteria functions that we're doing? Does that mean we don't think, we don't have free will? Of course not, I'm thinking about this while I'm typing it. But MAGIC isn't how I did it, the laws of physics are. What I'm saying is that the idea of "magical free will, because we're special" is a belief that "feels right" and that's the only supporting evidence for it. A "feeling"

“This is tedious.”
 

Yes, it is.

#

“Look, there's more molecules in one teaspoon of brain cells than there are grains of sand on every beach in the world. We can't possibly understand or predict every chemical transaction they're making in even one microsecond of brain activity-- much less understand how this relates to consciousness, perception, or decision making.”

I don’t have to understand the myriad of processes that comprise me to recognize myself and my agency. I don’t have to be aware of molecular transaction to exercise broad self-direction (to be an agent).

#

“But there's only TWO options to explain what they're doing: #1: they're obeying the laws of physics, like every other object in the vastness of the universe, of which we're just a tiny, insignificant speck.”

As you say: when don’t know and can’t know. The laws may allow for apparent violations of causality by peculiar and particular arrangements of matter, or mebbe cause and effect itself isn’t exactly what we currently think it is.

As you say: we don’t know, we can’t know.

What I do know: my experience of myself, in the world tells me I’m an agent, sumthin’ more than organic machinery with preset limited responses. Your experience of yourself, in the world tells you the same. And since ‘we don’t know, can’t know’ isn’t it just sensible to go with self-efficacy instead of self-impotence?

#

“Or #2: they're animated and organized by something special, something that defies the natural laws and therefore must be transcendent-- MUST be supernatural. That's it. Either we arise from natural processes, or we arise from MAGIC.”

As Clarke noted: the sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. That which is wholly natural but not understood may too seem magical.

As you say: we don’t know. Unlike you, I think one day we will.

#

“If you believe that the universe has laws and order, of which we are a part, does that mean that we're cartoon zombies who don't think or feel, and we just blindly move from one robotic task to the next? NO, BECAUSE THAT'S FUCKING STUPID.”

But zombies is exactly as you’ve described up-thread. And yeah, it is fuckin’stupid cuz I’m not determined (and neither are you).

#

“What IS an automaton is each individual brain cell that makes up the processes of consciousness. None of them act against the laws of physics. And from them, something emerges which is us-- and it can think and make choices, and have free will. And we DON'T and might NEVER understand that.”

I agree completely. I’m an agent, you’re an agent, all Crom’s chillin are agents. Sumthin’ more than machinery, each and every one of us.

#

“But between point A (brain cells follow natural laws) and point B (humans have free will), there is NO MAGICAL INTERVENTION.”

Agreed. Agent causation is wholly natural.

#

“THEREFORE, how is human free will NOT a function of the laws of physics which govern the universe?”

It absolutely is...we just don’t understand all the ins and outs of those laws.

#

“THEREFORE, what is free will?”

It is the agent who susses out his reasons (apprehending, assessing, concluding) then attempts to ‘do’ (bend and reshape causal chains, end causal chains, begin causal chains). It’s the endlessly recursive being who chooses, who responds, who sez ‘I hate spinach but I’m gonna eat it anyway’, who chooses to say ‘no’ (cuz they assess ‘no’ as right), instead of ‘yes’ (which would be easier and more profitable); it’s the guy who keeps goin’ round and with the fellow who denies his existence as agent cuz the guy is puzzled why another would self-denigrate so thoroughly (to choose to be less when one is more, that there is fuckin’ stupid).

Free will is one of many evolutionary synergistic effects produced by the combined components of the human organism. Free will is an agent THAT (not who) enables humans to suss out their reasons...etc. Humans can be born impaired without free will; or, be injured and lose their free will. The human organism must be able to produce the energy to sustain it. When all of the energy production is gone, so is the human regardless of how much weight in matter remains.

Humans with free will are, in turn, agents of social synergy WHOSE combined effects can put a man on the moon...etc. The less social a human is, the less important their free will is to others and what goes around comes around. Humans who use their free will to better separate themselves from society are free will tangents.

“Free will is an agent THAT (not who) enables humans to suss out their reasons...etc.”

I disagree. Free will is the agent which is the person which, in your case is, sexobon, and, in my case, is Henry Quirk. That’s why I say I am a free will, not that I have free will.

#

“Humans can be born impaired without free will; or, be injured and lose their free will.”

No, they can be born as sumthin’ less (not an agent); they can be damaged and become less (not an agent).

#

“The human organism must be able to produce the energy to sustain it. When all of the energy production is gone, so is the human regardless of how much weight in matter remains.”

From the dark we come, to the dark we return. In between: we are free wills, each and every one.

Nonsense, you're not making the intellectual weight cut.

You've intertwined the discussed concepts of human, person, and free will like tw intertwines separate ideas to obfuscate dubious premises he requires others to accept to achieve his desired outcomes. Like him, you're bastardizing definitions towards that end. You're presenting more and more like a contrarian. Tw does it as a means of attention whoring without quite being a troll. The scientific term for it is OCD (NOT THAT OCD; rather, Obsessive Contrarian Disorder). You seem to have that need.

You HAVE "free will" and that means you can BE a "free spirit" if you want to.

'nuff said

More than once Flint has asserted we think we’re special only cuz we feel that way.

Let’s see if we can establish the human being’s uniqueness, his specialness based on what we currently know.

We estimate the diameter of the known universe to be 93 billion light years.

A big place.

We estimate that only 4% of what comprises the universe is matter (and most of that is hydrogen in one state or another).

We infer the existence of what we call dark matter/energy. We can’t measure it but we need it to be so that our math works out.

Mostly though the universe is empty, a big nuthin’.

So: right off the bat, on the largest scale, we’ve established a specialness for ourselves. We’re rare cuz we’re matter. And we didn’t have to consult our feelings to do it.

As I say: most of that rare thing (matter) is hydrogen in various states. Organized matter gets cooked up in the heart of stars and is rarer still. Carbon, iron, oxygen, etc all far rarer than rare hydrogen. In fact complex or organized matter is so rare that it makes hydrogen look commonplace.

See? Specialness without feeling.

But we’re not done...

Space is vast. Even in our little on-the-edge-of-the-galaxy sol system distances are *ahem* astronomical. Because of these vast distances, the truly incomprehensible scale, we may never know how much rare organized and complex matter has become rarer still by becoming ‘alive’. What we can infer, however, if our sol system is representative, is living matter is rarer still, rarer than non-living organized matter, rarer than that ubiquitous hydrogen (that, again, makes up the bulk of all matter through the universe to the tune of only 4%).

Only here, on our little mud ball, is living matter apparent, and then pretty much only on the surface. The bulk of matter associated with Earth, that is Earth, is organized, complex, but lifeless.

So: without resorting to feelings, we can see our specialness is even more profound.

Can we go further?

Damn straight we can.

Interspersed among all the living matter (a very rare commodity) is sumthin’ even rarer still: self-aware matter, recursive matter, intending matter, purposeful matter, reasoning matter, matter that laughs, matter that imagines.

How marvelous!

Even more so cuz all this self-aware, recursive, intending, purposeful, reasoning, laughing, imagining matter comes in discrete parcels independent of other discrete parcels of self-aware, recursive, intending, purposeful, reasoning, laughing, imagining matter. Each parcel very much like the others but simultaneously so very different from all the other parcels.

Lord, we’re talkin’ about a level of specialosity that mind blowing! Surely I can go no further?

Hold on to your hats...

In a universe 93 billion light years across, mostly empty but for a smattering of matter (most of which is just electrons doin’ the tango with protons); in this vast empty place where organized matter is so rare as to make hydrogen ho-hum; in this Reality where living matter - insofar as we know - even rarer still, has spread out over the surface of one little dynamic rock and has given rise to remarkable self-directing, self-aware matter; in the midst of all this escalating specialness, two discrete parcels of matter are at stalemated on the essential nature of the individual.

No matter the scale: we are special. Even more so: each of us is special. In this big old, mostly empty universe, there’s only one of each of us (so much the same, so much not the same).

There’s your ‘magic’, plain as the nose on your face, and that there is fact, not feeling.

“You've intertwined the discussed concepts of human, person, and free will”

Cuz I believe them, in context, to be synonymous.

#

“You HAVE "free will" and that means you can BE a "free spirit" if you want to.”

You can see it that way if you like, but that’s not how I understand free will.

Also: it’s just dumb to say I abuse definitions when even a casual review shows there is no consensus of what constitutes person, personhood, free will, agency, etc.

That is: none of this settled, so why do you stoop to insult?

If you disagree, fine, but why be a dick about it?

meh

:right:

henry quirk
 

I guess I need to say this: I understand exactly what you're saying. I understand it because when I got up this morning I decided what to eat for breakfast. I thought about it, weighed various factors, and I could have made any decision in the whole world, and I was definitely in charge of the whole process. That's free will. We have that.

I understand that because everyone understands that. Every healthy, living 18-month old toddler who ever lived understands that they want a cookie, but they'll get in trouble if they get in the cookie jar-- so they can decide not to. They know that they have free will because it doesn't take any special understanding to know this-- all you have to do is wake up in the morning and "feel" what it "feels like" to be a human being.

So, since this is a toddler-level concept that every living person understands-- and nobody disagrees with you about, is there any level of discussion we can have that moves maybe one step beyond that?

Like, what is free will? How does it work? Where does it come from? Do those kinds of questions interest you? Because that's what I'm interested in.

Also, you're describing the universe in terms of science textbooks from 30 years ago. What we've learned since then is that given the right combination of the commonplace elements that are present literally everywhere (cranked out of the fusion engine of every star that ever existed), it's almost impossible for organized matter to not start immediately forming. Life formed (or arrived) on Earth, we now know, as early as 4 billion years ago-- RIGHT after the Earth formed, while it was still what we assumed was an uninhabitable hellhole. We've found life on Earth in what should be considered impossible conditions. Everything we've learned indicates that life is most probably the DEFAULT state of matter. And, there's planets literally everywhere. Not to mention, the entire universe passed through a phase, very early on, where the AMBIENT TEMPERATURE of the entire universe was in the "Goldilocks zone" for forming life, with the abundant materials that were already present--including the liquid water that--by default-- wasn't boiling or freezing. So, turns out, life probably formed ALMOST IMMEDIATELY after the universe formed, and, it was probably, literally EVERYWHERE.

I don't know if this makes life "less special" but in terms of rarity-- scientists no longer think that life, nor the conditions for forming life, nor the conditions for sustaining life, are much more than what happens by default, pretty much as soon as matter exists.

As for self-aware, purposeful, reasoning, imagining matter-- who knows? We don't know how rare that is. The one data point we have is that of all the species on Earth, humans are the only humans (if that's even the yardstick). Oh, except for the half-dozen other kinds of humans that lived as recently as 30,000 years ago.

Also, if you can tell me what an Octopus is thinking and why it doesn't have self-awareness, I'd love to hear it.

“Like, what is free will? How does it work? Where does it come from? Do those kinds of questions interest you? Because that's what I'm interested in.”

That’s what we’ve been doin’: me, tellin’ you what I think free will is (who it is) and lookin’ for discussion and you tellin’ me I’m promotin’ magic. And you tellin’ me what you think free will is and me tellin’ you you’re describing zombies and bio-automation.

Stalemate.

I know all this. The fact remains: matter, mostly in the form of hydrogen, is rare; organized matter (complex molecules) are rarer still; living matter is even rarer; and - rarest of all - is self-aware matter. We know of only one place where self-aware matter exists. We know of 2000 or so other places (exoplanets) and only a handful of those might support living matter (and possibility self-aware matter).

It would be great if the universe, our galactic cluster, our galaxy, our system, teemed with self-aware (or even just living) matter. My gut tells me not to hold my breath waiting for evidence.

“Also, if you can tell me what an Octopus is thinking and why it doesn't have self-awareness, I'd love to hear it.”

I can’t tell you what Mr. Puss is thinkin’ any more than I can tell you what you’re thinkin’. Both of you have to tell me what you’re thinkin’.

And: Mr. Puss may very well be self-aware, may very well be a free will.

I never said nuthin’ about humans bein’ the only ones (I’ve known a few dogs who seemed pretty self-aware and -directing).

You don't know how rare self-aware organisms with free will are, nor do any of us. I can't look at a transmission and tell you how to fix it and I also can't look through a telescope and tell you how many planets have complex life on them. That doesn't mean anything--it just means I don't know how to do it.

We have one example, life on Earth, and it seems self-awareness and free will are pretty common.

If life is common, and free will where there's life is common, where does the "humans are special" part come in?

“If life is common, and free will where there's life is common, where does the "humans are special" part come in?”

‘If’

As you say: we don’t know, may not ever know, may not be able to know.

We do know living matter exists ‘here’ and we know self-aware matter exists ‘here’, and it seems just within the confines of our system to be rare.

As I say: it would be great if the universe, our galactic cluster, our galaxy, our system, teemed with self-aware (or even just living) matter. My gut tells me not to hold my breath waiting for evidence.

As aside: if Reality is overflowing with living matter and self-aware matter, it still would be a rarity cuz - again - matter is rare (the universe is mostly a big empty volume).

and that’s me done till (probably) tomorrow
 

later

You got me there. It's big and empty, there's not much of anything in it.

Except whatever all that dark matter is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There's a hypothesis that dark matter and dark energy are one and the same, with properties of both matter and energy, like light. We can take it a step further by saying it could be one giant disembodied free will that's just yanking our chain into believing we're special. YMMV.

everything we (don’t) know about ‘stuff’ that may not exist
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy

henry quirk
 

You've shared a lot about what you think free will "is" but, what do you think is it's origin? How does organized matter become endowed with agency?

Pardon me for my obsession with understanding how things work, but I deeply believe in an orderly universe of cause and effect. And we don't have to understand how everything works to observe that nature displays predictable patterns-- driving the same events to happen over and over. Chemistry forms the same substances, biology programs the same features. We're a part of that.


I don't think we can understand the mechanics of how free will arises in a biological organism, but I think it's biological. I don't think we can analyze how an essentially mechanical process can produce a consciousness which possesses agency, but it does-- we're the proof.


...


Are we special? I find one unassailable hurdle-- what are the odds that we are unique, when our own consciousness is the only thing we have direct knowledge of? The universe produces a thinking ape, and the ape says, "I'm the best thing." It's a comedy.

"You've shared a lot about what you think free will "is" but, what do you think is it's origin? How does organized matter become endowed with agency?"

Hell if I know.

#

"Pardon me for my obsession with understanding how things work, but I deeply believe in an orderly universe of cause and effect."

All the evidence sez C & E is fundamental to everything, yeah.

#

"And we don't have to understand how everything works to observe that nature displays predictable patterns-- driving the same events to happen over and over."

On the fairly broad level we operate in, you're absolutely right.

#

"I don't think we can understand the mechanics of how free will arises in a biological organism, but I think it's biological."

I think it's 'natural'...don't know about 'biological'.

#

"The universe produces a thinking ape, and the ape says, "I'm the best thing." It's a comedy."

But what if that thinking, self-directing ape 'is' the best thing.

You say 'no'; I say 'mebbe'.

Why?

By the way: your attached image is off the mark. You say BOTH ARE TRUE but that's nonsensical.

What does my poll ask?

A human being is...

...bio-automation, organic machinery.
...sumthin’ more than bio-automation, not only organic machinery.

I already covered BOTH ARE TRUE.

...and...

It may be really complicated, and it may take a loooong time, but I think -- one day -- we'll understand it.

Why 'mebbe'?

gut feelin'

The way I figure it, it's not important for us to be able to understand it. Insomuch as it's difficult to understand, the details may be easily explainable at a level that's beyond our grasp. That is to say-- we don't understand how biology could produce consciousness, but that's not important.


What we DO know is that water and amino acids are ubiquitous, the conditions for life aren't as delicate as we once believed, and the one place we've seen it arise, it happened almost immediately. And this is the flaw in reasoning that we can't avoid-- we're looking at a small sample size. Although there's a nearly infinite number of chances for life to arise, we only know the details about this ONE instance. There's no conclusion we can really draw from that.


But...


The odds, the way a bookie would figure them, that our planet is the "winning lottery ticket" are as likely as, well, winning the lottery.

The bet I'm taking is the conservative, "play it safe" bet. The odds are that matter organizes into life almost everywhere, and when it does it has consciousness by default, because consciousness is just a biological operating system. Does that demean the value of a human life? I don't think it does. And even if it did, it doesn't influence the odds one way or the other.

This is the Hard problem of consciousness ?