personhood

[henry quirk]

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

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

[Flint]

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.

[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?"

Hell if I know.

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"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.

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"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.

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"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'.

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"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'.

[Flint]

Why?

[Flint]

...

[henry quirk]

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.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

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.

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.

[henry quirk]

"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."

Oh, I can't disagree more. it's foundational: Who am I? What am I? What is my place in the Grand Scheme? Is there a Grand Scheme?

Existentially, practically, the (search for the) accurate and complete description of the individual and his place is what drives all endeavor.

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"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."

Sure, we have ice in deep space and at least one example of complex, self-replicating organic molecules (though we have no real understanding of abiogenesis...simply: we don't know why amino acids, and everything built atop them, exists), but having piles of bricks everywhere doesn't mean houses are sure to follow.

#

"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."

Jus now: I googled the following...

*what are the odds humankind is alone in the universe?
*what are the odds humankind is not alone in the universe?
*what are the odds the universe is teeming with life?

Try it. And try you're own versions of the questions.

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"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."

Me: I say matter is rare, complex matter is rarer, living matter is rarer still, and self-aware matter is the rarest of all. As I say: with only 4 (or 5) percent of the universe bein' matter, and most of that just hydrogen in one state or another, how can self-aware matter be considered as anything but rare (and special)?

[Flint]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

"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."

Oh, I can't disagree more. it's foundational: Who am I? What am I? What is my place in the Grand Scheme? Is there a Grand Scheme?

Existentially, practically, the (search for the) accurate and complete description of the individual and his place is what drives all endeavor.

Sure, it's important to WANT to understand things. But our capacity to understand a thing, our desire to understand a thing, and how the thing actually works are completely independent variables. If you weight your answers on "wanting" an answer, you get a wrong answer.

[henry quirk]

Originally Posted by Flint

Sure, it's important to WANT to understand things. But our capacity to understand a thing, our desire to understand a thing, and how the thing actually works are completely independent variables. If you weight your answers on "wanting" an answer, you get a wrong answer.

We'll crack it, cuz we want to, cuz we can.

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cross pollination: https://forum.philosophynow.org/view...428606#p428606

[Undertoad]

How does organized matter become endowed with agency?

This is the Hard problem of consciousness ?

[henry quirk]

yep

[lumberjim]

Do you think.... Because when we think, we think in words.... That the language you know has a deterministic effect on the thoughts you can think? The ideas you can grasp...

Can you think without words? Intuitively.

Or are both happening within us?

[Flint]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

Do you think.... Because when we think, we think in words.... That the language you know has a deterministic effect on the thoughts you can think? The ideas you can grasp...

I read about study that said language does affect the direction of our thoughts, like, when a language has different verb/noun order it can produce quantitatively different ideas about cause and effect. Or something

[henry quirk]

"Do you think.... Because when we think, we think in words.... That the language you know has a deterministic effect on the thoughts you can think? The ideas you can grasp..."

I think a large vocabulary can broaden or widen or nuance thinking, but I don't think it determines it any more than a small one does.

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"Can you think without words? Intuitively."

I think some dogs I've known have done it exactly that way. Might not be possible for us: we're symbol-makers and -assigners, signifiers of the world, semiotic beings.

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"Or are both happening within us?"

If you count emotion as thinking without words: yes.