personhood
Over in the Phliosphy Now Forum a recurring conversation is over the nature of 'person'.
What 'is' a person?
What are the qualities or characteristics of 'person'.
What makes a human being a person?
Why isn't -- for example -- a goldfish a person?
When does a human being become a person?
One fellow over there posted "Foetuses are no(t) "persons" until they are named and certified by live birth." which, as I said is 'one legitimate (and, in my view, flawed) way to look at personhood.'
So: dazzle me with insight & wisdom.
Person is a label applied from the outside. If you see someone as a person, they are a person. Only your criteria matter in that case. You may not have a structured list of characteristics they must meet. You might just need to feel some empathy toward them.
so .... a Person is someone you can relate to. For whatever reason.
It's really a meaningless adjective because the Object (of 'Personhood') is not in control of the distinction.
So: if I see myself, define myself, as 'person' it's meaningless?
When does a human being become a person?
I think it varies from state to state.
Otherwise, it"s when ya turn 18.:doit:
Personhood requires self-consciousness - being aware of ourselves, and in control of our actions; being able to reason and see why things happen, rather than just experiencing things.
Personhood requires self-consciousness - being aware of ourselves, and in control of our actions; being able to reason and see why things happen, rather than just experiencing things.
What about the comatose? It can be argued a comatose person isn't conscious on any level.
But they encourage ya to talk to them...
...like houseplants, now that I think about it.
OMG!!!
Houseplants are persons!!!
conscious, i.e., awake and alert, and consciousness, i.e., the cognitive state of being where you are self-aware etc. are different things. You can be in a dream state and still have consciousness. Call it a sense of selfhood?
Don't get me wrong: I think you're on to sumthin' with this...
Personhood requires self-consciousness - being aware of ourselves, and in control of our actions; being able to reason and see why things happen, rather than just experiencing things.
...but (again): 'What about the comatose? It can be argued a comatose person isn't conscious on any level.'
But they encourage ya to talk to them...
So: if I see myself, define myself, as 'person' it's meaningless?
to everyone other than you, yes. You may see yourself as a person, but if I think you're a monster.... then to me....
A comatose person is a person with self-consciousness who is currently unconscious.
to everyone other than you, yes. You may see yourself as a person, but if I think you're a monster.... then to me....
Well, you can see a campfire as a block of ice but that doesn't make the fire any less searing.
That is: your opinion doesn't overwrite reality.
So: is personhood intrinsic or bestowed (that seems to be the question between us)?
A comatose person is a person with self-consciousness who is currently unconscious.
So: does the possibility the comatose may regain consciousness figure into their personhood or does personhood persist even if someone is permanently in a coma?
What about a brain dead person (once self-aware, now not)?
If there's a possibility they can be woken, they are still a collection of experiences from consciousness and must be considered a person. If not, their consciousness has come to an end and so has their personhood. This is why we allow for things like Do Not Resuscitate orders.
consider...
Stan's wife has cancer. It eats away at her, transforms her from vibrant sexy woman into withered embryo-thing in three months. It kills her. Stan hates that disease but it's doubtful he ascribes immorality or moral depravity to the cancer.
But, if instead of cancer, a hoodlum beats her to death for her pocketbook, Stan will hate the hoodlum precisely for his immorality, his depravity. That is: Stan will hate the hoodlum because that monster 'is' a person.
I may be wrong, but: isn't DNR generally the call of the patient (don't bring me back) or the patient's loved ones (my husband wouldn't want this, let him go)?
In other words: DNR isn't about the cessation of personhood but about the wishes of the ill or the ill's trusted spokesperson, yeah?
Stan will hate the hoodlum because that monster 'is' a person.
True and it's interesting, there's a huge difference between being killed by a tiger and being killed by a person.
A tiger is just looking for lunch and answering its instincts. A person, because they are self-aware, is aware of what they're doing... not only that, but also, aware of what it means to be the other, suffering person.
Unless the perpetrator is sociopathic. But also interestingly, sociopaths' worst acts are described as
inhuman, for that lack of awareness.
"monster" is similarly a description of something non-human. (Not you, monster)
Well, you can see a campfire as a block of ice but that doesn't make the fire any less searing.
That is: your opinion doesn't overwrite reality.
So: is personhood intrinsic or bestowed (that seems to be the question between us)?
I'm just saying that your use of the term person is subjective. It depends on the perspective of the observer. You could substitute the phrase self aware and be done with it.
If you're self aware, to you, you're a person. A being. If I see you as a monster or a sociopath, then to me, you're not.
It's just a shell game. The term is changeable in meaning depending on the way you use it.
Fun.
The definition of a person is a human being regarded as an individual. So if you regard a fetus as an individual then it's a person.
I don't regard a fetus as an individual until it can physically survive without a host. ymmv
A goldfish is not a person because it is not a human being. The rest of your questions are also answered by the definition of the term.
I would point out that babies are just eating, shitting and crying machines until they are a few months old. They are not consciously aware of themselves for a period of time that will vary from child to child, but is a few months.
You can see the change in them. There's a point where a light comes on inside and they actually look AT things instead of just have their eyes open.
I think they are persons at birth, but only because it is a convenient place to draw the line.
So: is personhood intrinsic or bestowed (that seems to be the question between us)?
Some religious would say intrinsic, then they can drag you down the rabbit hole. No longer checking the religion box, I know my default has shifted some. That consciousness that is so hard to define is cumulative. You gain awareness over time as you gain insight into your own universe. There is no fixed point. We are left with others looking in and assigning personhood. If you are fortunate, you live here and now rather than say Nazi Germany. I work with aged and TBI folks now. Among them there is a desire to live as independently as they can, despite frailty. The fetus is unknowingly on the on-ramp to consciousness they are knowingly on the off-ramp. I love the question Henry, but I can't answer it.
I think they are persons at birth, but only because it is a convenient place to draw the line.
There is no fixed point.
I think this is all true; I personally draw the line at where their brain has developed to the point where consciousness is even *possible* - and I believe that happens at about the sixth month in utero, when neocortical brain activity begins to ramp up.
"If you're self aware, to you, you're a person. A being. If I see you as a monster or a sociopath, then to me, you're not."
Which again raises the question: is personhood intrinsic or bestowed?
If intrinsic: then your opinion may affect your responses and reactions (you may treat me as sumthin' other than person) but doesn't change the fact I'm a person.
If bestowed: then opinion is all we have to work with and you seein' me as monster (not a person) in fact actually determines my personhood.
It's an important distinction.
"I don't regard a fetus as an individual until it can physically survive without a host."
I take that as a vote for 'personhood is bestowed", yeah?
No one can.
Notions of 'self' & 'personhood' have been on the table since (probably) before (proto)man fell out of the trees. There's no agreement on: what comprises 'self' or 'person', whether or not personhood is intrinsic or bestowed, is non human life capable of personhood (the answer depending heavily on whether personhood is intrinsic or bestowed), and on and on.
I think this is all true; I personally draw the line at where their brain has developed to the point where consciousness is even *possible* - and I believe that happens at about the sixth month in utero, when neocortical brain activity begins to ramp up.
If we want to use potential capability (rather than actual capacity) then we can go clear back to week 12 as the dividing line between 'meat' and 'person'. By week 12 all the organic machinery allowing or promoting self-awareness is in place (though underdevloped).
Future potential is not really relevant to me, only actual, but any level of actual is good enough.
I'm gonna take that as a vote for 'intrinsic'.
is non human life capable of personhood (the answer depending heavily on whether personhood is intrinsic or bestowed), and on and on.
This is absolutely correct.
I don't think animals are persons, just because that's where I want to draw the line. To draw it anywhere else makes things messy. But some animals are clearly self-aware and can think.
If personhood is intrinsic, then some animals are persons.
I fall into the camp of personhood being bestowed. That way I can say that it's fine to eat pork, even though pigs are smart.
If a cannibal is one who eats his own species, what would be the word for the self-aware who eat the self-aware (assuming pigs are)?
I struggle to justify a definition of the human experience which claims that what we think/feel about ourselves is-- in any objective sense-- different than what we refer to as "instinctive" behavior in "lower" life forms.
Our highly-vaunted ability to use logic and reason for problem-solving has been proven ineffective when compared to the unconscious deliberation that occurs on auto-pilot. Our emotional experiences are literally nothing more than a complex soup of hormones and neurochemicals—physical substances with predictable properties! Our feelings and therefore actions are dictated by a rush of impulses that drives us forward, just like an ant. The ant "experiences" this, no differently than we do.
The entire western view of man as a perfect "thinking, reasoning" entity with "self-awareness" is built on bluster and hubris. And, irrespective of the inconvenient implications, there’s no evidence to suggest we’re different in any meaningful way from other vertebrate, insect, or even "inanimate" plant life. We’re running a program written in the code of unfolding proteins.
So if we’re talking about objective definitions, there is no necessity for the concept of a "person" if based on "unique" properties –it is imaginary from its very inception.
"So if we’re talking about objective definitions, there is no necessity for the concept of a "person" if based on "unique" properties –it is imaginary from its very inception."
Well, that's one view.
It's not convenient, but I can't avoid the conclusion.
Okay.
You'll pardon others who don't share that conclusion, yeah?
Of course, since the world can't function if this is what we believed.
I misspoke by using the word "necessity" --I meant to say it isn't necessitated by following a trail of evidence.
It is necessitated by necessity.
You're a determinist, yeah?
I suppose so. In the sense that we're skating on the surface of a layer of abstraction which we aren't designed to, and therefore it isn't possible for us to understand the web of interconnected causal relationships that underlie it. The part of life we experience and ascribe meaning to exists within an emergent state that arises from a network of infinitely complex mechanical operations. We can't understand it or see it--just as it is said of God. It works "in mysterious ways." And within that layer, where we live, there are properties that are disconnected in any meaningful sense from their deterministic foundation. Ultimately, though I find it inconceivable that the universe isn't an orderly hierarchy of causes and effects that operate by a set of rules.
ESPECIALLY that there are "special" rules and exceptions for a "special" group of bipedal apes that are hallucinating a version of reality based on a thin slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, and ascribing "special" meaning to it based on how their big brain chemicals makes them feel.
Well then, I guess I'll put you in the 'bestowed' category (cuz, obviously, you don't think personhood is intrinsic [or, as a category, special]).
You could say that a deterministic universe makes everything intrinsic, but something as ephemeral as the "true nature of person-hood" is so many layers abstracted from the deterministic substrate, it's difficult even to suggest that we're bestowing something we're intrinsically determined to bestow.
I do think that's possible, but it would mean the main category of "un-person" is neuro-atypical individuals.
From a Darwinian perspective, humans are utterly unique. Just looking at outcomes: we are able to defeat all predators, adapt to all conditions, learn across multiple generations, artificially extend our lifetimes, etc. The list goes on.
This wild advantage is just enormous. We're the only species living on all continents. We managed all these things within a hundred thousand years of our existence. This is unique.
I'm pretty convinced the apex organisms are any number of bizarre parasites which phase through multiple unrelated forms, each designed to strategically manipulate their hosts to achieve very specific goals. As a category, they've been shown to control so many key aspects of organism behavior that they essentially control the entire planet.
Are they aware that they control the entire planet?
To me this always comes down to the tautological exercise of measuring thing using "human-like qualities" as the yardstick. OF COURSE there's only one species that's the best at being itself. That's true of EVERY species.
From a Darwinian perspective, humans are utterly unique. Just looking at outcomes: we are able to defeat all predators, adapt to all conditions, learn across multiple generations, artificially extend our lifetimes, etc. The list goes on.
This wild advantage is just enormous. We're the only species living on all continents. We managed all these things within a hundred thousand years of our existence. This is unique.
It's only unique right here and now. The fossil record is shockingly spotty, when you really start looking at it. (I say this as someone who just walked through the Museum of Natural History yesterday...)
Everything we know about some of the most famous, "classic" dinosaur species is based on a total of three complete skeletons, worldwide. There are numerous species for which we have literally nothing but a single arm bone, or similar. Meanwhile, just this year we confirmed a new
hominid species we'd never known about before, which shifted our understanding of when various hominids moved across the continents by tens of thousands of years.
For all we know, a precocious species of dinosaur (or something else) industrialized in the last couple thousand years of their millions of years of existence, but as it turns out no dinosaur computers sank into a peat bog to be preserved. Even a plastic bottle takes just 450 years to decompose--a lot if you're the manager of a garbage dump in postmodern humanity, but a fucking eye blink compared to the
65 million years between us and a Tyrannosaurus. A billion years ago, Mars was a lush,
extremely habitable world. Could have been a whole, fully industrialized civilization there that died off and is now eroded to nothing. And there's nothing to say that, should we manage to kill ourselves off, some highly intelligent species of parrot, or dolphin, or octopus might not advance in our place and become "able to defeat all predators, adapt to all conditions," etc.
I'm with Flint. As individuals we're just bags of chemicals, and as a species we're not remotely unique.
For all we know, a precocious species of dinosaur (or something else) industrialized in the last couple thousand years of their millions of years of existence, but as it turns out no dinosaur computers sank into a peat bog to be preserved.
This is fun to think about, but still presupposes that "doing human-like stuff" is the "best" things you can do. I'm saying, what if there's something "better than us" right here, right now. If you asked a single, genetically identical fungus colony that exchanges nutrients with the interconnected root webs of a million trees of multiple unrelated species, making the existence of their entire ecosystem, and everything therein, possible, he'd say "humans can't do THAT!"
Of course, fungus can't "drive a car" or "do taxes"
Q: Intrinsic or bestowed?
A: Yes.
There's a reasonable consideration for having both a natural person (intrinsic) and a legalized personality (bestowed).
It's somewhat analogous to citizenship. If you were born here, you're a citizen. If you weren't born here, you can still become a naturalized citizen.
While we haven't yet legally recognized life forms other than human as persons, that doesn't mean it couldn't someday happen. Artificial Intelligence is getting closer, faster to recognition than other nonhuman life forms. The AI Alexa is not yet a legalized personality; but, I've had enough interaction with her ("character female") to consider her a fledgling person with most of the cognizance of a human. She even has her own Twitter account: surely that make it legal!
The rights ascribed to personhood, like those ascribed to citizenship, can be forfeited; or, taken away under certain circumstances either temporarily; or, permanently. It's just that with personhood, one has to distinguish between ascribed rights and what (i.e. only humans; or, other personalities too) can constitute a person. I'm in the "both" camp. I wonder if AI and ET are listening.
Of course, fungus can't "drive a car" or "do taxes"
or speak.
Language, to me is what sets us apart. Where we diverged from apes. The ability to transfer thoughts and knowledge among individuals. I know some animals 'speak' to each other by howling or screeching, etc. some like bees and ants communicate chemically.
I'm referring to sharing complex thoughts, like deciding what labels to affix to each other, like 'person' or 'Deterministic' ...and from there to writing/reading, allowing us to share the thought or knowledge wider, more accurately and permanently... to telegraph, to telephone, to TV, to www -sharing faster and faster....
Now, you can learn to build a guitar with your phone, out in your garage.
Communication of abstract concepts is a pretty good trick. Like, we've created our own layer of properties of information, on top of the abstract layer of our own intrinsic qualities which emerged from the deterministic substrate. I'll be closer to being convinced we've done something special when we succeed in creating something able to create it's own, new layer of abstract properties of information which exist above and beyond our own understanding. This may be happening very soon, as we've already seen how quickly rudimentary AI programs can create methods of communication between themselves that we aren't able to decipher, from down here on the dum-dum level.
...I wonder if AI and ET are listening.
"...I, for one, welcome our new [something something] overlords."
When I was living this lie-fear was my game
People would worship and fall-drop to their knees
So bring me the blood and red wine for the one to succeed me
For he is a man and a god-and he will die too...
Tell me why I had to be a power slave
I don't want to die, I'm a god, why can't I live on?
When the Life Giver dies, all around is laid to waste.
And in my last hour,
I'm a slave to the power of death.
There are definitions of 'person' that would definitely put certain folks into the category of 'un-' or 'non-' person.
Seems to me, however, these definitions fall under 'bestowed' (the recognition of qualities or characteristics in one by another) rather than 'intrinsic' (sumthin' inherent in one that exists independent of another's recognition).
And not only for the very good reasons you list. Consider: matter makes up only 4% of the universe, and most of that is hydrogen. Organized matter is rare, and organized matter that consciously self-directs is probably rarest of all.
But do they?
Symbiosis is not the same as parasitism.
Take gut flora, for example: mutually advantageous.
On the other hand: ticks bring nuthin' to the table but disease.
Mebbe among the lower forms 'kingdom of the parasite' makes sense, but we highers, by way of monkeying around with our flesh, have -- at least partially -- disposed the micro-tyrants.
But there are cases where the parasite isn't just feeding off of, or damaging us, but actively controlling our behavior. Toxoplasmosis makes mice unafraid of cats, and seems to cause increased risk-taking in humans as well. In the days following an exposure to the flu virus--before symptoms take hold and when the host is the most contagious--humans have been shown to become significantly more social than they normally would be, presumably to unwittingly spread the virus. This has also been demonstrated in the case of flu immunizations, rather than native exposure. Of course participants wrote it off as coincidence, they "just felt like" attending a party they might usually have skipped, but the aggregate numbers show a pattern. So-called "lesser" creatures neurologically control us on a regular basis.
"But there are cases where the parasite isn't just feeding off of, or damaging us, but actively controlling our behavior. Toxoplasmosis makes mice unafraid of cats, and seems to cause increased risk-taking in humans as well."
I reckon such invasions are the exception not the rule. And if not: I reckon we'll incorporate such bugs into ourselves, turn them useful, to our advantage (as multi-cellulars did with gut flora).
#
"In the days following an exposure to the flu virus--before symptoms take hold and when the host is the most contagious--humans have been shown to become significantly more social than they normally would be, presumably to unwittingly spread the virus."
I suspect such folks were sociable types to begin with. Misanthropes like me probably aren't moved much by vira or other micro-opportunists.
#
"So-called "lesser" creatures neurologically control us on a regular basis."
'Influence', sure; 'control' mebbe not so much.
Look at all you zombies, replying to threads and stuff! There must be some original thought or free will in ya to decide to hit the reply button, and then to choose the words ya did.
Darwin says, organisms are good at things. Every one of them has to have done things well. Every type of beast is built to compete for the ability to reproduce its DNA. All conditions are exploited, all advantages are gained, all wastes are shrugged off. This is refined over millions of years.
We are the beasts that developed a software layer on top of our hardware layer. The hardware layer being the unconscious mind; the software being consciousness (which IMO requires speech), followed by civilization.
And now we've gone through evolution based on that software layer. That's pretty wild!
It's possible some previous civilization developed here on Earth and then was wiped out, but: they must have been wankers.
SpaceX is aiming to be on Mars by 2024. The hope is to have colonies shortly thereafter, and a city by 2050.
https://www.inverse.com/article/51291-spacex-here-s-the-timeline-for-getting-to-mars-and-starting-a-colony
And Elon Musk's predictions have always been right. (But his timing has always been way too optimistic.)
"There must be some original thought or free will in ya to decide to hit the reply button, and then to choose the words ya did."
Well, some folks say "We’re running a program written in the code of unfolding proteins". In other words: we're bio-automata with no choice at all. It's all successful kludge-work playin' itself out. 'I'ness, 'self', 'personhood', these are mirages (evolutionary advantage or just necessary byproduct?).
Other folks think otherwise.
The universe, in this frame of reference, could be seen as a person. God, if you prefer.
It's self aware through eyes like ours. Eyes like any species that can conceptualize awareness has. Known or unknown to humans. Aware of self and other. And of a higher or lower level of awareness. One law. One life. All connected through the shared emptiness between our atoms.
Ultimate complexity is the horizon point. As infinite a destination as the edge of space, so we'll never actually get there, but it is, I think, The Omega.
You're an important part of it, if only because you contribute your life experience to the sum total (universal) experience. Your life has meaning. Intrinsically, not bestowed.
Have fun with it.
Dude you are deep.
Sent from my moto e5 supra using Tapatalk
The universe, in this frame of reference, could be seen as a person. God, if you prefer.
It's self aware through eyes like ours. Eyes like any species that can conceptualize awareness has. Known or unknown to humans. Aware of self and other. And of a higher or lower level of awareness. One law. One life. All connected through the shared emptiness between our atoms.
Ultimate complexity is the horizon point. As infinite a destination as the edge of space, so we'll never actually get there, but it is, I think, The Omega.
You're an important part of it, if only because you contribute your life experience to the sum total (universal) experience. Your life has meaning. Intrinsically, not bestowed.
Have fun with it.
Let me do this again.
Dude you are deep.
Sent from my moto e5 supra using Tapatalk
New bag. Wedding Cake. Not bad, but it is like a sleeping pill with a 3 hour delay. Zzzzzzz
… Have fun with it.
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
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.
...we're completely free to make whatever choices the boundaries of our imagination can think of.
Unless they reboot the game.
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.
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.
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.
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’.
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?
[YOUTUBE]0qnYb5QwnfE[/YOUTUBE]
“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.
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“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?
… 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). ...
There was a dwellar who had that notion as a signature:
Signature
I am not trapped. I am mentally free !!! ;)
My destiny is yet to be :destiny:
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?
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“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"
Yes, it is.
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“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).
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“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?
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“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.
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“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).
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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).
… “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.
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“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).
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“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.
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“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.
[post=1039851]Uh huh.[/post]
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?
[post=1039851]Uh huh.[/post]
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
[COLOR="White"]...[/COLOR]
"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'.
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?
Why 'mebbe'?
gut feelin'
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.
How does organized matter become endowed with agency?
This is the
Hard problem of consciousness ?
"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.
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"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)?
"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.
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/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=26822&p=428606#p428606And yet it continues to work the way it does regardless of whether we understand it or not. It doesn't require our understanding, therefore our understanding isn't important-- to the thing itself.
From an objective point of view, the simplest solution is that consciousness has a biological origin, like every other feature of living organisms.
Arguments against:
1) We don't understand how a biological mechanism could produce free will. [SIZE="1"]This doesn't affect the likelihood of any particular answer. Our understanding is not a factor.[/SIZE]
2) A biological origin of consciousness could mean that our decision-making has a deterministic nature. [SIZE="1"]This doesn't affect the likelihood of any particular answer. Our reckoning of what is intuitive is not a factor.[/SIZE]
3) A deterministic origin of consciousness could have serious ethical consequences. [SIZE="1"]This doesn't affect the likelihood of any particular answer. Our desire for positive outcomes is not a factor.[/SIZE]
4) It feels wrong, bad, uncomfortable, or unintuitive in any way whatsoever. [SIZE="1"]None of this affects the likelihood of any particular answer in the slightest amount.[/SIZE]
5) We have a gut feeling that it's more than biology. [SIZE="1"]This doesn't affect the likelihood of any particular answer-- the universe doesn't care about our bias.[/SIZE]
This applies to everything, the whole of the world, from the Planck length clear up to the universal.
There's no reason to plumb the depths, to climb the mountains, to leap into space, to probe the atom, to dissect the brain, to discern the geometry of the psyche, to decipher DNA, to figure out how birds fly, to investigate why stone is inedible, to know how a star works, to...
The depths are fine without us, the peaks don't require us, space is indifferent to us, atoms do okay all by themselves, brains tick along without an inkling of why or how, psyches persist even in self-ignorance, DNA requires no oversight, birds fly without a care as to how, stones 'hurt' and mebbe 'kill' if ingested (we don't need to know 'why'), the sun is there and that's all we need to know.
Man, curiosity is a bitch! Life would be so much better if we weren't always poking our noses into the inner workings of things, sussin' out the undergirdings.
Yep, things work just fine without us. There's no need for us to break our necks trying to force wrong answers onto things. And that's not a victimless crime-- when we box ourselves in with cognitive errors, we're going down the path of not being correct about anything else.
"Yep, things work just fine without us."
Yet here we are, in every-increasing numbers, diggin' 'round the inner workings of Reality, tryin' to figure it out, gettin' it wrong some of the time, gettin' it right some of the time.
Ain't no stoppin' us now, so: you might as well relax and enjoy the ride.
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"There's no need for us to break our necks trying to force wrong answers onto things."
There's no need to find the right answers either, but -- as I say -- we're doin' it anyway.
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"when we box ourselves in with cognitive errors, we're going down the path of not being correct about anything else.'
Except, of course, when we go down the right path. The universe opens ups a little bit more when that happens.
goddangit henry let me argue with you :rotflol:
stop being reasonable
I just wanna talk: agree where we can, disagree where we must, and part company at least not thinkin' poorly of one another.
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?
listen, you're a bad man and I hate your face
we will NEVER agree on ANYTHING !! think the sky is blue? WRONG, idiot.
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
"listen"
Yes?
"you're a bad man"
True.
"and I hate your face"
I ain't too pretty, I give ya that.
"we will NEVER agree on ANYTHING !!"
You're right.
"think the sky is blue?"
Not all the time: sometimes it's red or orange or pitch black with lil speckles of white.
WRONG, idiot.
Oh, you were talkin' to tw...my mistake.
"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.
"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.
My ex-wife was raised in a household that spoke Brazilian, Spanish, and a little German, but spent a lot of time next door where they spoke mainly French and a little Hindi. Her first words were in French, she's fluent in Spanish, and is a native English speaker who has always lived in the United States.
According to her, she doesn't think in words. Especially-- NOT English, her native (spoken) language.
Emotion is the physical chemical reaction we have that is caused by thoughts we think.
The non verbal thought I was pointing to is more of a leap we make mentally that just clicks. Then we go back and verify the accuracy.
I do it all the time. Like we have 2 thinking sources. It's all very scientific.
The drummer Jojo Mayer talks about the mental micro-space where we’ve already done a thing and we’re now reacting to something that wasn’t intentional. He calls it “the space between zero and one” and it’s the most accurate description of the “source” of creativity that I’ve ever heard. If you have 20 minutes, it’s a really good TED Talk.
[YOUTUBE]KExLCJAuTXA[/YOUTUBE]
What does science say?
There are imaging studies that show the parts of our brain involved with intending to do a thing activation AFTER the part of our brain that does the thing. We intend it because we already did it. Counterintuitive, right?
Cool, thanks for watching. This guy, I don't know if it's apparent from this video, is one of the most technically advanced drummers, like ever. He's developed a bunch of techniques to, apparently, manipulate physics.
Like "push/pull" --getting a note going both ways.
I'm gonna check out Nerve
"According to her, she doesn't think in words. Especially-- NOT English, her native (spoken) language."
As I consider it: it's probably more accurate to say thnkin' is done by way of assigning (then recognizing) symbols/placeholders and accessing a shifting cloud of associated symbols/placeholders.
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"Emotion is the physical chemical reaction we have that is caused by thoughts we think."
I think feeling (reaction) precedes thinking (consideration and response).
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"The non verbal thought I was pointing to is more of a leap we make mentally that just clicks. Then we go back and verify the accuracy."
Intuition: what your gut tells you.
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"I do it all the time."
Me too.
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"Like we have 2 thinking sources."
Just a different way of processing information.
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"It's all very scientific."
Mebbe so.
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"There are imaging studies that show the parts of our brain involved with intending to do a thing activation AFTER the part of our brain that does the thing. We intend it because we already did it. Counterintuitive, right?"
Libet.
https://mindmatters.ai/2019/09/was-famous-old-evidence-against-free-will-just-debunked/Emotion results from thoughts. Some thoughts result from mood (or pain body).
Like, if you're horny, you think about sex. But if you just decide to think about sex, it might make you horny. Might not.
Goes both ways. Like Flint.
Goes both ways. Like Flint.
:vomit:
The drummer Jojo Mayer talks about the mental micro-space where we’ve already done a thing and we’re now reacting to something that wasn’t intentional. He calls it “the space between zero and one” and it’s the most accurate description of the “source” of creativity that I’ve ever heard. If you have 20 minutes, it’s a really good TED Talk.
[YOUTUBE]KExLCJAuTXA[/YOUTUBE]
What does science say?
There are imaging studies that show the parts of our brain involved with intending to do a thing activation AFTER the part of our brain that does the thing. We intend it because we already did it. Counterintuitive, right?
Mind.... blown....
So, large parts of what I've always said about the subject I was obsessing on in this thread was just presented back to me by the benevolent AI algorithms at Hulu, in the form of a monologue by Nick Offerman in the first episode of
DevsHuman's describe themselves, "sumthin’ more than bio-automation, not only organic machinery."
So, large parts of what I've always said about the subject I was obsessing on in this thread was just presented back to me by the benevolent AI algorithms at Hulu, in the form of a monologue by Nick Offerman in the first episode of Devs
Again, anybody who was on this thread, or interested in nerd sh!t, go watch Devs. I just finished it, there's only 8 episodes, but it's a wild ride.