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Does causality give man an excuse?

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No, there is no external influence. But how does the fact that you can choose to vary your level of focus proves that this process is not deterministic?

Do you agree that one can choose to vary one's focus, or are you making a polemical point? If you do agree, then what exactly do you mean by "choose" in this context?

I think this is the key issue here.

But, what is really needed here is to define terms.

The following are not used in the same way in this thread:

- choice

- volition

To Ifat: you said that volition and determinism don't contradict each other.

However, by looking at the same things, I can see how the part of volition is perfectly clear, I just don't see how it is evident that it is not-deterministic.
If so, then you have to be using a different meaning for volition. In Objectivism volition implies free will. Volition is "man's power to make a choice."

I would like to hear your definition of volition and choice.

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In your view, based on your posts, there is no such power, b/c it is determined by previous brain states. You can't even claim that a human makes a choice under your view, since that "choice" is nothing more than an outcome of previous brain states.

Consider (according to your theory): a moment before you saw Seeker's post you had specific brains state, which was a result from previous brain states (and external influence?). This brain state already pre-determined that you will read his post, thus it was already pre-determined that you will try to vary your level of focus. So, all of your actions were already pre-determined before you even read Seeker's post. Right?

So, where is the power to make a choice? You couldn't have changed your choice in this example, since you were pre-determined to a particular choice. So, is your power of choice is simply following your pre-determined outcome? Or is it a power to NOT be influenced by external influence?

And where was your choice? According to your view, nothing of this could have been changed (if it was replayed and if this is how it was pre-determined to be).

You can't even claim that you had a choice. Even though, possible actions are to try what Seeker suggested and not to try, in your view they can't apply to the same moment. In any specific moment, you will HAVE to do one and not the other, and you have no power to change your actions for that single moment.

This leads to the following question:

What about your future actions? Are they already pre-determined? For example, you go somewhere, are all of your actions already pre-determined?

Judging by the meaning I see from your posts, it follows that your actions are already pre-determined, and whatever is coming you can't change, right?

P.S. Just in case the answer is "no." Why aren't your future actions pre-determined? Your current brain state with all previous brain states have already pre-determined your next brain states. Correct? And this coming state will pre-determine the next one. So, it follows that all your activity in the future is already pre-determined. You may not know what external input is coming, but whatever it will be, you will respond deterministically, and thus if the future outcome is bad, you have no power to change it, right?

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how does the fact that you can choose to vary your level of focus proves that this process is not deterministic?

This is a blatant contradiction. If you can make a choice, then it is not deterministic.

The choices you make are not caused by external mechanical events impinging on you, nor are they caused by internal mechanical events impinging within you. Not if by "mechanical" you mean something like neuro-biochemistry. The neuro-biochemistry does not make your decisions for you; nor does the neuro-biochemistry present options to you for you to consider.

However, man's will is both free and caused. It is free because you can weigh options internally before deciding what to do, and it is caused because you make the choice as what you ought to consider to be an option in the first place and then you choose to follow one of the alternatives. You qua entity are the one making those choices; just as you are choosing to hold a contradiction.

I think your biggest problem is that you have bought into this whole bio-bot business; but you bought into it by choice. You could choose to rejected it based on the fact that you are the one in control of what you accept mentally. I mean, unless you can show that someone injected you with a neuro-biochemical concoction that pre-coded you into accepting the bio-bot idea against your will.

Likewise, unless you are a psychotic and have lost complete control of your mind, then you are posting to this forum of your own free will.

So basically, those who are trying to convince you that you are a bio-bot are trying to convince you that you are psychotic; that you have no control over your mind and no control of your typing things into the keyboard and then posting them to this forum.

You are starting at an arbitrary premise, that man is nothing but a bio-bot, and you are starting there by choice. And that is what is leading you into the contradiction that you can make deterministic choices.

When I used to frequent IRC (Internet Relay Chat), the communication channels would very frequently be overrun by computer programs that were spamming the channel. We used to refer to these as bot attacks.

So, if you want to consider yourself to be nothing but a bio-bot and have no choice as to what you are posting, then why should we consider your posts to be anything but a bio-bot attack?

Are you posting here by choice or are you posting here because of some agitation of your dendrites?

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The following are not used in the same way in this thread:

- choice

- volition

I think Ifat's usage of "choice" essentially means selection in a context - as in, a deterministic robot would be "choosing" when making a selection in the context of a police lineup even if it always pointed to the first man in the lineup. It is quite right and proper to correct the usage though.

Choose to vary your level of focus. Do you notice any external interference, or is the choice of your own accord?

No, there is no external influence. But how does the fact that you can choose to vary your level of focus proves that this process is not deterministic?

There's more to do. We have shown that our will is free from external interference, and must now show that our will is free from internal prior restraint. So let's do that. Choose to decrease and increase your level of focus. Do you notice any prior conditions or decisions interfering with your choice, or is the choice of your own accord at the instant you make it? Is it predictable or unpredictable? Freely chosen or dependent on past internal conditions acting upon your mind over which you have no control in infinite regress?

My answer is that between past and future I am free at every instant to decide my level of focus of my own accord, without knowing or being able to control ahead of time what my choice will be at a given instant, i.e. it is freely chosen. What answer does your inspection reveal?

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I think Ifat's usage of "choice" essentially means selection in a context - as in, a deterministic robot would be "choosing" when making a selection in the context of a police lineup even if it always pointed to the first man in the lineup. It is quite right and proper to correct the usage though.
What about a simple lever? When one pushes down on one end, does the lever make a choice to send the other end up? If not, what is the difference between the "choice" of the robot, and the "choice" of the lever?
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What about a simple lever? When one pushes down on one end, does the lever make a choice to send the other end up? If not, what is the difference between the "choice" of the robot, and the "choice" of the lever?

I don't usually type simple agreement posts, but I have to say.... MASTERFULLY ILLUSTRATED!!

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What about a simple lever? When one pushes down on one end, does the lever make a choice to send the other end up? If not, what is the difference between the "choice" of the robot, and the "choice" of the lever?

I know this is beginning to sound repetitive, but I don't have time for a longer reply, so I'll just reply to this post now, since it contains the most important question we are facing in the thread currently, which is the meaning of "choice".

Obviously, a lever does not choose to lift the other end up. I actually begun to explain what would make something a "choice" (in my concept of "choice") as oppose to some event which is not a choice - in my previous post.

A choice, is a type of a decision. A decision is:

  • Decision - definition: "a position or opinion or judgment reached after consideration"
  • Consideration - definition: "the process of giving careful thought to something".
  • Thought - definition: "Thought or thinking is a mental process which allows beings to model the world, and so to deal with it effectively according to their goals, plans, ends and desires. "

If an entity (a robot, a human, a new type of animal etc') can think (have awareness, and process information about the world), can consider ideas (as defined), and make a decision - then it can choose. Every entity that answers these criterion can choose. Entities which do not answer these criterion may act, but their actions are not a "choice".

Here is an example to clarify my intention:

If you imagine a robot that is programmed in a way that it builds inner representations of knowledge about the world, it can collect more data via some mechanical senses, search for common characteristics or correlations in the data, abstract the data into fewer entities, and again store this information using some inner representation; It is equipped with a certain basic algorithm of what to avoid and what to pursue, on which it is capable of building more algorithms (based on observations and other algorithms); The robot has all of these except for awareness. At this stage - it's actions are not choices.

If you want a concrete example of such a phenomena, you can look at one side of the body of people who have gone through surgery of cutting the corpus callosum (the part that connects the two hemispheres of the brain). One side of their body is capable of acting (walking, holding objects, moving, processing visual information) but they are not aware of any brain activity which is taking place on that side of the brain (for example, their brain would identify an image presented in an area of their vision which only connects to that half of the brain, and their hand would possibly lift that object, but when asked if they saw something they would reply negatively, and they would have no idea why they picked up that certain object). So the actions performed by the half of the body which has no awareness is not a choice, but the actions performed by the part of the body which is controled by the half brain which does have awareness IS making choices.

Notice that nothing about the action of decision as I defined it, requires that it be non-deterministic. Determinism (or the vice of it) is not part of the definition.

I hope this helps. Please don't bombard me with long posts, I still need to reply to previous ones.

Thanks and have a great weekend.

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In your example could you explain a little more about why the side that picks up things is not "thinking"? That side has awareness, but doesn't it also have a "model" of the world, even if it is not as sophisticated and malleable a model as the other side? Are you speaking of degrees here, or something that is actually present in one case and completely absent in the other?

Edited by softwareNerd
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In your example could you explain a little more about why the side that picks up things is not "thinking"? That side has awareness, but doesn't it also have a "model" of the world, even if it is not as sophisticated and malleable a model as the other side? Are you speaking of degrees here, or something that is actually present in one case and completely absent in the other?
(bold mine)

Alien hand syndrome (Wikipedia)

I think it explains it well

Edit: That side does not have awareness. That is the difference, and that is why it's actions are not a choice.

Edited by ifatart
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If you imagine a robot that is programmed in a way...

Why are you focusing on imaginary robots and brain damaged individuals?

Nobody here, least of all me, is claiming that our consciousness and our volition are brought about by some ineffable process -- i.e. that it is like magic and happens without any means.

Just as our vision requires us to have eyes, optic nerves, a visual cortex and have that connected to the rest of the brain; so, too, we must have a healthy functioning brain in order to have consciousness and volition. And it is possible for someone to lose their volition if they have frontal lobe damage or if they take certain drugs that inhibit that area.

However, this does not mean that we are bio-bots.

Epistemologically, one cannot get beneath the fact that we have consciousness and volition. Just as knowing about the visual cortex does not get beneath sight. We perceive red directly, and that is (near) the starting point of understanding vision. The perception of an entity comes before that epistemologically; the understanding of the visual cortex does not. In other words, sight is the beginning of understanding how the eye and the optic nerves work.

Similarly, understanding how the brain works and what happens when certain areas are not working properly does not epistemologically get beneath consciousness and volition. The only way we can know that those areas of the brain are not functioning properly is by using the normal processing as the standard. In other words, without already being aware of consciousness and volition, we would have no idea that something was going wrong. Wrong? By what standard?

A friend of mine once gave similar arguments to yours, and it took him nearly twenty years to correct his mistake. He corrected it by realizing that bats have sonar because of the types of creatures they are. That sonar was a biological power of the bats. He then realized that consciousness and volition were a biological power of humans and himself.

I didn't argue with him on this topic for those twenty years, because after a certain point of someone not getting the obvious, one has to back off and let the one in error correct his own error.

In other words, just as it is obvious that we see red (if we have normal eyes and visual pathways), so too is it obvious that we have consciousness and volition (so long as we have normal brain function).

You are trying to explain away consciousness and volition in the same way that someone saying that we have eyes and optic pathways would try to explain away sight.

It's a very Kantian approach.

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Epistemologically, one cannot get beneath the fact that we have consciousness and volition.

Right. And I am not. I wish you gave a more careful reading to what I write. I do not deny consciousness and volition. Just the idea that those entities are "free" (non-deterministic). I explained how volition and consciousness are concepts that exist without any relation to determinism or non-determinism in my last post.

Why are you focusing on imaginary robots and brain damaged individuals?

The answer is well explained in my post. But here is the answer anyway: to explain the meaning of the concept "choice", and show how a "choice" can exist without relation to it being deterministic or not.

Nobody here, least of all me, is claiming that our consciousness and our volition are brought about by some ineffable process -- i.e. that it is like magic and happens without any means.

Just as our vision requires us to have eyes, optic nerves, a visual cortex and have that connected to the rest of the brain; so, too, we must have a healthy functioning brain in order to have consciousness and volition. And it is possible for someone to lose their volition if they have frontal lobe damage or if they take certain drugs that inhibit that area.

However, this does not mean that we are bio-bots.

Well, there are two options here Mr. Miovas, that no one can escape from choosing:

Either our mind is generated by our brain, and since the brain is physical, and follows the laws of physics which are deterministic, the mind is deterministic as well.

Or, Our brain does not fully generate the mind: The mind can exist without the brain, and perhaps it can also control the brain (meaning that the laws of physics are only a recommendation to certain atoms and molecules; a recommendation they follow when the "mind" does not affect them to act otherwise).

One must choose because the two options contradict one another, yet one of them has to exist to explain the relation between brain and mind.

Now listen: if in future posts you are not going to make an honest effort to understand my position, I am not going to answer your questions. An example for persons who are making an honest effort to understand my position are Seeker and softwareNerd. They may not agree with me, but when I read their posts I can see that they pay attention to what I write. So take that into account in future posts directed at me.

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Now listen: if in future posts you are not going to make an honest effort to understand my position, I am not going to answer your questions. An example for persons who are making an honest effort to understand my position are Seeker and softwareNerd. They may not agree with me, but when I read their posts I can see that they pay attention to what I write. So take that into account in future posts directed at me.

Just for the record, this is the last time you get to slide in insulting insinuations in your posts. You assume that some of the people who disagree with you are not making an honest effort to understand your position. However, the same assertion could be made that you are not making an honest effort to understand the contradiction that others plainly see in your position. Neither accusation would be acceptable. Rather than make such accusations, you can either stick to continuing to support your position, or you can tell a poster you no longer wish to respond to their posts or questions.

Previously you stated that your position required "mountains of integrity", a "dedication to the truth", and to not let one's feelings get in the way. This insinuated that those who disagreed with you was reticent on all those accounts.

This is unacceptable and should not happen again.

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I don't think those are the only two options: either the brain is deterministic, or there is a mind body split. There is a third option: Our brain fully generates the mind - this is even evidence by your wiki article, where a damaged brain cannot fully generate volition. Obviously the brain is required in its totality to have a healthy, functioning volition. You seem to be ignoring the fact of Emergence, that new properties can arise, one of which is obviously volition.

We make choices and are aware of our ability to do so. You're saying that awareness might very well be determined by nature. It's up to you to prove that the mind is determined, because evidence to the contrary surrounds us, that new systems emerge from initial conditions. That doesn't mean there's any split between condition A and structure B; the universe is still causal in this system, because if the initial conditions hadn't existed, then the following structure couldn't have arisen. Put another way, the mind is dependent on the brain for its existence, but that is not proof that its functioning is - metaphysically or epistemologically - predictable.

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I don't think those are the only two options: either the brain is deterministic, or there is a mind body split.
True. Objectivists, in defending volition, do not claim that the mind does not possess certain characteristics, a certain nature, nor that it can do whatever it feels like. The claim is, rather, that -- given the underlying nature of the brain, and given the way all the molecules of the body "come together" -- the brain (or, as a non-biologist, some part of the human body) has evolved in such a way as to allow human beings to choose to think about something or to simply close their minds off to thinking.

In one sense, the defence of voliton is simple, because it's axiomatic. On the other hand, it's easy to see why this is unsatisfying and feels like a polemical approach to those who would ask: but how is that possible? i.e., in physical terms, in detailed biology etc., how is that possible? As long as there is no satisfactory explanation from biology, this will always be a question.

The argument for the deterministic explanation usually goes this way: since all we know about all this other stuff demonstrates certain deterministic processes, and because all our knowledge has no other explanation for this one seeming exception (i.e. volition), therefore determinism must apply here too. In a way, the lack of knowledge about what could cause this apparent exception, is being used to say that there could not be an exception.

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If taking two facts from free will theory:

(1) Free will exists.

(2) Physical laws are deterministic.

A conclusion follows:

(*) There are non-deterministic systems that come from deterministic elements.

As far as I can see, a determinist theory can "hold" on only one assumption: that the above conclusion isn't true.

Has it ever been proved that determinist elements will always form determinist system?

It seems to be accepted by many on a "gut feeling", but is it actually so? Is there any proof for it?

Edited by Olex
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In one sense, the defence of voliton is simple, because it's axiomatic. On the other hand, it's easy to see why this is unsatisfying and feels like a polemical approach to those who would ask: but how is that possible? i.e., in physical terms, in detailed biology etc., how is that possible? As long as there is no satisfactory explanation from biology, this will always be a question.

And that fact seriously gets up people's noses, because they've been taught that all science is deterministic and any departure from that is necessarily mystic. There's no getting away from it either, as the question inevitably arises whenever anyone intelligent starts thinking about science.

I see volition as being in the same boat that gravity and other 'action at a distance' notions of physics were a few hundred years ago. It's real, and observably so... but it is still held as spooky. None of it is grounds for mysticism, though. Being scientific means figuring out how everything comes back to the nature of the nature of the fundamental characteristics. A is A, and there's no use asking why either in aggregate nor of any particular instance in the nature of the fundamental constituents. If some of them seem strange then that just means you're not use to it. All that matters is that the nature of those fundamental constituents includes the possibility of being in combinations that lead to volition.

I therefore agree that volition HAS to be traceable back to the nature of the fundamental constituents of existence, but I disagree with the notion that the methods of physics are the only way to discover them. Some properties of things cannot be figured out by looking at the object in isolation but within the broader context in which that characteristic is brought out. I see volition as being in that category - an emergent property, as Tenure raised.

The argument for the deterministic explanation usually goes this way: since all we know about all this other stuff demonstrates certain deterministic processes, and because all our knowledge has no other explanation for this one seeming exception (i.e. volition), therefore determinism must apply here too. In a way, the lack of knowledge about what could cause this apparent exception, is being used to say that there could not be an exception.

There are characteristics of the fundamental constituents that we do not know about yet, and the determinists are saying that they all must be deterministic. There are no grounds for that assertion! There is no evidence that they have to be, and the existence of volition suggests that some of them wont be. The assertion is based on the notion of anything not deterministic being necessarily mystic and so rejected on that basis. It is a feeling inculcated in school and originating in a false alternative generated by anti-religion creeds from centuries ago, not an actual scientific principle.

If taking two facts from free will theory:

(1) Free will exists.

(2) Physical laws are deterministic.

#1 is true, but I dispute #2 as being the only possibility about the laws of nature. I think the two propostions here are incompatible, and as #1 is definite it is #2 that has to go. Again, I reject the idea of there being only the alternative of determinism versus mysticism as the explanation for the activity of the fundamental constituents. I don't think it is necessary to go investigating the idea of non-determinism evolving from elements that are all fully deterministic, which I strongly suspect wont get you very far anyway.

JJM

(Edit: noticed odd spelling error, and just deleted the offending word pair)

Edited by John McVey
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#1 is true, but I dispute #2 as being the only possibility about the laws of nature. I think the two propostions here are incompatible, and as #1 is definite it is #2 that has to go.
Are there known physical laws that are non-deterministic (other than the existence of free will, although it's not a physical law anyway)?
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Are there known physical laws that are non-deterministic (other than the existence of free will, although it's not a physical law anyway)?

Down at the level of the fundamental constituents of existence that entire question is still up in the air. That's part of what the QM controversy is about, such as the idea that the behaviour of individual particles is non-determinant but follows rigorous mathematical probabilities in aggregate. I know of at least two camps: the hardened it-is-just-chance people and the there-are-unknown-variables people. To the extent my admittedly limited knowledge allows me to choose, I am in the latter camp, and I think at least one of those variables must in some way lead to allowance for volition as what we DO know so far is in fact deterministic.

JJM

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Just for the record, this is the last time you get to slide in insulting insinuations in your posts. You assume that some of the people who disagree with you are not making an honest effort to understand your position. However, the same assertion could be made that you are not making an honest effort to understand the contradiction that others plainly see in your position. Neither accusation would be acceptable. Rather than make such accusations, you can either stick to continuing to support your position, or you can tell a poster you no longer wish to respond to their posts or questions.

I did not insult Mr. Miovas. I said that in my judgement he did not make an honest effort to understand what I said. this does not mean he is dishonest, and the remark was not personal. I am not interested in wasting my time discussing an issue with someone who does not, in my judgement, bother to read what I say. If I state it - it is not an insult to anyone, just a case of presenting the conditions under which I am willing to have a discussion with someone.

As for your attitude towards me: It seems to mean one of two things: Either you don't see me as someone who can be reasoned with, or you think that taking the time to reason with me is not worth the return (that I will continue to participate on Objectivism Online).

Honestly, I don't know how to deal with this. I want to go on participating on OO, but if what I say can be misinterpreted (like it just happened), and my posts deleted, or me getting banned without even asking me for my intention or giving me the benefit of the doubt, then it becomes a serious problem to invest effort in the present into participating here.

I'll have to think about it more and decide. For now this is all I have to say.

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I did not insult Mr. Miovas. I said that in my judgement he did not make an honest effort to understand what I said. this does not mean he is dishonest, and the remark was not personal.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't accuse someone of not putting forth an honest intellectual effort and then say it's neither personal nor insulting. It is both. You can't insinuate that it takes "mountains of integrity", "dedication to the truth" and objectivity to accept your position without implying that those who have not accepted your side lack those qualities. You left no room for other valid reasons why someone might disagree.

It seems to mean one of two things: Either you don't see me as someone who can be reasoned with, or you think that taking the time to reason with me is not worth the return (that I will continue to participate on Objectivism Online).

It's neither. It's an issue of you making insulting insinuations about some people disagreeing with you. If you stop commenting negatively (either specifically or generally) on other people in the thread (questioning their integrity, their objectivity or whatever) then you'll be fine. Stick to arguing your position. The fact that I'm letting you know now rather than using the warning system, disabling your posting, or banning you is evidence that I think you can be reasoned with.

Honestly, I don't know how to deal with this.

Then I'll repeat; rather than making negative comments or insinuations about other people, you can either stick to supporting your arguing, or you can simply tell a poster you no longer wish to respond to their posts or questions and keep your judgment of that person (or those people) to yourself. If in your judgment the behavior of someone is violating the rules, then you can use the reporting system instead of making such comments.

If you can't do that, then you will have continued problems posting here.

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I do not deny consciousness and volition. Just the idea that those entities are "free" (non-deterministic). I explained how volition and consciousness are concepts that exist without any relation to determinism or non-determinism in my last post.

It is a contradiction in terms to suppose that volition is not free. Volition (if you suppose it exists) is, and is defined to be, free. Free does not mean indeterministic, just as obviously it does not mean deterministic. What exactly free is, and how to avoid the traps of determinism and indeterminism, is tricky.

There are two options here [...] that no one can escape from choosing:

Either our mind is generated by our brain, and since the brain is physical, and follows the laws of physics which are deterministic, the mind is deterministic as well.

Or, Our brain does not fully generate the mind: The mind can exist without the brain, and perhaps it can also control the brain (meaning that the laws of physics are only a recommendation to certain atoms and molecules; a recommendation they follow when the "mind" does not affect them to act otherwise).

One must choose because the two options contradict one another, yet one of them has to exist to explain the relation between brain and mind.

You put forward determinism as one of the two possible choices: determinism as a universal law governing all that exists. Determinism is false, as many, notably including Ayn Rand, have proven. You put forward "something else" as the other choice. But you are very vaque on what that "something else" could be. From what I gather, it is a combination of the abandonment of the law of causality and that abandonment's corollary, the mind-body dichotomy (where the mental exists apart from and independently of the physical). Your "something else" is clearly not indeterminism; otherwise, you would have said it.

Others, of course, offer other ways. Many have put forward indeterminism. Many others, including Kant, have put forward the complete nonexistence of reality. Ayn Rand, following Aristotle, put forward the laws of identity and causality.

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I think the problem here that is showing up in this thread is that some people's conception of causality is only that of determinism. Determinism is kind of the left-over conception of causality stemming from the rejection of Aristotle. About the only surviving aspect of his series on causation is that of efficient causation, that a thing acts according to something acting on it. One of his examples was of a log being cut due to the action of a saw on it. The other aspects of his views on causation -- material, formal, and final -- are not really used, at least not in those terms. I think part of this demise was due to the cumbersomeness of his presentation of causality. While it was an advancement compared to the more mystical views or non-predictability, at least it was an attempt (I would say in progress) of having one view of causation -- i.e. one concept that would cover everything that could ever happen. I think he eventually did get it down to one, in the sense that he said that an entity acts according to its nature, but then he tried to prescribe what it means to have a nature -- i.e. that it is a form in material that leads an entity to do what it does based on its nature. I would, however, hasten to add that the fault of this confusion was not Aristotle's, but rather that he did the best that he could, and possibly made some mistakes along the way; such as saying, or at least implying, that even an arrow being shot from a bow has final causation, the final causation of (implicitly) having a purpose to hit the target.

The Objectivist's understanding of causation is that an entity acts according to its nature -- i.e. according to what it is qua entity. That once something is an entity in the metaphysical sense, once it exists, then how it will act is according to what it is. But Objectivism doesn't try to pre-speculate what it is to have a nature (i.e. it rejects the idea of form in matter). Especially given that form, in the Platonic school of thought, is sort of an idea or a principle within material things that guides it to do what it does. Objectivism rejects this premise on the grounds that there are no ideas out there at work in the universe -- i.e. it is not an idea that tends to make the earth orbit around the sun in the sense of there being literally a principle of gravity at work in the universe.

The point is that man is a certain type of entity, and qua entity has certain capabilities. The man is the entity, not the neurons and bio-chemicals. In the primary sense of the term "entity", the electrons and such that man is composed of are not entities -- i.e. they do not exists apart from the primary entity, which is a man. Once these are separated from the body -- i.e. if one gets one's arm amputated -- then it because an entity; but while it is attached to the body, the whole man is the entity.

It is not as if the brain is an entity that somehow interacts with the body which is a separate entity. The whole thing that is a man is the entity.

So, the idea of emergent properties I think is not the solution. Emergent properties tries to say that, for instance, that the properties of table salt, sodium chloride, are emergent from sodium and chlorine, which have different properties from table salt. But, in fact, once the sodium and the chlorine combine together in a certain way as to form table salt, they are no longer sodium and chlorine, but rather table salt, a different entity, and thus acts according to its nature, rather than acting according to the nature of either sodium as an entity or chlorine as an entity.

Likewise for man. Even though it can be shown that we are composed of numerous elementary particles, those elementary particles are not the entity when we are talking about man, but rather the man is the entity. And he has the properties that he has, including consciousness and volition, because of what he is qua entity.

If one starts there, at the perceptually self-evident and at the introspective self-evident, instead of trying to start at the level of elementary particles or dendrites, then one will not be confused by trying to start at the wrong place epistemologically. We can't yet explain how it is that those elements combine to form man with consciousness and volition, but it does happen, so it is not mystical, and the lack of that knowledge does not invalidate either consciousness or volition.

To give a simple counter-example, it would be improper and illogical to say that birds don't really fly because sub-atomic particles don't have wings. Just as it would be improper and illogical to say that man doesn't have volition because sub-atomic particles don't have volition.

Edited by Thomas M. Miovas Jr.
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I've been debating about saying anything else in this thread, since it seems to have settled down and no one replied to my last post, but I think one other thing has to be kept in mind when we are talking about causality and man with regard to consciousness and volition.

The three fundamental axioms of Objectivism are existence, identity, and consciousness. That is, in one's grasp of anything, one is aware that it is (existence), that it is something (identity), and that you are aware of this (consciousness). Notice that the axioms don't say what exists or how they exist or how they came to be or even what the fundamental constituents of entities are. This axiomatic grasp simply asserts what is given in perception: There is something there that I am aware of.

As to the other questions I raised, the questions can only be answered via rational observation and an integration of that investigation. It would be improper to do what some of the Ancient Greeks did and say that everything is composed of earth, air, fire, and water; without investigating what things are actually made of.

Along these lines, I think it is improper to consider consciousness to be an entity in the primary sense of the term "entity." It is not as if we have a soul (a consciousness) that is an entity residing in the body and somehow interacting with it. I think this mistake goes back to Plato, but it was really embellished by the Christians; who claim, among other things, that man's soul was placed in his body by God (at conception or at birth) and that it can leave the body after death. There is no evidence for any of this. And there is no evidence that consciousness is an entity at all in the primary sense, so trying to find the "consciousness stuff" out there in reality is not going to be very fruitful.

We can epistemologically consider our consciousness differentiated from our body in the sense that we can focus on what our mind is doing (imagining, thinking, emotions, etc.) which is different than, say, moving our arms and legs, which we can directly perceive with our senses (especially by looking in a mirror). We can also consider a two foot square patch of ground differentiated from the two foot section next to it, but that does not make the original two foot section considered to be an actual entity in the primary sense of the word. If you cut out a two foot section of grass and separate it from the rest of the yard, then you have a patch of sod, which is an entity in the primary sense. However, I don't think that is possible to do with consciousness. In other words, one can't cut out a certain section of the human body and claim that one has removed the soul of man and can hold it in one's hand.

It is possible to destroy someone's awareness of existence, say by brain damage; but one can also destroy one's awareness of sight if one cuts out the eyes or cuts out the visual cortex. However, one does not say that one is holding sight in one's hands if one holds eyeballs in one's hands. Similarly, if one holds a brain in one's hand, one is not holding awareness in one's hand.

In other words, I think consciousness is more like an attribute of a healthy human being rather than a part (such as his brain or his heart). We can certainly say that when it is all working properly we have consciousness and volition, and that functionality can be hampered via disease or illness or injury (and repaired via medication or surgery), but one could never put consciousness per se in a bottle.

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Thomas, that's a great post. I think it's the best explanation of the mind as a result of being a man, rather than being a programmable entity.

Good work.:ninja:

Thank you.

I would like to say something more about this part of my previous reply:

I would, however, hasten to add that the fault of this confusion was not Aristotle's, but rather that he did the best that he could, and possibly made some mistakes along the way; such as saying, or at least implying, that even an arrow being shot from a bow has final causation, the final causation of (implicitly) having a purpose to hit the target.

There is some debate that Aristotle was not trying to say that the arrow had final causation (i.e. a purpose) but rather that the man releasing the arrow via a bow has the purpose. This would be an appropriate usage of "final cause" meaning very close to what we mean by the term "purpose." However, he also says that an acorn has the final cause of becoming an oak tree, even though we would certainly not say that the acorn has a purpose (i.e. an ambition) to become an oak tree; you know, like a young boy having the ambition to become like his father. The acorn has no awareness of what it is to become; it just becomes an oak tree (in the right conditions) because it is an acorn. The acorn does what it does because it is what it is.

Also, man is not the only living being with a consciousness. I think it is rather obvious that cats and dogs and other animals like these have a consciousness in the sense of being aware of existence, at least on the perceptual level. But I think they are not aware of their awareness (they don't know they have a consciousness, they are just aware of what they can perceive). How far "down" this goes in terms of the complexity of the animal (in terms of evolution), I don't know. I think bacterium don't have awareness, but I have played with some insects and spiders that seem to have some minimal level of awareness, though that would be difficult to define on that level.

So, from my understanding of biology, it is not as if we move from literal bio-bots to man, with no varying level of awareness in between. At least those animals which have large brains seem to easily be shown to have awareness (of their surroundings) and therefore have a consciousness.

Some people claim, though again this would be difficult to define, that animals like dogs and cats and monkeys have volitional choice on some minimal level. They cannot choose the content of their consciousness like man can, but they can choose, for example, to, say, chase after a ball when it is tossed or not chase after it. Pet owners make the claim all the time that their dog or cat chose to do this or that, but it is difficult to tell if they are anthropomorphizing or not without careful study. After all, people will curse out their computer or ask it why it did that, when things aren't going right.

In other words, the term bio-bot might not even apply to the "higher level" animals, let alone man. But this would require exacting study of those animals. When one considers that a lot of scientists fall for the idea of determinism and claim it applies to man, then I don't think they are capable, yet, to set up experiments in which one could differentiate chosen actions versus non-chosen actions for animals. That is, those scientists who claim that man has an instinct for building airplanes are certainly not going to make a claim that any "lower" animals have choices either.

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