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View Poll Results: A human being is...
...bio-automation, organic machinery. 1 14.29%
...sumthin’ more than bio-automation, not only organic machinery. 6 85.71%
Voters: 7. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 10-12-2019, 09:41 AM   #76
henry quirk
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“it "feels" like we're in control”

Cuz mebbe we are.

#

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

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

As Flint sez: “We're not designed to understand it, and we never will.” If this is the case, then I choose (with good reason, I think) to see human beings as sumthin’ ‘more’ instead of ‘less’.
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Old 10-12-2019, 12:40 PM   #77
henry quirk
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please, note the poll

votes are anonymous: you can vote honestly

me: I say we’re sumthin’ more
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Old 10-12-2019, 01:04 PM   #78
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That poll is kinda like the American political system, reality is unrepresented.
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Old 10-12-2019, 01:40 PM   #79
henry quirk
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If you have a third option, one you think is more ‘realistic’, please, offer it up.
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Old 10-12-2019, 02:00 PM   #80
Flint
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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!
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terry Bozzio
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Old 10-12-2019, 02:14 PM   #81
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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?

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Old 10-12-2019, 02:46 PM   #82
henry quirk
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“Third option is what I've been saying. We have free will to make a prescribed set of choices from a limited set of options that we were designed for.”

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

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

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

#

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

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

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

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









*’free will’ is one of those ‘Rorschach tests’: folks tend to overlay themselves on the topic, even as they claim to be adherin’ to ‘fact’. In my experience: pro-free will folks skew toward capability, self-direction, and self-responsibility; their experience of themselves in the world is that they’re autonomous (even in constraining circumstances [especially in constraining circumstances]) and that they exercise control (over themselves, if nuthin’ else). Anti-free willers (includin’ those who see free will as ‘prescribed’ tend to, in my experience, skew in the opposite direction.
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Old 10-12-2019, 02:52 PM   #83
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“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.
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Old 10-12-2019, 02:56 PM   #84
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Your body weighs exactly the same dead or alive.

So the something else is weightless or imaginary?
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Old 10-12-2019, 03:12 PM   #85
sexobon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by henry quirk View Post
… 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:

Quote:
Signature

I am not trapped. I am mentally free !!!
My destiny is yet to be
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Old 10-12-2019, 04:14 PM   #86
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ya don't have to bring the entire universe into this
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Old 10-12-2019, 04:41 PM   #87
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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.
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Old 10-12-2019, 05:45 PM   #88
henry quirk
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Smile

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

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

#

“So the something else is weightless or imaginary?”

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

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

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

Call it nondeterministic (not random or limited or prescribed!) computation, if you like (I don’t).
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Old 10-13-2019, 01:24 AM   #89
Flint
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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"
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There's a level of facility that everyone needs to accomplish, and from there
it's a matter of deciding for yourself how important ultra-facility is to your
expression. ... I found, like Joseph Campbell said, if you just follow whatever
gives you a little joy or excitement or awe, then you're on the right track.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terry Bozzio

Last edited by Flint; 10-13-2019 at 01:41 AM.
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Old 10-13-2019, 10:22 AM   #90
henry quirk
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“This is tedious.”

Yes, it is.

#

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

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

#

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

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

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

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

#

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

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

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

#

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

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

#

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

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

#

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

Agreed. Agent causation is wholly natural.

#

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

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

#

“THEREFORE, what is free will?”

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