Where Do Moral Questions Stop?

[seer]

Consciousness is all in the brain seer, that's been my view from the get-go. The consciousness of stage-fright is caused by sense data going into the brain and the brain processes that data which results in the experience of being in front of people. It is the brain processing that is always the proximate cause of behavior, since "brain causes mind" consciousness itself cannot cause anything. So there is no contradiction on my part.

It didn't sound like that: conscious awareness of certain tasks tends to make us perform worse.

That is was the actual conscious awareness that causes us to perform worse. So in reality, according to you, conscious awareness does nothing.

[The Thinker]

No Thinker, you can not tell us how/why brain chemicals that are non-rational, don't care about logic, reasoning, weighing evidence, rational deliberation give rise to these things. Or how non-conscious forces could give rise to consciousness - even in principle. To play the fallacy of division card tells us nothing. This is true especially in light of your epiphenomenalism where rational deliberation and consciousness are not necessary - FOR ANYTHING.

I can tell you that your view is incoherent and falsified by empirical data. And that means your view cannot be true, regardless of whether mine is. And so once again you make the fallacy of division by claiming it is impossible for non-rational things to produce something that's rational, when clearly given the fallacy of division, which you've made 12 times now, that is not the case. The individual components of a system do not have to have the same properties of the system. To criticize this is to contradict your own view that "brain causes mind".

[The Thinker]

It didn't sound like that: conscious awareness of certain tasks tends to make us perform worse.

That is was the actual conscious awareness that causes us to perform worse. So in reality, according to you, conscious awareness does nothing.

Neither does it according to you since you wrote, "I believe the brain causes the mind".

But hey, consistency has never been your strong point.

[seer]

I can tell you that your view is incoherent and falsified by empirical data. And that means your view cannot be true, regardless of whether mine is. And so once again you make the fallacy of division by claiming it is impossible for non-rational things to produce something that's rational, when clearly given the fallacy of division, which you've made 12 times now, that is not the case. The individual components of a system do not have to have the same properties of the system. To criticize this is to contradict your own view that "brain causes mind".

Yes, but you can not show that the fallacy of division would even apply here. That chemicals could do more than chemicals do. What properties do a thousand chemicals have that twenty don't? Especially when it comes to something so foreign to their make up like consciousness.

[seer]

Neither does it according to you since you wrote, "I believe the brain causes the mind".

But hey, consistency has never been your strong point.

Yes Thinker but I also made clear that rational deliberation play a real role in the process. And it seems that Jichard and atheist like Dan Dennett agree.

[Tassman]

What? I have said little about LFW, mostly when others bring it up. I have mostly been arguing with Thinker that our rational thoughts and deliberations having a causal role in the process. It is an argument for or against epiphenomenalism.

Your position throughout has been to support libertarian free will, do you deny this? Do you not

[Tassman]

Yes so you take it by faith that nature magically did these things... OK...

NO credible evidence supporting supernatural or spiritual explanations...ancient myths and unsupported anecdotal evidence can be readily discounted.

[seer]

Your position throughout has been to support libertarian free will, do you deny this? Do you not

No, of course I believe in LFW, and no, I did not quote mine, that is false charge. But the main argument with Thinker is about the role of conscious thought and rational deliberation in the process. And the universe is not deterministic Tass, it is indeterministic.

[seer]

There is considerable evidence supporting the position that everything arises from natural properties and causes; there's NO credible evidence supporting supernatural or spiritual explanations...ancient myths and unsupported anecdotal evidence can be readily discounted.

Yes of course, "nature did it" yet you have no idea why or how non- rational, and non-conscious chemicals could give rise to rational self awareness. You just take it by faith.

[Tassman]

No, of course I believe in LFW, and no, I did not quote mine, that is false charge. But the main argument with Thinker is about the role of conscious thought and rational deliberation in the process. And the universe is not deterministic Tass, it is indeterministic.

The bottom line, whether a hard determinist or a compatibilist, is that libertarian free will is logically incoherent.

[Tassman]

Yes of course, "nature did it" yet you have no idea why or how non- rational, and non-conscious chemicals could give rise to rational self awareness. You just take it by faith.

[Jichard]

Yes of course, "nature did it" yet you have no idea why or how non- rational, and non-conscious chemicals could give rise to rational self awareness. You just take it by faith.

You commit the fallacy of division, once again. Your statement is a ridiculous as saying:

You have no idea why or how non-car materials could give rise to a car. You just take it by faith.

Tires, metal, and other non-car materials need not be a car in order to form a car. Similarly, chemicals need not be rational, conscious, and self-aware in order for those chemicals to make up a rational, conscious, self-aware organism. To say otherwise is to commit the fallacy of division, where you claim that for a whole to have a property, the parts must have that property as well. No less than 3 people have told you that you're committing this fallacy, yet you persist in committing the fallacy anyway. Seriously, seer, your use of this fallacy is getting old.

[seer]

You commit the fallacy of division, once again. Your statement is a ridiculous as saying:

You have no idea why or how non-car materials could give rise to a car. You just take it by faith.

Tires, metal, and other non-car materials need not be a car in order to form a car. Similarly, chemicals need not be rational, conscious, and self-aware in order for those chemicals to make up a rational, conscious, self-aware organism. To say otherwise is to commit the fallacy of division, where you claim that for a whole to have a property, the parts must have that property as well. No less than 3 people have told you that you're committing this fallacy, yet you persist in committing the fallacy anyway. Seriously, seer, your use of this fallacy is getting old.

More nonsense, We do know why and how non-car materials give rise to a car. It is called intelligent design. Crying fallacy tells us nothing about how non-conscious, not-rational forces gave rise to consciousness and rationality. Gave rise to things not inherent to their nature. There is no quality in the car parts or the car as a whole that is not intrinsic to their nature.

[Jichard]

More nonsense, We do know why and how non-car materials give rise to a car. It is called intelligent design.

And we know how non-living material give rise to living organisms; it's not intelligent design. Similarly, we know that non-conscious stuff does not give rise to consciousness via intelligent design.

Crying fallacy tells us nothing about how non-conscious, not-rational forces gave rise to consciousness and rationality.

Pointing out the fallacy helps correct the silly fallacy you're engaged in.

By they way: you're a dishonest quote-miner. This is because, for example, you previously quote-mined David Chalmers, even though Chalmers is a naturalist who offers an account of how consciousness would arise from non-conscious parts. Of course, you leave this out in your dishonest quote-mines of Chalmers, so you can pretend that no such account exists.

Gave rise to things not inherent to their nature. There is no quality in the car parts or the car as a whole that is not intrinsic to their nature.

Ridiculous claim. The parts of the car don't have the property of being a car, but those parts make up something that has the property of being a car. Similarly, the chemical parts that make up a human don't have the properties of being conscious or being rational, but those chemicals make up something that has the properties of being rational and being conscious. You think otherwise, because you habitually engaged in the fallacy of division.

Your comments about "their nature" do nothing to change this, seer; you're simply stringing to together words that you don't understand. The parts of the car don't have the property of being a car as apart of their nature. But that doesn't nothing to change the fact that those parts can make up a whole that has the property of being a car. I mean, seriously, are you advocating the absurd position that parts can only give rise to properties, when those properties are inherent in the nature of the parts? Because that would be an incredibly silly claim to make. By that logic, for example, a single cell cannot give rise to a multicellular organism, unless being a multicellular organism was inherent in the nature of being a single cell. But that's silly because being a multiceullar organism is not inherent in the nature of being a single cell. After all, if feature Y is inherent in the nature of X, then that means X cannot be X without having feature Y; that's literally follows from what a "nature" is [the nature of X, is specificies by listing the conditions jointly necessary and sufficient for being X; this is known as essentialism]. Yet a single cell can be a single cell, regardless of whether that single cell has the feature of being a multicellular organism. So being a multicellular organism is not inherit the nature of being a single cell, even though a single cell can give rise to a whole that has the property of being a multicellular organism.

So, seer, your claims made no sense. You're just using phrases you've heard (like "inherent to their nature"), while having no idea what those phrases mean.

[Jichard]

No, I have arguing that conscious thoughts and deliberations play a causal role, something that you, Thinker, and Jim L seem to deny. But it seems that Jichard agrees with me.

Heavens no, I don't agree with you. You think consciousness is some magical, non-natural thing that plays a causal role in the natural world. Hence your substance dualism. Since that's what you mean by consciousness, I don't agree with you when you claim that "conscious thoughts and deliberations play a causal role". In contrast, I take consciousness to be a natural thing that plays a causal role in the world, just like other natural things, such as rocks. So you don't actually agree with me, until you drop your substance dualism and admit that consciousness is a natural phenomenon.

Thinker, Jim, and Tassman likely disagree with you, because when you talk about consciousness, you're talking about some magical, non-natural thing, that you think causally influences that brain. Thinker, Jim and Tassman are unlikely to agree with you that such a thing has causal effects. However, if you were to accept that consciousness is a natural state had by the brain, then I think they'd be much more willing to agree that consciousness has effects, since they're likely open to the brain's states having causal effects.