Determinism And Rationality.

[Tassman]

Except that pdf file is accessible to anyone, it is public, or can be. The image of my mother is not.

The image of your mother in your brain is accessible in principle to anyone, given that neuroscience is increasingly able to locate and read thoughts and process images in the brain. You have yet to address this point.

Why would your position make more sense?

You keep bringing up the computer as an example, but that is the rational (us) creating the rational (the computer). I see no good reason to believe that non-rational forces that don't care about or aim for truth or rationality somehow cobbled together creatures that do. Heck we have never seen the forces of nature whip together a simple working abacus, no matter how much time you give it.

Well heck, WE are the evolutionary result of the

[seer]

So? The computer could easily be designed so that its memory is not accessible to anyone.

I have no idea what you mean.

Given that the brain is a product of evolution, there is no reason to expect such a separation. It's not like a human design where we modularize and compartmentalize everything.

So it really isn't like the human brain after all.

It's more parsimonious.

Why? Again why would millions of happy little accidents be more parsimonious than a single rational Creator?

No, nature doesn't design the way humans do. Humans usually have a purpose in mind for the design, and are aiming for a particular result. We use some trial and error, especially for particularly complex designs, but we try to minimize that in order to save time and effort. Nature is all trial and error.

Once you accept that we are a product of evolution, it isn't really hard to believe that our rationality is, too. Just look at the animals around us, with a range of abilities with regard to perceiving our environment and anticipating future events. Having one animal be "best" at that is not really much different than having one animal be "best" at running, another being "best" at swimming, another being "best" at reproducing, etc.

Again, you are assuming that "nature did it." The very things you referenced, the abilities of animals and humans, are the very things that need to be explained. In the end we have two choices like I said, a million or billion, happy little accidents driven by forces that are blind to rationality, truth, logic and even survival. Or a single rational Creator. In any case thanks for the civil discussion. You may have the last word...

[seer]

Most of the decisions you make are non rational anyway, seer. Your brain is on autopilot most of the time. Remember that study, we've discussed it before, where the decision making process, the choices made, were made before you were actually conscious of the choice. That's an example of how the non-rational forces of nature can produce "what you would call" rational choices.

So you had no choice in writing the above? Then what makes you think what you wrote is rational? And if your brain chemicals caused you to write the above in what sense are chemicals rational?

[JimL]

So you had no choice in writing the above? Then what makes you think what you wrote is rational? And if your brain chemicals caused you to write the above in what sense are chemicals rational?

I didn't say that all of your choices are unconscious and what you would call "non rational", I said that most of them are. It's an example of how nature does what you claim it can't do. If you are driving down a familiar road for example, you might notice after a while that you haven't really been paying attention to your driving, you've been on autopilot, you've been thinking of other things. But that process can be overridden as well when say doing a difficult math problem or actually consciously thinking through a difficult problem.

[seer]

I didn't say that all of your choices are unconscious and what you would call "non rational", I said that most of them are. It's an example of how nature does what you claim it can't do. If you are driving down a familiar road for example, you might notice after a while that you haven't really been paying attention to your driving, you've been on autopilot, you've been thinking of other things. But that process can be overridden as well when say doing a difficult math problem or actually consciously thinking through a difficult problem.

Well the Libet experiment and the later Haynes study do not offer the override in the sense you speak of, all decisions are first decided in the subconscious. And what exactly is doing the overriding?

https://www.wired.com/2008/04/mind-decision/

[JimL]

Well the Libet experiment and the later Haynes study do not offer the override in the sense you speak of, all decisions are first decided in the subconscious. And what exactly is doing the overriding?

https://www.wired.com/2008/04/mind-decision/

What is doing the overiding is still in dispute among philosophers and scientists. I would suggest that it is the brain itself that is vetoing it's original and spontaneous or unconscious choices based upon other data not immediately available to it at the time of the original spontaneous choice. I think that the brain has two aspects to it, one being the immediate and unconscious cognitive response, an immediate and "possibly" unconscious choice is made, and the other being the thoughtful conscious cognitive response. In the one the brain is simply reactive, it's on autopilot, in the other the brain is thinking. Personally I believe that what we call consciousness is active to a degree in both cases, the brain is a conscious organ, it's just in a higher state of consciousness when faced with more difficult problems.

That's just my opinion of course, there is no evidence of a distinct and conscious agent, or homunculus, reacting to strictly physical data recieved of the brain. Such an idea is just a moving of the goal post so to speak in my opinion. If such an agent existed, then how would the mind of the distinct agent, the homunculus, or the ghost in the machine, function?

[Stoic]

Again, you are assuming that "nature did it." The very things you referenced, the abilities of animals and humans, are the very things that need to be explained. In the end we have two choices like I said, a million or billion, happy little accidents driven by forces that are blind to rationality, truth, logic and even survival. Or a single rational Creator. In any case thanks for the civil discussion. You may have the last word...

I don't see why the abilities of animals and humans have to be explained, but the abilities of a God do not.

I also appreciate the civil discussion, and for now I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

[JimL]

I don't see why the abilities of animals and humans have to be explained, but the abilities of a God do not.

I also appreciate the civil discussion, and for now I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Good point. Believers in a distinct agency, i.e. a mind distinct from a brain, can't even define what they mean by a mind distinct from the brain, or how such a thing works, in that sense. The brain according to them is just the container of information, the mind is a sort of distinct agency that processes that info. So what then is a mind in and of itself? How does it function? They've sometimes compared the brain with a computer, the store of info, and the agent operating that computer as the mind, but they fail to recognize that this agent operator of the computer must needs be a sort of computer itself.

[Tassman]

So you had no choice in writing the above? Then what makes you think what you wrote is rational? And if your brain chemicals caused you to write the above in what sense are chemicals rational?

[Tassman]

Good point. Believers in a distinct agency, i.e. a mind distinct from a brain, can't even define what they mean by a mind distinct from the brain, or how such a thing works, in that sense. The brain according to them is just the container of information, the mind is a sort of distinct agency that processes that info. So what then is a mind in and of itself? How does it function? They've sometimes compared the brain with a computer, the store of info, and the agent operating that computer as the mind, but they fail to recognize that this agent operator of the computer must needs be a sort of computer itself.

Indeed. But there is no reason to believe that the 'mind' is in any way separate or distinct from the physical activity of the brain. When the brain dies there is no evidence of a 'mind' lingering on as a separate entity. .

[seer]

Good point. Believers in a distinct agency, i.e. a mind distinct from a brain, can't even define what they mean by a mind distinct from the brain, or how such a thing works, in that sense. The brain according to them is just the container of information, the mind is a sort of distinct agency that processes that info. So what then is a mind in and of itself? How does it function? They've sometimes compared the brain with a computer, the store of info, and the agent operating that computer as the mind, but they fail to recognize that this agent operator of the computer must needs be a sort of computer itself.

No Jim, that is not necessarily the case. I hold to emergent dualism, the mind is an immaterial function of the brain, but can't be reduced to matter alone. And that immaterial mind (thoughts, beliefs, preferences...) can influence the physical brain. Perhaps emerging something like the magnetic field around a magnet.

[seer]

What is doing the overiding is still in dispute among philosophers and scientists. I would suggest that it is the brain itself that is vetoing it's original and spontaneous or unconscious choices based upon other data not immediately available to it at the time of the original spontaneous choice. I think that the brain has two aspects to it, one being the immediate and unconscious cognitive response, an immediate and "possibly" unconscious choice is made, and the other being the thoughtful conscious cognitive response. In the one the brain is simply reactive, it's on autopilot, in the other the brain is thinking. Personally I believe that what we call consciousness is active to a degree in both cases, the brain is a conscious organ, it's just in a higher state of consciousness when faced with more difficult problems.

So you believe in free thought and free will? Or is the above just more complicated determinism.

[mattbballman31]

I'm curious as to what you mean by "beliefs being ungrounded". If you mean simply that there are ultimately some beliefs that we have to accept without proof, I doubt that this is any less true without determinism.

Well, there's mediated and unmediated grounding, but both are rationally based. With determinism, you have states or events inside or outside the agent that are causally sufficient for the emergence of belief-states. This causal relation is non-rational. It's not sensitive to logical laws; it causally supervenes on nomological laws.

Computers, governed by the non-rational cause/effect relation, seem to be pretty good at representing the rational ground/consequent relation. So the fact that the two are not identical may not be particularly significant.

This has been addressed a lot in the literature. Computers have a 'derivative' rationality. Their rationality is derived from agents that constructed computer technology. The ground-consequent representation derives from the way that representation was technologically produced by rational agents.

Naturalism doesn't necessarily imply determinism, and determinism doesn't necessarily imply naturalism. But it is probably true that one who is willing to accept one of them is more likely to accept the other.

I think they imply each other. I don't agree with indeterministic theories of quantum mechanics. Can you give me someone who is a Naturalist and a Libertarian? That would help me.

[JimL]

No Jim, that is not necessarily the case. I hold to emergent dualism, the mind is an immaterial function of the brain, but can't be reduced to matter alone. And that immaterial mind (thoughts, beliefs, preferences...) can influence the physical brain. Perhaps emerging something like the magnetic field around a magnet.

So, do I read you correctly in that you believe the material creates an immaterial soul, an agency in its own right? Or what exactly do you mean by it "emerges"?

[seer]

So, do I read you correctly in that you believe the material creates an immaterial soul, an agency in its own right? Or what exactly do you mean by it "emerges"?

Let's say the immaterial mind for now. And of course your mind has agency, don't you believe your immaterial thoughts have influence? And by emergence I mean the mind is dependent on the physical brain, comes from the physical brain. At least for now.