Consciousness

[bilby]

All logical arguments are falsifiable. That's the nature of the beast.

Yes a hand full in the Netherlands, Germany, the US east, west, north, and south hands, in GB, in China, Russia, Japan, Australia. OMG, hand fulls everywhere.

Chatter exists on effects on law and law enforcement, on human nature,. Eyup no effect on anything that matters in the world. Not.

Accused are overly punished or not punished at all because of uncertainty about those charged and the crimes committed.

So the research is vital to minimizing error and maximizing sanctions to only those actually responsible for crimes.

Oh, I caused you to have a hair ball. Sorry.

You are so full of shit.

Nobody believes this. Except a handful of people who's careers depend on it.

The world operates as if humans have free will.

The world also operates as if gods might exist.

Societies don't need to have a perfect understanding of reality; they just go with what works well enough to survive.

All you are demonstrating here is that it isn't rapidly fatal for a society to act as though people had free will. That says exactly nothing about whether or not people actually do have free will.

People act as though Newtonian mechanics was a perfect description of the physical world. They act as though the world was flat (have you ever seen a spirit level?).

Reality is not that easy to discern. If it were, the ancient Egyptians would have had supercomputers to predict the weather and would have used GPS satellites to accurately position their buildings.

 

[beero1000]

You are so full of shit.

Nobody believes this. Except a handful of people who's careers depend on it.

The world operates as if humans have free will.

The world also operates as if gods might exist.

Societies don't need to have a perfect understanding of reality; they just go with what works well enough to survive.

All you are demonstrating here is that it isn't rapidly fatal for a society to act as though people had free will. That says exactly nothing about whether or not people actually do have free will.

People act as though Newtonian mechanics was a perfect description of the physical world. They act as though the world was flat (have you ever seen a spirit level?).

Reality is not that easy to discern. If it were, the ancient Egyptians would have had supercomputers to predict the weather and would have used GPS satellites to accurately position their buildings.

He's a cargo cultist. It all makes sense now...

 

[untermensche]

You are so full of shit.

Nobody believes this. Except a handful of people who's careers depend on it.

The world operates as if humans have free will.

The world also operates as if gods might exist.

There is continual evidence in our lives of free will.

The only real evidence we have available to us.

Nobody operates as if they are not in control.

Nobody sits and hopes their brain gets some food.

 

[bilby]

The world also operates as if gods might exist.

There is continual evidence in our lives of free will.

Oh, good; You won't have any trouble presenting us with some then.

The only real evidence we have available to us.

Great; Please, just post this real evidence, and then we can all agree with you and close the thread.

Nobody operates as if they are not in control.

Indeed. But then, if they were not able to operate any other way than how they do, there would be no difference in appearances, so that's not actually evidence of anything. Lots of systems that we generally presume are NOT conscious, act as though they had free will. Tornadoes and hurricanes act that way; They are unpredicatable and appear capricious. Lots of people over the years have invented Gods in an attempt to explain why natural phenomena appear to act as though they had free will.

All we can say for sure about the appearance of free will is that human beings are predisposed to see it even in situations where it cannot possibly be present. Just as we are predisposed to see faces in inanimate objects.

Nobody sits and hopes their brain gets some food.

Nobody is suggesting that they should; it would be a trait that rapidly went extinct if it were to arise - regardless of whether free will is, or is not, a real phenomenon.

Now, you were saying that you have 'continual evidence' and 'real evidence'; so I am wondering why you are instead presenting a blatantly fallacious straw-man instead.

 

[fromderinside]

All you request has been asked before. Yet, without evidence untermenche keeps up his tweet storms.

Denial was a very important name for a river setting in place information free sayer's ancient mantra de nile, de nile, de nile folling down to the sea.

 

[untermensche]

There is continual evidence in our lives of free will.

Oh, good; You won't have any trouble presenting us with some then.

I decide to move my arm and then I move it.

I decide I will take a walk at six and then I take it.

I decide I will take a trip to New England in the Fall and I book it.

What more evidence do you think is available?

What evidence do you think exists that shows these are not free decisions?

Where is the force?

Not stories of force. Evidence.

 

[bilby]

Oh, good; You won't have any trouble presenting us with some then.

I decide to move my arm and then I move it.

I decide I will take a walk at six and then I take it.

I decide I will take a trip to New England in the Fall and I book it.

What more evidence do you think is available?

What evidence do you think exists that shows these are not free decisions?

Where is the force?

Not stories of force. Evidence.

Your observations are equally consistent with free will being an illusion generated after the fact.

Your arguments may seem compelling to you, but to me they sound like this:







Your incredulity and inability to understand the reality of the situation (sustained by your rejection of the actual science as 'absurd', or even non-existent, despite your having no contrary evidence other than your incredulity, and despite having been provided with links to papers outlining the underlying neuroscience) is simply not compelling.

Why should I take you any more seriously than I take these similarly scientific arguments for a flat Earth?

 

[DBT]

Oh, good; You won't have any trouble presenting us with some then.

I decide to move my arm and then I move it.

I decide I will take a walk at six and then I take it.

I decide I will take a trip to New England in the Fall and I book it.

What more evidence do you think is available?

What evidence do you think exists that shows these are not free decisions?

Where is the force?

Not stories of force. Evidence.

You pathologically ignore the means by which your experience of conscious agency is achieved......a hint; not by you the conscious self. Your sense of conscious agency falls apart if or when the actual agent of consciousness malfunctions, which of course is the brain itself.

 

[DBT]

First of all it is a handful of people.

Not true....on the contrary, autonomy of consciousness is not even an issue being raised by anyone except a small percentage of eccentrics trying to support their own brand of new age philosophy.

 

[untermensche]

I decide to move my arm and then I move it.

I decide I will take a walk at six and then I take it.

I decide I will take a trip to New England in the Fall and I book it.

What more evidence do you think is available?

What evidence do you think exists that shows these are not free decisions?

Where is the force?

Not stories of force. Evidence.

Your observations are equally consistent with free will being an illusion generated after the fact.

So you tell me a story of imaginary force anyway.

That is some wild speculation with NO evidence to support it.

Nothing would lead a thinking person to that conclusion.

- - - Updated - - -

I decide to move my arm and then I move it.

I decide I will take a walk at six and then I take it.

I decide I will take a trip to New England in the Fall and I book it.

What more evidence do you think is available?

What evidence do you think exists that shows these are not free decisions?

Where is the force?

Not stories of force. Evidence.

You pathologically ignore the means by which your experience of conscious agency is achieved......a hint; not by you the conscious self. Your sense of conscious agency falls apart if or when the actual agent of consciousness malfunctions, which of course is the brain itself.

You have no idea by which method conscious agency is achieved.

You know NOTHING about it.

Your empty claims about it defy any sense.

 

[bilby]

Your observations are equally consistent with free will being an illusion generated after the fact.

So you tell me a story of imaginary force anyway.

I haven't mentioned 'force' at all. You appear to be becoming even less rational.

That is some wild speculation with NO evidence to support it.

Then stop doing it.

Nothing would lead a thinking person to that conclusion.

Except the evidence.

Perhaps you should try the scientific method? It's a surprisingly effective methodology for finding the truth without being blinded by your opinions and biases.

All hypotheses that are not ruled out by observation are possible. None should be dismissed, until evidence is found that shows them to be in contradiction with reality.

Not even if they make you very unhappy.

 

[untermensche]

Nothing would lead a thinking person to that conclusion.

Except the evidence.

There is NO evidence the decisions we make are really made by the brain somehow and the brain tricks us into thinking we are making the decision ourselves.

That is a fanciful tale with NO evidence to support it.

 

[bilby]

Except the evidence.

There is NO evidence the decisions we make are really made by the brain somehow and the brain tricks us into thinking we are making the decision ourselves.

That is a fanciful tale with NO evidence to support it.

Perhaps you should try the scientific method? It's a surprisingly effective methodology for finding the truth without being blinded by your opinions and biases.

All hypotheses that are not ruled out by observation are possible. None should be dismissed, until evidence is found that shows them to be in contradiction with reality.

Not even if they make you very unhappy.

 

[DBT]

I decide to move my arm and then I move it.

I decide I will take a walk at six and then I take it.

I decide I will take a trip to New England in the Fall and I book it.

What more evidence do you think is available?

What evidence do you think exists that shows these are not free decisions?

Where is the force?

Not stories of force. Evidence.

You pathologically ignore the means by which your experience of conscious agency is achieved......a hint; not by you the conscious self. Your sense of conscious agency falls apart if or when the actual agent of consciousness malfunctions, which of course is the brain itself.

You have no idea by which method conscious agency is achieved.

You know NOTHING about it.

Your empty claims about it defy any sense.

I said nothing about method. You are avoiding the point, not to mention the sequence of cognition. I said the brain. I said brain is the agent of gathering information via the senses and representing some of this information in conscious form, initiating response, etc, precisely how this is done is irrelevant, only that it does (nor is it true that nothing is understood). The rest is just your mantra. Which applies to you rather than your opponents.

 

[untermensche]

The method is EVERYTHING!

How consciousness is achieved is EVERYTHING!

Where it happens is trivial.

And only knowing where it happens tells you nothing about the nature of the activity.

 

[fromderinside]

Agreed.

Agreed

If the above two are correct then where it happens, to whom it happens, and when it happens is also everything.

Where it happens in a material world where everything has place and direction is critical.

RU arguing consciousness is not consequent of material processes? If you believe so you are three thousand years out of date.

 

[untermensche]

Agreed.

Agreed

If the above two are correct then where it happens, to whom it happens, and when it happens is also everything.

Where it happens in a material world where everything has place and direction is critical.

RU arguing consciousness is not consequent of material processes? If you believe so you are three thousand years out of date.

If some activity creates an effect it doesn't matter where the activity takes place.

So only knowing where it is happening is to know nothing.

 

[DBT]

The method is EVERYTHING!

How consciousness is achieved is EVERYTHING!

Where it happens is trivial.

And only knowing where it happens tells you nothing about the nature of the activity.

BS. You may not understand how your computer performs all of its functions, but it is still clear from what you do know that it is your computer that's performing its functions and not some autonomous agent running the show.

You just like to pretend that nothing is known, therefore your autonomous consciousness notion is the truth because that's how you happen to see it, therefore you know and everyone who disagrees is wrong and fall into your ''we know nothing category'' except of course you.....while maintaining the logical absurdity of your position in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

 

[untermensche]

The method is EVERYTHING!

How consciousness is achieved is EVERYTHING!

Where it happens is trivial.

And only knowing where it happens tells you nothing about the nature of the activity.

BS. You may not understand how your computer performs all of its functions, but it is still clear from what you do know that it is your computer that's performing its functions and not some autonomous agent running the show.

Every part of a computer is designed. What every part is doing is known.

But a computer without an active human consciousness is just a box that sits and does nothing.

 

[fromderinside]

Well it is a computer and we don't know if it is plugged in or turned on. Since it was manufactured on an automated assembly line it may have been equipped with an operating system and programs that come up when it's sensors or responders are stimulated. So being a computer it is probably doing something. We don't know precisely what it is doing right now any more than we know what a human is doing right now.

I'd say the ordinary human knows about as much about computers and she does about humans.

You certainly aren't going to ask us to detail the life of a computer any more than you would ask a researcher to detail the life of a human to determine function. To the average person the computer and human are equally understood. So when you say computers are designed by man you might as well say humans are designed by fitness. Consciousness is irrelevant to either's status relating to what we know.

Again, flat on your face untermenche.