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Humans really don't know what they're doing?

By brain I guess you mean any part of the brain involved in processing whatever information is being processed. Agency isn't the right word since the operator, the element making the 'decision', isn't doing anything other than a response to the nature of the input which is determined by other processes antecedent to that part one may be pointing to which is evolved for such processing.

IOW to your yada, yada, yada, I return some of my yada.
 
When anything is some invented value then you get that for which you asked.

Behavior is no more than behavior. Let the description suffice.

That some person needs to invent some rational for saying or doing is socially meaningful only in that it provides value relative to the one doing believing that one is doing for something. That we do so suggests both the need for believing and the need for acting and believing in the acting. That does not make why what one believes what one does real nor can it ever be quantified by one.

We can quantify social behavior. We already have the answer one behaves socially for sustained position or advantage in a group. We need not explain why one believes why one does it in a given situation for to do so would be inventing imaginary motives in a fictional dance.

After all if what one believes what one does is actually useful it would be measurable. But there you go. Many a false belief has lead to being deceased. No one is finding any consistent belief as measurable. Gollee.

Aren't you thankful you've finally found the reason no one has the slightest idea why one does what one does. We figured this out over the 1500 years before the formal advent of a useful scientific method. Things have been going great guns in the 500 years since.

Yet you remain mired in your proclamations of false premises.
 
An acting mind that swirls with ideas in language and picks and chooses which ideas to accept and which to reject is displaying behavior.

That is true.
 
Out comes the mantra. :rolleyes:

You mean I point out the same error you make over and over.

What is brain agency and how does it work?

Correction; what you claim is an error. Your claim is wrong. You are wrong for the reasons that have been pointed out too many times to count.
''What is brain agency and how does it work?''

That's been explained too many times to count, and ignored each and every time. Basically, that the brain is the sole agent of mind formation. That it is the brain that forms and generates mind as an evolved function.

The nature of the mind being expressed by a brain being determined by many factors; brain architecture, condition, state, inputs, memory, etc....all of which has been explained before, and persistently ignored or dismissed regardless of the volume of evidence being provided.

There you go, another thing to dismiss because it doesn't suit your own unfounded belief in an autonomous mind, an homunculus, something that was dismissed ages ago.
 
An acting mind that swirls with ideas in language and picks and chooses which ideas to accept and which to reject is displaying behavior.
That is true.

If you say so. It's just that we have no anchors tying down swirls, language, ideas, rules of negotiation, etc. We just assert them to make a case for something that has no real basis as material evidence.
 
We have an innate internal grammar that ties down language and with it ideas.

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That's been explained too many times to count, and ignored each and every time.

That is a lie.

You have no idea what brain agency is.

No less mind agency.

You cannot explain why the brain does what it does. You have no idea what motivates a brain to do anything.

You merely assume the brain is motivating everything.

With an active mind that does not know it has power over the brain.
 
We have an innate internal grammar that ties down language and with it ideas.

... and there's another anchorless assertion. Bloviating by a blowhard isn't evidence no matter how well they wrote their bloviations. YKWIM

For instance occupying abandoned or new niches after disasters do not make evolution punctate. Underlying rates still apply regardless of whether constraining factors are released or no. Entropy remains the same in the overall system. Molecular accident probabilities remain the same. As a result evolution is always ongoing it is never static.

Also there are always fewer niches, matter of thermodynamics, following catastrophic evolutionary events than there were before. The damn planet is cooling for christ's sake. Your and their swoons in the direction of some Dean Drive of evolution is sheer lunacy.

BTW Innate grammar is pseudo science. There in no known mechanism to go from molecule to grammar when grammar is only a post hoc construct for those who are trying to do top down science. It's fiction.
 
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We have an innate internal grammar that ties down language and with it ideas.

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That's been explained too many times to count, and ignored each and every time.

That is a lie.

You have no idea what brain agency is.

No less mind agency.

You cannot explain why the brain does what it does. You have no idea what motivates a brain to do anything.

You merely assume the brain is motivating everything.

With an active mind that does not know it has power over the brain.

I have described brain agency. Instead of actually responding to what I describe about brain agency, sometimes with quotes and links that support what I describe, you simple repeat your mantra. A poor effort.
 
I have described brain agency.

No you have not.

You have not explained why the brain does one thing.

We know the brain responds to stimuli.

We do not know why it turns that stimuli into an experience for a mind.

You have merely claimed over and over the mind has no agency.

You have demonstrated nothing.

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We have an innate internal grammar that ties down language and with it ideas.

... and there's another anchorless assertion...

We couldn't be doing this without one.
 
And....out comes the Mantra. Right on cue. Doesn't miss a beat. :rolleyes:

Yes my mantra is you have demonstrated nothing.

Because my mantra is the truth.

Your mantra is based on a fantasy, your homunculus idea. Where is your evidence for an autonomous mind?

The basics;

''Neurons communicate using both electrical and chemical signals.

Sensory stimuli are converted to electrical signals.

Action potentials are electrical signals carried along neurons.

Synapses are chemical or electrical junctions that allow electrical signals to pass from neurons to other cells.

Electrical signals in muscles cause contraction and movement.

Changes in the amount of activity at a synapse can enhance or reduce its function.

Communication between neurons is strengthened or weakened by an individual's activities, such as exercise, stress, and drug use.

All perceptions, thoughts, and behaviors result from combinations of signals among neurons.

Genetically determined circuits are the foundation of the nervous system.

Neuronal circuits are formed by genetic programs during embryonic development and modified through interactions with the internal and external environment.

Sensory circuits (sight, touch, hearing, smell, taste) bring information to the nervous system, whereas motor circuits send information to muscles and glands.

The simplest circuit is a reflex, in which sensory stimulus directly triggers an immediate motor response.

Complex responses occur when the brain integrates information from many brain circuits to generate a response.

Simple and complex interactions among neurons take place on time scales ranging from milliseconds to months.

The brain is organized to recognize sensations, initiate behaviors, and store and access memories that can last a lifetime.''
 
And....out comes the Mantra. Right on cue. Doesn't miss a beat. :rolleyes:

Yes my mantra is you have demonstrated nothing.

Because my mantra is the truth.

Your mantra is based on a fantasy, your homunculus idea. Where is your evidence for an autonomous mind?

I've shown you several time that is an ignorant use of the word "homunculus" yet you persist in using it.

My evidence is you have to believe the experiences you are having you are really having.

When you want to make a point you have to use your mind actively to search for or come up with the right ideas. That is an active process.

''Neurons communicate using both electrical and chemical signals.

Not necessarily exclusively.

Sensory stimuli are converted to electrical signals.

The stimulus for red is converted into the experience of red.

But the stimulus has nothing to do with red.

So a creation has occurred.

Red has been created. It is not something out in the world to experience.

It is only experienced with a mind. And it needs something to create it before a mind can experience it.
 
Not necessarily exclusively.

Maybe you should explain what you mean....and provide backup?

What are all the quantum effects occurring with all this chemical and electrical activity?

The blood is moving.

Is that important? How do you know?

You're talking about something you have no idea what it is.

The mind.
 
And....out comes the Mantra. Right on cue. Doesn't miss a beat. :rolleyes:

Yes my mantra is you have demonstrated nothing.

Because my mantra is the truth.

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Things that are self evident

View attachment 15851

Ah, Zeno.

What are you mumbling about?

What is self evident?

Some experience you are having?

Dots. untermenche intransigence Zeno ridiculo One's actuality is the other's lesson. Learn. Whatever is impossible isn't.
 
Not necessarily exclusively.

Maybe you should explain what you mean....and provide backup?

What are all the quantum effects occurring with all this chemical and electrical activity?

The blood is moving.

Is that important? How do you know?

You're talking about something you have no idea what it is.

The mind.


That's no explanation. Just more hand waving. Quantum activity is universal, it is present in all types of brains/species, etc. It is not the quantum substructure that determines the form an function of a brain and behavioural output but neural architecture and environment. You need to do better than that.
 
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Just because you can't answer something doesn't make it hand waving.

I asked about the quantum effects arising due to all the other activity.

And of course you have no idea. Nobody does.

But it is very possible that quantum effects have something to do with the phenomena of the active experiencing mind.
 
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