There isn't really a 'freewill problem'.

[DBT]

Bluster and evasion.

ETA: My syllogism was composed entirely of plain English words. There were no technical, specialist or ambiguous terms. All words appear in any English dictionary. Stop blustering and answer the question I asked in post #1324

Nah, it was a fair complaint. I know that you were using 'plain English words' ....but plain English words may have multiple meanings depending on the context in which they are used.

Plain English words refer to something, ideas, concepts, objects, events, which is why if you are going to argue for a concept such as free will you need to define your terms and references.....which you asked of me but refuse the very same criteria when your turn comes.

When I pointed this out you accuse me of 'bluster and evasion' even while engaging with bluster and evasion.

A poor effort. I expected better.

Yet more bluster and evasion.

Yet another assertion.

Got to go. I am in Rome on holidays.

 

[Speakpigeon]

You believe that you have explained Emily Lake's post, but you have not. Emily Lake has not explained her own post satisfactorily.
<snip>
So thank you for you explanation, but it was not sufficient.

Okay, last orders!

To get a mind, you need a brain and something else.

Mind = Brain and Something Else.

Brain is necessary to Mind but not sufficient. To have mind, you need a brain but you also need something else.

And this just does not entail that Mind is independent of Brain.



The mind is dependent of the brain but it is also dependent on something else. A mind requires a brain but it also requires something else.

I don't know which of your logic or your English is wrong but one of them is.

And then maybe both.
Noddy

 

[Copernicus]

It seems to me that minds are an effect of brain activity. That is a rather vague way of describing the "something else" that we need besides a brain in order to get a mind, but not just any brain activity will suffice. I wouldn't know how to tell you exactly what kind would suffice, although I have some ideas.

 

[untermensche]

It seems to me that minds are an effect of brain activity. That is a rather vague way of describing the "something else" that we need besides a brain in order to get a mind, but not just any brain activity will suffice. I wouldn't know how to tell you exactly what kind would suffice, although I have some ideas.

Nobody has the slightest idea which activity it is that results in consciousness.

Consciousness is not known objectively by anyone.

 

[Emily Lake]

Emily Lake has not explained her own post satisfactorily.

Your failure to read completely does not imply that I have failed to explain satisfactorily.

I admit that I may be wrong on this, but Emily Lake is arguing for free will and has said some odd things like saying that consciousness is will, that it is all will, which is demonstrable nonsense. Sense experience is not will, for example.

Again with the reading! Your understanding of what I have said is quite flawed. At this point I'm inclined to lean less toward a failure to communicate on my part, and lean more toward a failure to comprehend on yours.

- - - Updated - - -

Holy Shit...that was the point. I know that you meant that something else was needed. After all that is what ''not sufficient'' clearly means, and this was the very thing I was questioning.

This should not have been hard to understand

And since this seems so incredibly difficult for you to grasp, despite many repeated examples, I'll try this again: The brain needs to be alive and has to be sufficiently function and has to have the appropriate cerebral cortex or whatever-the-fuck part of the brain is responsible for consciousness and self-awareness and has to have the part of the brain that exhibits rational directed thought and has to have the capacity for reason in some form or other and has to have a functioning part that accepts sensory input and translated that input appropriately.

The difficulty in understanding lies in your inability to grasp that I was questioning the very thing you say and mean, as you say that '''something else is also necessary''

That ''something else is also necessary'' being the point of contention.

I genuinely don't think you've even bothered to read what you've quoted.

 

[Emily Lake]

I could not make sense of some of the things you said about causation and probability. For example, I have no idea why you think that "2+3" always equals "5", since it doesn't. It conventionally equals "5", but conventions can be violated.

Um... no. The immutability of mathematical relationships between numeric systems is a cornerstone of science across the board. There may exist some modes under which the name of the sum of 2 and 3 is different than the name given in a base 10 mode... but it's literally only a matter of transformation - the value is identical. There is no mode under which 2+3 equals anything other than 5.

Causation is a relationship between events, not facts or symbolic expressions. Probability is about countable events.

Probability is about uncertainty of the result of a relationship. Determinism is about the certainty of the result of a relationship. Both assume causality.

Human behavior is predictable, but that doesn't mean that we can always successfully predict it. You can predict the behavior of a deterministic chaotic system, but only if you know its initial conditions, the principles that govern simple interactions in it, and you run a simulation of the system. (I assume that you understand how cellular automata work.)

Which is totally why the application of chaos theory to a roulette wheel results in only an 18% odds rate rather than 100%...
I don't know what cellular automata are, nor how they work. What's your point, and how does it apply here?

Also, you should totally be able to predict the stock market - you should get on that.

Well, you should know that I don't have to be able to predict the stock market in order for it to be predictable in principle. You are familiar with chaos theory, aren't you?

I know bits of chaos theory, I'm far from expert. I do know that modeling complexity and applying chaos theory can improve the predictability of a system. It's faith that says "if we only knew enough we'd be able to predict perfectly". That belief that knowing enough is possible, as well as the belief that complex systems are perfectly deterministic is an assumption, not a fact.

 

[Emily Lake]

It seems to me that minds are an effect of brain activity. That is a rather vague way of describing the "something else" that we need besides a brain in order to get a mind, but not just any brain activity will suffice. I wouldn't know how to tell you exactly what kind would suffice, although I have some ideas.

You know, I really thought I'd already said that. Will, consciousness, agency, mind... whatever you want to name it, is not JUST the brain - it's a process running ON the brain. Brain alone is insufficient (but necessary!) for the existence of a mind. You can't have that process without a brain, because it is (literally!) dependent on the brain. That's why the term "necessary" invalidates DMB's strawman that my post implied that the mind is independent of the brain. But a brain without that process does NOT have a mind.

That mind - that consciousness, reasoning and decision-making capability, that agency - is what *most* normal people are referring to when they use the term "will". And when they use the term "free will" they mean that such agency is not coerced or predetermined by a magical sky daddy.

 

[bilby]

One might argue that Negroes have brains but not minds, and indeed that argument has been made, to dreadful effect.

The fact remains that we cannot know whether other humans, much less crocodiles or insects are self aware; All we can do is guess, and use our estimation of how similar they are to us as a crude guide to how likely it is that they are self aware. It seems to me unlikely, but certainly not impossible, that all functioning brains imply self awareness. Indeed, any complex system might conceivably be self aware - How could we possibly detect this if it exists, or demonstrate its absence if it does not? If a crocodile, or a tree, or an insect, or a computer, or even a rock was self aware, how could we ever know?

There are at least a few examples on this discussion board of brains that do not demonstrate a convincing capacity for reason. We assume that they do have the capacity for thought, and for self-awareness. But that's just presumption, and is offered only because they are superficially very similar to ourselves.

That's an argument that stretches any reasonable and common-sense understanding.

Not at all. It's an answer that challenges the unreasonable 'common-sense' approach to understanding reality; We KNOW that 'common-sense' is often a very poor guide to reality. And if you want to have a reasonable debate about minds, first you need a reliable way to describe them, or even detect them. I can detect exactly one; All the others are just guesswork.

 

[untermensche]

And this just does not entail that Mind is independent of Brain....

For a mind to influence a brain it must NOT be independent of it. It must have intimate contact with it.

 

[Speakpigeon]

It seems to me that minds are an effect of brain activity. That is a rather vague way of describing the "something else" that we need besides a brain in order to get a mind, but not just any brain activity will suffice. I wouldn't know how to tell you exactly what kind would suffice, although I have some ideas.

In my experience, literally, minds can be very minimal affairs in some extreme cases. To me, a mind may not even include necessarily any information about the body (outside the brain itself), about the physical world outside, nor any information, memories, about the social biography of the individual. I'm not sure how minimal it could get and how many different ways there are about getting to be minimal, but I experienced at least one of them and I remember it.

We also routinely experience sleep, which is, outside periods of dreaming, a kind of minimal mental state. Presumably, we retain a mind during sleep and we don't even remember anything about it when we wake up. What it is our mind does, I have no idea, but I suspect it does something useful, i.e. functional.

As to the something else, I suspect you could keep a functional brain in a jar, so technically a brain should be enough. But you would also need the jar, and the lab, and the mad scientist. So, I would still say that a brain is not sufficient because the rest of the universe, or at least some kind of universe, is probably also necessary.

That's not just any little something.
EB

 

[Copernicus]

...As to the something else, I suspect you could keep a functional brain in a jar, so technically a brain should be enough. But you would also need the jar, and the lab, and the mad scientist. So, I would still say that a brain is not sufficient because the rest of the universe, or at least some kind of universe, is probably also necessary...

"
Yes, the brain-in-jar conundrum is often brought up in these discussions, but we all ought to realize that the body is exactly that--a "jar" that hosts a brain. Indeed, the brain extends everywhere into the body, when you consider that the peripheral nervous system is really the outer extension of the central nervous system.

 

[DBT]

You believe that you have explained Emily Lake's post, but you have not. Emily Lake has not explained her own post satisfactorily.
<snip>
So thank you for you explanation, but it was not sufficient.

Okay, last orders!

To get a mind, you need a brain and something else.

Mind = Brain and Something Else.

Brain is necessary to Mind but not sufficient. To have mind, you need a brain but you also need something else.

And this just does not entail that Mind is independent of Brain.

You need brain activity. You need a brain that acquires and processes information. Nothing more is necessary. The brain is the sole agent of generating mind.

That is the point.

What Emily Lake said - ''a person is a set of experiences, patterns, and processes that act upon a body'' was wrong.

Saying that a person as a ''set of experiences, patterns, and processes that acts upon a body'' implies independence.

There is no separation between a person and the brain activity that is forming the experience of being a person.

The experience of being a person is brain activity. The person does not act upon the brain.

The mind is dependent of the brain but it is also dependent on something else. A mind requires a brain but it also requires something else.

I don't know which of your logic or your English is wrong but one of them is.

And then maybe both.
Noddy

No, it's you. It's your conceit and arrogance. You cannot see the implications of the wording of Emily Lakes post....as described above.

The brain does need something else, but this something else is not ''a person as a set of experiences, patterns, and processes that acts upon a body'' - the something else being information feed via the senses, which is processed and used to form new experiences of the world and self......if you can see the distinction.

I doubt it though,

 

[DBT]

Your failure to read completely does not imply that I have failed to explain satisfactorily.

In your opinion. I have pointed out your erroneous assumption, including your failure to grasp the fact that I understood the implications of your 'not sufficient' comment even though you did not.

Again with the reading! Your understanding of what I have said is quite flawed. At this point I'm inclined to lean less toward a failure to communicate on my part, and lean more toward a failure to comprehend on yours.

Your wording is clear. The problem is that you fail to understand the implications of your wording because you appear to have a poor understanding of the subject matter.

I genuinely don't think you've even bothered to read what you've quoted.

Perhaps you should brush up on neuroscience and change your wording so that it does not imply more than what is supported by research and evidence.

Mind is brain activity. A person as a ''set of experiences, patterns, and processes'' does not ''act upon a body'' - the brain acts upon the body according to condition (neural architecture) and information acquired via the senses.

That is where your wording goes wrong, with perhaps unintended implications. But then, you are arguing for free will.....

 

[Emily Lake]

What Emily Lake said - ''a person is a set of experiences, patterns, and processes that act upon a body'' was wrong.

Saying that a person as a ''set of experiences, patterns, and processes that acts upon a body'' implies independence.

You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

The brain does need something else, but this something else is not ''a person as a set of experiences, patterns, and processes that acts upon a body'' - the something else being information feed via the senses, which is processed and used to form new experiences of the world and self......if you can see the distinction.

Do you realize that the whole bit about a person being a set of experiences, patterns, and processes that acts upon a body was part of an analogy about the difference between a BODY and a PERSON, and did not, in fact, have anything to do with the discussion of mind? It was an analogy.

 

[Emily Lake]

In your opinion. I have pointed out your erroneous assumption, including your failure to grasp the fact that I understood the implications of your 'not sufficient' comment even though you did not.



Your wording is clear. The problem is that you fail to understand the implications of your wording because you appear to have a poor understanding of the subject matter.

I genuinely don't think you've even bothered to read what you've quoted.

Perhaps you should brush up on neuroscience and change your wording so that it does not imply more than what is supported by research and evidence.

Mind is brain activity. A person as a ''set of experiences, patterns, and processes'' does not ''act upon a body'' - the brain acts upon the body according to condition (neural architecture) and information acquired via the senses.

That is where your wording goes wrong, with perhaps unintended implications. But then, you are arguing for free will.....

First off, you clearly do NOT understand that "not sufficient" doesn't in any fashion imply independence. In fact, the phrase "necessary" implies dependence.

Secondly, my wording is clear but your ability to understand it seems to be lacking... see item one above. Even though I've re-explained it again and again and again, you refuse to move beyond your initial misinterpretation, and you cling to your incorrect understanding of what the terms mean. In fact, you've avoided repeatedly addressing any of the follow-up explanations that I've provided and you keep returning to your initial position. Seriously - do you have me on ignore? Is that why you are sidestepping every single clarification and correction that I've provided?

And thirdly, again, the ANALOGY of Person versus Body was just that - an analogy. You keep misusing it.

 

[DBT]

What Emily Lake said - ''a person is a set of experiences, patterns, and processes that act upon a body'' was wrong.

Saying that a person as a ''set of experiences, patterns, and processes that acts upon a body'' implies independence.

You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

For heavens sake, the word means what it means. We all know what the word means. As you worded your post, that a 'person as a set of experiences, patterns, and processes acts upon a body,'' something that acts upon something else is a distinct from the thing that it acts upon, maybe you mean the brain itself has duality, the person and the part it acts upon.

Any way you look at it, it is wrong.

Do you realize that the whole bit about a person being a set of experiences, patterns, and processes that acts upon a body was part of an analogy about the difference between a BODY and a PERSON, and did not, in fact, have anything to do with the discussion of mind? It was an analogy.

A person is physically composed of body, brain and mind. Parts of the body may be lost, limbs, etc, but this doesn't alter what is the essentials of body/brain/mind.

Mind is an activity of the brain and is in no way separate from it. The mind does not act upon the brain. It is the brain that is forming mind through acquisition of information, processing, conscious mental representation, etc.

 

[DBT]

In your opinion. I have pointed out your erroneous assumption, including your failure to grasp the fact that I understood the implications of your 'not sufficient' comment even though you did not.



Your wording is clear. The problem is that you fail to understand the implications of your wording because you appear to have a poor understanding of the subject matter.

I genuinely don't think you've even bothered to read what you've quoted.

Perhaps you should brush up on neuroscience and change your wording so that it does not imply more than what is supported by research and evidence.

Mind is brain activity. A person as a ''set of experiences, patterns, and processes'' does not ''act upon a body'' - the brain acts upon the body according to condition (neural architecture) and information acquired via the senses.

That is where your wording goes wrong, with perhaps unintended implications. But then, you are arguing for free will.....

First off, you clearly do NOT understand that "not sufficient" doesn't in any fashion imply independence. In fact, the phrase "necessary" implies dependence.

Sure, 'not sufficient' doesn't necessarily mean independence. We all know that. The meaning depends on the context it is being used.

Taken in isolation is one thing, context is another.

It being your other remarks that set the tone or the context that strongly suggests something distinct or autonomous, the person, etc, is acting upon the body, which presumably implies brain because the brain is an inseparable part of the body.....the legs, for example do not 'act upon the body' the arms do not 'act upon the body' the eyes do not 'act upon the body' ( the brain may sense pain in the limbs or other body parts, which may effect the system as a whole) etc, etc....so how can it be said that a 'person' acts upon the body without implying that a 'person' is somehow different from the body?

That is the problem. Context is the problem.

Secondly, my wording is clear but your ability to understand it seems to be lacking... see item one above. Even though I've re-explained it again and again and again, you refuse to move beyond your initial misinterpretation, and you cling to your incorrect understanding of what the terms mean. In fact, you've avoided repeatedly addressing any of the follow-up explanations that I've provided and you keep returning to your initial position. Seriously - do you have me on ignore? Is that why you are sidestepping every single clarification and correction that I've provided?

And thirdly, again, the ANALOGY of Person versus Body was just that - an analogy. You keep misusing it.

No, you think you have explained it, you believe that you have explained it, but you have not explained it.

You'd be better off just saying that your wording could have been better, that you didn't mean to imply that a person is able to act upon the body when in fact it is the brain that creates the person and acts upon the body accordingly.

That being the distinction you have been missing from the start.

 

[Emily Lake]

No, you think you have explained it, you believe that you have explained it, but you have not explained it.

You'd be better off just saying that your wording could have been better, that you didn't mean to imply that a person is able to act upon the body when in fact it is the brain that creates the person and acts upon the body accordingly.

That being the distinction you have been missing from the start.

Okay, I'm done here. I've explained it, and re-explained it in several different ways, then reiterated several explanations, then tried different ways to explain it, then pointed out that you were conflating two different things, then re-explained a re-explanation. I don't think it's possible to explain this in a way that you will accept. Regardless of how understandable it might be, you have rejected the entire concept in preference to the framework you have chosen... a framework that includes multiple very specific custom-built definitions, by the way.

As much as I've enjoyed this discussion with you, I do not think that any rational common ground is possible.

 

[Speakpigeon]

As much as I've enjoyed this discussion with you, I do not think that any rational common ground is possible.

That took you some time.
EB

 

[untermensche]

You cannot reason with a person who has no objective knowledge of consciousness yet claims to know what it is capable of doing.