Free will and the power to do good

[tonyrey]

Thank you for confirming you believe we are who (and what) we are because we are made by

Because a product of biological **processes **is another biological process! How can it be anything more than that? And a process functions entirely according to biological laws.

You’re so attached to the concept of an immaterial soul that floats into the body at conception and out of it at death that any denial of this undetectable entity seems to you to be a denial of the person.

“floats” is a physical term which demonstrates your inability to conceive of intangible realities like truth, goodness, freedom or purpose. Can you detect yourself? If so tell us where you are located. How do you differentiate it from your body?

My scheme of things does not deny the agency of persons - it merely recognises that personhood is in all likelihood a property of complex arrangements of matter and energy such as humans, not something that merely inhabits a human body whilst remaining fundamentally separate from it.

A property is not an entity nor is it intelligible how it can be a conscious agent.

It makes absolutely no sense to say that because the decisions that influence my behaviour are made in the form of biochemical impulses in my brain, these are somehow not ‘my’ decisions.

It makes absolutely no sense to say* tout court that biochemical impulses are decisions*.**

 

[tonyrey]

So that would make a person guiltless.Right?

Right!

 

[valentino]

You’re quite right that I don’t acknowledge any God in the sense of God being a ‘higher’, supernatural entity. I understand God quite differently, as I do spirituality. I don’t see the pursuit of spirituality as being in any way an attempt to escape or separate ourselves from the reality of physical existence, but to accept and embrace it and achieve a deeper understanding and appreciation of it. The way it was explained to me was that spirituality is a quest for the true nature or essence of what we are - kind of like alcoholic spirits are purer, stronger forms of liquids from which they are distilled.

This is why I find it unhelpful and distracting to seek for the truth of who and what I am somewhere outside my existence as part of this world. Certainly no person’s thoughts are generated entirely in his or her own mind - we are social animals, and subject to all manner of influences from outside our own brains and bodies. As for there being something good in all people, I do think - sociopaths and psychopaths aside - the vast majority of people have the innate capacity for love, compassion, and empathy, amongst other good things - it’s just that some people have these capacities destroyed by their experience of life in this world. It’s up to those of us who know these capacities first-hand to share them with others as much as possible.

My opinion in this regard is largely summed up by an early 20th-century quotation from Emma Goldman (an atheist and political anarchist) - “Beauty, as a gift from heaven, has proved useless. It will, however, become the essence and impetus of life when man learns to see in the earth the only heaven fit for man.”

I thank you for your open and honest opinion.However I don’t think that spirituality is a quest for our true nature,not to a Catholic that is.Since i believe in Jesus I don’t believe in Him because I quest to know my true essence.I believe in Him because of what He said and Did.I believe in His psychology.His teachings on how men can live together in peace and love.No philospher had ever taught or even understood such a philosophy.

 

[Sair]

Because a product of biological **processes **is another biological process! How can it be anything more than that? And a process functions entirely according to biological laws.

So…remind me what it is that you or any other person does that violates any physical law?

“floats” is a physical term which demonstrates your inability to conceive of intangible realities like truth, goodness, freedom or purpose.

These ‘intangible’ realities, as you call them, exist as relationships between tangible, physical things. A concept like truth is meaningless if not applied to the physical processes of perceiving, processing and storing information about something. Same goes for goodness - a particular action or state of affairs may be deemed good, only insofar as these things have perceptible positive effects upon actual, physical beings. Yes, I agree that ‘floats’ is a physical term. Name me a nonphysical term for actually doing anything! What about the verb ‘to be’, to exist - is not this intuitively associated with some manner of physical existence?

Can you detect yourself? If so tell us where you are located. How do you differentiate it from your body?

My self exists as a perception in my conscious awareness, which is a product of the physiological structure of my brain and nervous system. The whole point is, I don’t differentiate ‘me’ from my body. I don’t consider my self as some fundamentally different kind of entity that somehow inhabits (another term for a fundamentally physical action) my body, but obviously in a nonphysical way…

A property is not an entity nor is it intelligible how it can be a conscious agent.

A property is a characteristic or quality of an entity - a feature. Of course it’s not the property of conscious awareness in itself that constitutes the agent - the agent is the thing that possesses the quality of consciousness. In the same way, when we refer to a substance or an object as a conductor, for example, we are not referring to the property of conductivity qua property, but the thing itself which conducts electricity.

It makes absolutely no sense to say* tout court that biochemical impulses are decisions*.**

Then what are decisions? How would you describe them in nonphysical terms? A decision is simply a motivation or impetus for action of which we are consciously aware.

 

[Sair]

I thank you for your open and honest opinion.However I don’t think that spirituality is a quest for our true nature,not to a Catholic that is.Since i believe in Jesus I don’t believe in Him because I quest to know my true essence.I believe in Him because of what He said and Did.I believe in His psychology.His teachings on how men can live together in peace and love.No philospher had ever taught or even understood such a philosophy.

I certainly wouldn’t expect any Catholic to share my views on God and spirituality! As for the teaching of Jesus, he was a Jewish apocalyptic preacher living at a time of political upheaval in a place that was a hotbed of religious diversity, a melting pot of ideas. Much as the essence of his message has come down to us as one of loving community, it’s difficult to find any real consistency in the actual sources for his teachings.

I can understand how people can respect the teaching of Jesus as a philosophy to live by. Assuming he actually existed, he was a person who clearly had the courage of his convictions, and there is a lot to value in his reported words. There is also a lot that is confusing and inappropriate in a non-apocalyptic context. Be that as it may, if Jesus were considered primarily a philosopher, and not a supernatural being with apparent magical powers, Christianity and Catholicism in particular would be vastly different to what they have become. I, for example, value the philosophy of Epicurus, who also stressed the importance of friendship and community and lived what he taught - but I don’t worship him as a god.

 

[tonyrey]

Because a product of biological processes is another biological process! How can it be anything more than that? And a process functions **entirely **

No one violates a physical law. We transcend and control them - as the success of science demonstrates.

“floats” is a physical term which demonstrates your inability to conceive of intangible realities like truth, goodness, freedom or purpose.

These ‘intangible’ realities, as you call them, exist as relationships between tangible, physical things. A concept like truth is meaningless if not applied to the physical processes of perceiving, processing and storing information about something. Same goes for goodness - a particular action or state of affairs may be deemed good, only insofar as these things have perceptible positive effects upon actual, physical beings.
Yes, I agree that ‘floats’ is a physical term. Name me a nonphysical term for actually doing anything! What about the verb ‘to be’, to exist - is not this intuitively associated with some manner of physical existence?

Metaphysical, logical, mathematical and moral truths exist independently of physical existence. Abstract reasoning, choosing and decision-making are non-physical terms.

Can you detect yourself? If so tell us where you are located. How do you differentiate it from your body?

My self exists as a perception in my conscious awareness, which is a product of the physiological structure of my brain and nervous system.

Your self is a mental construct based on your stream of consciousness.

The whole point is, I don’t differentiate ‘me’ from my body. I don’t consider my self as some fundamentally different kind of entity that somehow inhabits (another term for a fundamentally physical action) my body, but obviously in a nonphysical way…

In that case “you” don’t exist as an intangible entity. You’re not entitled to say “my body” because your body doesn’t belong to anyone. It exists all by itself in “splendid” isolation!

A property is not an entity nor is it intelligible how it can be a conscious agent.

A property is a characteristic or quality of an entity - a feature. Of course it’s not the property of conscious awareness in itself that constitutes the agent - the agent is the thing that possesses the quality of consciousness. In the same way, when we refer to a substance or an object as a conductor, for example, we are not referring to the property of conductivity qua property, but the thing itself which conducts electricity.

Your analogy beautifully highlights the flaw in your argument. Consciousness is no more the electricity in the brain than conductivity is electricity - or vice-versa.

It makes absolutely no sense to say tout court that biochemical impulses are decisions.

Then what are decisions? How would you describe them in nonphysical terms? A decision is simply a motivation or impetus for action of which we are consciously aware.

A motivation is a factor which precedes a decision. When we make - or take - a decision we “make up our mind”. In other words we are capable of a creative act which has no physical causes because we are the cause. Unlike animals or inanimate objects we are capable of self-control and self-determination. Otherwise the legal presumption that we are normally responsible for our actions is nonsense…

 

[valentino]

I certainly wouldn’t expect any Catholic to share my views on God and spirituality! As for the teaching of Jesus, he was a Jewish apocalyptic preacher living at a time of political upheaval in a place that was a hotbed of religious diversity, a melting pot of ideas. Much as the essence of his message has come down to us as one of loving community, it’s difficult to find any real consistency in the actual sources for his teachings.

I can understand how people can respect the teaching of Jesus as a philosophy to live by. Assuming he actually existed, he was a person who clearly had the courage of his convictions, and there is a lot to value in his reported words. There is also a lot that is confusing and inappropriate in a non-apocalyptic context. Be that as it may, if Jesus were considered primarily a philosopher, and not a supernatural being with apparent magical powers, Christianity and Catholicism in particular would be vastly different to what they have become. I, for example, value the philosophy of Epicurus, who also stressed the importance of friendship and community and lived what he taught - but I don’t worship him as a god.

Don’t you believe Muhammad,Plato,or Aristotle existed?Don’t you believe you can trust any history of the past as reliable?

 

[Sair]

Don’t you believe Muhammad,Plato,or Aristotle existed?Don’t you believe you can trust any history of the past as reliable?

This seems an odd conclusion to draw from what I wrote. It actually makes little difference to the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle or even Epicurus that have come down to us, whether they actually existed as individuals or not - what is important is the content of the schools of thought attributed to them. There is some doubt as to whether someone like Socrates was actually a flesh-and-blood man or a literary creation. Does it matter to the content of what he is supposed to have said? Pretty much not. Where someone like Muhammad or Jesus is different in this regard is that the veracity of the religions they are claimed to have founded depends upon their actual existence, not merely as human beings, but as divine or semidivine beings with supernatural powers. For the record, I do assume that Jesus (or Joshua, or Yeshua) probably existed - but acknowledging his probable existence as a man doesn’t mean I must give credence to the divine gloss that later writers gave him.

 

[Sair]

No one violates a physical law. We transcend and control them - as the success of science demonstrates.

The success of science no more demonstrates an ability to ‘control’ physical laws than the success of powered flight in birds. That we have learned to harness physical laws to operate in ways beneficial to ourselves means simply that we can understand, to a certain extent, how reality operates. This is not transcendence - this is utility.

Metaphysical, logical, mathematical and moral truths exist independently of physical existence. Abstract reasoning, choosing and decision-making are non-physical terms.

Metaphysics seems to be largely an exercise in building castles in the air. How do logical and mathematical truths exist in the absence of certain physical states of being of which they are abstractions? What kind of moral truth exists in the absence of physical agents who make moral decisions and are affected by the actions of others? In what respects are abstract reasoning, choosing and decision-making non-physical? Where do they take place if not in the brain?

In that case “you” don’t exist as an intangible entity. You’re not entitled to say “my body” because your body doesn’t belong to anyone. It exists all by itself in “splendid” isolation!

Of course I don’t exist as an intangible entity! How could I? This observation merely reflects the evolution of language in a culture in which a dualistic interpretation of reality was assumed as a matter of course. It is still, however, legitimate to refer to any part of me as being mine, since there is little alternative. My body is under the control of my conscious and unconscious neural impulses - it is a self-directing entity, and therefore doesn’t need to ‘belong’ to anyone in the sense of being possessed by some entity other than itself.

Your analogy beautifully highlights the flaw in your argument. Consciousness is no more the electricity in the brain than conductivity is electricity - or vice-versa.

And I think your comment beautifully highlights that you kind of missed my point. You were saying that a property cannot be a conscious agent. I agreed, but with the proviso that when we refer to an agent, we are referring to the ‘thing’ that possesses the property of conscious awareness, not the property itself - as when we refer to a conductor, we refer to the thing that possesses the property of conductivity. Whatever consciousness actually is - whether it is, as I’ve seen suggested, some fundamental feature of matter that manifests as conscious awareness when matter is arranged in certain ways (just as conductivity is a manifestation of the electrical charge of all particles of matter, which manifests when said particles are arranged in certain ways) - the agent is the ‘thing’ that possesses consciousness, not the property of consciousness in and of itself. I don’t believe that one can isolate the consciousness from the agent; you, apparently, do.

A motivation is a factor which precedes a decision. When we make - or take - a decision we “make up our mind”. In other words we are capable of a creative act which has no physical causes because we are the cause. Unlike animals or inanimate objects we are capable of self-control and self-determination. Otherwise the legal presumption that we are normally responsible for our actions is nonsense…

No physical causes because we are the cause. Of course this statement looks problematic from my perspective, because we are physical beings. A decision is less a creative act and more a matter of one motivation prevailing over others. For example, I might be motivated to sleep, and at the same time be motivated to stay up writing. The decision happens when one of these motivating factors wins over the other, and I either stay up or I go to bed. There is a fair amount of neurological evidence to suggest that decisions, as such, are determined by the brain some microseconds before consciousness registers awareness of the decision.

The point of the article I linked to was to highlight the necessity of rethinking our approach to the legal assumption that we are responsible for our actions - that the justice system ought to be aimed at inducing people to behave in socially constructive and appropriate ways, rather than inflicting punishment or revenge for perceived wrongs committed. We still have to deal with individuals as agents, since when the biology of the brain directs a person’s actions, the person is still the origin of their own actions. It simply isn’t legitimate to excuse the person by blaming the brain, because the brain is fundamental to the person.

 

[valentino]

This seems an odd conclusion to draw from what I wrote. It actually makes little difference to the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle or even Epicurus that have come down to us, whether they actually existed as individuals or not - what is important is the content of the schools of thought attributed to them. There is some doubt as to whether someone like Socrates was actually a flesh-and-blood man or a literary creation. Does it matter to the content of what he is supposed to have said? Pretty much not. Where someone like Muhammad or Jesus is different in this regard is that the veracity of the religions they are claimed to have founded depends upon their actual existence, not merely as human beings, but as divine or semidivine beings with supernatural powers. For the record, I do assume that Jesus (or Joshua, or Yeshua) probably existed - but acknowledging his probable existence as a man doesn’t mean I must give credence to the divine gloss that later writers gave him.

It must make you feel very intelligent by referring to Jesus as Joshua or Yeshua.Or adding Epicurus to the names of philosophers.But you still answered the point.You refuse to believe any that has been pasted down as reality or truth.All truth is the truth of what we have developed and is present today.It does matter.You deny that Jesus is God and that Jesus said he was God.Well that’'s a big concession(there is so much said of Jesus even today)its only an absolute fool who would deny Jesus was an actual human person.But you are willing to believe that Jesus has been painted to be something greater than He actually was.

 

[Sair]

It must make you feel very intelligent by referring to Jesus as Joshua or Yeshua.Or adding Epicurus to the names of philosophers.But you still answered the point.You refuse to believe any that has been pasted down as reality or truth.All truth is the truth of what we have developed and is present today.It does matter.You deny that Jesus is God and that Jesus said he was God.Well that’'s a big concession(there is so much said of Jesus even today)its only an absolute fool who would deny Jesus was an actual human person.But you are willing to believe that Jesus has been painted to be something greater than He actually was.

I only used the probable Hebrew version of Jesus’s name because based on what I’ve read, it’s not all that likely that anyone would have called him ‘Jesus’ during his lifetime. And, no, it doesn’t make me feel particularly intelligent - it’s just a minor point of interest. I guess as a Catholic, it’s kind of obligatory for you to reject Epicurus as a philosopher, but he was one, just a surely as Plato and Aristotle were philosophers.

My ‘refusal to believe any that has been pasted down as reality or truth’ seems like a pretty extreme interpretation of what is actually a healthy scepticism of historical documentation. Jesus may well have said he was God (although assuming he was a devout Jew, it seems unlikely he would have said any such thing) but that’s not really a reason to believe it. Mohammed claimed to be Allah’s prophet, but somehow I doubt you believe that he was. Which is fine - neither do I - but my point was that you need to believe Jesus existed not only as a human man but as God, otherwise there is very little to the religion of Christianity that is not simply philosophy - and philosophy doesn’t depend for its force or legitimacy upon the historical identity of the philosopher.

 

[tonyrey]

The success of science no more demonstrates an ability to ‘control’ physical laws than the success of powered flight in birds.

We transcend physical laws by our insight and awareness of them. We are not blind puppets totally at their mercy. Birds use them **without knowing **how they are capable of flight and without inventing new ways of using physical energy.

Metaphysics seems to be largely an exercise in building castles in the air.

In that case materialism has no rational foundation.

How do logical and mathematical truths exist in the absence of certain physical states of being of which they are abstractions?

Our knowledge that there are physical states of being is the result of inference. Our primary data are intangible truths based on direct awareness of our thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Logical and mathematical truths exist in the mind but they are not created by the mind.

What kind of moral truth exists in the absence of physical agents who make moral decisions and are affected by the actions of others?

Moral decisions - or any other type of decision - are intangible and unknown to science.
A person is not necessarily a physical agent, i.e. a body. The distinguishing features of a person are an intellect and a will, neither of which are physical phenomena.
I

n what respects are abstract reasoning, choosing and decision-making non-physical? Where do they take place if not in the brain?

Nowhere! You are assuming **everything **has a physical location. Does a fact disappear if there is no one to be aware of it? If intangible facts don’t exist there is no such thing as knowledge…

Of course I don’t exist as an intangible entity!

If you don’t exist as intangible entity you don’t exist at all! There is only a body composed of atomic particles.

This observation merely reflects the evolution of language in a culture in which a dualistic interpretation of reality was assumed as a matter of course. It is still, however, legitimate to refer to any part of me as being mine, since there is little alternative.

It is not legitimate and there is an alternative: to admit that “mine” is a case of self-deception! The body has no owner - if only matter exists…

My body is under the control of my conscious and unconscious neural impulses - it is a self-directing entity, and therefore doesn’t need to ‘belong’ to anyone in the sense of being possessed by some entity other than itself.

To be more precise, the body which describes itself as “My body” is entirely controlled by neural impulses and therefore a cog in the machine of nature. How can it direct itself and infringe the laws of physics?

Whatever consciousness actually is - whether it is, as I’ve seen suggested, some fundamental feature of matter that manifests as conscious awareness when matter is arranged in certain ways (just as conductivity is a manifestation of the electrical charge of all particles of matter, which manifests when said particles are arranged in certain ways) - the agent is the ‘thing’ that possesses consciousness, not the property of consciousness in and of itself.

You assume the body is an agent but in your scheme of things it is a product. That fact alone implies that consciousness is no more than an illusion as far as the materialist is concerned. When matter is arranged in certain ways it produces hallucinations - of which consciousness is just another example. It is inconsistent to dispense with decisions, for example, and retain an intangible like consciousness. It would be more logical to go the whole hog, admit we are no more than particles arranged in certain ways and reject all reasoning as meaningless nonsense!

I might be motivated to sleep, and at the same time be motivated to stay up writing. The decision happens when one of these motivating factors wins over the other, and I either stay up or I go to bed.

In that case you are an impotent spectator of events lacking in will-power and not responsible in the slightest for your actions. You are indeed a biological machine! Initiative and creativity fly out of the window…

There is a fair amount of neurological evidence to suggest that decisions, as such, are determined by the brain some microseconds before consciousness registers awareness of the decision.

The time factor is irrelevant because the awareness of a decision need not be communicated to the brain at the precise instant that the decision is communicated to the brain. A person’s mind may not be fully made up when the decision is communicated to the brain. Very often a few seconds later a person does revoke a decision. The nature of consciousness is a mystery on which no firm conclusions can be based.

The point of the article I linked to was to highlight the necessity of rethinking our approach to the legal assumption that we are responsible for our actions - that the justice system ought to be aimed at inducing people to behave in socially constructive and appropriate ways, rather than inflicting punishment or revenge for perceived wrongs committed.

So you reject outright the legal assumption that we are responsible for our actions? And our thoughts and conclusions?

We still have to deal with individuals as agents, since when the biology of the brain directs a person’s actions, the person is still the origin of their own actions.

You are making an illegitimate distinction between “person” and “brain”, forgetting that
you have equated them.

It simply isn’t legitimate to excuse the person by blaming the brain, because the brain is fundamental to the person.

The brain is fundamental to many other living organisms but they are not blamed for what they do. Moreover you have abandoned the concept of responsibility…

 

[valentino]

I only used the probable Hebrew version of Jesus’s name because based on what I’ve read, it’s not all that likely that anyone would have called him ‘Jesus’ during his lifetime. And, no, it doesn’t make me feel particularly intelligent - it’s just a minor point of interest. I guess as a Catholic, it’s kind of obligatory for you to reject Epicurus as a philosopher, but he was one, just a surely as Plato and Aristotle were philosophers.

My ‘refusal to believe any that has been pasted down as reality or truth’ seems like a pretty extreme interpretation of what is actually a healthy scepticism of historical documentation. Jesus may well have said he was God (although assuming he was a devout Jew, it seems unlikely he would have said any such thing) but that’s not really a reason to believe it. Mohammed claimed to be Allah’s prophet, but somehow I doubt you believe that he was. Which is fine - neither do I - but my point was that you need to believe Jesus existed not only as a human man but as God, otherwise there is very little to the religion of Christianity that is not simply philosophy - and philosophy doesn’t depend for its force or legitimacy upon the historical identity of the philosopher.

Epicurus was a philosopher Ive never disputed that.You certainly have a right to scepticism.Everybody questions the validity of Jesus at one time or another before they actually accept Him.People don’t believe in Jesus merely because they hear about Him or someone tells them to believe.Jesus was a devout Jew but He was more than that.He was discussing Jewish laws and beliefs with the high priests of the temple at the age of ten and they marvelled at His knowledge and wisdom.Jesus knowledge didn’t come from reading alone.No one has ever proclaimed to be God with His extraordinary life to back it up.Pharoah,Kings,emperors,and others have proclaimed to be gods or God and many people listened to them.But they never proved to be God by their actions,lives,and their longevity in history.One has to read the bible with the intention of believing its true or at least believing in the possibility that it is true.Philosophy depends on how positive an effect it has on people.Bad philosophies die quick.Aristotle was a good philosopher who had read much of the previous philosophy that had come before him.

 

[Sair]

We transcend physical laws by our insight and awareness of them. We are not blind puppets totally at their mercy. Birds use them **without knowing **how they are capable of flight and without inventing new ways of using physical energy.

Awareness and manipulation do not amount to transcendence. I am aware of feeling pain, if I injure myself or if I am ill, but I can’t simply rise above the pain and convince myself it doesn’t exist. I can, however, find physical means to relieve the pain either by means of chemicals that shut off the pain receptors in my brain, or, if I were to be skilled in the art of self-hypnosis, by shutting off the pain receptors all by myself - one part of the brain controls and influences another.

In that case materialism has no rational foundation.

Metaphysics can have no rational foundation if it pays no attention to material reality.

Our knowledge that there are physical states of being is the result of inference. Our primary data are intangible truths based on direct awareness of our thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Logical and mathematical truths exist in the mind but they are not created by the mind.

Logical and mathematical truths are abstractions of relationships that exist between physical things. It’s not legitimate to say that they have any truth absent the physical realities to which they refer. What good is ‘truth’ if it has no relationship to reality? Our primary data are actually physical responses to physical stimuli - we call them our senses. The brain processes the information from the senses to create a picture of our external environment. We would have no such picture without the physical (name removed by moderator)ut.

Moral decisions - or any other type of decision - are intangible and unknown to science.

You might like to let psychologists and behavioural scientists know…

A person is not necessarily a physical agent, i.e. a body. The distinguishing features of a person are an intellect and a will, neither of which are physical phenomena.

Where do you think the intellect and the will come from? Is there some entity that generates them, or are they entities in their own right?

Nowhere! You are assuming **everything **has a physical location. Does a fact disappear if there is no one to be aware of it? If intangible facts don’t exist there is no such thing as knowledge…

You are, it seems, imagining a realm of ‘facts’ as items of knowledge about what exists, even if no-one exists to know them and nothing exists to which these ‘facts’ refer. If you’re claiming that there is some thing that exists without a physical existence, how would you perceive such a thing? What kind of existence does it have? Nothing exists nowhere…

If you don’t exist as intangible entity you don’t exist at all! There is only a body composed of atomic particles.

If I don’t exist as a tangible entity, I don’t exist at all. That body composed of atomic particles (and subatomic particles and quantum fluctuations) is all there is to me. How would it be otherwise? As for intangible physical entities, can you feel all those neutrinos flowing through you? Physicists can detect them because of their non-zero mass and their gravitational interactions with other particles. Are these tangible or intangible? And if there’s an entity less tangible - in the sense of being detectable through any physical means whatsoever - than a neutrino, what possible influence could it have?

It is not legitimate and there is an alternative: to admit that “mine” is a case of self-deception! The body has no owner - if only matter exists…

Does a chair own its legs? You don’t seem to realise that I have a fundamentally different concept of self to the dualistic one. If I am not my physical body, if my self is not composed of physical substance and its interaction with other physical substance, then what am I? What can we possibly know about nonphysical existence, if there is any such?

To be more precise, the body which describes itself as “My body” is entirely controlled by neural impulses and therefore a cog in the machine of nature. How can it direct itself and infringe the laws of physics?

In what sense does a self-directing entity infringe the laws of physics? You claim you don’t consider any animal to be a biological machine…yet you consider the physical cosmos itself to be a machine?

 

[Sair]

You assume the body is an agent but in your scheme of things it is a product. That fact alone implies that consciousness is no more than an illusion as far as the materialist is concerned. When matter is arranged in certain ways it produces hallucinations - of which consciousness is just another example. It is inconsistent to dispense with decisions, for example, and retain an intangible like consciousness. It would be more logical to go the whole hog, admit we are no more than particles arranged in certain ways and reject all reasoning as meaningless nonsense!

Perhaps so, if we knew everything there was to know about physical substance and its limitations. We don’t - therefore recourse to any ‘nonphysical’ something-or-other is rather premature. As I’ve said before, you are setting limits that we don’t actually know exist. “Physical matter can’t…” Well, we don’t know everything that it can, let alone what it absolutely can’t. What you seem to want to do is shut down the search before all your illusions are undermined. There is no actual reason to abandon the notion of free will - assuming we understand it as a process of cause and effect, rather than completely random activity - even if we do suppose that it is an entirely physical phenomenon. The point is, if it’s not a physical phenomenon, how would we, as physical beings, ever know anything about it? Far from rejecting reasoning, I am placing it in its proper context - without physical cause and effect, reasoning would have no basis whatsoever.

In that case you are an impotent spectator of events lacking in will-power and not responsible in the slightest for your actions. You are indeed a biological machine! Initiative and creativity fly out of the window…

Your ‘impotent spectator’ is an entity in which I do not believe. You seem to be constructing your arguments from the point of view of a spectator in relation to your own physical body - if that is the case, with what do you observe your body?

The time factor is irrelevant because the awareness of a decision need not be communicated to the brain at the precise instant that the decision is communicated to the brain. A person’s mind may not be fully made up when the decision is communicated to the brain. Very often a few seconds later a person does revoke a decision. The nature of consciousness is a mystery on which no firm conclusions can be based.

Yet you are trying to base firm conclusions upon it! Everything you’ve written thus far assumes that you understand the nature of consciousness as something that is fundamentally nonphysical. You’ve yet to articulate what you mean by this, but it’s clear you consider the mind as an entity in itself, separate to the physical substance of the brain. How could you possibly know this?

So you reject outright the legal assumption that we are responsible for our actions? And our thoughts and conclusions?

Certainly I reject the notion that we are completely responsible for our thoughts - even Catholics reject that notion. Thoughts can come unbidden to the mind, and what matters is whether we entertain them or act upon them, as I recall. As for the legal notion of responsibility, as I said, the article I referenced claimed that it was beside to point to apportion blame between the person and the biology of their brain - the two are inseparable. Consider the serial killer who was violently abused as a child - are they responsible for their actions? No-one told them to murder multiple people, yet they were acting upon seemingly irresistible neural impulses. Are they to blame? After all, no-one else committed the actions for which they are being held culpable. What is to be done to such a person? Are they to be punished or rehabilitated? The answer to the latter depends entirely upon your concept of free will and self-control.

You are making an illegitimate distinction between “person” and “brain”, forgetting that you have equated them.

I haven’t made any distinction - merely pointed out the ridiculousness of the notion that the person and the brain (and the rest of the body) are distinct entities.

The brain is fundamental to many other living organisms but they are not blamed for what they do. Moreover you have abandoned the concept of responsibility…

Not at all. Every person is responsible, in the sense of having the potential to self-direct. Most other animals are not blamed for what they do, primarily because of anthropocentrism - the belief that only humans are self-aware, are bodies directed by immaterial souls (although in the middle ages, other animals were tried for witchcraft, curiously enough - by the Catholic church). Again, the point of the article was to point out that our approach to criminality and culpability and punishment is misguided and ineffective, because, for the most part, we’ve got it wrong - people are more complex by far than the standard dualist narrative would suggest.

 

[Sair]

Epicurus was a philosopher Ive never disputed that.

Apologies if I misinterpreted - you seemed to be implying that by recognising Epicurus as a philosopher, I was making an unwarranted leap of faith.

You certainly have a right to scepticism.Everybody questions the validity of Jesus at one time or another before they actually accept Him.People don’t believe in Jesus merely because they hear about Him or someone tells them to believe.

And yet there is a burgeoning movement called Atheists For Jesus that recognises that Jesus had valuable teachings to contribute regardless of whether he was a god or a supernatural being or not. I don’t reject Jesus out of hand just because I was brought up Catholic and have a desire to rebel - I have actually thought about what is valuable and what is worthless as regards Christian teaching in general.

Jesus was a devout Jew but He was more than that.He was discussing Jewish laws and beliefs with the high priests of the temple at the age of ten and they marvelled at His knowledge and wisdom.Jesus knowledge didn’t come from reading alone.No one has ever proclaimed to be God with His extraordinary life to back it up.

Except that it’s not a foregone conclusion that Jesus proclaimed he was God at all! The notion of divine or semidivine human beings is largely a pagan notion. The Gospels were written by authors who wanted to appeal to the religious melting pot that was the Middle East and the Mediterranean in the first century BCE. In a sense, they had to tap into all the possible points of appeal that other religions had in order to gain followers. Although, to be fair, the Gospel writers probably didn’t approach it in such a coldly market-driven manner. It’s quite likely they wholeheartedly believed in what they wrote. But by the same token, it’s probable that their views of Jesus were influenced by the diverse religious culture that surrounded them.

Pharoah,Kings,emperors,and others have proclaimed to be gods or God and many people listened to them.But they never proved to be God by their actions,lives,and their longevity in history.

I don’t think it’s fair to say that Jesus proved his claim to be God either by his reported actions or by the longevity of the religion he apparently founded. Much has been written of him, which is understandable in the case of a highly influential preacher and teacher. However, Christianity gained an almost immeasurable advantage by being adopted by a Roman emperor and thus spread over the territory controlled by Rome. The embryonic stage of the spread of Christianity may well have been influenced by its internal philosophy, but its later spread was almost certainly a function of its role as a state religion, thrust upon countries that came under Roman control.

One has to read the bible with the intention of believing its true or at least believing in the possibility that it is true.Philosophy depends on how positive an effect it has on people.Bad philosophies die quick.Aristotle was a good philosopher who had read much of the previous philosophy that had come before him.

If one has to read any document with the intention of believing its truth in order to believe it to be true, that speaks to a failing on the part of the document in terms of historical veracity. I would be inclined to be sceptical of the notion that bad philosophies die out quickly - we are social animals, and cumulative ‘wisdom’ bears great weight amongst us. What’s more, the materially rich and powerful wield an inordinate influence over the popular conception of reality - one only has to look at the example of capitalism to know this is true…

 

[valentino]

Apologies if I misinterpreted - you seemed to be implying that by recognising Epicurus as a philosopher, I was making an unwarranted leap of faith.

And yet there is a burgeoning movement called Atheists For Jesus that recognises that Jesus had valuable teachings to contribute regardless of whether he was a god or a supernatural being or not. I don’t reject Jesus out of hand just because I was brought up Catholic and have a desire to rebel - I have actually thought about what is valuable and what is worthless as regards Christian teaching in general.

Except that it’s not a foregone conclusion that Jesus proclaimed he was God at all! The notion of divine or semidivine human beings is largely a pagan notion. The Gospels were written by authors who wanted to appeal to the religious melting pot that was the Middle East and the Mediterranean in the first century BCE. In a sense, they had to tap into all the possible points of appeal that other religions had in order to gain followers. Although, to be fair, the Gospel writers probably didn’t approach it in such a coldly market-driven manner. It’s quite likely they wholeheartedly believed in what they wrote. But by the same token, it’s probable that their views of Jesus were influenced by the diverse religious culture that surrounded them.

I don’t think it’s fair to say that Jesus proved his claim to be God either by his reported actions or by the longevity of the religion he apparently founded. Much has been written of him, which is understandable in the case of a highly influential preacher and teacher. However, Christianity gained an almost immeasurable advantage by being adopted by a Roman emperor and thus spread over the territory controlled by Rome. The embryonic stage of the spread of Christianity may well have been influenced by its internal philosophy, but its later spread was almost certainly a function of its role as a state religion, thrust upon countries that came under Roman control.

If one has to read any document with the intention of believing its truth in order to believe it to be true, that speaks to a failing on the part of the document in terms of historical veracity. I would be inclined to be sceptical of the notion that bad philosophies die out quickly - we are social animals, and cumulative ‘wisdom’ bears great weight amongst us. What’s more, the materially rich and powerful wield an inordinate influence over the popular conception of reality - one only has to look at the example of capitalism to know this is true…

Im happy to hear that.( about the athiests for Jesus)Its very easy for people to people not to believe because there is so much false information.One really does have to put in an effort to know the truth.I believe that’s true.I can’t recall ever reading that Jesus said He was God.However just to quote one scripture verse(and of course its your decision to decide whether its true or false)Jesus asked Peter"and who do you say that I am?‘And Peter replied"You are the Christ the Son of the Living God’.And Jesus said yes but I didn’t tell you this but it was givin to you from above.Jesus said "Im the living bread which has come down from heaven,unless you eat My body and drink My blood you will not have life in you.My Father and Me are One.When you speak to the Father you speak to Me.And the high priest asked Jesus “are you God?’ and Jesus said"You sayest it”.And the high priest tore his robes and said 'you heard the blaspheme what further evidence do we need.Well i will say that for an unbeliever the bible is a very difficult read.Even for a believer its difficult and it leaves the beginner asking a million questions.The reason being is that when Jesus spoke He was saying a lot more than was printed.Jesus often spoke in parables because He knew that many didn’t accept Him so He was making it hard for them.If you don’t believe in what Ive said and the miracles that Ive preformed then Im not going to make it any clearer.Well the only dominate philosophers as far as I know were aristotle,Plato,and maybe a few others.their philosophies actuallly took into account everything that was said before.Of course with their wisdom applied.They were exceptionally bright.Today there are really very few political philosophies .Socialism,Capitalism,and Communism,dictatorship,most of the others have been tried and failed.

 

[tonyrey]

It would be more logical to go the whole hog, admit we are no more than particles arranged in certain ways and reject all reasoning as meaningless nonsense!

You are dominated by your preconception that physical substance is the sole reality. “premature” is an odd description of an interpretation of reality which has predominated for thousands of years. It is materialism that it is premature because it is a very are phenomenon which has recently become fashionable because the success of science has hoodwinked people into thinking it can in principle explain everything - even though it cannot even explain itself!

What you seem to want to do is shut down the search before all your illusions are undermined.

You have already closed your mind to the possibility that it consists of more than neuronal activity. You are already trapped in a closed, mechanistic system.

There is no actual reason to abandon the notion of free will - assuming we understand it as a process of cause and effect, rather than completely random activity - even if we do suppose that it is an entirely physical phenomenon.

I agree. The only rational basis for free will and responsibility is the fact that **we **are the ones who cause our decisions, not a chain of physical causes. The buck **stops **with us.

The point is, if it’s not a physical phenomenon, how would we, as physical beings, ever know anything about it?

Because we have direct knowledge of it whenever we make a decision. We can even choose to be irrational by disregarding logic. Or we can choose not to make any decision.

Far from rejecting reasoning, I am placing it in its proper context - without physical cause and effect, reasoning would have no basis whatsoever.

Your notion of reasoning is mechanical computation which does not correspond either to external reality or to the reality of your thought processes.

Your ‘impotent spectator’ is an entity in which I do not believe.

It is not my belief but yours - with your mind=body theory!

You seem to be constructing your arguments from the point of view of a spectator in relation to your own physical body - if that is the case, with what do you observe your body?

My intangible mind, of which I - like everyone else - have direct and indisputable knowledge.

Everything you’ve written thus far assumes that you understand the nature of consciousness as something that is fundamentally nonphysical.

I don’t understand it any more than you do but I am directly aware of my private stream of consciousness and distinguish it from external reality whereas you are directly aware of your private stream of consciousness but illogically relegate it to external reality.

You’ve yet to articulate what you mean by this, but it’s clear you consider the mind as an entity in itself, separate to the physical substance of the brain. How could you possibly know this?

How could I not know it? I know that my perceptions come from an external source. They are not produced by me!

Thoughts can come unbidden to the mind, and what matters is whether we entertain them or act upon them, as I recall.

So you can never choose what to think about? You must feel like a slave to your thoughts!

As for the legal notion of responsibility, as I said, the article I referenced claimed that it was beside to point to apportion blame between the person and the biology of their brain - the two are inseparable. Consider the serial killer who was violently abused as a child - are they responsible for their actions? No-one told them to murder multiple people, yet they were acting upon seemingly irresistible neural impulses. Are they to blame? After all, no-one else committed the actions for which they are being held culpable. What is to be done to such a person? Are they to be punished or rehabilitated? The answer to the latter depends entirely upon your concept of free will and self-control.

The serial killer is hardly typical of the normal person. Do you put yourself in the same category?

I haven’t made any distinction - merely pointed out the ridiculousness of the notion that the person and the brain (and the rest of the body) are distinct entities.

Then why do you constantly refer to “my brain” and “my body”?

Every person is responsible, in the sense of having the potential to self-direct.

Where is this magical potential located?

Again, the point of the article was to point out that our approach to criminality and culpability and punishment is misguided and ineffective, because, for the most part, we’ve got it wrong - people are more complex by far than the standard dualist narrative would suggest.

In that case people are far more complex than the monistic narrative of the materialist. Why do you qualify your statement and leave a loophole with “for the most part”?

                                                                          [RIGHT]                                                                     [

](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=8092310)[/RIGHT]

 

[YourGlitter]

we have free will.but free will doesn’t give us the power not to sin.So if we have no power are we really free to do the right thing?

True freedom is not a free will, but it’s love. We can always love or not, but the power of love comes from God, if we want it, not from us. It’s a mysterious coexistence of action of God and action of a person.

youtube.com/yourglitter

 

[tonyrey]

*We transcend physical laws by our insight and awareness of them. We are not blind puppets totally at their mercy. Birds use them **without knowing ***

Which part of the brain controls the other? “self-hypnosis” presupposes a self, i.e. an intangible entity.

Metaphysics can have no rational foundation if it pays no attention to material reality.

You stated that metaphysics “seems to be largely an exercise in building castles in the air” even though materialism is a metaphysical theory.

Logical and mathematical truths are abstractions of relationships that exist between physical things. It’s not legitimate to say that they have any truth absent the physical realities to which they refer.

Very often they refer to intangible realities, like “The theory of materialism is false” or “It is impossible to prove that solipsism is true or false”.

What good is ‘truth’ if it has no relationship to reality?

Once again you are assuming that “reality” is solely material. You have unwittingly locked yourself in the box of things.

Our primary data are actually physical responses to physical stimuli - we call them our senses.

Our primary data are mental. We interpret our perceptions which are caused by sense stimuli.

The brain processes the information from the senses to create a picture of our external environment. We would have no such picture without the physical (name removed by moderator)ut.

We don’t reason with pictures. Our interpretation of our perceptions does not consist solely of images. It consists mainly of abstract ideas.

Moral decisions - or any other type of decision - are intangible and unknown to science.

You might like to let psychologists and behavioural scientists know…

Do you let them make your decisions for you?

Where do you think the intellect and the will come from?

Nowhere! You are assuming everything has a physical location.

Does a fact disappear if there is no one to be aware of it? If intangible facts don’t exist there is no such thing as knowledge…

Is there some entity that generates them, or are they entities in their own right?

They are personal powers recognised by every legal system in the world.

You are, it seems, imagining a realm of ‘facts’ as items of knowledge about what exists, even if no-one exists to know them and nothing exists to which these ‘facts’ refer.

Do we invent facts or discover them?

If you’re claiming that there is some thing that exists without a physical existence, how would you perceive such a thing? What kind of existence does it have? Nothing exists nowhere…

You are still locked in your box of material things. Do you know logical positivism was abandoned when it was realised that the verifiability principle could not be verified by the senses? How do you perceive materialism?

If I don’t exist as a tangible entity, I don’t exist at all.

How do you **know **that?

That body composed of atomic particles (and subatomic particles and quantum fluctuations) is all there is to me. How would it be otherwise?

Are you claiming that it is impossible that materialism is false?

And if there’s an entity less tangible - in the sense of being detectable through any physical means whatsoever - than a neutrino, what possible influence could it have?

You still cannot think outside the coffin! It may seem secure but it is literally a death-trap imposed on you by thoughts over which you have no control - if we accept your version of reality…

It is not legitimate and there is an alternative: to admit that “mine” is a case of self-deception! The body has no owner - if only matter exists…

Does a chair own its legs?

As far as I’m aware a chair doesn’t control its legs…

You don’t seem to realise that I have a fundamentally different concept of self to the dualistic one. If I am not my physical body, if my self is not composed of physical substance and its interaction with other physical substance, then what am I? What can we possibly know about nonphysical existence, if there is any such?

Everything you think, feel, choose, decide and perceive: your inner world which is utterly distinct from the objects observed by scientific instruments. The online essay “What is it like to be a bat” is worth a glance. The author, Thomas Nagel, a professor of philosophy at New York University, is an atheist who now considers that intelligent design may be a valid scientific approach to understanding how DNA and the complex chemical systems of life came to attain their present form - following in the footsteps of Antony Flew.

freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2082634/posts

In what sense does a self-directing entity infringe the laws of physics?

If there is a self in no sense! If there is no self there is nothing capable of directing.

You claim you don’t consider any animal to be a biological machine…yet you consider the physical cosmos itself to be a machine?

The cosmos is not alive…