That may be because it is not there, what is stored is only a technique to reproduce the experience. The seeing makes the image. Otherwise there exist only pixels on a screen. Likewise for any record.You wouldn't be able to see a picture or video stored in your computer's memory or HD if you opened it up and looked inside. — punos
Image Reconstruction From Human Brain Waves in Real-Time — punos
Brain waves are indeed very good candidates for the stuff our thoughts are made of. — Olivier5
I have never in my life even heard of anyone that has ever given a logical, and reasonable account of how free-will actually works. All i ever hear is basically that free-will is real because i know "because i decided i know". If reasons are given as to how they know, the reasons are always subjective in nature. My questions are never answered in any appropriate way, although it will always be claimed to be appropriate just because. — punos
All of these things and more signal to me that this thing is objective. — punos
How do you tell the difference between outside stimulus, and what is labeled as part of yourself? — punos
What are these epistemological principles that you are referring to? — punos
Yes everyone is born with the machinery to process logic, but we are not born knowing how to use it. If we did then the world wouldn't be the way it is. — punos
And the laws we build from our observations tell us that there are no exceptions to the rules, like gravity, or the conservation of energy, etc.. — punos
Don't you perceive and observe your own thoughts? When you have a thought how do you know you had it if you didn't observe yourself having the thought. I observe my thoughts, my emotions, my dreams, my opinions, etc.. anything i know has been observed at some point or i would not know it. — punos
Can you name just one thing that you know without having observed it at some point in your life? — punos
Indeed, given the premise that (only) physical reality is ultimately and definitely real, I'd agree with you. Free will makes no sense in a strictly physical framework. — Echarmion
That there be no exception to the rules is a norm we impose on our rules. — Echarmion
You are right in that a free-will does not make sense in a strictly physical framework (classical determinist), but it also doesn't make sense in a strictly non-physical framework either (quantum indeterminate). Combining the two also does not allow it. — punos
All i need to be convinced of free-will at a minimum is just one actual or hypothetical mechanism (doesn't have to be real or actual, just logical) by which any law of nature can be overridden in favor of another arbitrary pattern. — punos
We don't have to agree, the only reason i get into these discussions about free-will is not to convince anybody that there is no such thing, it's so that someone can tell me what everybody that believes in free-will seems to already know but keeps secret.. an actual example of free-will. I need a logical description or an actual example; I can't do anything without that, or i might as well believe in anything i like regardless of reasons... and i don't do that, i can't do that. — punos
Ok, I don't follow you here at all - how is quantum physics not part of the physical universe? — Echarmion
But what if nature already includes free will, it's just that our laws are about finding the patterns in nature, and so that information is not transfered to the model? — Echarmion
So, here is what could be happening: The actual underlying reality is atemporal. Time is merely a function of your mind ordering events by a certain principle - e.g. the principle that you always travel from lower entropy to higher entropy. — Echarmion
So in that scenario, events are a web that expands in all directions, rather than a sequence of causes and effects. At some places, your mind slightly affected these connections - nudged them this way or that. The effects of these changes travel in all directions, but the web remains self-consistent. So as you look at the world from a temporal perspective, it seems to be a perfect sequence of causes and effects. — Echarmion
Time is the most fundamental "thing" in the whole of all there is. Without time existence will cease with no hope of returning. Space by itself can do nothing, energy would not move, information and matter will not form because what makes the whole universe even possible is time. Time is change and movement, it is the "metabolism" of the universe itself. — punos
How does he know the causal "buck" does not stop at a buck-making First Cause? Perhaps he is just assuming that causation is open-ended infinity, or maybe circular, in order to avoid the implications of Intention (Will) in the universe. But the only causal evidence we have (evolution) seems to be continual and progressive, hence teleological*1. And that directional pattern suggests a willful First Cause.Sam Harris argues that in the chain of causation the buck does not stop and our "free will" cannot interrupt the determinist chain. There is no free will at any particular point. What do people think? — Edmund
if the future is entirely predeterminated, then time does not matter, all its seconds, centuries, and million of years are wasted and wholy redundant. Nothing new ever happens. — Olivier5
Time is the most fundamental "thing" in the whole of all there is. Without time existence will cease with no hope of returning. Space by itself can do nothing, energy would not move, information and matter will not form because what makes the whole universe even possible is time. Time is change and movement, it is the "metabolism" of the universe itself. — punos
If time, on the other hand, is to be a useful, meaningful metabolism for the world, then it must underwrite real change, and support the emergence of radical novelty. Hence undetermined. — Olivier5
. Many who hold deterministic views propose a "block universe" where past, present, and future exist simultaneously, eternal and unchanging. But if this is so, how does an edge of a block, explain the edge of the other side? — Richard B
Not clear. What original novelty are you talking about? In a deterministic view, there is no novelty, ever. — Olivier5
True novelty happens at the indeterminate level, after that novelty changes or is processed by time to evolve into higher forms of that novelty. — punos
The emergent layer above this indeterminate layer is where the first fermions appear. Fermions (matter) obey the Pauli exclusion principle and from this the single direction of time due to the progression of cause and effect begins. This is the beginning of determinism and our physical universe. — punos
The emergent layer above this indeterminate layer is where the first fermions appear. Fermions (matter) obey the Pauli exclusion principle and from this the single direction of time due to the progression of cause and effect begins. This is the beginning of determinism and our physical universe. — punos
Seems absurd to me. There is only one universe, and it includes everything there is. Layers are in the eye of the observer. — Olivier5
our "free will" cannot interrupt the determinist chain. — Edmund
The stuff of thoughts are the patterns of electro-chemical activity in the brain — punos
I have never in my life even heard of anyone that has ever given a logical, and reasonable account of how free-will actually works. — punos
Perhaps then your conception of free will is in itself impossible, like a square circle. — khaled
One simple way to give an account for free will for instance is to define it as "uncoerced will". Then yes, we have free will most of the time, as we are uncoerced. — khaled
What definition of free will are you working with? — khaled
Provide me with an example so i know exactly what we are talking about, not just a definition. — punos
I believe in 'will' not 'free-will', and will is constrained by the laws of physics like anything else — punos
Does it use another force from somewhere else outside our universe — punos
I seem to have the same definition for free-will that you do. — punos
So you don't believe in emergent layers of complexity? — punos
what would convince you that free-will is a false notion? What kind of idea or evidence would you need to at least begin to consider it a viable possibility that free-will is not real? — punos
With the definition of "uncoerced will" me typing this reply is an example of me exercising my free will, since no one is coercing me into typing it. — khaled
It seems that you take a dualist stance. I think the issue stems from dualism, not free will. For instance, do you think the "person" ever causes any physical change? Is you typing a reply a result of blind physical processes, or is it because the "person" that is you wills it? Or are those compatible. — khaled
I just consider emergence as non-determined. — Olivier5
First, I would need a clear definition of what free will is. — Olivier5
Second, I would not consider as evidence any metaphysical, unprovable consideration, such as determinism. Determinism is not an empirical fact, it's a metaphysical idea, un\provable, so it does not count as evidence of anything. — Olivier5
Thirdly, the proof offered would need to be logically consistent. If it contradicts itself, then it cannot be true. And in my experience, all arguments against free will are self-contradictory in that they postulate that the argument itself is not arrived at through the free exercise of observation and judgment, but determined by sodding atoms and therefore not really an argument. — Olivier5
If emergence is not deterministic then where do these consistent structures come from and maintain themselves? — punos
Show me how determinism is not true. Show me a case in which determinism does not hold true. — punos
The problem with your view of free-will is that you want to be able to determine your actions apart from the laws of physics and logic which are almost one and the same. — punos
free will = the power of acting without the constraint of physical law. — punos
Things don't maintain themselves very well, for the most part. Perfect stability is extremely rare in nature. Things tend to transform after a while. Living organisms tend to die, molecules break up, atoms decay, even stars evolve. — Olivier5
So we cannot say: "the laws of nature preclude free will". We don't know that for a fact. — Olivier5
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