No-one? Are you sure? Tell me, what is the universe floating in?No-one says the universe floats in nothing ... — apokrisis
You agree with my point.... let alone that this would be what gives it a shape. — apokrisis
It is only when early replicators not only were passively selected by environment pressure according to fitness, but also began to strive to survive and replicate, that they could be considered alive. — Pierre-Normand
Yep. That was the point. Life has meaning because ... there is death as its contrast. So because of biosemiosis or a new symbolic level of action, an organism could become a survival machine. — apokrisis
But intentional human behavior also has a higher level characterization where it is evaluated in point of practical rationality
...
The neural cause of a specific muscular contraction can tell you why some muscle contracted at the time that it did, and hence why an arm rose but it leaves you clueless as to why the agent raised her arm (or even whether the motion was intentional at all). It's only from the standpoint of the rational/teleological organization of the cognitive economy of an individual as a whole that rationality transpires and that sensitivity to practical reasons is manifested as a form of top-down causation. — Pierre-Normand
Anyway. Causality is dichotomous because that is simply how metaphysical development works. — apokrisis
We have bottom-up construction matched by top-down constraints. Each is the cause of the other (as constraints shape the construction, and the construction (re)builds the generalised state of constraint). — apokrisis
It is freedom that constructs bottom-up. The role of top-down constraint is to give shape to that freedom. So constraints (as the bloody word says) are all about limiting freedoms. They take away or suppress a vast variety of what might have been possible actions ... and in so doing, leave behind some very sharply directed form of action. Or as physics would call it - to denote the particularity that results from this contextual sharpening - a "degree of freedom". — apokrisis
I agree. “Real existing” is a crucial qualifier here, since if constraints have no ontology, how can they have causal powers? — Querius
And why would freedom be constructing constraints anyway, this is opposed to its nature? — Metaphysician Undercover
Which is really more laughable, the vicious circle, or the attempt to avoid it? — Metaphysician Undercover
How is it opposed to its nature if the constraints are responsible for its nature? — apokrisis
Or rather, the failure to understand how hierarchical organisation is not viciously circular at all. — apokrisis
Why is it that e.g. a bacterium avoids death? Does it fear death? Does it even have a concept of death? — Querius
Or do you guys assume that ‘striving to survive’ is just one of those things that ‘emerges’ due to a ‘limit’ or some similar 'cause'? — Querius
Isn't this contradictory to say that constraints are responsible for freedom? I don't know how that could work — Metaphysician Undercover
Well, I've seen you attempt to explain your understanding of hierarchical organisation, and like the one above, which I commented on, they all end up with a vicious circle. — Metaphysician Undercover
Why is it that e.g. a bacterium avoids death? Does it fear death? Does it even have a concept of death?
Or do you guys assume that ‘striving to survive’ is just one of those things that ‘emerges’ due to a ‘limit’ or some similar 'cause'? — Querius
We cannot ignore the facts of neurological involvement in the free will act. The question for the metaphysician is the cause of such activity. It seems very clear that the activity of the nervous system is the cause of the activity of the human body. — Metaphysician Undercover
If stating facts is begging the question, — Metaphysician Undercover
Clearly the free will act begins in the most minute parts of the neurological system, perhaps within the brain, — Metaphysician Undercover
Well, I gave an example of the neutron's properties being determined by its being situated in an atom.
— Wayfarer
As I explained, this assumes an unacceptable causal relationship. — Metaphysician Undercover
Life has meaning because ... there is death as its contrast. So because of biosemiosis or a new symbolic level of action, an organism could become a survival machine. While of course being constrained by the general purposes of the second law, it could also now think its own prime purpose was to flourish and multiply. As a direction in nature, it could point counterfactually away from entropic death and decay and towards negentropic life and growth ... for a time at least. — apokrisis
Note that this is still basically a biological perspective which understand life it terms of underlying thermodynamic and other physical laws. — Wayfarer
Ok, so you have described a "higher level" of neurological activity, which you say is responsible for the intentional, rational, free will acts. — Metaphysician Undercover
Since you can identify no efficient cause for this activity, you assign the cause to the "individual as a whole".
Now we have some extremely vague notion of, "an individual as a whole" being the cause of this neurological activity.
Why is it that you believe that this vague notion of "an individual as a whole", being the cause of this activity, is a better description than the classical description which holds that the immaterial soul is the cause of this activity?
'Begging the question is 'assuming what is to be proved'. The statement of yours which I said was 'begging the question', was this one: — Wayfarer
But the point that is at issue is whether such an act can be understood on the basis of 'the most minute parts' - that being 'the bottom' - or from the formation of a conscious intention - that being 'the top'. So I said your statement begged the question, because it assumes what it needs to prove, which you're still doing. — Wayfarer
It doesn't 'assume' anything - it's a statement of scientific fact. — Wayfarer
You have the dubious claim that conscious intention is the top. Can you offer any support for this assumption of yours, that conscious intention is the top? In what context is intention the top of anything? — Metaphysician Undercover
The person -- the human being -- is responsible. The "higher level" isn't a higher level of neurological activity. It's a functional level (see functionalism in the philosophy of mind) of mental organization that relates to the lower level of neurology rather in the way that the software level relates to the lower hardware level in the case of computers. To pursue the analogy, the hardware level deals with the implementation and enablement of basic logical function. But what makes the execution of those basic logical function logical (or computatonal) at all, and what makes the resulting effects (e.g. screen or printer outputs) the results of the computations that they are is their participation in the global hardware+sofware functions and architecture. — Pierre-Normand
That's not the reason why I am looking for something other than an "efficient" cause. I am rather looking for a final (intelligible/formal/teological) cause -- something like a goal or reason -- because of the form of the question and the formal nature of the effect: Why did so and so intentionally do what she did. — Pierre-Normand
It's standard neuroscience I would say. Attention acts top down by applying a state of selective constraint across the brain. You can hook an electrode up to a retinal ganglion cell and watch it in action. Or an EEG can record the fact as it happens in general fashion as a suddenly spreading wave of suppression - the P300.
So, as far as neuroscience goes, folk wouldnt talk about it as consciousness (too many unhelpful connotations for the professionals). But top down integrative constraints are how the brain works. — apokrisis
The point I made already though, is that this top-down form of constraint is not acting as causation, top-down, it is passive. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is what I was arguing in the case of your army analogy in the other thread. What you call "the army", consists of a structure of static constraints. — Metaphysician Undercover
The cause of the army is bottom-up, each individual coming in and choosing to do one's part. — Metaphysician Undercover
So there are particular relations between the protons, the neutrons, and the electrons, and these particular relations are caused by the atom itself? Now you claim that this is a statement of scientific fact. Do you not see how silly this is? — Metaphysician Undercover
I think it is you who is begging the question by describing conscious intention as "the top". — Metaphysician Undercover
If we are going to discuss a higher level, and a lower level, then we need to distinguish the two distinct aspects of the free will act. First, we have the impulse to act, and second, we have the will to deliberate. The first inclines us toward action according to instinct reflex, or existing habits. The second is the capacity of the will to decline, or resist this action, we call this "will power". It is this second aspect which makes rational decisions, and conscious deliberations possible. Do you agree that the first is the lower level, and the second is the higher level? — Metaphysician Undercover
The person -- the human being -- is responsible. The "higher level" isn't a higher level of neurological activity. It's a functional level (see functionalism in the philosophy of mind) of mental organization that relates to the lower level of neurology rather in the way that the software level relates to the lower hardware level in the case of computers...
... I am rather looking for a final (intelligible/teleological) cause -- something like a goal or reason -- because of the form of the question and the formal nature of the event: Why did so and so intentionally do what she did. — Pierre-Normand
Attention acts top down by applying a state of selective constraint across the brain. … top down integrative constraints are how the brain works. — apokrisis
To pursue the analogy, how is an intention translated into instructions (‘software’) for neurons (‘hardware’)? What power does emergent consciousness have over matter, such that ‘creating software instructions’ is an apt analogy? — Querius
Organisms strive to survive, under local constraints, since those who don't so strive die off and fail to reproduce. — Pierre-Normand
I did not ask how we are being programmed. Instead I asked how emergent consciousness commands/ programs neuronal behavior.This is how we are being "programmed", to get back to the computer analogy. — Pierre-Normand
It's not passive. Individual neuron firing is actually being suppressed or enhanced. — apokrisis
So the brain knows how to make sense of the current world because there is this "top-down" weight of prior experience to direct things — apokrisis
And I put top-down in quotes to show I am talking about a hierarchical story where the higher level stuff acts on a larger spatiotemporal scale, so avoids your vicious circularity that comes from thinking a process like attention or consciousness happens "all at once" in a flash. — apokrisis
'A free neutron will decay with a half-life of about 10.3 minutes but it is stable if combined into a nucleus.' That is from the science textbook. — Wayfarer
I can see the introduction of 'top-down' has introduced a lot of confusion. Some of those points have been addressed in the posts above. But what this is all about is that 'physical reductionism' is generally 'bottom-up', because it wants to explain such 'higher-level' things as actions, intentions, thoughts, and so on, in terms of the physical and physiological components of the being. So 'bottom-up' thinking, is usually characterised as reductionist, and/or physicalist. — Wayfarer
Generally speaking, Platonist philosophy is 'top-down' (and also anti-naturalist, anti-reductionist, and anti-nominalist.) I'm not saying that to appeal to the authority of Platonism, but to illustrate the kinds of philosophies that are associated with 'top-down' attitudes. — Wayfarer
So when I said that your 'explanation' begs the question, what I mean is that when you say things such as 'Clearly the free will act begins in the most minute parts of the neurological system...', you're assuming a point of view that is generally associated with reductionist accounts. But as this is the very point that was being debated, it is this assumption that is begging the question. — Wayfarer
The broader question I am asking here is about the interaction problem wrt emergentism. — Querius
In this case, when I choose to raise my arm, I, as a macro-level whole, cause certain neural changes for which there are no sufficient subpersonal causes.
As a result, certain neural activities lead to patterns of muscle contractions and extensions, etc., in my body. So certain neural activities cause bodily motion when I choose to raise my arm, and these neural activities occur, in part, because I cause certain neural changes when I choose to raise my arm.
Thus, as a macro-level whole, in a certain state, I cause change in the motion of parts of my physical constitution—including my neural parts—that is not caused by any of my parts, including any of my neural parts.
So then—on an emergentist account—when, for example, an individual is voluntarily exercising working memory, and holding information in thought in order to complete a task, by doing so, as a macro-level whole, they are causing a change in the activity states of certain neurons in the prefrontal cortex.
Or when an individual is deliberating and progressing toward a decision, they, as a macro-level whole, are causing certain changes in neural activity throughout multiple regions of the brain, by deliberating, or thinking certain thoughts.
>:O >:O >:O fucking hell mate, this was likeLet me get this straight. You are claiming that the atom is the cause of existence of the relationships which constitute the existence of the atom. So there are particular relations between the protons, the neutrons, and the electrons, and these particular relations are caused by the atom itself? Now you claim that this is a statement of scientific fact. Do you not see how silly this is? I suppose that the relationships between atoms which make up a molecule, are caused by the molecule itself? I learned in science, that it is a chemical reaction which causes these relationships, and the molecule comes into existence as a result of a chemical reaction. Likewise, with respect to the relationships which constitute the existence of an atom, it is a nuclear reaction which causes these relationships, and consequently the existence of the atom. So much for your "scientific" fact. I should rather class it as an "alternative fact", claimed as a fact just to support your untenable position.. — Metaphysician Undercover
When I choose to raise my arm, certain neural changes occur. Okay. But again, how does that work? — Querius
There are two possibilities here: — Querius
What you are neglecting is that the "I" here is a socially constructed concept enabled by the learnt semiotic habit of speech. — apokrisis
In the final analysis, in is nit you pulling the strings. You are just responding … — apokrisis
So you do have freewill — apokrisis
So forget "consciousness" with all its antique Metaphysical connotations. — apokrisis
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.