What counts as thinking? What counts as rational thinking? The answers need a minimal criterion, which in turn, requires the right sort of methodological approach. Do you have a minimum criterion which, when met by a candidate, counts as thinking? Rational thinking? If not, then upon what ground do you rest your denial that some creatures other than humans are capable of thought, rational or otherwise?
— creativesoul
I agree. But I don't have the answers.
— Patterner

Right. I'm trying to point the discussion in the right direction, so to speak. — creativesoul

This is from Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, by Ogi Ogas and
Sai Gaddam.

A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind. THINKING ELEMENTS

Accordingly, every mind requires a minimum of two thinking elements:
•​A sensor that responds to its environment
•​A doer that acts upon its environment — Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam

My problem is that you announce that your judgement is entirely subjective, which puts it beyond discussion and at the same appear to expect me to discuss it with you — Ludwig V

you have been participating on a philosophy forum to the tune of 1.5K posts. Surely, you've been in one or two discussions where you did not expect the other person to change their mind.

But I don't know why subjective judgement puts something beyond discussion. Opinions change. Tastes change. Someone can present an opposing opinion in just the right way to sway the other person.

Some people think that an image is worth a thousand words, so there are deficiencies in words, as well. — Ludwig V

Indeed. Just as B&W Mary knew all the words, but didn't know what red looked like until she stepped out of the room and saw the rose. There are some things words can't do.

Ever read Stranger in a Stranger Land? The protagonist decided that's what separates us. Man is the animal that laughs.
— Patterner

Some researchers believe other animals have a sense of humor. — Athena

You just can't argue with Martians.

A classic!

Thank you. Hum, do other animals laugh? — Athena

Ever read Stranger in a Stranger Land? The protagonist decided that's what separates us. Man is the animal that laughs.

But what grounds are there for withholding the accolade of rationality?
— Ludwig V

Try explaining the concept ‘prime number’ to her. — Wayfarer

Although the concept of prime numbers shows that there are areas of thought that humans have that other species do not, I don't see how it disproves dogs thinking rationally. Does being able to think rationally mean you can understand all possible things? I'm not saying they can, just saying I don't think that proves they can't.

Still, I make that judgement. It's entirely subjective, after all. I think our intelligence and consciousness (I believe the two are very tightly intertwined) is the most extraordinary thing we are aware of, and capable of more wonders than we can imagine.
— Patterner
"Subjective" is a much more complex concept than traditional philosophies want to recognize. In particular, assessing something to be extraordinary, if it is to be meaningful, requires a context that defines what is ordinary. That is, it depends on your point of view. There are points of view that see human achievements as extraordinary (good sense) and as extraordinary (bad sense). There are points of view that see human achievements as different in kind from anything that animals can do and points of view that see human achievements as developments of what animals can do. All of these have a basis. What makes any of them "better" than the others? I'm not sure. But I think the point of view that insists on the continuities between humans and animals is more pragmatic than the others. Stalemate. Pity. — Ludwig V

Not sure what you mean by the part I bolded. My take would be you want subjective preferences to be chosen for practical reasons?

Why do you assume that only vocal behaviour is linguistic?
In any case, iInstinctive skills are necessarily simple. Someone brought up the Monarch butterflies' ability to navigate, which is clearly not learned, yet is, one would have thought, quite complex. — Ludwig V

If the ability is not learned (I don't see how it could be), then it is instinctive. And it is complex. Therefore, instinctive skills are not necessarily simple.

Patterner pretty much, the rest seems to be technicalities. If intelligence did happen then it had to happen, we’re just arguing if it happened before or not. That’s it. — kindred

What I bolded is what is being contested. It is not established fact. Until it is at least agreed upon (better if established as fact), there is no going on to "the rest."

The question then is whether the same process of abiogenesis occurred there too and that is what is being contested here. — kindred

I believe what is being contested here is the idea that anything that did happen had to happen.

Intelligent Beings Without Brains Are Abundant In Nature–A Growing Scientific Consensus — Agree-to-Disagree

In Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious, Antonio Damasio has a bit to say about this.

Intelligence, in the general perspective of all living organisms, signifies the ability to resolve successfully the problems posed by the struggle for life.
.........
We know that the most numerous living organisms on earth are unicellular, such as bacteria. Are they intelligent? Indeed they are, remarkably so. Do they have minds? No, they do not, I believe, and neither do they have consciousness. They are autonomous creatures; they clearly have a form of “cognition” relative to their environment, and yet, instead of depending on minds and consciousness, they rely on non-explicit competences—based on molecular and sub-molecular processes—that govern their lives efficiently according to the dictates of homeostasis.
.........
Sensing is not perceiving, and it is not constructing a “pattern” based on something else to create a “representation” of that something else and produce an “image” in mind. On the other hand, sensing is the most elementary variety of cognition. — Damasio

I don't see how you can possible make that judgement. Given that our specialness is as much a curse and a blessing, to the rest of the planet and ourselves as well. — Ludwig V

Still, I make that judgement. It's entirely subjective, after all. I think our intelligence and consciousness (I believe the two are very tightly intertwined) is the most extraordinary thing we are aware of, and capable of more wonders than we can imagine.

And the lack of our intelligence and consciousness is nature. Which includes billions of animals screaming as they're killed and eaten. Unless they're just eaten alive. There may be no malice involved, but there is plenty of pain and fear.

Good point. And why not? you may ask. But I'm pushing the point that our way of like is developed from animal ways of life and, in my opinion, cannot be down to just one factor, but to many interacting factors. All of which may have existed independently in the animal kingdom, but "took off", so to speak, when they developed together.
..................
There is truth in that. We have hyper-developed various capacities. But I don't think we have hyper-developed just one capacity. — Ludwig V

I agree. There may be ways some non-humans think that we do not. Every autumn, freakin' Monarch Butterflies migrate from Canada to the same tiny area in Mexico where they have never been, but where their great grandparents were born. They have senses and abilities we obviously lack, despite their much more limited ability to think. I don't know if they think at all. But if they do, it's bound to be in ways we don't. My point, though, is that, in ways of thinking that we share with other species, the capacity is more developed in us. Not just one thing.

And, we think in ways they don't.

What counts as thinking? What counts as rational thinking? The answers need a minimal criterion, which in turn, requires the right sort of methodological approach. Do you have a minimum criterion which, when met by a candidate, counts as thinking? Rational thinking? If not, then upon what ground do you rest your denial that some creatures other than humans are capable of thought, rational or otherwise? — creativesoul

I agree. But I don't have the answers. The general idea I get from looking it up is that rational thinking and decisions are arrived at through logic and reason. Especially as opposed to through emotion.

I suppose thinking ora decision can be entirely wrong, even if done rationally. The information that the logic/reason works on could be wrong, after sll.

Scientific American 2014 - What Makes Humans Different Than Any Other Species

Scientific American 2018 - What Made Us Unique — Ludwig V

I've read those. I also read
2 Mental Abilities Separate Humans from Animals.

Much is made of learning from each other. Here's a good quote about it, from What Made Us Unique:

The emerging consensus is that humanity’s accomplishments derive from an ability to acquire knowledge and skills from other people. Individuals then build iteratively on that reservoir of pooled knowledge over long periods. This communal store of experience enables creation of ever more efficient and diverse solutions to life’s challenges. It was not our large brains, intelligence or language that gave us culture but rather our culture that gave us large brains, intelligence and language. For our species and perhaps a small number of other species, too, culture transformed the evolutionary process. — Kevin Laland

I don't agree for two reasons. First, because, at least in humans, language is a huge part of a culture. How can we say either lead to the other?

Second, many species live in groups, and many have been doing so for far longer than we have. But what other species has language that can express anywhere near the number of things human languages can (we can make an infinite number of sentences), or the variety of kinds of things (infinity; the future; death; fiction; etc., etc.) Despite being in groups longer than us, and having us as models for a long time now, no other species has managed it. They do not have the mental capacity to develop it themselves, or even copy it. Which makes sense. Why would they have a language that allows them to talk abouy things they don't think about?

I do, however, agree with the importance of our interactions with each other for the development of our thinking and language. (Also consciousness.)

And I'm not claiming I an incredibly special. We all are. Yes, even you. No member of any other species would be reacting the way you are now. One of the pitfalls of the ways we think that no other species does.
— Patterner
I'm not denying what you say. But it's more complicated than that. If everybody is special, then nobody is special. So some explanation of what "special" means here is necessary. — Ludwig V

I am not saying any human is special compared to any other human. I'm saying humans are special compared with any other species. We are doing things no other species does, and changing the face of the world as we do it, because we are thinking about things, and in different ways, than any other species does. Any number of species may be special for one reason or another. This is the way that humans are special. And, in my opinion, the way we are special is of more value, and has greater impact, than the way any the other species is special. (Also, The Incredibles?)

Do you suppose the mother of a wildebeest that has watched it's child, perhaps more than one over the years, murdered, torn apart, and eaten, suffers the horrors I would?
— Patterner
Do you suppose that I have any way of "really" understanding how any mother, never mind the mother of wildebeest, feels about the loss of a child - even though I have lost a child. The balance between understanding and projection is very difficult. To be more accurate, we can be pretty certain of our understanding at a general level, but when you get down to details it gets much, much more difficult. — Ludwig V

Well, I'm so glad i brought up that particular example.

I'm more sorry than I can possibly express. I cannot imagine.

I would be surprised if you think a parent in any other species has ever gone through the depth or duration of emotional pain that you have.

Yet there is no spark of understanding. They somehow simply happened to stumble upon using X to accomplish Y, and they kept doing it.
— Patterner
I don't understand you.
If a pigeon stumbles on the fact that pecking a specific item in their cage produces food and keeps on doing it until it has eaten enough, that it doesn't understand what is going on? It may not understand about the aims of the experiment or what an experiment is, but it understands what is important to it. In any case, human beings also stumble on facts and have no hesitation in exploiting them to the limit of their understanding (which is often quite severe and detrimental to their long-term interests). — Ludwig V

What I mean is, once they have it, they don't run with it. They do not use tools for new purposes, and don't apply ideas to new situations.

I'm just saying we are unique in that we think in ways no other species thinks.
— Patterner
I'm guessing that mathematics and perhaps ethics are examples of what you have in mind. Yet people seem quite happy to ask whether dogs can do calculus and to insist that they can make and execute a plan of action to achieve a common end. And then, attributing values to them seems inherent in saying that they are alive and sentient and social - even in saying that evolution applies to them.
I think you would question whether dogs can do any mathematics, never mind calculus, or really make and execute a plan. I also think you would question whether dogs really understand ethics, even if they have desires. There's a common theme, because it would not be unreasonable to think that (human) language is essential for both. Am I wrong? — Ludwig V

You are not. Who doesn't think in words? I've heard that some people hear the words of what they're thinking. I don't "hear" the words in my mind, although i think in words. Others say they see the words in their mind. Some say neither of those are happening when they think. But does anyone think without words?

No, dogs don't do math. I know many animals recognize groups of objects of certain sizes. That doesn't mean they count them, and it doesn't mean they can add and subtract.

Nor do I think they have any concept of ethics. Does an alligator, lion, or eagle think it's wrong to kill and eat whatever its prey is? Does a fisher think it's wrong to kill someone's little dog? Have we ever seen any behavior that suggests the any animals have such thoughts?

You may be missing a point in your last message. It is not difficult to find a unique feature or features in any species. (That's largely how we identify them). The interesting question is what is the significance of those unique features. So the short reply to your list is simply that none of that proves that we are not animals. Whatever is unique, there are also features that we share with them and they with us. We are certainly not above them. Indeed, in some ways we might be thought to be below them. War? — Ludwig V

I don't think I'm missing that point at all. I have not said anything to suggest I don't think we are animals. Of course we are. And we reached our current state the same way every other species reached their current state - via evolution. Also, I don't think we are the only species that is unique. I'm just saying we are unique in that we think in ways no other species thinks. That doesn't even mean all the aspects of thinking that we are capable of are unique to us. But some are. And they are what makes us capable of having such discussions about other species, and having them on this medium, while no other species is having such discussions about any other species, by any method.

My contention is that reason and rational thought are not confined within nor limited to these human areas. — Vera Mont

What do you mean by "human areas"? That almost sounds like you are suggesting there are areas of thought that are only seen in humans.

Och, never mind. Yes, yes, you are incredibly special! You have totally cornered the market on thinking. — Vera Mont

Can someone not disagree with you without you resorting to this? You have not attempted to make any points in opposition to mine. You just say I'm wrong. And when I don't bow to the brilliance of such a tactic, and I try to explain my position in different ways, I get this.

And I'm not claiming I an incredibly special. We all are. Yes, even you. No member of any other species would be reacting the way you are now. One of the pitfalls of the ways we think that no other species does.

But our ability to think in the ways we do, in ways nothing else is able to think, we are the undisputed masters of all these things.
— Patterner
You could be right. But there are many contenders in the field. Language, (Rational) Thinking, Tool-making, Culture, Empathy, Moral sense, Social living. Each one is popular for a while - until empirical evidence pies up. It turns out that animals also have these things, or at least recognizable precursors. — Ludwig V

Culture, empathy, moral sense, and social living are surely up for grabs. Because the merit of each is subjective. Even an animal that kills it's prey in a terrifying, painful way, which is quite a few, is morally superior to us, imo, because they have no malice.

But if language is for communication, no other species' language comes close to being able to express the number of things (there are an infinite number of sentences we can construct), or the types of things (descriptions of physical events; thoughts of mortality; mathematics; the possible state of anything at any point in the future; the feelings evoked by music or painting) human languages can communicate.

What does rational thinking mean? I mean, what is its value? If it increases understanding, leading to advancement, no animal has advanced in any noticable way. No members of a species live in a different way today than any members of its species did a million years ago. We, otoh, do many things our earliest ancestors had not yet learned about. Things we must teach to every new generation, or they will not know about it. All knowledge would have to be rediscovered, again and again. But we think rationally, discover and learn, and pass knowledge on. As a result, our lives are immeasurable far removed from those of our earliest ancestors. No other species advances in this way.

Yes, other species use tools. In most cases, a species uses a tool for a purpose. Chimps use tools in several situations, particularly for eating. Yet there is no spark of understanding. They somehow simply happened to stumble upon using X to accomplish Y, and they kept doing it. Then they stumbled upon using A to accomplish B, and kept doing it. They don't realize tools can be improved, adapted for other uses, or that it's possible to invent tools for other purposes entirely. This is because they don't have rational thinking. (As I described in my previous paragraph. You may have something else in mind regarding rational thinking.)

Maybe my point can be made in this way... Let's remove humans from the earth entirely. We never existed. All species on earth would be at various points on the spectrum of intelligence. Which would hold the top position that we would hold if we were still there? Which would be the undisputed masters of the world? I suspect there would be no such thing, even though the spectrum would still be there. Despite the large differences in thinking ability between all the species, none think in different ways than any other. There is only greater or lesser thinking in the same ways.

Reading publications from scientists about their research is often unhelpful, but, purely in the spirit of suggesting that you are casting your net too narrowly and long before science will catch up with you, here are two references that show how much empirical work is going on and how varied it is.

Scientific American 2014 - What Makes Humans Different Than Any Other Species

Scientific American 2018 - What Made Us Unique — Ludwig V

Thank you. I will look at them tonight.

The supreme irony is that if you ask what makes us human, you will likely find that the top contender is emotion. Which animals also clearly experience. Reason has had a bad reputation ever since the Industrial Revolution. — Ludwig V

I once saw a documentary of a lion cub that was liked by hyenas. The cub's mother was searching, and finally found the body. She sat there for some time, looking into the distance, and her vocalizations seemed to be cries of anguish. How long do you suppose her pain remained with her? A week? A month? A year? Do you suppose the memory hit her like a truck from time to time, for the rest of her life? Do you suppose her pain faded somewhat over the years, until the memory of her child came with a bittersweet smile?

Do you suppose the mother of a wildebeest that has watched it's child, perhaps more than one over the years, murdered, torn apart, and eaten, suffers the horrors I would?

I'm beginning to think that this debate is a distraction. — Ludwig V

I don't understand. Is all this not there very heart of rational thinking? Is any other species able to think about thinking the way we are?

hit post accidentally. Can't find delete

Can't you be specialer, bigger, smarter, wider, more powerful, more dangerous, more imaginative, more poetic, more, more, more, more... without denying an entire aspect of mental function to all other species? Does more have to mean: It's all mine and nobody else can have any? — Vera Mont

Yes, we can be such things. In some ways, that is surely the case.

But we don't merely think in certain ways to a higher degree. We think in ways no other species does to any degree. I would be happy to hear how my assessment is wrong, if you would point out specific flaws. There's is no value in holding onto falsehoods. Consider some examples...

No species refines iron ore to only a minimal degree, but doesn't understand that different fuels burn at different temperatures, which refines it further, making better iron, which can accomplish more. No other species mines iron ore at all, despite having watched us do it for a very long time. None have even noticed the advantage in the iron we've been making all that time, and gone out specifically looking for our discards, using it to make better versions of things they already make.

No species does the basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, but hasn't thought of exponents, negative numbers, or transcendental numbers. No species that has seen our mathematics for centuries has started using it.

No species writes down ideas about anything it does not learn via instinct or being taught, passing down more complex ideas to the next generation, and providing a means to expand on such knowledge over the generations. No species has watched us do that for centuries, and adopted the practice.

No species has heard our spoken languages, and developed anything comparable, or even learned ours. Other species may have sounds that represent things. Someone recently linked an article about elephants that have names for other elephants that seem to be unique sounds that are not imitations off any bouser associated with the"named" elephant. But there is no hint that they, or any other species, contemplates death, experiences existential angst, makes plans that will not be achieved for generations, or has poetry.

There are so many things, and different kinds of things, we're manufacturing, and different fields of study, that are not being invented, or even copied, by any other species. It's not that our thinking in these areas is better than that of every other species, it's that no other species is thinking in these areas at all. The objective proof of this is everywhere. Including the method by which we're communicating now. Nothing else is even attempting to do what we do, or even has any idea we're doing things they can't. We are alone in these areas, not merely above.

We are the only species to do many, many things. All because of being the only one capable of thinking the ways we do. It seems to me that's the very definition of exceptional.
— Patterner
Yes. I think the issue may be what our being exceptional means. — Ludwig V

Yes. But, surely, we are exceptional in some way. Not just being the species that can lift the most weight, run the fastest, live in the greatest number of environments, etc. Without our ability to think in the ways we do, we are exceptional in none of these things. But our ability to think in the ways we do, in ways nothing else is able to think, we are the undisputed masters of all these things.

Sure. My objection was to the definition of the word, precisely because evolution accounts for the many traits common to species with a common ancestry. Nothing suddenly happened to strike man with reason; reason was developed in many species over millions of years. That man took it into further realms of imagination and language is interesting, but it makes him unique only in magnitude, not in kind. — Vera Mont

I know you weren't responding to me, but it might be how you would. I think we are different in kind. One animal thinks about leaping out at prey. Another thinks about climbing a tree to grab a piece of fruit. One thinks about digging a hole to live in. Another thinks about climbing into a discarded shell.

Humans think about the things we like and dislike about foods that have nothing to do with nutrition; foods we've eaten in millennia past; how it lead to our current form and abilities; what we might eat to improve on our form and abilities; and make long-term plans to bring it about. Humans think about the different types of homes we've lived in throughout history; how to improve our homes to make them safer and more comfortable; the aesthetic value of different homes, and toes of homes; and how we might construct homes that will allow us to live in environments we couldn't possibly live in, like on the moon, without using technology to build such homes.

No other species thinks about the differences between the ways different species think. No other species thinks about thinking. What are the intermediary steps on a scale of magnitude between how any other species thinks about these things and how we think about them that reveals it all to be the same scale of magnitude, rather than different kinds of thinking?

Could I draw your attention to a source I've been studying of late, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, John Vervaeke, a professor of cognitive science at the University of Toronto. It's a long series, of which the first three or four address the pre-historic origins of distinctively human consciousness. YouTube playlist can be found here.
— Wayfarer
Thanks. I'm sure the philosophical segments are interesting. But I steadfastly disagree with human exceptionalism.
eta And reject this definition — Vera Mont

I may not understand how you mean this. We store memory outside of our bodies. We've invented more ways of storing information than I will ever know. No other species does those things, or had any idea of what memory and information are. We have languages that can express all of this, as well as, I suppose, anything else. No member of any other species learns things, or kinds of things, beyond what its parents knew. But we add to our learning, generation after generation.

We've done more things than we can count, making things that would not exist if not for our intellect and understanding, and our intention of making them. We've sent spacecraft out of the solar system. We've detected amino acids in interstellar clouds. We have this insanely cool and powerful internet. We've split the atom, knowing it would release energy, in order to use that energy.

We've done it all right in front of more species than we can count, and not one of them has any concept of any of it. No other species knows a nuclear reactor or skyscraper isn't a feature of the landscape.

Does any other species hunt another to extinction? None has even attempted to exterminate us, despite having every reason to. Not even as we were exterminating them. No species we've sent into extinction (I didn't say we're morally exceptional) knew it was going extinct. There must be some species that could wipe us out, particularly insects, if they could understand what we're doing, or come up with a plan. But not even their hive intelligence can manage it. Sometimes I wonder if mice could destroy us. Whales could have worked together to figure out ways to keep us out of the waters, and not get murdered, for at least a long time. Wolves maybe could have wiped use out in the early days.

We are the only species to do many, many things. All because of being the only one capable of thinking the ways we do. It seems to me that's the very definition of exceptional.

Well those are expensive! :rofl: I wouldn't mind the price if I had a chance of understanding them. Gazzaniga's The Conscious Instinct is a good deal more affordable.


Indeed, the most fascinating topic of all, imo.

Has anyone determined what the average number of retrievals a caregiver is willing to perform before the object is thrown out the window? — BC

Or if the caregiver had the free will to NOT retrieve it the first twenty times? :rofl:

I prefer the phenomenological approach (which I discovered reading cognitive neuroscience textbooks). — I like sushi

I don't expect to be able to make head nor tail of such books. But I would like to try. can you name some?

Let me try to approach this from the angle I was coming from in the things I said most recently, when I added you to my post to FJ. For me, this issue comes down to the HPoC. First, there isn't a physicalist explanation for why there is, as Nagel famously put it, "something it is like" to be me. How is it that the physical processes do not take place "in the dark"? They could. Nerves could feel damage being caused by something very hot being in contact with skin, and action potentials could be initiated so that the hand pulls away. Reflexes work like that, without any involvement from me. The events could be stored in the brain, and the same situation avoided in the future, without my feeling of pain. There's no need for it.

And there's no explanation for it. Koch just paid up on a bet with Chalmers, because he couldn't find an answer. Greene says nothing can be seen as a basis for it. Physicalism has nothing to offer in the way of explanation. Only faith that we will, eventually, find a physicalist answer.

I'm not trying ro derail the conversation. The reason all of that is important to the current discussion is the specific kinds of things "it is like" to be me. Eating preferences is a good example. Beets, cucumbers, and watermelon are three foods I can't stand. I can't emphasize enough how much I can't stand them. But there is no purpose, no function, to my feeling toward them. Most people are perfectly fine with them. Many people have even been incredulous about my feelings toward beets and watermelon, because they are, apparently, among the most loved foods of all. So it's not a problem for the species. I've eaten them all at times, when the rest of the food masks the flavor enough that I can manage it, or when I occasionally try them to see if my tastes have changed. I take extreme pleasures in eating, and consider it a negative to not like every food there is. So I occasionally try, hoping. There is no hint of any kind of allergy to any of them. In short, there is no objective, physical reason for me not to eat them.

I wish I liked beets, in particular. They are more than somewhat appealing in every way but taste. Density, texture, color. It would be very annoying if I was very hungry, and had nothing to eat but this thing I can't stand, despite wanting and trying to like them for decades.

Can there possibly be a reason for the way the molecules of beets interact with my taste buds and brain, such that they ruin nearly every dish I've ever tried that contains them, and I won't eat beyond the first bite?

There's no reason for food preferences at all. Even if we could distinguish poison just from taste, there wouldn't be a reason to not like it. And we don't dislike the taste of things we're allergic to. Often enough, people like the taste of things they're allergic to, and are very sad that they can't eat it. Or, unless it's a risk of death, they eat it anyway, and deal with the rashes, itching, or diarrhea. We could all just eat some bland slop every day. There's no physicalist reason we don't. We don't need restaurants that make certain kinds of food (french, Italian, Mexican, etc.), or certain dishes (Beef Wellington, shrimp scampi, salmon encrusted with pistachios, etc.). But the restaurant industry is huge, because we have feelings about food that have nothing to do with anything physicalism can explain.

I'm not saying i have a non-physicalist explanation, but there sure isn't a physicalist one. I have subjective experience that can't be explained, and that subjective experience gives me strong preferences that have no objective value.

We don't have a problem accepting the existence of dark matter/energy, even though we cannot detect it in any way. But we know it's there, because something is responsible for what we observe. I think something else that we can't detect in any way is responsible for consciousness; something it is like to be me. I think that same something is responsible for free will.

I'm good. Just wasn't sure if you were getting at something different.

Yes, by definition, the first choice was a free choice. If it's not free, it's not a choice
— Patterner

So you don't have to have chosen your motivations or your will, in order for a choice that your will chooses to be your choice. In other words, the whole "self-authorship" requirement some people have for free will, is not in fact a requirement you have for free will - someone can make a free choice with no self authorship at all.

Your first choice can be a choice, despite being the product of countless things you didn't choose, and 0 things you did choose - like you had no choice but to make that choice, right?

And please recall, the quote that opened this conversation between you and I was T Clark saying "if we don't determine our will, we don't have free will."

If your first choice is free, despite being based on a will you had no choice in creating or designing, then you're disagreeing with that quote from Mr Clark. You're saying we can make free choices even if we haven't determined one single iota of our will. — flannel jesus

I'm not sure I understanding all of this. I don't know if my response is relevant.

I would say 'motivations' and 'preferences' are different things. My preferences seem to be largely built in. As I've touched on, I am a lunatic for Bach, but don't care too much for Mozart. I didn't choose this arrangement, and it has stood since there first time I heard Bach. My preference for Baroque over Classical came first. That began the moment I heard the Prelude to Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Then I heard Bach, the pinnacle of Baroque.

I don't think these preferences are motivations. I'm sometimes motivated to choose in agreement with my preferences, and I listen to something I'm very familiar with and love. I'm sometimes motivated to choose against my preferences, and I listen to something new. Are those opposing motivations also built-in preferences?

I believe I am free from the physics-driven interacting constituents of my brain, and am not listening to the one I'm listening to because there was no possibility that I could listen to anything else.

Adding
And I think this also address your question,
Regret seems a funny thing. When I was only several years old, my mother took me to the store for sneakers. I had narrowed my choices down to a pair of blue and a pair of gold. I struggled over the decision for a while, and finally went with the gold.

I regretted my decision within minutes. Possibly before I even got to the car. I wasn't traumatized, but I remember it clearly enough. I'd have taken them back and exchanged them, if I'd know at the time that that was allowed. But I didn't know that at the time, so I resigned myself to the fact that I'd be wearing sneakers I regretted having chosen, until it was time to get another pair.

I don't see how this makes sense from the standpoint of physical determinism. All of my brain's structures and particles are exactly where they are because of all the chains and webs of events that came before, all determined by the laws of physics. And when it came to this decision, it worked out the only way it possibly could, considering the state of all things and the laws of physics. I chose because all things were weighed, and gold was what came out on top.

Then those same laws of physics continued acting upon my brain's constituents, and determined that I should have chosen otherwise, and that I should have a useless feeling of regret.

Comes right down to it, the actual preference of blue over gold that my choice opposed wasn't even important. Color preferences? Of sneakers? What is the value of the physical arrangements of my brain's constituents giving me a preference of blue over gold, or Bach over Mozart, that evolution chose for it? This isn't about survival, like preferring the taste of apples over dirt. Nor is it about choosing a mate, like a woman preferring a man who looks like he can provide food, or a man preferring a woman who looks like she can bear children. The physical arrangements of my brain's constituents could discriminate important things, like the color of something beneficial over the color of something deadly, without my having any feeling about it at all. So why have the feeling? Especially when there are instances where physics determines a decision that physics them feels to be wrong?

[And, as always, the HPoC. How does the physical arrangements of my brain's constituents even give me the subjective experience of feeling these preferences the way I do? No, not the same issue. But I think they are closely related.]

The alternative is saying something is a choice, then saying it was the only possible outcome
— Patterner
That's one other alternative. Some people would say there is no choice, that it's illusiory, and want to avoid that word. But even those who do not take that position can say that the word choice refers to when we mull over two or more actions and have the subjective experience that it could have gone either way or any of the ways, when in fact it was always going to be the way it went. So, the word 'choice' is built on subjective experience. — Bylaw

I haven't heard of any guess as to why evolution would select for the illusion of choice, or any subjective experience, that makes sense. If the physical processes of determinism can only happen the one way they do in every instance, bringing about the only possible outcome every moment of our lives, regardless of our feeling that we are truly able to go in different directions, what is the value of the feeling? What is the value of of any subjective experience at all? Why do these physical processes not take place "in the dark"?

He's not, there, writing about free will. — Bylaw

No, he is not. he is talking about something that would seem to be less complex then free will. If there is no physicalist explanation for the simple thing, I don't see how there can be a physicalist explanation for the more complicated thing that It makes possible.

Notice that you hinge the truth of free will on the fact that someone says something. — Bylaw

I don't. I thought free will was obvious long before I ever heard of him. I only point out that there is no hint of a physicalist explanation for it, according to one of the experts in physics. If what seems obvious is wrong - which is certainly not impossible - I would like to hear the evidence. I am not aware of any. Physicalism seems to be saying that, since the physical is all we can detect and study, it must be the answer. I think that, since we are aware of something that we cannot detect or study with the tools of physicalism, there is something else in play.

There are scientists who disagree with him. — Bylaw

I would love to see this! Not being sarcastic. Please tell me where I can find a scientist explaining how the "mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise." How "mass, electric charge, and a handful of other similar features (nuclear charges, which are more exotic versions of electric charge), [which] seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience" nevertheless give rise to subjective experiences.

So, mental properties can cause matter to do things and there is no causation in the other direction? — Bylaw

It is certainly a two-way connection. And that's only logical. Why would the physical lead to the mental, but things not go in the other direction?

And why is there free will in the non-physical? What don't processes in that substance cause the next processes/phenomena to happen? Is there no causation in the non-physical, yet it can cause things to happen in the physical? — Bylaw

The way I'm using it, free will means free from the one-and-only possibility offered every moment by physicalist determinism. Freedom from the rules that billiard balls must follow, which allow nothing that deviates in the slightest from exactly X.

This doesn't mean the physical doesn't play a huge role in the mental. It is both the vehicle and the companion of the mental. It is what the mental experiences. Without the physical, there would be nothing for the mental to experience. There would be no mental at all.

What do you think the physical is? It seems you think the physical is particles only. Is that true? — Bylaw

I don't know why you think I think the physical is particles only. No, I don't think that. Sure, there are certainly a lot of particles. Aside from all the matter everywhere, my understanding is that energy, such as light and electricity, is streams of particles, photons and electrons respectively.

I don't think the physical properties of particles, - mass, charge, spin, etc. - are particles. In fact, it is not known what such things are. Brian Greene again:

I don’t know what mass is. I don’t know what electric charge is. What I do know is that mass produces and responds to a gravitational force, and electric charge produces and responds to an electromagnetic force. So while I can’t tell you what these features of particles are, I can tell you what these features do. — Brian Greene

They aren't particles, and we don't know what they are. Still, they are physical properties.

I don't think liquidity and solidity are particles. But I think they are physical. Physical characteristics. Macro physical characteristics, as opposed to the micro physical characteristics like mass and charge.

I don't think movement, flight, or life are particles. But I think they are physical. Physical processes.

I don't think gravity is particles. But I think it is physical. I don't know how else to classify the shape of space-time. (I've often heard they are looking for the fundamental particle of gravity, which they would call a graviton. I don't have any idea why they are looking for such a thing if gravity is caused by the warping of space-time.)

[are you Swedish?] — Bylaw

Another very interesting question. :grin: No. American. Mainly Irish, English, German, and Dutch ancestry.

In any case, so these physical causes are leading to your decision, it seems. — Bylaw

These physical causes are why I'm thinking about Bach at all. They aren't why I decide whether or not to listen to his music, or which pieces I listen to. I'm not programmed like a robot that receives sensory input, and has no choice but to do a specific thing. The robot walks at times; sits at times; makes noises at times; etc. But when it perceives sensory input X, it can do nothing but act in the one specific way it is programmed to act. It has no option, despite the many things it is physically capable of doing. I have options.

But what is making you decide: desire, interest, curiosity, preference? ARe you by any chance thinking that determinism means only causes external to the person lead to what the person does/chooses? That's not most people's idea of determinism. — Bylaw

No, I'm not thinking determinism means only external causes. Many things within us are involved, from memories, to the feel of our own heartbeat, the physiological reactions we get when seeing someone we consider attractive, to upset stomaches...

So, changes in the physical lead to choice? — Bylaw

They may lead to a fork in the road. They don't dictate which way I turn.

And what do you think motivates you to choose between two desserts that you've never tried? What is the motivation? Is your choice in that situation motivated or random? — Bylaw

I am sure I sometimes choose randomly. I'm always getting grief for taking so long to order food. I debate endlessly. I'm told it's called Analysis Paralysis. LoL. I usually ask the waitress which one comes with the most food. That seems like a good way to break a tie.

Sometimes one dessert is much more to my liking than the others. Lots of icing, or cream, or syrup. So I choose that. But choosing based on my preferences is not the same thing as there being no possibility that I could have chosen against them.

You seem to be arguing here that it has nothing to do with memory, so it is free. But what motivates the choice? — Bylaw

I don't know why you think I'm arguing that. I'm not. But my memories don't determine that there is one-and-only-one option I am able to pick from among the possibilities.

Is it random? Is it motivated by desires and goals you have? why are these causes not determined causes in a causal chain? The physical vs. mental to me is a non-issue here. Determinism is the idea that each effect is caused by what went before and in turn is a cause. Doesn't matter if these are mental causes or physical causes or some others. — Bylaw

I'm saying the way physics forces all the particles in the head to move around is not determining the choices I make.

Something leads to your decision/choice. If you chose because of your desires, for example, well these were causes by prior mental states and external causes also. If the choice is not caused by what went before and not caused by you and what you are, it seems a pyrrhic 'freedom' and random. — Bylaw

Not being capable of making a choice at any instant of our lives other than one determined by the laws of physics doesn't seem to be 'freedom' at all.

So, they learn things. These experiences become causes. How does this learning create an exception to determinism? — Bylaw

Right? The Hard Problem of Consciousness. Of course, the HP isn't about an exception to determinism. More basic, it's about how the objective physical is accompanied by subjective experience. But if there are two non-physical things going on, I don't know why they couldn't be two aspects of the same thing.

The problem here is you define it as something free, then use the definition to justify that it is free. — Bylaw

The alternative is saying something is a choice, then saying it was the only possible outcome. That means that, although there are more variables, and more kinds of variables, going into the final choice I make than there are going into the final resting place of a boulder rolling down a mountain, it's all the same. Just physical things bouncing into each other, until the only possible resolution is reached. How can we say the boulder chose the spot in which it came to rest when the factors that went into the choice were gravity, density of materials, and the lay of the land? How can we say that I chose what music to listen to just because the factors that went into the choice included things like molecules called dopamine and serotonin, and records of past stimuli stored in arrangements of connections between neurons?

Are there any changes in the mechanics that lead to this awakening and freedom? — Bylaw

Not mechanics. Again, I'm thinking subjective experience and freedom from physical determinism are part of the same packages. It there was any hint of mechanics, Brian Greene would not write this in Until the End of Time:

And within that mathematical description, affirmed by decades of data from particle colliders and powerful telescopes, there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate. How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise? Particles can have mass, electric charge, and a handful of other similar features (nuclear charges, which are more exotic versions of electric charge), but all these qualities seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience. How then does a whirl of particles inside a head—which is all that a brain is—create impressions, sensations, and feelings? — Brian Greene

I'm not aware of any other scientist who contradicts him. Nobody is saying the charge of X, combined with the mass of Y, when surrounded by the flow of Z, all in a medium of a certain density causes consciousness. There is just an unspoken acceptance that, it just happens.

What's happening at the ontological level that freedom is now allowed — Bylaw

I don't know how many guesses there are about how this is happening. And I can't imagine a way to test any of them. Including the one I suspect is there cases, which is proto-consciousness. A property of matter. But, unlike things like charge, mass, and spin, it is a mental property, rather than a physical property.

and how do you know this is the case? — Bylaw

I don't. I believe it. I see no logic in the idea that conglomerates of particles that do nothing but bounce around according to the laws of physics have, for no reason, the feeling that they are something other than conglomerates of particles that do nothing but bounce around according to the laws of physics. If there was nothing but the physical and laws of physics, there's no reason that such conglomerates would have subjective experiences of any kind, much less the specific subjective experience that they are also something else.

But we do have this experience. And I believe the experience needs an explanation. I don't believe any number or mixture of physical building blocks can give rise to something that is not physical, so there must be something else.

What motivates the choosing not to listen to Bach or the choosing to listen to Bach? Is it random? Uncaused? — Bylaw

The very notion of listening to Bach can be caused by various things. Maybe I see his name in an article. Maybe I see the word "pass", and it makes me think passacaglia. Maybe I read about Mickey Mantle's 565-foot home run, and it makes me think of Bach's BWV 565. Or, more directly, I hear a snippet of hiss music. Whatever the specifics, specific arrangements of connections between neurons have been stimulated, and the records of certain past stimuli are brought to consciousness.

But choosing to listen or not, and choosing which piece to listen to if I choose to listen at all, are a different matter. They aren't just memories brought to the surfaces, unbidden. I don't choose the same way the arrangement of the pool balls after the break is chosen.

What makes you think there was one? What specifically leads you to the conclusion 'those actions on my part were not chosen, all those when I was younger than X, but I can know/show that at least this one, when I was ten, for exampel, while not being the first was free'? — Bylaw

It seems to me that the mind grows as the brain becomes more complex. Even if we aren't controlled by our memories, we use them when we make choices. I can choose between desserts I've never heard of, or between desserts that I have heard of, or some combination. But if I don't have memories of specific desserts, of even memory of what dessert is, because my brain has not yet become complex enough... We don't have memories back beyond a certain point in time, and weren't doing much in the way of thinking clearly or making choices, because we were not yet capable.

Indeed. Choiceless, we come into being. (The creed of the American teenager. "I didn't ask to be born.")

Yes, by definition, the first choice was a free choice. If it's not free, it's not a choice. No more than the boulder chooses which path to take as it rolls down the mountain. But when did that choice takes place? At different ages, under different circumstances, for different people. People learn things, and come to understand things, at different ages.

The conditions from which my consciousness - I - emerged are not the same as the conditions from which your consciousness - you - emerged.

We start as the merging of the genetic material of egg and sperm. There are no choices being made at that point. It's all chemistry. Physical cause and effect.

As we grow, even before we're born, the body/brain develops/makes more connections/becomes more able to process information. And for a while, it's all mechanical. Stimulus and response.

At some point, I don't know the specific conditions, we emerge. Awareness.

Of course, many things about the conditions from which I emerge are the same as the conditions from which you emerge. We wouldn't both be people (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt) without a lot of common grounds. But there are also many differences. Different genetics. Different people, with different voices and smells, raising us in different ways. Different foods. Different smells coming through our windows as we lay in our cribs. On and on. So, before we awakened, and began choosing, while we were simply reacting to stimuli, we reacted in different ways.

Certainly, all that groundwork plays a big role in our likes and dislikes, and our predispositions. Why do I have an overwhelming preference for Bach over Mozart? An extreme sweet tooth? Why am I heterosexual? Why is blue my favorite color? None of those things are choices.

But I can choose whether or not to listen to music at any given moment. If I choose to, I can choose whether or not to listen to Bach. If I do, I can choose from among his pieces. I did not listen to the Musical Offering on such-and-such a date and time because it was impossible for me to do anything other than exactly that.

I did not marry my wife because the progressions of arrangements of all the constituents of my brain, driven by the laws of physics, did not allow me to end our relationship before marriage.

But when did I make my first free choice? No earthly idea. Maybe something that an observer would have taken for a free choice was not, because I had not yet come to understanding.

Those who have been alive an infinite time would have an infinite series. The rest of us only go back to our first choice.

If you make a choice to control your will in a particular way, then... did you also choose the part of your will that made the choice to control that will? And if you did make that choice, did you choose the will that led to that choice? — flannel jesus

Yes. We make all choices, from the moment we are aware that we have options.

Yes that is what I meant, there is no I (as a separate agent) doing the thinking, we are our thinking. — ChatteringMonkey

Agreed.

And, not to derail, but just for fun. This reminds me of the thirteen seconds of this fun video, beginning at 5:03.
Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek - Economics Rap Battle Round Two

The existence of doubt together with our ability to decide when we have doubt means that we, whether a mouse in a maze, a human who wants to invest in the market, etc. are not deterministic agents. — MoK

It is an odd thought that all the movements of particles/energy in our brains could cause feelings of doubt about the resolution as they all resolve into the only brain state into which they could possibly resolve.

I don't entirely agree.

↪Patterner If we can explain the workings of the universe if a logical way and logic permits us to acquire some truth about the universe, does that mean that all the processes in the universe are logical or rational? — Harry Hindu

I don't think so. Certain things can and cannot happen in this universe, due to its properties and laws. For example, a human cannot live if it is born with its heart outside its body. At least not without extreme medical intervention, and not before such intervention was possible. I don't see how it is rational for this to happen.

In a deterministic universe would it be safe to say that all processes are rational, — Harry Hindu

No, for the above reason.

and as such we are able to determine causes from observed effects and predict effects from observed causes? — Harry Hindu

Under relatively simple conditions, yes. We can calculate where Pluto will be in a hundred years. But we cannot predict what mutations to human DNA will take place at any point in the future. Or how many children my son will have, or if any will be poets, cure cancer, or be a mass murderer.

Is natural selection a rational process? — Harry Hindu

I don't know. Rational processes have come into being through it. Does that make it a rational process?

The moral principles and facts being stipulated are that:

1. It is morally impermissible to perform an action that is in-itself bad;
2. It is morally impermissible to directly intend something bad—even for the sake of something good;
3. Harming someone is, in-itself, bad. — Bob Ross

I do not agree with your stipulations. Particularly #3. It is not an absolute that harming someone is bad. For example, it is not bad to harm someone in self-defense.

Question: Is an animal's response the result of rationally thinking through a communication or something else? — Athena

In Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious, Antonio Damasio writes:

Intelligence, in the general perspective of all living organisms, signifies the ability to resolve successfully the problems posed by the struggle for life. — Damasio

and

We know that the most numerous living organisms on earth are unicellular, such as bacteria. Are they intelligent? Indeed they are, remarkably so. Do they have minds? No, they do not, I believe, and neither do they have consciousness. They are autonomous creatures; they clearly have a form of “cognition” relative to their environment, and yet, instead of depending on minds and consciousness, they rely on non-explicit competences—based on molecular and sub-molecular processes—that govern their lives efficiently according to the dictates of homeostasis. — Damasio

It's a long road between that non-explicit competences type of intelligence and human intelligence. Difficult to know when/where rational thinking begins.

Bears certainly have some instinctual intelligence. But they also learn. If a bear is not raised and taught by its mother, it does not do what bears do. I don't know if it would die very young.

Indeed, not along the lines of the op. I just commented on a snippet of side conversation I thought was interesting. I'll stop now. :smile:

What if we did not use words, but communicated with math?
— Athena

How would that work, basically?
— Lionino

Good gravy, I do not know! — Athena

I doubt it's possible. We communicate much more than mathematical ideas. If we tried using math to talk about any of those things, it would no longer be math. It would be numbers, equations, etc., representing things. Just another language. 1 stands for me. 27 stands for eat. 4,534 stands for apple.
1 + 27 + 4,534 = I eat apple.
There's no math in that. Yeah, I just did that in five minutes. But would we find a solution if we spent a thousand years trying? I doubt it. And I assume it's been tried by plenty of mathematicians over the centuries. I can't imagine a way of actually doing math that also means things we want to discuss.

But next time I'm in Castalia, I'll see if they've figured it out.


Is there a way to have tagged inside of the Athena quote?