This thread is at least in part an exploration of the difference between faith and mere belief. Saying that faith is just a belief in some set of values ignores quite a bit of what has already been said about faith. — Banno

Sure, but then neither is faith in all its meanings always equivalent to unquestioning obedience to some authority or else in some authoritative given - this as per the Abraham example as written.

As remarked early on, in common speech one and one's spouse are said to be faithful - full of faith - toward one another. Or as another example, having faith in humanity, or else one's fellow man. In neither of these contexts is faith taken to be about blind obedience to authority. Nor is it about mere belief.

I'll venture the notion that faith is about a certain form of trust - a trust in X that can neither be empirically nor logically evidenced. Belief (also closely associated to the notion of trust) can and most always should be justifiable in order to be maintained - as is the case in JTB. But faith eludes this possibility in practice.

Form there, the concept or else experience of faith can then bifurcate into authoritarian doctrines and usages, one the one hand, and on the other into a certain sense of hope-as-acted-upon-conviction regarding what is and will be, one for which one cannot find any steady ground to provide justification for.

Here's one extreme but good example: I don't just believe that solipsism is bullshit, I have and have always had a stringent acted-upon-conviction that it is. In sprite of this, I acknowledge that so far no philosophy has managed to demonstrate why solipsism is in fact false. In this sense, then, we all have and life by our faith that we are not solipsists. No blind obedience to anything required to have and uphold this one example of faith.

Or course, loud mouth authoritarians in religious circles are gonna claim sole knowledge about and ownership of what "true faith" is really all about. After all, it can rather fluidly serve authoritarian purposes. But disparaging the very occurrence of faith in all circumstances on this ground is a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I'll add that it is not OK to have faith in things that blatantly contradict reality - to have faith that humans once upon a time walked along side dinosaurs, for example. But when it comes to having faith in one's romantic partner, or one's fellow man, or that one is not a solipsism - and I take it that the list can be much longer - when such faith is not contradicted by any empirical evidence or logic is just common sense (even if one cannot prove that one's spouse has not cheated and will not cheat, or that human nature is not determined to be callous, etc.).

Yea, opinionated of me, but I sand by what I've just said.

If we assume that the observer in the trial and error act is separate from the acter, this becomes very evident.

Suppose I assign to you the task of turning over all the rocks in a specific area, because I am looking for something underneath one. You, the acter only know the specified act, without any knowledge of what constitutes success or failure, only I, the observer, knows. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, we again don't see eye to eye on this. I for one don't find reason to assume the observer is separate from the actor (here specifically as pertains to the act of choice making). To me, the pure ego as observer (e.g., that which is aware of alternatives) and the pure ego as actor (e.g., that which chooses) are one and the same (this irrespective of the metaphysics one entertains for the choice between alternatives taken).

In the example you provide, on the other hand, I as the actor must for whatever (I uphold end-driven) reason first comply with your request if I am to at all act as you wish on your behalf. Once I so comply, then my actions will themselves all be end-driven - this not by your want to engage in trial and error actions whose end is unknown to me - but by my own then actively occurring want to successfully end up so "turning over all the rocks in a specific area". This in itself then being the end which teleologically drives, and thereby motivates, my actions.

So, at least in the example provided, I still find all activities to be end-driven and thereby purposeful.

Further, this implies that "intention-endowed" actions are not necessarily guided in any particular way. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you then suggesting that intentioning can occur in the complete absence of any intent? Such that X can consciously intend some outcome Z despite not being motivated by any intent/end - an intent/end which thereby equates to Z's successful actualization at some future point in time?

No biggie if we end up disagreeing at this point. But, again, I don't find reason to entertain what you've so far suggested.

A neuron is a living cell. Whether it is sentient and can learn things is a subject of discussion. I believe a neuron could become sentient if this provided an advantage for the organism. This is however very costly since it requires the neuron to be a complex entity. Such a neuron, not only needs more food but also a sort of training before it can function properly within the brain where all neurons are complex entities. So, let's say that you have a single neuron, let's call it X, which can perform a function, let's call it Z, learning for example. Now let's assume a collection of neurons, let's call them Y, which can do the same function as Z but each neuron is not capable of performing Z. The question is whether it is economical for the organism, to have X or Y. That is a very hard question. It is possible to find an organism that does not have many neurons and each neuron can perform Z. That however does not mean that we can generalize such an ability to neurons of other organisms that have plenty of neurons. The former organism may due to evolution gain such a capacity where such a capacity is not necessary and economical for the latter organism. — MoK

Alright. While I still disagree with neurons being insentient, I can now better understand your reasoning. Thanks. If its worth saying, neurons do in fact require a lot of energy to live, and learning can very well be a largely innate faculty of at least certain lifeforms. But for my part, I'll leave things as they are. It was good talking with you!

Which is all to say, stop with the literalism. — Hanover

While I duly appreciate the comment and will, as always, uphold it in full, wanted to draw attention to certain possibilities of how at least some well known myths might have nevertheless developed form historical truths (maybe).

The flood was previously mentioned in the thread – this as possibly having been adopted from the Mesopotamians. On one hand, the flood myth is actually very wide spread, to include ancient Greek myths of how Zeus flooded the lands to punish humanity. Here pertinent to the Western hemisphere (to include migrations to and from it), though, is the so far viable Black Sea deluge hypothesis – which could have been a historical fact that can thereby account for all flood myths both west and east of the Black Sea.

This along the lines of how the Jonah and the Whale fable could potentially have in fact been Jonah being swallowed up in full by a great white shark in the Mediterranean sea. Great whites used to get bigger than they typically get today (due to our fishing). A large enough great white could swallow a person full in one go, so that the person remains alive and in one piece. Sharks are also known to regurgitate unpleasant eatings, so were the dude to start punching and kicking inside the sharks’ stomach, the shark would have likely regurgitated the human whole, and yet living. And the Mediterranean sea is upheld by at least some experts to be a nursery where great whites give birth. And, technically, in Hebrew its not a whale but expressed as being a "large fish".

No such possible account would be literalism. Quite obviously. But if any such account would be true, neither would the myths which developed from these accounts and which have taken on a life of their own be completely concocted out of thin air. Which isn't to say the same must apply to all myths out there. Anyway. Musings.

I read about plant intelligence a long time ago and I was amazed. They cannot only recognize between up and down, etc. they also are capable of communicating with each other. I can find those articles and share them with you if you are interested. — MoK

I'm relatively well aware of this. Thank you. :up: It gets even more interesting in considering that, from what we know, subterranean communication between plants seems to require their communal symbiosis with fungi species. In a very metaphorical sense, their brains are underground, and communicate via a potentially wide web connections.

To me what you call the unconscious mind (what I call the subconscious mind) is conscious. — MoK

I in many ways agree. I would instead state that the unconscious mind - which I construe to not always be fully unified in its agencies - is instead "aware and volition-endowed". So, in this sense, it could be stated to be in its own way conscious (here to my mind keeping things simple and not addressing the plurality of agencies that could therein occur), but we as conscious agents are yet unconscious of most of its awareness and doings. This being why I yet term it the unconscious mind: we as conscious beings are, again, typically not conscious of its awareness and doings.

So once one entertains the sentience of neurons, one here thereby addresses the constituents of one's living body, rather than of one's own mind per se. — javra

I cannot follow what you are trying to say here. — MoK

I basically wanted to express that, if one allows the neurons being sentient, their own sentience is part and parcel of our living brain's total physiology, this as aspects of our living bodies. Whereas we as mind-endowed conscious beings of our own, our own sentience is not intertwined with that pertaining to individual neurons of our CNS. Rather, they do their thing within the CNS for the benefit of their own individual selves relative to their community of fellow neurons, which in turn results in certain neural-web firings within our brain, which in turn results in the most basic aspects of our own unconscious mind supervening on these neural-web firings, with these most basic aspects of our unconscious mind then in one way or another ultimately combining to form the non-manifold unity of the conscious human being. A consciousness which on occasion interacts with various aspects of its unconscious mind, such as when thinking about (questioning, judging the value of, etc.) concepts and ideas - as you've mentioned.

Hope that makes what I previously said clearer.

I understand you disagree and can find alternative explanations to a single neuron learning. One could do the same for ameba is one wants to play devil's advocate. — javra

I don't understand how in the case of Ameba they could possibly interact and learn collectively. — MoK

I haven't claimed that amebas can act collectively. Here, I was claiming that the so-called "problem of other minds" can be readily applied to the presumed sentience of amebas. This in the sense that just because it looks and sounds like a duck doesn't necessitate that it so be. Hence, just because an ameba looks and acts as thought it is sentient, were one to insist on it, one could argue that the ameba might nevertheless be perfectly insentient all the same. This as you seem to currently maintain for individual neurons. But this gets heavy into issues of epistemology and into what might constitute warranted vs. unwarranted doubts. (If it looks and sounds like a duck, it most likely is.)

In regards to the subject of this thread, the existence of options in a deterministic world, I found there is a simple explanation for the phenomenon once I consider a set of neurons each being a simple entity and deterministic. — MoK

No worries there. But why would allowing for neurons holding some form of sentience then disrupt this general outlook regarding the existence of options? The brain would still do what it does - this irrespective of how one explains the (human) mind-brain relationship. Or so I so far find.

I understand you disagree and can find alternative explanations to a single neuron learning. One could do the same for amebas if one wants to play devil's advocate.

If you're willing, what are the "serious objections" that you have to the possibility that individual neurons can learn from experience?

I thought this could be of interest, or at least further clarify the position I currently hold:

Also: in fairness, my own general understanding of mind follows E. Thompson's understanding pretty closely, — javra

I should edit this as follows: this is so for certain aspects of mind – such as those that pertaining to single-celled lifeforms, be they somatic cells (e.g. neurons) or else individual organisms (e.g., ameba) – and somewhat less so for others: finding far more complexity than the book offers in relation to the workings of a human mind, for example (which we’ve previously briefly discussed in another thread).

As one good example of this approach in regard to the sentience of an organism and that of its individual constituent cells:

Most – including in academic circled – will acknowledge that a plant is sentient (some discussing the issue of plant intelligence to boot): It, after all, can sense sunlight and gravity such that it grows its leaves toward sunlight and its roots toward gravity. But, although this sensing of environment will be relatively global to the plant, I for the life of me can’t fathom how a plant might then have a centralized awareness and agency along the lines of what animals most typically have – such that in more complex animals it becomes the conscious being. I instead envision a plant’s sentience to generally be the diffuse sum product of the interactions between its individual constituent cells, such that each cell – with its own specialized functions - holds its own (utterly miniscule) sentience as part of a cooperative we term the organism, in this case the plant. This, in some ways, in parallel to how a living sponge as organism – itself being an animal – is basically just a communal cooperation between individual eukaryotic cells which feed together via the system of openings: with no centralized awareness to speak of. This general outlook then fits with the reality that some plants have no clear boundaries as organisms – despite yet sensing, minimally, sunlight and gravity - with grass as one such example: a field of grass of the same species is typically intimately interconnected underground as one organism, yet a single blade of grass and it’s root can live just fine independently as an individual organism if dug up and planted in a new area. I thereby take the plant to be sentient, but only as a cooperative of individual sentience-endowed plant cells whose common activities result in the doings of the plant as a whole organism: doing in the form of both sensing its environment and acting upon it (albeit far slower than most any animal). I don’t so far know of a better way of explaining a plant’s sentience given all that we know about plants.

Whereas in animals such as humans, the centralized awareness and agency which we term consciousness plays a relatively central role to out total mind's doings – obviously, with the unconscious aspects of our mind being not conscious to us; and with the latter in turn resulting from the structure and functioning of our physiological CNS, which itself holds different zones of activity (from which distinct agencies of the unconscious mind might emerge) and which we consider body rather than mind. So once one entertains the sentience of neurons, one here thereby addresses the constituents of one's living body, rather than of one's own mind per se.



My bad if this is too off-topic. I won't post anymore unless there's reason to reply.

Your post clarifies your views for me some. We do hold a lot of disagreements when we get into the details.

You maintain that agency will not always be purposeful due to it sometimes being random, giving trial and error processes as an example. And you introduce the reality of accidental doings to this same effect.

As to accidental doings – say, accidentally knocking over a vase in contrast to intentionally so doing – this to us will always be relative to what the conscious agent as pure ego intended. So, for example, if I as a conscious mind intended to knock over your vase to peeve you off, you will hold me accountable for the doing, and take action accordingly. But if you presume or else know that my knocking over your vase was not what I as a conscious mind, as a pure ego, intended, then you might find reason to not hold me responsible for the loss of your vase.

Accidental doings can themselves occur for different potential (end-driven) reasons: it could have been unconsciously intended even if not consciously intended (with slips of the tongue as one example of this); else, just as the outcome of a basketball game can be deemed relatively random prior to the game's commencement despite all agents involved playing with clear intentions to have their own team win, so too can an accidental doing conceivably be the outcome of a multitude of discordant agencies within the same total mind. Neither of these, however, refute the purposiveness of each individual agency of a total mind concerned.

As to trial and error processes, I can so far only disagree with such being purposeless. On one hand, to engage in trial and error processes without an end pursued would potentially incur sometimes maybe grave costs despite not holding any benefits of which any agency might be aware of. So doing would then be evolutionarily unfit. And so it would not then be as common an activity in lifeforms as it currently is. On the other hand, whenever we as conscious humans engage in trial and error processes it is (as far as I know) always with a purpose in mind. Example: a person want’s to get rich, this being the end pursued, so they might engage in trial and error processes of finding gold in different geological locations. I venture I could find, or at least validly infer, an end pursued for any particular trial and error process example you might provide – this granting that it pertains to the activities of life.

While I grant that our unconscious doings might at times seem random to us, I can so far find no reason to entertain that any intention-devoid agency can occur. I acknowledge the possible reality of randomness in relation to agency at large, but will deem it to be the outcome of discordant agencies, each intention-endowed, whose interactions results in outcomes unintended by any. This be the agencies individual humans or else the individual agencies of a singular total human mind.

Maybe we are at a standstill at this point? Our perspective do seem to hinge on this issue regarding the possibility of “random (else, intention-devoid) agency.”

I think that amoebas evolved in such a way to function as a single organism. Neurons are however different entities and they function together. — MoK

Yes, but I don't see how that is significant to neurons being or not being sentient.

Moreover, scientific evidence shows that a single amoeba can learn and remember. To my knowledge, no scientific evidence exists that a single neuron can learn or remember. — MoK

Here's an article from Nature to the contrary: Neurons learn by predicting future activity.

BTW, so its known, what I just wrote is a simplified model of the average neuron.

Different neurons will have different physiology. Some neurons, for example, do not have an axon, at least not one that can be differentiated from its dendrites. (reference) Other neurons have over 1000 dendritic branches and the one axon. (reference) Still, they all (to my knowledge) sense dendritic input and act upon their environment in fairly blatant manners - thereby staying accordant to the definition of mind you've provided.

Also: in fairness, my own general understanding of mind follows E. Thompson's understanding pretty closely, which he explains in great detail in his book "Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind". The first paragraph from the book's preface given the general idea:

THE THEME OF THIS BOOK is the deep continuity of life and mind.
Where there is life there is mind, and mind in its most articulated forms
belongs to life. Life and mind share a core set of formal or organiza-
tional properties, and the formal or organizational properties distinc-
tive of mind are an enriched version of those fundamental to life. More
precisely, the self-organizing features of mind are an enriched version of
the self-organizing features of life. The self-producing or “autopoietic”
organization of biological life already implies cognition, and this incip-
ient mind finds sentient expression in the self-organizing dynamics of
action, perception, and emotion, as well as in the self-moving flow of
time-consciousness. — https://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2012_03.dir/pdf3okBxYPBXw.pdf

But the definitions of mind you've provided are far easier to express and to me work just fine.

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

They talk about the amoeba, which has the required elements.

Obviously, these definitions of mind and thinking are as basic as can be. But it's where it all starts.

Can a neuron be said to have a mind, to think, by these definitions? — Patterner

I don't see why not.

The sensor aspect of thought so defined: the neuron via its dendrites senses in its environment of fellow neurons their axonal firings (axons of other neurons to which the dendrites of the particular neuron are connected via synapses) and responds to its environment of fellow neurons by firing its own axon so as to stimulate other neurons via their own dendrites.

The doer aspect of thought so defined: the neuron's growth of dendrites and axon (which is requisite for neural plasticity) occurs with the, at least apparent, purpose of finding, or else creating, new synaptic connections via which to be stimulated and stimulate - this being a neuron's doing in which the neuron acts upon its environment in novel ways.

To me, it seems to fit the definitions of mind offered just fine.

Many critics of Buddhism (even highly educated critics) view it as nihilistic, in that the Nirvāṇa of the Buddha is said to be the ‘eternal oblivion’ that the OP speaks about. But a close reading of the texts doesn’t suggest that - they say the Tathagatha passes beyond the dualities of existence and non-existence. — Wayfarer

Interesting: the same can be expressed of the neoplatonic notion of the One (its being beyond the dualities of existence and non-existence). In honesty, my reasoning aside (it gets quite metaphysical), I'm driven to believe that Nirvana (without remainder) and the One / the Good are the same ontic thing expressed in different scaffoldings of thought, with each such applying its own at times disparate mythoi. In only some ways, a bit like how one can be reminded of both Lucifer (the lucid one) and Venus (love in all its myriad aspects) when looking up at the exact same physical star.

Just last week was Ash Wednesday when Christians are reminded from dust they came and to dust they will return. — Fire Ologist

Nothing solid to work with here, but from the movie Gladiator (I did say nothing solid to work with) I gather the possible motif if not actual ancient saying of "we are shadows and dust" or something to the like. From which could be inferred something along the lines of our selves as personas (masks in one sense) as being the shadows of our nonduaistic egos (itself in pure form potentially being equated to (a current aspect or fragment of) the Good as absolute nondualiistic being. For some this being maybe equivalent with God.

This seems in keeping with a recurrent theme in mythological accounts of us being "sparks" or "emendations" of the divine. Such that "shadows to shadows" and "dust to dust" (here assuming "shadows" to represent our spiritual being and "dust" to represent physicality).

Semi-random musings on the subject of "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust", for what its worth.

I recently watched an interesting documentary on Mt Athos, the Orthodox monastery complex. Towards the end, the head monk re-affirms that final union with God can only be realised at death, and that their life-long residency at the monastery is all by way of 'practicing for death' - exactly as Plato says in Phaedo. — Wayfarer

Though unorthodox of me to do so, it's how I like to interpret the Christian jargon of "till death do us (we) part".

Of course, death can also be construed as ego-death. And for those who so uphold, becoming or else being one with the Good - this rather then merely holding any form of understanding regarding it - could viably only occur on the obliteration of any and all dualistic ego.

Yes, ego-death inevitably occurs upon corporeal death to this world. For those who don't subscribe to an instant transcendence from being while alive to a state of absolute nonbeing upon corporeal death, however, what might occur afterwards cannot logically be that of becoming one with the Good for as long as there might yet remain any semblance of a dualistic ego (here thinking of angels playing their harps, kind of thing, which necessitates a dualistic ego wherein there is oneself and other) - this, at least, when associating the Good with the divinely simple neoplatonic notion of the One.

I also find this outlook accordant to at least some Buddhist understanding of possible afterlives - this via my somewhat vague recollections of things I've read in The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Second page, and still no pi/pie joke... — Banno

All righty then, I'll give it a go.

There's the pivotal pie scene in the original movie American Pie, for anyone who wants to take a poke.

One could grasp the pie in one sense, physically that is, but in another sense the pie event is un-graspable, in the sense of intelligibility ... thereby making many of us laugh at first seeing the movie.

Then there's the movie Pi. Which can also be grasped and not grasped at the same time. But that one isn't as funny.

For those who haven't seen American Pie:

That is a very important part when it comes to the neuroplasticity of the brain. A neuron mainly just fires when it becomes depolarized to a certain extend. — MoK

This overlooks the importance of dendritic input. which culminates in the neuron's nucleus. As to neuroplasiticiy, it can be rather explicitly understood to consist of new synaptic connections created by new outreachings of dendrites and axons. Otherwise the brain would remain permanently hardwired, so to speak, with the neural connections it has from birth till the time of its death. And I distinctly remember the latter being the exact opposite of neuroplasticity in the neuroscience circles I once partook of. So understood, neuroplaticity is contingent on individual neurons growing their dendrites and axons (via most likely trial and error means) toward new sources of synapse-resultant stimulation.

I highly doubt that a neuron has a mind. But let's assume so for the sake of the argument. In which location in a neuron is the information related to what the neuron experienced in the past stored? How could a neuron realize options? — MoK

Same questions can be placed with equal validity of any individual ameba, for example. Point being, if you allow for "mind in life" as it would pertain to an ameba, there is no reason to not then allow the same for a neuron. The as of yet unknown detailed mechanism of how all this occurs in a lifeform devoid of a central nervous system being completely irrelevant to the issue at hand.

How could a group of neurons work coherently if each is free? — MoK

Free from what? All I said is that an individual neuron can well be maintained to be sentient, hence hold a volition and mind (utterly minuscule in comparison to our own though it would then be). As to the issue of how can a plurality of sentient lifeforms work "coherently" - assuming that by "coherently" you meant cooperatively - I'm not sure what you're here expecting? How does a society of humans work cooperatively? A multitude of hypotheses could be offered, one of which is that of maximizing the well being of oneself via cooperation with others. Besides, as liver cells are built to work cooperatively in the liver as organ, for example, neurons are built to work cooperatively in the CNS as organ.

In this thread, I really didn't want to get into a debate about whether the world at the microscopic level is deterministic or not. — MoK

My bad then.

To answer that, let's put the real world aside and look at artificial neural networks (ANN) for a moment. — MoK

In other words, look at silicon-based systems rather than life-based systems in order to grasp how life-based systems operate. Not something I'm myself into. But it is your OP, after all.

As individual living cells, neurons too can be deemed to hold some sort of sentience – this in parallel to that sentience (else mind) that can be affirmed of single-celled eukaryotic organisms, such as ameba. — javra

An ameba is a living organism and can function on its own. A neuron, although is a living entity, its function depends on the function of other neurons. For example, the strengthening and weakening of a synapse is the result of whether the neurons that are connected by the synapse fire in synchrony or not, so-called Hebbian theory. So there is a mechanism for the behavior of a few neurons, and it seems that is the basic principle for memory, and I would say for other complex phenomena even such as thinking. — MoK

I'll only point out that all of your reply addresses synapses - which are connections in-between neurons and not the neutrons themselves.

So none of this either rationally or empirically evidences that an individual neuron is not of itself a sentience-endowed lifeform - one that engages in autopoiesis, to include homeostasis and metabolism as an individual lifeform, just as much as an any self-sustaining organism does; one that seeks out stimulation via both dendritic and axonal growth just as much as any self-sustaining organism seeks out and requires stimulation; one which perceives stimuli via its dendrites and acts, else reacts, via its axon; etc.

As I was previously mentioning, there is no rational or empirical grounds to deny sentience to the individual neuron (or most any somatic cell for that matter - with nucleus-lacking red blood cells as a likely exception) when ascribing sentience to self-sustaining single celled organisms such as amebas. Again, the explanation you've provided for neurons not being in some manner sentient falls short in part for the reasons just mentioned: in short, synapses are not neurons, but the means via which neurons communicate.

But back to the premise of neural processes being deterministic ...

Neural processes however are deterministic. So I am wondering how can deterministic processes lead to the realization of options. — MoK

I deem this the crucial premise in the OP that needs to be questioned.

IFF a world of causal determinism, then sure: “neural processes are deterministic” (just as much as a Roomba). However, if the world is not one of causal determinism, then on what grounds, rational or empirical, can this affirmation be concluded?

A living brain is after all living, itself composed of individual, interacting living cells, of which neurons are likely best known via empirical studies. As individual living cells, neurons too can be deemed to hold some sort of sentience – this in parallel to that sentience (else mind) that can be affirmed of single-celled eukaryotic organisms, such as ameba. Other that personal biases, there's no rational grounds to deny sentience (mind) to one and not the other. And, outside a stringent conviction in our world being one of causal determinism, there is no reason to conclude that an ameba, for example, behaves in fully deterministic manners. Likewise then applies to the behaviors of any individual neuron. Each neuron seeks both sustenance and stimulation via its synaptic connections so as to optimally live. It’s by now overwhelmingly evidenced that neuroplasticity in fact occurs. Such that it is more than plausible that both synaptic reinforcement and synaptic decay (as well as the creation of new synaptic connections) will occur based on the (granted, very minimal) volition of individual neurons’ attempts to best garner sustenance and stimulations so as to optimize its own individual life as a living cell.

And all this can well be in tune with the stance that neural processes are in fact not deterministic (here, this in the sense of a causal determinism).

To this effect, linked here is an article regarding the empirically evidenced intelligence, or else sentience, of individual cohorts of neurons grown in a petri dish which learned how to play Pong (which can be argued to require a good deal of forethought (prediction) to successfully play). Some highlights from the article:

Summary: Brain cells grown in a petri dish can perform goal-directed tasks, such as learning to play a game of Pong.

[....]

“But in truth we don’t really understand how the brain works.”

By building a living model brain from basic structures in this way, scientists will be able to experiment using real brain function rather than flawed analogous models like a computer.

[...]

To perform the experiment, the research team took mouse cells from embryonic brains as well as some human brain cells derived from stem cells and grew them on top of microelectrode arrays that could both stimulate them and read their activity.

Electrodes on the left or right of one array were fired to tell Dishbrain which side the ball was on, while distance from the paddle was indicated by the frequency of signals. Feedback from the electrodes taught DishBrain how to return the ball, by making the cells act as if they themselves were the paddle.

[...]

Kagan says one exciting finding was that DishBrain did not behave like silicon-based systems. “When we presented structured information to disembodied neurons, we saw they changed their activity in a way that is very consistent with them actually behaving as a dynamic system,” he says.

“For example, the neurons’ ability to change and adapt their activity as a result of experience increases over time, consistent with what we see with the cells’ learning rate.” — https://neurosciencenews.com/organoid-pong-21625/

Again, if one insists in the world being one of causal determinism, then all this is itself determinate in all respects. Fine. But if not, empirical studies such as this strongly indicate that neural processes are indeed indeterministic, aka, not deterministic.

The inquiry into options available and the act of choice making itself would then follow suit.

The issue of duality is not a matter of how the conscious I relates to its conscious experience, and how the conscious I remembers a dream. Those ar both part of the wakened experience. It is a duality between the way that the conscious I remembers the dream, and the way that the somnio-conscious I exists, as itself, in the dream.

If we insist that the only true "I" is the conscious I, then we need to account for the appearance of a somnio-conscious I in the dreamworld. — Metaphysician Undercover

Having read your entire post, do you then find it fair for me to characterize the duality you are addressing as a duality between an illusory conscious I-ness and a real somnio-conscious I-ness? And if it is a fair interpretation, that you then interpret the real somio-conscious I-ness to occur while the waking conscious I-ness is also occurring – only that the former is unconsciously occurring relative to the latter? Or is this not quite right? If it’s not correct, then I still don’t quite understand what do you intend to express by “duality” of I-ness.

Maybe my addressing the notion of agency might better illustrate my current best understanding.

Don't you consider the living being itself, as a unified body, with all the organs, heart, lungs, brain, etc., working together in a unified way, to be itself "an agent". If all the parts of the body act together in a unified way, and the body itself acts in a way which can be said to be the act of an agent, shouldn't we conclude that even if the acts of that body are unconscious acts (dreaming for example) they are the acts of "an agent", referring to unified agency. — Metaphysician Undercover

The notion of “agent” is to me not at all simple, such that that referred to as the (first-person) agent can readily change within different contexts of contemplation, but I do find the notion coherent despite these complexities.

To first define “agent”, to me it is any (at least relatively unified) identity which holds agency. In turn, also in keeping with common place notions, “agency” to me is the ability to accomplish (more explicitly to accomplish some end) and hence to do or undergo something - thereby meaning “the capacity, condition, or state of exerting power (“power” here in the strict sense of “ability to do or undergo something”) and, therefore, the capacity, condition, or state of engaging in actions (i.e. in this context, of intentionally doing things)”.

One could differ as to the definition of “agency” and thereby of “agent” (i.e., that which holds agency) – and if so, I’d very much like to know how – but for now granting this definition of “agent”:

Yes, a total self (to include both its physical and psychical/mental aspects), else a total organism thus understood, can well be construed to be an agent per se in many a context. Yet in other contexts – such as those philosophical contexts that seek to address the possibility of libertarian free will – the total organism cannot possibility be the agent in question – for one example, because the alternatives between which it as agent chooses can very well completely be aspects of its own total self's discordant agencies of (unconscious) mind. In these latter contexts, then, the addressed agent is what William James terms the pure ego (the knower of one’s own total self) – rather than the empirical ego (the total self which is known).

I-ness, in turn, can likewise address the total self (e.g., I am tall, hence tallness as a constituent aspect of my very I-ness, this being contingent on the physiology one as a pure ego knows oneself to be as an empirical ego) – which, maybe importantly, of itself as total self pivots on the occurrence of the pure ego which is so aware of its empirical ego. Else, I-ness can strictly address the pure ego per se (e.g., that I-ness which can validly affirm “I am aware of my body or thoughts”; else: I am joyful rather than sad, I am psychologically at ease rather than upset, etc.; else: I choose X rather than Y or Z; all these here then being either activities which the pure ego of itself engages in or states of being pertaining to the pure ego of itself). I find that this subject can indeed get very complex. But when I expressed I-ness as “a first-person point of view” I thereby intended to address the pure ego as agent – this rather than the empirical ego, i.e. the total self of which the pure ego is aware of, as agent.

Having roughly addressed what I reference by the term “agent” (again, that which holds agency as previously defined), I’ll again affirm that I interpret a total human (or else relatively developed; e.g. birds, mammals, etc.) mind to be an almost literal commonwealth of agencies – which are sometimes partly discordant and sometimes fully unified in at the very least that which they intend as agencies. It most certainly won’t sound right due to the connotations which we’ve been habituated to understand by the term “agent” (this being one reason why I find the need for new terminology to address this in my own philosophical endeavors) but, when looking at the definition of “agent” that I previously provided, one could then appraise each and every distinct agency of a total mind to be a distinct – though transiently occurring – agent, replete with its own pure ego of sorts that apprehends and reacts to at least certain phenomena.

So construed as a commonwealth of agencies, I again take it that some such then converge in the non-manifold unity of the conscious I as pure ego – this in waking states of being. And that when asleep and dreaming, the same convergence of certain agencies of the commonwealth of total mind occurs so as to produce the non-manifold unity of the somnio-conscious I as pure ego.

Just as the conscious I as pure ego dissolves upon falling asleep, so too does (I take it) the somnio-conscious I as pure ego dissolve into the various agencies of the total mind in-between periods of REM sleep – such that it is reunified as a dreaming pure ego in each period of REM sleep. Upon awakening, the unified pure ego of dreaming states can then become further unified with other agencies of a total mind such that it once again remembers waking states of former being while also (sometimes more than other times) remembering some aspects of what the sleeping pure ego experienced during the dreams of the night.

In so construing, I then interpret a continuity in the pure ego as agent– both in the pure ego of waking states from one day to the next and in the pure ego which occurs during dreams in between awakened states. I’d don’t find reason to believe that the pure ego of dreams continues to occur unconsciously while the pure ego of awakened states occurs. This such that I find the conscious I as pure ego to be no more real or else illusory than the somnio-conscious I as pure ego, and vice versa. It's just that the conscious I as pure ego interacts with the world whereas the somnio-conscious I as pure ego interacts with various unconscious agencies of its own total mind.

Also, because I look upon a total human mind as a total commonwealth of agencies, I don’t find reason to presume that there is a division between the conscious pure ego as one agent which interacts with its unconscious mind as a then separate agent in total. There can occasionally be found certain interactions between the conscious mind (the conscious pure ego as I-ness) and certain aspects of its unconscious mind (with one such example being consciousness's interaction with its conscience), but I don't find evidence for the unconscious mind being of itself a unified, and hence singular, agent in some way divided from the conscious mind as agent.

I could continue, but I’ve written a bunch as it is – and I don’t know the extent, if any, to which you’d find significant disagreement with what I’ve so far expressed.

In short, though, yes, the total person as a total self can well be considered an agent, but that is not the agent I was referencing when addressing the “I” as a first-person point of view (the latter instead being what William James termed the pure ego).

This leads directly toward the complexity you mentioned. I agree that the conscious mind looks at evidence, ideas, principles, and actually makes judgements. And this, the act of making a judgement, is a sort of act. There is a problem of complexity though, [...] — Metaphysician Undercover

Aye, it can indeed get very complex, agreed. To my mind at least, consciousness and unconsciousness are at all times interconnected, hence never in any way divided, and perpetually influence each other via top-down processes (formal causation in Aristotelian terms) and bottom-up processes (material causation in Aristotelian terms (which is not to be confused with what we today construe to be “mater”, as I so far believe you very well know [Aristotle, for example, gives the example of letters being the material cause of syllables (for syllable are made up of letters) or else the example of parts (say the ideas from which a paradigm is constituted) being the material cause of the whole (here, the paradigm of, say, biological evolution itself]).

This indicates that the rational conscious mind does not have "the final say". The rational judgement of the conscious mind is not the actual cause of an individual's actions, as is demonstrated by a propensity of some people to act contrary to their conscious judgements. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’d say that while conscious decisions will typically have a final sway (rather than "say", here in the sense of dictatorial authority) over what the unconscious mind proceeds to do, it can often enough be the case that the unconscious mind vetoes the consciously made decisions – with a good, and relatively extreme, example of this being a heroin addict who consciously chooses to no longer take heroin no matter what but (even when construing this choice to be that of libertarian free will on the part of the conscious pure ego) then is compelled in extreme manners by the unconscious mind in any number of ways to continue so taking despite the conscious choice made.

Notwithstanding, the only chance a heroin addict has of no longer so being is to repeatedly make the same conscious choice to no longer so be - this until the consciously made choice at last has the ability (the power) to convince the majority of the unconscious mind to so no longer take in heroin despite the transient unpleasant consequences of not so taking. Which is to say that, to me, consciousness still has a significant role to play as agency relative to the total mind's doings.

:roll: I give up.

OK. So, first let me say, I'm not interested in convincing you of compatibilism. I can't do that. I don't want to do that, it's beside the point. I'm not even interested in convincing you compatibilism is *coherent*. All I'm interested in is if you're able, after this, to translate someone saying "I'm a compatibilist" into a more broken-down paraphrasing of what they're probably saying. — flannel jesus

I'm not interested in you convincing me of squat either. For Goddess's sake, I am a hardcore compatibilist - this of an indeterminsim ilk. Nor am I trying to convince you of anything either.

Re-read what I posted and rationally explain how a compatibilist notion of free will can make sense in the context of "an indeterminist compatibalist that does not uphold an indeterminist free will while upholding compatibilism.".

Because so far its about as irrational an affirmation as I can find.

Shall we start with step 1? — flannel jesus

Step 1 it is. Yes.

A compatibilist one — flannel jesus

And what is "a compatibilist one"?

As best as I so far can tell: Either "compatibilism" is defined thus and is thereby accordant with certain forms of indeterminsim or, else, it is a compatibilism that upholds causal determinism and hence can not at any juncture uphold an indeterminist free will.

If the first, an indeterminist compatibilist can only uphold an indeterminst notion of free will.
If the second, the only logical possiblity is a determinist notion of free will - which is utterly incompatible with the indeterminism upheld by the indeterminist compatibalist.

So what other definition of "compatibiliist" do you have to offer???

your description of an indeterminist compatibilism — javra


I didn't describe an indeterminist compatibilism. I described an indeterminist compatibilist - a person who is a compatibilist, who happens to be an indeterminist.

The two positions aren't related. It's just a person who holds both positions at once.. — flannel jesus

Right. Glad you made the correction you made. Still. True. You didn't describe indeterminsit compatibalism, you described a person who upholds the position of indeterminist compatibilism: ergo, you described a indeterminst compatibilist.

All this being a difference that makes absolutely no difference whatsoever in respect to this:

If your description of an indeterminist compatibilism compatibilist does not involve an indeterminst concept of free will, what on earth kind of free will can your description of an "indeterminst compatibilism compatibilist" possibly entail?

(I can so far only assume it then mandates a determinist concept of free will. But then how does one get a determinist concept of free will - i.e., a free will whose doings are causally inevitable in all conceivable cases - to in any way cohere with an indeterminist compatibilism compatibilist's view???) — javra

I don't much like sophistry, considering it a waste of time, and your response sure as fuddle so far seems to me to so be.

So, to get to the point: What the heck is a non-indetermistic notion of free will that can in any coherent way (i.e., any non-double-think or otherwise insane way) apply to an indetermistic compatibilist's views?

The universe being indeterministic doesn't seem to give any more room for free will than if it were deterministic. — flannel jesus

Especially in light of statements such as this, for the life of me i don't understand your reasoning. I'm presuming the best here, and am earnestly trying to understand. In then going back to this:

You don't see that an indeterminist concept of free will is logically contrary to a determinst's concept of free will — javra


My description of an indeterminist compatibilist didn't involve an indeterminist concept of free will. — flannel jesus

If your description of an indeterminist compatibilism does not involve an indeterminst concept of free will, what on earth kind of free will can your description of an "indeterminst compatibilism" possibly entail?

(I can so far only assume it then mandates a determinist concept of free will. But then how does one get a determinist concept of free will - i.e., a free will whose doings are causally inevitable in all conceivable cases - to in any way cohere with an indeterminist compatibilism???)

An indeterminist compatibilist is quite simply someone who is an indeterminist, and a compatibilist. Of course it is, why would it not be? A black horse is a creature that is a horse and is black. A rapping Asian is a person who is Asian and is rapping. An indeterminist compatibilist is an indeterminist who is a compatibilist.

I don't see which part you think is a jumble of words. — flannel jesus

You don't see that an indeterminist concept of free will is logically contrary to a determinst's concept of free will - even when either will claim their own versions of compatibilism. Given the span of this discussion on this topic, don't know what more to say then.

Maybe that is why you don't address this question via reasoning or examples. Again:

What is "I could have chosen otherwise"- this being indeterminist free will (the many potential details and varieties aside) - in a universe where everything is causally inevitable? — javra

I'll reply if you do address this question with some sort of explanation. Otherwise I won't. No biggie.

This is a jumble of words without definition and can potentially be as meaningless as would be "the black rainbow is both white and purple"

So it would really help out if you could answer this question as pertains to what you're attempting to argue:

What is "I could have chosen otherwise"- this being indeterminist free will (the many potential details and varieties aside) - in a universe where everything is causally inevitable? — javra

Because that's what compatibilism means. Compatibilism in this context literally means, my concept of free will is compatible with determinism. — flannel jesus

Yes, but you specifically specified - or attempted to - the definition of an indeterminsit compatibilist.

So an indeterminist compatibilism is just someone who believes we have free will, that we live in an indeterministic universe, but that if they happened to find out that we didn't live in an indeterministic universe, their understanding of free will would remain in tact. — flannel jesus

How do you figure that when a non-indeterminstic universe can only equate to a deterministic universe, which in today's parlance can only equate to "everything is causally inevitable". What is "I could have chosen otherwise"- this being indeterminist free will (the many potential details and varieties aside) - in a universe where everything is causally inevitable?

Yes, sure. But I didn't intend to say they are the same thing. To restate more explicitly: a (type of) indeterminist compatibilism.

But then again, given that compatibilism signifies a compatibility between free will and the necessity of determinants, what do you have in mind as a non-libertarian form of indeterminist compatibilism?

Yes. And liberarainism can only be indeterminist by today's semantics. Hence: an indeterminst compatibiliism.

did you know you don't have to be a determinist to be a compatibilist? — flannel jesus

I don't get the question. The possibility of indeterminst compatibilism is what I've been arguing for, after all.

I think you've given the definition of determinism and called it "compatibilism". — flannel jesus

OK, it was laconically written and so incomplete: add to it "and free will does occur". (I thought this would be implicitly understood.)

But, again, today's meaning of determinism is that "everything is causally inevitable" - so the definition I provided is not equivalent to determinism as understood today.

Are those your definitions? — flannel jesus

What fault can you find with them?

For me, "free will" alone, without the term "libertarian" attached, is the general term. Attach "libertarian" and you're talking about the subclass of free will ideas which are not compatible with determinism. Apparently that's consistent with how the word was coined:
— flannel jesus

The first recorded use of the term libertarianism was in 1789 by William Belsham in a discussion of free will and in opposition to necessitarian or determinist views.

For what it’s worth, as pertains to the history of ideas, the concept of compatibilism was developed by David Hume (see for example this SEP article) within the following context of ideas: free will and the necessity of determinacy are not only not mutually exclusive but in fact require each other to in any way work and make sense of the world.

With that in mind, here’s a simplified explanation of a libertarian compatibilism.

Working definitions:

Libertarianism: it is metaphysically possible that one could have chosen otherwise than what one chooses at any juncture of choice making.

Compatibilism: it is metaphysically impossible that any event, including that of choice making, can occur in fully undetermined manners; i.e. all events, including that of choice making, must be in some way determined by necessary determinants.

Premises:

P1: There can be no free will, libertarian or otherwise, in the absence of intentions.
P2: There can be no intentioning in the absence of at least one intent (i.e,, goal) which one seeks to actualize.
P3: The intent of any conceivable intentioning will always determine the actions one takes so as to actualize the given intent.
P3.1: An intent one pursues is thereby always a determinant of one’s actions, including those mental actions taken during moments of choice making.
P3.2: An intent is thereby always a subspecies of final causes, aka of teleological determinants.

Conclusion:

C1: Were libertarian free will to occur, it would necessarily be at all times minimally, but thoroughly, determined by teleological determinants.
C2: Using the working definitions provided, libertarian free will shall thereby at all times be necessarily determined by determinants if it is to in any way occur, thereby mandating a libertarian compatibilism: such that libertarian free will cannot possibly occur in the absence of the necessity of being itself determined.

In other words: no such thing as undetermined libertarian free will can occur, which (given the working definitions provided) would then be classifiable as a species of thought as “an incompatibilist libertarianism” – again, specifying a libertarian free will that is in no way determined by any determinants.

but now we've come full circle and you're not saying that your particular brand of libertarian free will IS in fact incompatibilist. — flannel jesus

No. Please take the time to read what I post, as in this post here.

That initial post says it better, but to recap: libertarian free will can be an indeterminsim (as per the official meaning of the term "determinism" today in philosophical circles - with "indeterminism" then basically saying that at least some things are not causally inevitable) that is nevertheless compatible with determinacy (determinants and that which they determine). Ergo, libertarian compatibilism (for otherwise it would be soft-determinism compatibilism, which denies the possibility of libertarian free will).

After all, in a number of agentially libertarian forms of free will, the agent of itself is the efficient cause of the decision taken as effect - such that, despite potentially being influenced this way and that, it as cause to the decision as effect is at that juncture not predetermined in what it will decide by any other cause whatsoever. It's not determinism (everything is causally inevitable), but it is of itself a form of determiniacy - thereby fully compatible with a cosmos composed of determinants (again, of the four Aristotelian kinds).

Maybe you are confusing "indeterminism" with "incompatibilism" as terms?

I'll check in later. Spent enough time today at doing this.

an extremely unnecessarily narrow view of determinism fails, perhaps. — flannel jesus

OK. I'll nevertheless repeat myself once again, if teleological causes and formal causes ontically occur, then one cannot logically maintain that everything is causally inevitable. Period.

So this broader view of determinism is not what is referred to by the term in today's philosophical literature. This broader view of determinism is instead logically contrary to it: thereby, in today's lingo, being in fact an in-(non)-deterministic metaphysics.

Man, read the first two sentences of the second paragraph

In general, a process can have multiple causes,[1] which are also said to be causal factors for it, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future.

and then read the last sentence of the third paragraph:

Of Aristotle's four explanatory modes, the one nearest to the concerns of the present article is the "efficient" one.

And then reread what I previously said. (I feel like I'm spoon-feeding, and I don't like doing so.)

If you then still disagree, give some reasoning or references for so disagreeing. Please.

Are teleological and formal causes the *reason* why some things happen? — flannel jesus

They are merely "reasons" when one denies their ontological occurrence as determinants. And, once again, if they are ontologically occurring determinants, then determinism (as expressed in my linked to quote) fails.

Oh, shucks. I provided reasoning for what I upheld and yet uphold.

Go to the Wikipedia website linked to and click on the term "causally" and you will indeed see for yourself that it does strictly address efficient causes (wherein the cause temporally precedes the effect - this is not the case in either teleological causes or formal causes (in both of the latter, the determinant occurs, and can only occur, at the same time as that determined).

Don't now have time to look for more in depth references. There's this for starters.

Determinism is the philosophical view that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable.[1]

Both formal causation and teleological causation directly contradict this proposition. Why? To express it briefly, and I acknowledge imperfectly: Because if these two forms of causation do occur, then some things are necessarily determined by determinants other than (efficient) causes per se. This such that some efficiently causal chains, or webs, can be (or at least in certain metaphysics can be viably upheld to be) altered via the two alternative forms of causation that are excluded. Which would then annul determinism (as it is specified in the quote). (Whereas material causes can be accordant to determinism as just specified.)

Most of today's compatibilitsts are so called soft-determinists. They uphold the determinism specified in the quote and further interpret "free will" in non-libertarian manners to conclude that there is compatibility between determinism and free will.

Therefore, most (at the very least I as one exception) will then conclude that libertarianism necessitates an incompatibility between libertarianism and determinacy - this on grounds of today's compatibilitsts being in fact determinists (who, again, reject the very possibility of both formal causation and teleological causation, basically to uphold the coherency of determinism thus understood as fully constituted of events made fully inevitable by efficient causes).