you asked "doesn't that then mandate compatibilism's "hard commitment to determinism" in the sense that everything is causally inevitable?" I explained why it doesn't. — flannel jesus

Okey dokey, then. (In the world I live in, however, context is quite important to individual words, such as the ones you've quoted. Apparently not so much in yours. Sounds more like an ego battle than an honest search for truths, in this case truths of a rational kind. But as you say, you've replied.)

None of which is a reply to what I asked. — javra


It's all explicitly a reply to what you said. — flannel jesus

OK. But neither question asked was in any way answered.

I think we first have to agree on how options could be real in a determinist world. Once that is established then we could understand that decision is not possible in a deterministic system. — MoK

Agreed.

Are you saying that in his opinion the decision is the result of randomness or else is determined? — MoK

Yes. With the caveat that "determined' here entails "causally inevitable".

I think we can simply exclude the latter because both options are real. The former also can be excluded as well because of the correlation between the time of decision and action. — MoK

I'd again agree.

None of which is a reply to what I asked.

Just one simple thing: determinism doesn't destroy free will. — flannel jesus

It does not destroy free will when free will is defined as:

"anything one wills to do that is not obstructed is thereby one's free will" — javra

If however does necessarily deny the very possibility of free will when free will is defined as:

"One could have chosen an option other than the one option one ends up choosing". Or, more simply, the ability to choose otherwise.

Common sense holds free will to be the latter. As it for example gets applied, however implicitly, in judicial systems.

Compatibilism isn't a hard commitment to determinism. — flannel jesus

How can the stance of "compatibilism" be compatible with randomness? In other words, if one's actions of will are random, how then can one be stated to have free will?

If it can't, and if there is no other option than that of reality being "causally inevitable" or else random, doesn't that then mandate compatibilism's "hard commitment to determinism" in the sense that everything is causally inevitable?

Aren't you a compatibilist? — MoK

In trying to stave off potential headaches, he's a compatibilist in the sense of free will being defined as "anything one wills to do that is not obstructed is thereby one's free will" ... which would then be a free will notion that is perfectly compatible with realty being "causally inevitable".

@flannel jesus is of course free to correct or else modify this if wrong. But I've had my headaches in the past in trying to discuss with him the difference between libertarian compatibilism and deterministic compatibilism - which he seems to conflate into the same thing. He sticks to everything necessarily being either "causally inevitable" or else random. And hence to compatibilism only making sense within this framework.

Anyway, if this helps ...

Yes, and it might also be worth commenting that most of Ancient Greece was not democratic. The Spartans, with which the Athenians battled, for one example were oligarchical - with a duarchy (two kings with equal power) taking center stage.

Unfortunately, the one-man ruling is necessary for a war. At the same time, there is an opposite tendency: free countries support new ideas, including military innovations, better than unfree ones. — Linkey

What about the Greeks? They were the inventors of science... — Linkey

Which brings to mind: Ancient Athens was an exceedingly functional democracy (among male citizens) with excellent military prowess all in one bang. So this would directly speak against a non-democratic governance being necessary for war.

While I'm not claiming it's easy to obtain and sustain, it is nevertheless quite possible.

That sounds like the British "constitution". — Ludwig V

True that. But the British “constitutional monarchy” is such that the mon-arch (the sole ruler) is a figurehead which has no real power to rule anything. Sort of nullifying the “sole rulership” aspect of the political enterprise.

If you define democracy as non-ttyranical, then it must you're saying something about a term, not a political system. — Hanover

Your joking? My definition of democracy was this:

Democracy, instead, is any variant of a rather elaborate system which keeps the tyrannical drives of all participants and parties at bay via a non-hypocritical system of checks and balances of power. — javra

Which is very much a political system.

Suppose you have a non-tyranical monarchy, would it be a democracy? — Hanover

About as much as a triangular square would be. Which is to say, no.

2. If #2, then that person could will A for another intent, N, or intent some other action, B, with some other intent. — Bob Ross

Right. Only that what is quoted here is not mandatory for libertarian free will.

The physical causality could be the exact same and the intent pursued could be the exact same. Each option toward the given intent pursued is of itself, however, a more proximal possible intent toward the here distant intent one aims to actualize.

So A within the exact same physical context, with the exact same cognitive options available to A, can intend the exact same distant intent by choosing a different alternative. So construed, there will necessarily be ontically occurring reasons for any choice (between alternatives) taken, but reality, and so one's choice, is not "causally inevitable", and neither is the choice made of itself random (hence, devoid of any actual ontically occurring reason for its occurrence).

For example, a person wants to travel form A to B; the options cognitively available to the person for so doing are X, Y, and Z; if the person chooses option X as a means of getting to B, they at this moment of choice were metaphysically unconstrained in, and only in, their in fact choosing X rather than Y or Z. Hence, they could have chosen otherwise than they did. This very much assuming that the exact same physical context, the exact same intent to travel from A to B, and the exact same options of X, Y, and Z would occur.

Hey, I know we don't often agree on much, but damn that's a nice post. Wanted to so say. :grin:

So Chance, by definition, is not deterministic, it's non-compulsory. Change is inevitable, but Chance is optional. Where there are options, there is freedom. The door opens, but you can choose to walk through it, or not. — Gnomon

Sounds like you’re addressing “chance” in the sense of a random occurrence, this since its specified as not being deterministic. Two philosophically-minded questions:

1) How could randomness (“chance” so understood) allow for one’s responsibility (in the sense of culpability or praiseworthiness) for the options one decides upon?

2) How does any notion of free will when strictly understood as “I have free will whenever I’m not obstructed in that which I will” - be this act of willing chance-based or not - account for the sentiment of regret which most of us have and do on occasion experience, with this sentiment of regret basically translating into that of “I ought to have chosen a different course of events than the one I ended up choosing”? To be more explicit, how can regret be accounted for by free will when granting that “the ability to choose otherwise than what one ends up choosing” is fully illusory and thereby ontically non-occurrent (for the ontic occurrence of this very ability can only result in some form of libertarian free will, whose possibility is here denied)?

The Abraham story pushes the idea that unity with God is achieved through obedience. Unity with God is the carrot and obedience is the goal. Shouldn't unity with God be the goal? — praxis

Good question.

In many ways it parallels with the dichotomy between the often heard prescription that one ought to “fear God” (at least as this phrasing is most commonly understood) – wherein there is a necessary duality, else division, between the other which one fears and oneself, a necessary duality that will persist for as long as the fear persists – and the far less touted “love God”, which then not only allows for but is a calling toward a “unity of (sentient) being” (this being one loosely appraised definition of “love”) with that which one loves, in this one case, God.

Obedience of that authority as other which one fears vs. love and hence oneness (in most any of its senses) with that absolute goodness which one loves.

Or, in a more Christianity-specific mindset, the difference between fearing and thereby obeying Christ as one’s God and being someone who holds and thereby upholds Christ’s spirit within in most anything one does. But I get the nagging suspicion that being like Christ in one’s character and nature is a bit too heretical a perspective for most self-proclaimed Christians out there. Which kind of insinuates that being un-Christ-like is the typical calling of most Christians.

Tyranny can exist under any political system, including democracy. Tocqueville discusses the tyranny of the majority. Plato's philosopher king supposedly had the wisdom to rule and was to be selected by qualification, not democratic vote, which more emulates how religious leaders are chosen. I'm not in favor of theocracy, and I'm fully supportive of the state's power being supreme, but our recent elections hardly yielded a Solomon. — Hanover

Well, Hitler came to power in a democracy not by force but, to simplify history, by vote.

Democracy is not "rule by the majority as mob" (what the USA seems to be currently exhibiting ... debatable, but all the same ...), It could never sustain itself if it were, instead becoming a dictatorship. Nor is democracy defined by voting. Democracy, instead, is any variant of a rather elaborate system which keeps the tyrannical drives of all participants and parties at bay via a non-hypocritical system of checks and balances of power. This is the only way a democracy can remain - be it that of ancient Athens or any non-Orwellian so-called democracy of today. I say this because some self-termed democracies - I'll here point fingers at Russia - are as non-democratic in practice as all official self-termed communisms of at least Europe were non-communistic in practice. (Addressing communism as politics rather than as economy: The comradeship of fellow brethren (or siblings) - of fellow comrades - in a given nation all working cooperatively together in a commonly upheld community never, ever, occurred.The only place were communism can be viably stated to have occurred is in the kibbutz - and nowhere else.) ((Unlike democracy as just described, communism is a bit too optimist in regards to human nature at large for its own good.))

All these being issues and perspectives regarding politics. But having so expressed, I yet maintain that (non-Orwellian) "democracy" is, and can only be, at direct odds with tyranny and tyrannical governance.

And again, the mythoi we tell ourselves - such as the mythos that the world is a dog-eat-dog reality (to here address a non-religious/spiritual mythos) - will have a large impact on our personal ethos as individual humans. The dog-eat-dog motif, for example, directly leads to tyrannical wants and desires - and directly opposes the possibility of a cooperative humanity in which agape plays a large role in society.

I’m having a hard time with your post. This in large part due to the quantity of disagreements I have with what you've written. I’ll do my best to reply, but if the quantity and severity of our disagreements persist, I’m intending to let things be as they are.

Do you agree that trial and error forms a significant part of a living being's activities, and that the process we know as evolution demonstrates a large scale trial and error process? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes to the first portion, but I have the suspicion that the phrase “trial and error” means different things to us.

To me, trial and error is a method of problem-solving, such that the solving of the problem is its entailed end. It also, in all non-metaphorical senses and applications, strictly applies to sentience: it can only be sentience that tries and sentience that determines failure from success. Trial and error in no way overlaps with unintended, and hence accidental, discovery: if one, for example, accidentally discovers a valuable jewel underneath one’s sofa while cleaning one’s room, there was no trial and error involved in the process; on the other hand, trial and error, because it always seeks an end, is always purposeful, intentional, such that when the problem is solved by this approach, its so being solved is not an unintended accident. For emphasis, although when, if ever, the problem gets resolved via the trial and error processes will be uncertain up until the time of resolution, and although many forms of trial and error utilize haphazard heuristics in the trials toward this end of resolving a problem, the resolution to the problem will never be unintended, hence will never be an accidental discovery in the sense just specified (unless one engages in equivocations of what “accident” signifies). Lastly, neither can a sentient being’s engaging in trial and error processes be devoid of observation (for then one would not be able to discern success from error) nor can it be devoid of doing (for trial and error is itself an intentional doing seeking to resolve some problem) – such that the agent, here the sentient being, which so engages in trial and error must be both doer and observer (in no particular order) at the same time in order to so successfully engage in the activity.

As to evolution being a trial and error process, I then find this to be a fully metaphorical application of the phrasing. Evolution is not a sentient being; and thereby cannot as process of itself intentionally problem-solve anything, much including via any trial and error means. More bluntly, what problem might evolution be intending to solve? This is not to then claim that evolution is not in large part a teleological process, but evolution is not the type of teleological process which applies to the intentioning of individual agents (and only to the latter can trying and failing and then trying again, this with a set goal in mind, apply).

As Aristotle pointed out in his analysis of ends and means, each specific end can be viewed as the means to a further end, and this produces an infinite regress if we do not designate an ultimate, final end, which he named as happiness. So this activity of turning over rocks is like your "happiness", you are fulfilling what you perceive as your ultimate end, you apprehend no reason for this act, or even doubt the possibility that there might be a further reason which you are unaware of, therefore you are satisfied in your acts, and you are "happy" fulfilling your desire. — Metaphysician Undercover

In an Aristotelian model of things, “optimal eudemonia” (what you’ve termed “happiness”) is everybody’s ultimate end at all times – and not just for he who has agreed to uncover rocks for someone else. It will hence equally apply to he who wants the rocks uncovered for his own hidden purpose by the person who’s agreed to do so. And this Aristotelian conception of the ultimate end is only the most distal (distant) telos of an otherwise potentially innumerable quantity of teloi any person might be intending at any given time. And in so being, though one might get closer to it at certain times rather than others (when one is more at peace, or else joyful, for example), this ultimate telos of “optimal eudemonia which can only translate into a perfected eudemonia” is the most unreachable telos of all teloi out there. The most difficult, if at all possible, to actualize. It here drives, or else determines, all other teloi, this at all times, but it itself cannot be obtained for as long as any personal suffering occurs or is deemed to have the potential to occur. This includes some personal interpretation, granted, such as in what "suffering" signifies. But I still find it to be the only coherent way of understanding 'happiness as ultimate end'.

Secondly, why did the person who’s agreed to turn over rocks so agree in this first place? Teleological reasons can range from that of having a gun held to his head (with the person preferring to do so rather than die due to his ultimate end of optima eudemonia), to having been offered a fair sum of cash for so doing (with the person finding the cash worth the time and effort required to so turn over rocks), to simply wanting to make the person who so asks happy (harder to briefly explain but yet a teleological reason). So the person whose turning over rocks isn’t considering “all rocks having been turned” as his ultimate end. At the absolute least, he’s turning over rocks as a proximate end in order to satisfy the more distal end regarding the reason he’s agreed to turn over rocks to begin with – which all then being yet governed by the far more distal telos of “optimal, hence perfected, eudemonia”.

So of course there are (teleological) reasons galore for the act of turning over stones which do not end in the successful act of so turning over all stones in an area. Endlessly ask someone why they did X starting at some concrete doing and you will obtain an endless list of reasons for their doings, much including teleological reasons. (Sure, some such reason that some will give might be the incorrect reasons for their doings - reasons given for things done while hypnotized comes to mind as an example - but this yet presupposes that there are accurate reasons for that which we do, have done, and will do.)

But the question I wish to ask is, in some sense, aren't all universal moral systems inevitably going to be flawed in some way and therefore rendered futile? What is the point in laying out moral edicts that are so abstract and impractical when the layman already has a fairly solid intuitive grasp of how to act ethically based off sheer compassion and, for want of a better term, "common sense"? — Dorrian

There’s a hitch in the first question which you pose. To be futile presupposes the requisite of fulfilling some aim, which futility fails to allow for. So in this very question is presupposed an end pursued, one which ought to be obtained – thereby and end which is of itself good - which “universal moral systems” can only fail to actualize.

It might be that certain meta-ethical enquiries seek to better understand just what exactly this just mentioned good is, or at least what it could be. If so, these meta-ethical enquiries - which to be valid can only be universally applicable – must necessarily be descriptive of what already is, has always been, and will continue to be. They therefore don’t prescribe "moral edicts" in an authoritarian sense, but rather, it at all successful, describe what is and allow one to thereby more lucidly decide for oneself what one ought do, this given such and such scenario. Because of this,such meta-ethical enquiries, if successful, cannot be futile, almost by definition - for they would then make clear the very end relative to which you question the functionality of "universal moral systems" by wondering if they're all futile in their nature.

I don't think it's heretical. It's natural to retroject our own 21st century moral views to biblical characters. — BitconnectCarlos

I'm very glad you believe so. Thank you for so mentioning. As to retrojecting values on the past, to a certain extent this can only be true, irrespective of the values currently held. One can however say that I'm biassed by the notion of the Good of itself being an absolute and determinate facet of all cosmic being. This would enter into a completely different realm of discussion than that of "faith" per se. Abrahamically appraised, though, if Elohim, the archangels, the seraphim, etc. are indeed good, my own inclination is to believe that they all in their own ways align with the Good. (With the latter in certain interpretations potentially being associated with, if not fully equated to, G-d).

Yes. Much agreed.

My stance generally orients on the mythoi we live by (irrespective of whether we happen to be theists, atheists, or something in-between) by virtue of partaking of our common culture.

By analogy, the ancient Greek understanding of Zeus varies greatly. From Heraclitus's notion of Zeus to mythoi such as that of Leda and the swan. In certain interpretations of the latter Zeus, who takes the form of a swan, doesn't seduce Leda but instead rapes her. Greeks who then revered 'Zeus as rapist' would then align their own ethics as individuals with the ideal which they here revered - thereby raping others themselves.

I'm not intending to make a thesis out of this complete with references. My main point being that the stories we tell ourselves and emotively idealize end up having a large sway on our own individual ethos. With these stories often enough in today's culture emerging from that which was written in the Torah / Bible.

Not interpreting these stories ethically but instead interpreting them in manners that, for one example, reinforces authoritarian interests by claiming these authoritarian interpretations to in fact be the so called literal word of God then, in turn, reinforces, in this one example, tyrannical societal structures. Which stand in direct conflict with democratic ideals - that can also come about via certain interpretations of biblical stories. God being Love as one such motif that comes to mind - cliched though it may sound to many.

As previously hinted at, I've myself no issue with people being spiritual. But spirituality does not translate into an unquestioning acceptance of what authority figures, especially those who are authoritarian in character, command you to do and believe. And in my mind set, nor ought it to so equate.

(I don's know if there was an interaction between El and Abraham. But, if there was, its why I uphold the interpretation previously provided: its ethos is an ideal I could look up to, even if I often fall far short of it; rather than being something which conflicts with what is good and right. This in my own ethos and, I venture to say, in most others' as well.)

Utterly heretical of me to say so, but if there ever in fact was an interaction between El and Abraham, why could it not be the case that El was in search of someone whose ethical constituency El could trust no matter what would happen? So El tested Abraham by giving Abraham an utterly unethical command (something that Satan could have just as easily done while pretending to be El, for example). Abraham toward the end then of a sudden had an ethical epiphany and conveyed to El something like, “fu*k you, I’d rather live in eternal damnation than perform such an unethical act, so I ain’t killing Issac despite the power you hold over me”. So El at that juncture realized Abraham’s goodness of being in the face of extreme duress, and so henceforth trusted Abraham for the good person he was.

Were something along these lines to have in fact occurred, the event would then make far more sense to me.

Again, I get it, it’s a very heretical interpretation of events. Given by someone who does NOT know the bible like the back of his hand. The heretic that I am, though, I will fall back on the bible / torah having been written by imperfect men via their own less than perfectly objective and, hence, biased interpretations of events, such that that part about El intervening in Abraham’s killing of Issac could well be an untrue written account of the events which actually transpired.

Since this is a philosophy forum and not a church schooling, I thought it worth sharing this interpretation alongside those previously offered.

I have a tough time seeing it your way. I think an autonomous entity has - is - a mind. Archaea, bacteria, and amoeba live on their own. Neurons do not. I think neurons are part of a mind; part of the chain connecting the sensor and doer. In the archaea, being single celled, that chain is made of molecules. We couldn't (at least I couldn't) say any of the molecules are minds. And I think the neurons in a hydra are more complex links in the hydra's chain, rather than each being a mind within the mind of the hydra. — Patterner

I feel like I get it. Thanks for the explanation.

Maybe this is worth expressing as a follow-up. Especially when considering the dire need humans have for nurture in the formative years after birth - without which we either perish or at best become insane and then perish on our own - humans too require a community of fellow humans in order to live. This, though, doesn’t take away from the individuality of human minds. In certain respects only, the same roundabout situation could be potentially claimed of neurons.

In terms of molecules and minds, I certainly wouldn’t claim that individual organic molecules are minds either. Going by the notion of “autopoiesis” which I’ve previously pointed out indirectly, the very life of any single-celled lifeform (to include metabolism, awareness, and sentient doings) in a sense supervenes on the structure and functioning of the single-celled lifeform’s organic molecules. Take away one lipid from an ameba and the ameba will continue living and doing what it does just fine. However, take enough individual lipids away from an ameba and the ameba will cease living. As an ameba’s life supervenes on the organization and functioning of this bundle of organic molecules, so too then will the ameba’s mind so supervene. The same could then be potentially claimed of a neuron’s sentience.

As to hydras, they’re weird, in no small part due to being virtually immortal as far as we know – this of course barring environmental mishaps – with extreme regenerative abilities (including the ability to regenerate their heads). Yet even here, I presume that the activities of their nervous system – though far, far less complex than that of a mammal’s (having a few thousand neurons tops) – will be that upon which the hydra’s mind supervenes. Such that the hydra’s mind will not of itself be conjoined with the sentience of the hydra’s individual neurons – but will instead supervene upon the totality of its nervous system’s doings (if not a totality resulting from other somatic cells as well).

But yea, this perspective maintaining that neurons are not insentient is by no means common staple in today’s world. So I get why I can be very hard to entertain.

I think my difficulty lies in the fact that I haven't been at any of this for very long. I always took mind and consciousness to be pretty much the same thing. Intellectuality, I see a difference. But my feeling that they are the same still intrudes at times. I'm working on it. :grin: — Patterner

Yea, its common practice around these parts to address mind and consciousness as though they were the same thing. I'm thinking maybe it's in part because one sense of "consciousness" is that of "awareness" and all aspects of mind, the unconscious very much included, are aware in one way or another. But, yes, if (at least our human understanding of) consciousness is contrasted to a co-occurring unconscious mind upon which consciousness is dependent, then consciousness can't be equivalent to a mind in total - for it excludes the far larger portion of mind which we are not conscious of. Whereas I don't find reason to believe that something like an ameba (or a neuron :wink: ) has any such dichotomy of mind to speak of.

By the way, I found a simple neural network that can perform a simple sum. — MoK

I too am interested. The link or image however is still not displaying.

Then again, for many, “faith” simply boils down to the conviction that the “word” of God is absolute. What exactly God or this very word is remains elusive, save for those who have faith in this very absolute, and very much authoritarian, word of God. This in contrast to all other people out there. Thereby granting these faith-endowed folk the ability to discard any empirical facts, reasoning, or common-sense ethical considerations regarding the good and goodness which in any way stand in the way of their obedience to this very word. Else they get punished by the tyrant (literally, “absolute ruler and dictator”).

No, all this doesn’t make sense to me either. But, yes, it happens.

And while I still maintain that faith as concept and experience has been hijacked by such people to the detriment of what it signifies among humanity at large, I nevertheless wanted to more explicitly acknowledge this darker aspect of “faith” as the term is often employed. (And I say this as one who for my own reasons believes in what it commonly termed “the divine” ... with the notion of the Good taking center stage.)

In contrast, using faith to justify the belief that the world was created by a magic space wizard -the fundamentalist's deity- operates on an entirely different level. How can these two phenomena be meaningfully compared? It’s not merely that faith is a poor analogy for reasonable expectation; it's also about the magnitude of the claim being justified. — Tom Storm

To me, it again has a lot to do with things such as this:

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. — javra

Genesis II onward is replete with logical contradictions - which one is supposed to blindly overlook so as maintain one's faith in ... precisely what Genesis II onward claims. You've got this "omnipresent" being that is walking the earth. How exactly does that work??? Is the earth walked on part of the walking being, the "Lord"??? The same earth walking being is also said to be "omniscient" but is taken aback by this serpent (who is not yet slithering on earth) entering the picture, then gets pissed of as hell at everyone for not obeying him. Um, not quite rationally valid to then affirm this Lord as being omniscient. This same Lord is also omnipotent ... but had no power over what the serpent, Eve, and Adam did. And so forth.

Faith here isn't about trust in that which one cannot yet prove or soundly justify. Faith here is self-imposed blindness (as metaphors go, not physical blindness but a self-imposed blindness of the soul else intellect). And, just as with a faith in dinosaurs and humans once mingling, its at these junctures that I take faith to become deleterious. As I previously commented in this thread:

If God is dead and an actor plays his part
His words of fear will find a place in your heart
Without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse
Without freedom from the past things can only get worse

[…]

Convince an enemy, convince him that he's wrong
Is to win a bloodless battle where victory is long
A simple act of faith
In reason over might
To blow up his children will only prove him right — History Will Teach Us Nothing (song by the musician Sting)

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 ...