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Cogito ergo sum

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Reasons and Causes: How Can We Know If Determinism is True?

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
    Some of them are caused by me.
    You, how? I need detail. Is you a soul? Mind? What is the "me"?


    The question I am asking is: How can reasoning be possible if reasons and thoughts are physical events?

    Reasons are not physically located in me, are not in my skull the way that neural events are in my skull. My deliberations happen in a space of reasons, not cranial space, regardless of how many correlations can be discovered with physical facts (what Pinker talks about). My belief that 1+1=2 is not physically in my brain even if it's physically realized by a brain event. Otherwise, how could I know that it's true? It would merely be another brain event, and no physical event is "true"; it merely is. If my representation of X = X, then it wouldn't be a representation but just another instance of X. I could not justifiably believe that every belief is a physical event if that belief is a physical event.
    I get what you're saying but you're incorrect here. Your belief that 1+1=2 is a physical thing in your brain. Everything you think or know is a physical thing in your brain. Different arrangements of matter do indeed represent different thoughts, ideas, and concepts. There is no exception to this. There is no mental state that does not have a physical correspondence.


    Do you believe in determinism because you are determined to believe it or because it is true? If those two things, what i am determined to believe and what is true, don't always coincide, then there has to be something to account for the distinction. I could be deternined to have false beliefs.
    I'm determined to believe it because it is true. We are all going to be determined to believe some true things and some false things, and the way we know it is true or false is to test it against evidence and logic. Even on free will you will have thoughts that are false. Was it because you "freely" chose to have false beliefs? How would you know you were false?

    We don't have to posit a soul in the Cartesian sense to doubt that all beliefs are physical events, although I think there are good reasons for thinking that the self is a non-physical substance. There's also emergence, and the idea that, considering consciousness, not all reality is physical reality.
    Well I have no room for cartesian dualism. It's been utter refuted by science and logic. However, emergence is something I take seriously. I'm totally open to the possibility that consciousness is an emergent property of physical brains but is not something that has causal power.
    Blog: Atheism and the City

    If your whole worldview rests on a particular claim being true, you damn well better have evidence for it. You should have tons of evidence.

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
      I have difficulty with a vague reference to 'some' or 'often claimed' by determinists with references and contrasting the views of the 'some' with other references.
      What's vague about "some"? It means "more than one but not all." The Thinker is an example of the kind of determinist I am referring to.



      Most metaphysical conclusions are based on claims of the lack or insufficient scientific evidence.
      Could you give some support for this claim? And also some clarification? What exactly are you talking about? Give me examples of such "metaphysical conclusions" that are based on claims of the lack or insufficient scientific evidence.



      The common argument among theists that the apparent and real limits of methodological naturalism leads to the conclusion that the ultimate source of the mind and consciousness in part or all from an outside 'Source' some call God. This argument falls into the tar pit of 'Arguing from Ignorance.'
      This has nothing to do with theism. You have theism on the brain. Please try to follow what's actually being written for once.

      We cannot 'know' that determinism is true, but the reality is that methodological naturalism has an adequate natural explanation for the 'evolution' of the mind, consciousness and the will of human nature.
      MN is a research strategy and as such does not warrant metaphysical conclusions. How do you justify drawing metaphysical conclusions from MN alone?

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      • #18
        Originally posted by The Thinker View Post
        You, how? I need detail. Is you a soul? Mind? What is the "me"?
        "Me" under agent causation is a persisting substance that is conscious, thinks, deliberates, wills and acts. This substance isn't necessarily a Cartesian homunculus. It could be causally dependent on physical facts, such as my brain and body, and emerge from a given level of physical complexity.



        I get what you're saying but you're incorrect here. Your belief that 1+1=2 is a physical thing in your brain. Everything you think or know is a physical thing in your brain. Different arrangements of matter do indeed represent different thoughts, ideas, and concepts. There is no exception to this. There is no mental state that does not have a physical correspondence.
        I agree that every belief has a physical correspondent, but I can't see how it could be identical to that correspondent. The brain event that corresponds to 1+1 = 2 doesn't have any of the same properties as the belief. It's a different level of description.

        If you and I both know that 1+1=2, what we know can't be our separate brain events. Scientific evidence is that we are not having the identical brain events when we each activeLy believe that 1+1=2. So if knowledge is possible, then what we know in common cannot be identical to the brain events that support or correspond to what we know. What we know in common has to be an abstract, formal relationship between the contents of our beliefs and not what physically corresponds to our beliefs.

        I'm determined to believe it because it is true. We are all going to be determined to believe some true things and some false things, and the way we know it is true or false is to test it against evidence and logic. Even on free will you will have thoughts that are false. Was it because you "freely" chose to have false beliefs? How would you know you were false?
        Is the truth of something deterministically causing you to believe it in the same way that a neurotic compulsion deterministically causes me to believe what I believe? If what you're saying is right, then reasons as reasons can't explain anything, including what we're writing on this board. Causes, especially physical causes, can't be right or wrong. They just are what they are. Whatever I'm determined to do would just be the way things unfold.

        When I deliberate over something, I have the distinct impression that it's up to me, that I am actively bringing a resolution about. I am not just the locus where causes are interacting with each other and where the "strongest" cause(s) weighs out. When I struggle with a dilemma, this is usually accompanied by anxiety, hope, and later by regret, shame, pride, etc, none of which would make much sense if it hadn't been "up to me." This impression could be wrong; our experiences can never be knock-down proof. On the other hand, our belief that our perceptions correspond to reality independent of our perceptions could also be wrong, yet few take that as a reason not to believe it. Our actions are the only things in the world we know from both the outside and the inside; we should give some priority to the prima facie evidence of our own experience.

        Eddington wrote:
        Responsibility is one of the fundamental facts of our nature. If I can be deluded over such a matter of immediate knowledge - the very nature of the being I myself am - it's hard to see where any trustworthy beginning of knowledge is to be found.

        Well I have no room for cartesian dualism. It's been utter refuted by science and logic. However, emergence is something I take seriously. I'm totally open to the possibility that consciousness is an emergent property of physical brains but is not something that has causal power.
        What is it about emergence that would prevent the thing emerging to have causal power?

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
          What's vague about "some"? It means "more than one but not all." The Thinker is an example of the kind of determinist I am referring to.
          It would help to be more descriptive of the view you are referencing and not just use 'some.'
          Could you give some support for this claim? And also some clarification? What exactly are you talking about? Give me examples of such "metaphysical conclusions" that are based on claims of the lack or insufficient scientific evidence.
          The claim by WLC that our physical existence (considering our universe is all that there is.) has a finite beginning supported by 'scientific evidence.'


          MN is a research strategy and as such does not warrant metaphysical conclusions. How do you justify drawing metaphysical conclusions from MN alone?
          The MN adequate explanation for the relationship between the brain, and the mind, consciousness, and morality does not represent nor need metaphysical conclusions.
          Last edited by shunyadragon; 11-20-2016, 03:09 PM.
          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

          go with the flow the river knows . . .

          Frank

          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
            "Me" under agent causation is a persisting substance that is conscious, thinks, deliberates, wills and acts. This substance isn't necessarily a Cartesian homunculus. It could be causally dependent on physical facts, such as my brain and body, and emerge from a given level of physical complexity.
            OK, that's a little more clear. If it's causally dependent on the physical body, you can only be the proximate cause of anything, but you're part of a long chain of causes that you technically have no control over.


            I agree that every belief has a physical correspondent, but I can't see how it could be identical to that correspondent. The brain event that corresponds to 1+1 = 2 doesn't have any of the same properties as the belief. It's a different level of description.

            If you and I both know that 1+1=2, what we know can't be our separate brain events. Scientific evidence is that we are not having the identical brain events when we each activeLy believe that 1+1=2. So if knowledge is possible, then what we know in common cannot be identical to the brain events that support or correspond to what we know. What we know in common has to be an abstract, formal relationship between the contents of our beliefs and not what physically corresponds to our beliefs.
            They don't have to be identical, just as in each language can represent the same concepts in different ways.


            Is the truth of something deterministically causing you to believe it in the same way that a neurotic compulsion deterministically causes me to believe what I believe? If what you're saying is right, then reasons as reasons can't explain anything, including what we're writing on this board. Causes, especially physical causes, can't be right or wrong. They just are what they are. Whatever I'm determined to do would just be the way things unfold.
            Everything is determined, every thought, every action. The neurotic person is just as determined to believe what he believes as the rational person. The only difference is that one will be true and one will not, and the way to find out if your belief is true is to compare it with reason and evidence. So physical causes can be right or wrong. You can be caused to believe something right, or wrong.

            When I deliberate over something, I have the distinct impression that it's up to me, that I am actively bringing a resolution about. I am not just the locus where causes are interacting with each other and where the "strongest" cause(s) weighs out. When I struggle with a dilemma, this is usually accompanied by anxiety, hope, and later by regret, shame, pride, etc, none of which would make much sense if it hadn't been "up to me." This impression could be wrong; our experiences can never be knock-down proof. On the other hand, our belief that our perceptions correspond to reality independent of our perceptions could also be wrong, yet few take that as a reason not to believe it. Our actions are the only things in the world we know from both the outside and the inside; we should give some priority to the prima facie evidence of our own experience.
            It is up to you because your brain is doing the work, and in a sense, you are your brain. It all depends on whether you see your brain as you or something separate from you. When you come up with a good idea, it's your brain that did it technically. But if you see your brain as you, then you did it. If you don't, then "something else" did it. My view is that we are our brains. So when my brain does something, I take credit for it.

            What is it about emergence that would prevent the thing emerging to have causal power?
            It is not impossible in principle to have an emergent substance to have causal power - as far as I can tell. But given the laws of physics they do not. All causal powers (forces) are at the fundamental levels from which emergent substances emerge from. For an emergent substance to have causal power, it would have to override the fundamental forces somehow from above, and experiment and theory have just ruled that out.
            Blog: Atheism and the City

            If your whole worldview rests on a particular claim being true, you damn well better have evidence for it. You should have tons of evidence.

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
              Right you are. It was just an OP.

              If all our thoughts are physical events and the effects of physical causes, how would knowing this fact be possible? My belief that all of my beliefs are physical events, etc, would merely be another event that was causally determined to happen due to other events in my brain and the world. What would privilege this event epistemically over any other event, either caused or uncaused if all events form a more or less seamless, undifferentiated causal web? If this belief were true, we'd have no way of knowing it because knowing depends on a reasonable ground, but how to explain this ground as being able to support justifiable beliefs if all is reducible to a physical ground? We wouldn't really "know" anything but would just be causally interacting with ourselves and each other to perpetuate this illusion.
              It depends on how strict you want to be with the word 'knowledge'. I differentiate between laymen usage and philosophical usage of the term, particularly because of issues like these. Strictly speaking, we can't 'know' anything beyond our own existence. However, I think it can be sufficiently argued that other things (including people) are sufficiently distinct from us to qualify as separate entities.

              I generally agree with you. We can't know its true. We can't know a lot of things. I'd suggest that this level of knowledge, while the ultimate goal, isn't necessary. I don't need to know. I need a system that's generally consistent with itself and which reasonably predicts the events I perceive.
              I'm not here anymore.

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by The Thinker View Post
                OK, that's a little more clear. If it's causally dependent on the physical body, you can only be the proximate cause of anything, but you're part of a long chain of causes that you technically have no control over.
                How does that follow? If X is a cause of Y, it doesn't necessarily follow that X deterministically causes everything that Y causes. There are many many causes of me, such as my parents, my brain and body, etc, but they are only causes in a counterfactual sense: if my parents hadn't existed, I wouldn't exist; if my body ceased to exist, I would cease to exist, etc...but you haven't established why counterfactuals necessarily equal deterministic causation. That's just one metaphysical conclusion based on one theory of causation. Physical evidence doesn't restrict us to only one possible metaphysical conclusion.



                They don't have to be identical, just as in each language can represent the same concepts in different ways.
                So when I think 1+1=2, it's not the same belief as when you think it? For that matter, if when I think that equation, it's realized by a slightly different neural event in my brain as the last time I thought it, how can I know anything at all? I can't be sure I'm having the same beliefs I had ten minutes ago. That's crazy.




                Everything is determined, every thought, every action. The neurotic person is just as determined to believe what he believes as the rational person. The only difference is that one will be true and one will not, and the way to find out if your belief is true is to compare it with reason and evidence. So physical causes can be right or wrong. You can be caused to believe something right, or wrong.
                But my process of evaluating how I came to my belief will be just as determined as the neurotic's. How could I ever know that my belief corresponds meaningfully with something called the "truth"? All there is, according to you, are physical events deterministically causing other events and so on. For you to be able to represent this idea to yourself, there has to be a conceptual distinction between the two. Otherwise, your brain is just enacting this process without being able to conceptually evaluate it with any confidence. Tell me how neural event X , which you say is the same as belief X, can have the property of rightness or wrongness if the neural event differs even slightly every time I have belief X. And even worse, how can I ever know that other people have the same belief as I do? They can't be identical. They're different levels of description. My belief that 1+1=2 cannot be identical to subatomic events going on in my brain when I think it. Two things are identical if they share all their properties in common. 1=1=2 has very few if any of the same properties as a brain event.



                It is up to you because your brain is doing the work, and in a sense, you are your brain. It all depends on whether you see your brain as you or something separate from you. When you come up with a good idea, it's your brain that did it technically. But if you see your brain as you, then you did it. If you don't, then "something else" did it. My view is that we are our brains. So when my brain does something, I take credit for it.
                But there are lots of things that happen in my brain that I have no right to take credit for as well as many that I should not be blamed for. We have to use a different level of analysis to sort out all of these things. Looking at the neurophysiology alone won't tell us.



                It is not impossible in principle to have an emergent substance to have causal power - as far as I can tell. But given the laws of physics they do not. All causal powers (forces) are at the fundamental levels from which emergent substances emerge from. For an emergent substance to have causal power, it would have to override the fundamental forces somehow from above, and experiment and theory have just ruled that out.
                No, I don't think it's that simple. The causal closure of the physical has not been established. Actually, causation is not that well understood. There's no one established position.

                There's the idea that every macro-level phenomenon has arisen through natural micro-physical processes and is causally dependent on these processes. But then there's the much stronger thesis that every macro-level phenomenon is not only dependent on but also constituted by micro-physical processes. I agree with the first thesis. I don't think the second one has been established. If it were true, there'd be no distinct levels of reality or explanation in an actual sense, only in a conventional sense, that everything would be nothing but sub-atomic goings on, or the quantum vacuum or whatever's "beneath" that. But then how to explain the apparently distinct levels of organizational complexity requiring different explanatory principles?

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
                  But my process of evaluating how I came to my belief will be just as determined as the neurotic's. How could I ever know that my belief corresponds meaningfully with something called the "truth"? All there is, according to you, are physical events deterministically causing other events and so on. For you to be able to represent this idea to yourself, there has to be a conceptual distinction between the two. Otherwise, your brain is just enacting this process without being able to conceptually evaluate it with any confidence. Tell me how neural event X , which you say is the same as belief X, can have the property of rightness or wrongness if the neural event differs even slightly every time I have belief X. And even worse, how can I ever know that other people have the same belief as I do? They can't be identical. They're different levels of description. My belief that 1+1=2 cannot be identical to subatomic events going on in my brain when I think it. Two things are identical if they share all their properties in common. 1=1=2 has very few if any of the same properties as a brain event.
                  Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
                    But my process of evaluating how I came to my belief will be just as determined as the neurotic's. How could I ever know that my belief corresponds meaningfully with something called the "truth"? All there is, according to you, are physical events deterministically causing other events and so on. For you to be able to represent this idea to yourself, there has to be a conceptual distinction between the two. Otherwise, your brain is just enacting this process without being able to conceptually evaluate it with any confidence. Tell me how neural event X , which you say is the same as belief X, can have the property of rightness or wrongness if the neural event differs even slightly every time I have belief X. And even worse, how can I ever know that other people have the same belief as I do? They can't be identical. They're different levels of description. My belief that 1+1=2 cannot be identical to subatomic events going on in my brain when I think it. Two things are identical if they share all their properties in common. 1=1=2 has very few if any of the same properties as a brain event.
                    There is a distinct problem with claiming our choice of belief is dominantly a 'Free Will' decision process. When you look at the larger picture of the role of religions in different cultures and human choices over time in our decision making process, the evidence clearly indicates that our choice of belief is dominated by cultural conditioning and the desire for a 'sense of belonging' likely heavily influenced by the evolutionary need for stable and cooperative societies. Those that do not conform to this dominant influence often pay a heavy price for their decisions.

                    When considering the deterministic effects of physical events, is misleading to view this in a rigid mechanistic way as some describe as a robotic condition of determinism.

                    But there are lots of things that happen in my brain that I have no right to take credit for as well as many that I should not be blamed for. We have to use a different level of analysis to sort out all of these things. Looking at the neurophysiology alone won't tell us.
                    Very vague to nebulously refer to 'lots of things.' Of course, science at present cannot explain everything, but I believe you are creating an unnecessary high fog index as to what science can reveal concerning 'what happens in our brain.'


                    There's the idea that every macro-level phenomenon has arisen through natural micro-physical processes and is causally dependent on these processes. But then there's the much stronger thesis that every macro-level phenomenon is not only dependent on but also constituted by micro-physical processes. I agree with the first thesis. I don't think the second one has been established. If it were true, there'd be no distinct levels of reality or explanation in an actual sense, only in a conventional sense, that everything would be nothing but sub-atomic goings on, or the quantum vacuum or whatever's "beneath" that. But then how to explain the apparently distinct levels of organizational complexity requiring different explanatory principles?
                    I believe that 'sub-atomic goings on' do not significantly influence determinism on the macro level. I gave several references concerning this illusion, and I can post them again.
                    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                    go with the flow the river knows . . .

                    Frank

                    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                    Comment

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