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Cogito ergo sum

Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!

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Reasons and Causes

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
    What I was asking was whether or not reasons and rationality are subject to the laws of causality, minus indeterminacy. It's related to the free will question. If the reasons that motivate my actions are all the effects of prior physical events, and if they become causes, like extremely complex billiard ball causation, then what sense does free will make? Even if you allow for indeterminacy of various kinds, that still doesn't allow for free will which would have to include purposeful action done for reasons but that are not necessitated by the past.
    The determinist nature of our physical existence is not mechanistic and simple as billiard balls, because firs, the outcome of all cause and effect relationships are fractal in a complex world. This complicates the the world of the human mind, which though subject the deterministic series of cause and effect, because of the complexity we most often make choices in a limited range of possibilities. The degree of our choices being deterministic is at present unknown. I believe it is known that the range of possibilities is limited in any cause and effect choice.

    It is unlikely that the deterministic reason of the chain of cause and effect are reasons for making our choice 'completely' necessitated by the past
    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


    • #32
      Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
      The determinist nature of our physical existence is not mechanistic and simple as billiard balls, because firs, the outcome of all cause and effect relationships are fractal in a complex world. This complicates the the world of the human mind, which though subject the deterministic series of cause and effect, because of the complexity we most often make choices in a limited range of possibilities. The degree of our choices being deterministic is at present unknown. I believe it is known that the range of possibilities is limited in any cause and effect choice.

      It is unlikely that the deterministic reason of the chain of cause and effect are reasons for making our choice 'completely' necessitated by the past
      I know. I was saying something different. I was saying that metaphysical free will would require that my action be done for the purposes and reasons I think I'm doing it for AND that the action not be necessitated by the past.

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
        I know. I was saying something different. I was saying that metaphysical free will would require that my action be done for the purposes and reasons I think I'm doing it for AND that the action not be necessitated by the past.
        I wish some of the old crew were still around - I'm still having trouble working out your framework. That's not a criticism - it just means I'm unfamiliar with it and I can think of at least three of the guys that used to hang around here that could tackle it with no problem.


        Still thinking...



        One question - why the caveat about the action not being necessitated by the past? I'm unclear why that should be included.
        Last edited by Teallaura; 08-10-2019, 05:36 PM.
        "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

        "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

        My Personal Blog

        My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

        Quill Sword

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        • #34
          Well, we kind of got on a slightly different but related topic, the free will topic. If I do something, say raise my left index finger, and if it's necessitated by the past, by all the states in my brain and nervous system leading up to it, then it was determined. I couldn't have done otherwise than raise my left index finger.

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          • #35
            Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
            Well, we kind of got on a slightly different but related topic, the free will topic. If I do something, say raise my left index finger, and if it's necessitated by the past, by all the states in my brain and nervous system leading up to it, then it was determined. I couldn't have done otherwise than raise my left index finger.
            So your using necessitated such that a person cannot do something contrary to their best interests?
            "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

            "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

            My Personal Blog

            My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

            Quill Sword

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
              I know. I was saying something different. I was saying that metaphysical free will would require that my action be done for the purposes and reasons I think I'm doing it for AND that the action not be necessitated by the past.
              well, I believe the cause and effect decision making metaphysical free will would still apply as I described. All cause and effect choices have purposes and reasons from the individual perspective, and cultural foundation. It is a fact that by far the majority of people make their decisions based in the framework for the purposes and reasons of what they traditionally believe handed down by their ancestors. Are exceptions with conversions and paradigm shifts, but I believe there is an element of free will and determinism in this process whether natural or metaphysical. Human nature id if course human nature regardless
              Last edited by shunyadragon; 08-10-2019, 08:25 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


              • #37
                Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                So your using necessitated such that a person cannot do something contrary to their best interests?
                No, the idea is determinism, that a person can't do something contrary to what the past determines that they do.

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                  well, I believe the cause and effect decision making metaphysical free will would still apply as I described. All cause and effect choices have purposes and reasons from the individual perspective, and cultural foundation. It is a fact that by far the majority of people make their decisions based in the framework for the purposes and reasons of what they traditionally believe handed down by their ancestors. Are exceptions with conversions and paradigm shifts, but I believe there is an element of free will and determinism in this process whether natural or metaphysical. Human nature id if course human nature regardless
                  The question is whether indeterminacies at the micro-level can scale up to affect macro-level events like humans actions. It's more likely that all the countless indeterminate events at the micro-level cancel themselves out at the macro-level so that there is still probably macro-level determinism...but I'm not sure.

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
                    No, the idea is determinism, that a person can't do something contrary to what the past determines that they do.
                    This is not correct, and incomplete. There are different views of determinism. Various types of compatibilism allow for a range of choice outcomes from a range of possible choices that are limited by determinism.

                    It is the fractal nature, and complexity of the human brain and mind concerning cause and effect outcomes that makes a rigid mechanistic determinism realistic. The degree of possible free will choices would arise from the deterministic nature of our physical existence, but the deterministic view would allow a range of possible choices.
                    Last edited by shunyadragon; 08-13-2019, 06:44 AM.
                    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


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
                      The question is whether indeterminacies at the micro-level can scale up to affect macro-level events like humans actions. It's more likely that all the countless indeterminate events at the micro-level cancel themselves out at the macro-level so that there is still probably macro-level determinism...but I'm not sure.
                      Indeterminism at the micro level (Quantum Mechanics) has no known effect on the determinism at the macro level. Indeterminism at the Quantum level actually follows a predictable pattern.
                      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


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
                        No, the idea is determinism, that a person can't do something contrary to what the past determines that they do.
                        Okay, I get it.
                        "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                        "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

                        My Personal Blog

                        My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

                        Quill Sword

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
                          What I was asking was whether or not reasons and rationality are subject to the laws of causality, minus indeterminacy. It's related to the free will question. If the reasons that motivate my actions are all the effects of prior physical events, and if they become causes, like extremely complex billiard ball causation, then what sense does free will make? Even if you allow for indeterminacy of various kinds, that still doesn't allow for free will which would have to include purposeful action done for reasons but that are not necessitated by the past.
                          I understand the orthodox view of “laws of causality” to be limited to matter, i.e., immaterial entities are believed to have no causal power.

                          I’ll throw out an unorthodox view of reasons and their relationship to causality.

                          I take value to be the prime mover of existence. Existence on this view is information, i.e., all objects, material and immaterial, that offer content to perception are “real” in some sense because the mind is itself structured to only receive structured information. Everything apprehended (and possibly things that aren't) are thus informational structures or objects.

                          Value exists in two kinds, descriptive (factual) and prescriptive (normative/moral). Descriptive value as a dynamic within material information is beyond the context of this thread and can be set aside. Suffice to suppose that an agent [human] exists as a bundle of both descriptive and prescriptive information, commonly referenced as body and soul, and all of that information [in reduction] exists in exactly one value state, true or false.

                          It seems to me that descriptive and prescriptive information on every level other than that of agents [intellectual operation] are subject to material causality. Agents have limited power to ‘create within’ or resist this “traditional” causal power.

                          But the prescriptive—value different in kind than descriptive—produces properties common to its own kind. Sorry to go on, but I feel this minimum groundwork is necessary to establish main point. Value is in this hypothesis ultimately the only causally efficacious power in existence, but there's lots of shoveling to do to reach explanations.

                          The prior presumes the following:
                          1. An agent’s prescriptive information—the dynamic often referred to as “principle of animation” or the soul—hypothetically adapts to the body in reductionist fashion, as “iotas” of prescriptive information inherent in “bits” [atoms] of matter.
                          2. Each iota of the soul exists in either a true or false value state, while each bit of matter has only a true state. The human soul is therefore fragmentally falsified, personally-inflicted by wrongful choice. (The fall in Genesis is a metaphor illustrating this function.)

                          Based on the above, I theorize that agents are affected by two causal forces, descriptive and prescriptive. Even though the prescriptive dynamic exerts incomplete (due to the fragmentally falsified state as a whole) power to agent rationality to make wholly free choices as commonly defined, on the prescriptive side the tension and resistance generated between truth-bearing and falsity-bearing information of the soul’s constituent parts “infects” agent reason to properly produce “right” or “good” reasons.

                          This seems to present a dichotomic situation in the generation of reasons and the motives that intuitively precede reasons:
                          1. the standard view of free will, the power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies, and,
                          2. the additional feature of making good compared to bad choices where “good” references the highest amount of truth and “bad” corresponds to the greatest amount of falsity.

                          On this view, the more the value-bearing information (soul) of the agent is falsified, the more power falsity exerts to form motivations for reasons. When falsified sufficiently to overpower the truth-bearingness of a particular area of “value intentionality”, e.g., a given moral stance, assuming moral positions like the virtues are individual domains of morality toward which the intellect is directed and about which the content of reasons and beliefs are constructed.

                          Short version: freedom to form reasons apart from mechanistic determinism is inherent in the prescriptive power of the soul to assent to or reject its causal power. But the soul’s fragmentally falsified state both 1) adds the moral-ethical dimension [choice between good and bad; value evaluations] and (2) hinders the mind even in factual processing—and thus the will dependent on it—in its capacities to resist the ever-present ‘deterministic pressure’ applied to conform to causation. Reasons from the past have to contend with reasons induced by prescriptive value, which of course can be directed to good and evil ends. And it is usually, I suggest, prescriptive force which in subtlety forms the motives that precede reasons.

                          I suspect the notion of indeterminacy held by Nietzche said to inform his criticism of Kant, “…'immediate certainty,' as well as 'absolute knowledge' and the 'thing in itself,' involve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO” can be explained by application of the ‘value mechanics’ illustrated above…a natural byproduct of the falsified mind would be a ‘dumbing down’ effect on the intellect’s path to precise reason in its grasp of both factual and moral realms. I suspect Nietzche's rejection of "absolute knowledge" and "immediate certainty" is a byproduct of the limitations imposed by a fragmentally falsified intellect, though of course not saying he understood it in this context. That we’re defective or fallen is not controversial. An analogy would be the way black and white dots of the old style newsprint create shades of gray…in the same way, an admixture of truth [white] and falsity [black] in the mind creates ‘gray’ areas of uncertainty and unknowing. I suggest that the value mechanism above goes some distance in a number of interesting directions for not only illumination of certain cognitive processes, but has insightful theological implications as well. My two cents anyway.

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                          • #43
                            Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
                            Are reasons the same as causes? Let's say the door to my bedroom closes because I don't want to wake up my wife. Let's say the door to my bedroom closes because the wind blows it shut. Are they really the same thing? Physics can study the second case but can it study the first? Reductionists might say that ultimately both scenarios reduce to the same kind of explanation, even though the first explanation is much more complex and sophisticated and involves neuro-chemistry, but can it ultimately be explained in the same way? I tend to say "No" but I'm eager to hear the other side.
                            They can be about the very same thing.
                            Who? Person.
                            What? Thing.
                            When? Time.
                            Where? Place.
                            How? Cause.
                            Why? Reason.
                            . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

                            . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

                            Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

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                            • #44
                              Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
                              Are reasons the same as causes? Let's say the door to my bedroom closes because I don't want to wake up my wife. Let's say the door to my bedroom closes because the wind blows it shut. Are they really the same thing? Physics can study the second case but can it study the first? Reductionists might say that ultimately both scenarios reduce to the same kind of explanation, even though the first explanation is much more complex and sophisticated and involves neuro-chemistry, but can it ultimately be explained in the same way? I tend to say "No" but I'm eager to hear the other side.
                              Yes, reductionists can explains both, but they are not necessarily the same(?) kind of reason (?) for a cause and effect event. There is an interwoven series of cause and effect outcomes that cannot be easily separated. Both scenarios involve a more complex series of cause and effect outcomes than you present simplistically.
                              Last edited by shunyadragon; 05-23-2020, 06:50 AM.
                              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


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                                Yes, reductionists can explains both, but they are not necessarily the same(?) kind of reason (?) for a cause and effect event. There is an interwoven series of cause and effect outcomes that cannot be easily separated. Both scenarios involve a more complex series of cause and effect outcomes than you present simplistically.
                                Okay. I'm waiting for a non-simplistic explanation in your own words (not copied and pasted).

                                Comment

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