Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
this is a strange thread... how about just looking a little at what has been debated on "free will" previously, e.g.:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/
"...The majority view, however, is that we can readily conceive willings that are not free. Indeed, much of the debate about free will centers around whether we human beings have it, yet virtually no one doubts that we will to do this and that. The main perceived threats to our freedom of will are various alleged determinisms: physical/causal; psychological; biological; theological. For each variety of determinism, there are philosophers who (i) deny its reality, either because of the existence of free will or on independent grounds; (ii) accept its reality but argue for its compatibility with free will; or (iii) accept its reality and deny its compatibility with free will. (See the entries on compatibilism; causal determinism; fatalism; arguments for incompatibilism; and divine foreknowledge and free will.) There are also a few who say the truth of any variety of determinism is irrelevant because free will is simply impossible..."
|
|
jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
|
|
Wegner (2002) amasses a range of studies (including those of Libet) to argue that the notion that human actions are ever initiated by their own conscious willings is simply a deeply-entrenched illusion and proceeds to offer an hypothesis concerning the reason this illusion is generated within our cognitive systems. Mele (2009) and O'Connor (2009b) argue that the data adduced by Libet, Wegner, and others wholly fail to support their revisionary conclusions
And around around we go . . .
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
but more interesting in that article, I think:
A recent trend is to suppose that agent causation accounts capture, as well as possible, our prereflective idea of responsible, free action. But the failure of philosophers to work the account out in a fully satisfactory and intelligible form reveals that the very idea of free will (and so of responsibility) is incoherent (Strawson 1986) or at least inconsistent with a world very much like our own (Pereboom 2001). Smilansky (2000) takes a more complicated position, on which there are two ‘levels’ on which we may assess freedom, ‘compatibilist’ and ‘ultimate’. On the ultimate level of evaluation, free will is indeed incoherent. (Strawson, Pereboom, and Smilansky all provide concise defenses of their positions in Kane 2002.)
what is meant by "incoherent"?
for a summary look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Strawson
In the free will debate, Strawson holds that there is a fundamental sense in which free will is impossible, whether determinism is true or not. He argues for this position with what he calls his "basic argument", which aims to show that no-one is ever ultimately morally responsible for their actions, and hence that no one has free will in the sense that usually concerns us. In its simplest form, the Basic Argument runs thus:
 You do what you do, in any given situation, because of the way you are.
To be ultimately responsible for what you do, you have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are — at least in certain crucial mental respects.
But you cannot be ultimately responsible for the way you are in any respect at all.
So you cannot be ultimately responsible for what you do.[2]
This argument resembles Schopenhauer's position in On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, summarised by E. F. J. Payne as the "law of motivation, which states that a definite course of action inevitably ensues on a given character and motive".[3]
http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014
Suitably developed, this argument against moral responsibility seems very strong. But in many human beings, the experience of choice gives rise to a conviction of absolute responsibility that is untouched by philosophical arguments. This conviction is the deep and inexhaustible source of the free will problem: powerful arguments that seem to show that we cannot be morally responsible in the ultimate way that we suppose keep coming up against equally powerful psychological reasons why we continue to believe that we are ultimately morally responsible.
one fundamental cause of our belief in ultimate responsibility... lies in the experience of choice that we have as self-conscious agents who are able to be fully conscious of what they are doing when they deliberate about what to do, and make choices. (We choose between the Oxfam box and the cake; or we make a difficult, morally neutral choice about which of two paintings to buy.) This raises an interesting question: Is it true that any possible self-conscious creature that faces choices and is fully aware of the fact that it does so must experience itself as having strong free will, or as being radically self-determining, simply in virtue of the fact that it is a self-conscious agent (and whether or not it has a conception of moral responsibility)? It seems that we cannot live or experience our choices as determined, even if determinism is true. But perhaps this is a human peculiarity, not an inescapable feature of any possible self-conscious agent. And perhaps it is not even universal among human beings.
The facts are clear, and they have been known for a long time. When it comes to the metaphysics of free will, André Gide’s remark is apt: ‘Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.’ It seems that the only freedom that we can have is compatibilist freedom. If – since – that is not enough for ultimate responsibility, we cannot have ultimate responsibility. The only alternative to this conclusion is to appeal to God and mystery – this in order to back up the claim that something that appears to be provably impossible is not only possible but actual. The debate continues; some have thought that philosophy ought to move on. There is little reason to expect that it will do so, as each new generation arises bearing philosophers gripped by the conviction that they can have ultimate responsibility. Would it be a good thing if philosophy did move on, or if we became more clear-headed about the topic of free will than we are? It is hard to say.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
It's very much like the white and gold or blue and black dress confusion, imo. With understanding of the many and various perspectives, it resolves. Otherwise it's the proverbial "timeless" question or the "timeless" mess, take your pick.
Should clarify: The first issue, namely the fallacy of so-called libertarian freewill resolves. The second issue, that of instances or varieties of accountability or responsibility in light of our automated biology (our mechanistic nature) and instincts, sentiments and tastes, like Sam Harris says in his lecture, is going to lead to a lot of problems, argument and upset.
When is that wormhole to other planets going to open up? I want in. :)
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
In practice we are held responsible for what we do.
If they catch us.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/lbh24/CCPC.pdf
Commonsense concepts of phenomenal consciousness: Does anyone care about functional zombies?
Bryce Huebner
Published online: 14 April 2009
Abstract It would be a mistake to deny commonsense intuitions a role in developing a theory of consciousness. However, philosophers have traditionally failed to probe commonsense in a way that allows these commonsense intuitions to make a robust contribution to a theory of consciousness. In this paper, I report the results of two experiments on purportedly phenomenal states and I argue that many disputes over the philosophical notion of ‘phenomenal consciousness’ are misguided—they fail to capture the interesting connection between commonsense ascriptions of pain and emotion. With this data in hand, I argue that our capacity to distinguish between ‘mere things’ and ‘subjects of moral concern’ rests, to a significant extent, on the sorts of mental states that we take a system to have.
Philosophical debates about the nature of consciousness have traditionally centered on competing a priori intuitions about which properties are necessary for a system to count as a locus of consciousness. But, who would have thought otherwise? If armchair reflection is going to be useful anywhere, it had better be useful in helping us to understand what it is like to sit in an armchair! Recently, however, some philosophers and cognitive scientists have attempted to shift these debates away from individual reflection, focusing instead on commonsense intuitions about consciousness.1 In this paper, I offer a further contribution to this alternative approach by examining the ascription of mental states to humans, cyborgs, and robots. I begin with a brief overview of the recent literature in the experimental philosophy of consciousness. I then report the results of two experiments designed to examine the commonsense understanding of subjective experience. I close by arguing that disputes over the philosophical notion of ‘phenomenal consciousness’ are misguided and that they fail to capture the important role of moral consideration in determining whether an entity is a locus of subjective experience.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
After deep insight, insight into faster and subtler components of the thought process is realized, and the meditator acquires an intuitive wisdom about the nature of consciousness and reality.
what is "intuitive wisdom"?
and how do you acquire it?
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
^^^^^^^
Yes.
|
|
Tvash
climber
Seattle
|
|
Actually, the top speed of thought is about 250 mph. More the speed of latte than light, really.
It can seem faster if you always think the same thought. Thoughts percolating up from the subconscious can also seem instantaneous, but your subconscious could operate at the speed of spilled Jello pudding and you'd never know it.
Shine a light and send a thought to the moon. The light gets there in under 2 seconds. Your thought arrives 41 days later.
Slowpoke.
Is the modernism/post-modernism debate heating up again? Bring on the Ven diagrams!
|
|
Tvash
climber
Seattle
|
|
Two important factors to consider in the free will/determinism discussion:
1) DNA reshuffling/replication errors during conception. This ensures novel behaviors will continue at pace.
2) The stochastic effect of environment. We are products of both genetics and environment - the latter of which is largely out of our control early in life, while the former is completely out of our control.
Still, we are creatures born of an argument between our reason and instinctual proclivities. The two are often in conflict, particularly where our pleasure center holds destructive sway - as with addiction.
Addiction figures large in the free will debate. How do addicts compelled by an over active pleasure center train themselves to listen more to their reason (and long term self preservation)? How do they DECIDE to undertake such training?
Neither recovering addict nor full blown practicing addict escape from their evolutionary traits, but giving in to addictive impulses is the more primal choice in that it employs much older areas of the brain.
The question for policy makers is how to reduce the societal harm of addiction. Prohibition and criminalization has clearly done far more harm than good - it has proven to be an abject failure to achieve even modest improvements. Public education, on the other hand, has proven to be remarkably effective, with regards hard drug use in the late 1800's and early 1900's, before prohibition policies reared their ugly heads, and more recently with tobacco (although E cigs for kids are turning that around in some segments).
Access to education, training, and awareness during critical development periods - most particularly early teens, is arguably the most effective way to put a dent in addiction. The US does a very spotty job of that - but we sure do love our prisons.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
Access to education, training, and awareness during critical development periods - most particularly early teens,
Wouldn't you call this environment changing genitcs?
I agree with ya on the whole.
|
|
jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
|
|
Suppose you are walking toward a wall and you notice that there is a line on it . . .
The commentary Lovegasoline has posted is the best meditation writing I've seen on this thread. The analogy cited above and the material on perceptual thresholds makes so much more sense than all the babble about no-thingness, awareness fields, Hilbert spaces, raw awareness, no physical extent, etc.
Thanks.
I see some have exercised free will and that free will is back in action here. Perhaps the only good that can come of this lies in a discussion of legal accountability for behavior.
|
|
cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
|
|
Why is this particular bad piece of writing being promoted on this thread? And for what purpose(s)? To further which dialogue?
I'll caution anyone exalting in the writer's analysis to take a deep breath, ratchet their emotional investment down several notches, and look elsewhere for a serviceable treatment of postmodernity.
Um, yeah, about that. Clearly Mr. Patterson was not paying attention in Art History 101. And though I'm far from exalting in his argument, I do like his little take on "il n'y a pas de hors-text," at the end.
Of course this has all been argued before. Just a spectator, here. The post-modern and its detractors all make for great entertainment.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
If you begin to perceive consciousness (your own, not other people’s), then you have begun to tap into what’s called awareness by some practitioners. “Objects” in consciousness / mind flit about, but awareness is like a mountain that stretches in all directions.
Questions / conversations about free will and responsibility tend to be heavy-handed here. No thing is clear-cut and solid. We make them seem that way. If there is any sense at all to “free will,” it might be somewhat captured loosely with intentions.
As was suggested above, the roles you have found yourself in were not chosen by you (e.g., father, teacher, human being, in this place, in this time, born to your parents, with this or that educational experience, your friends, your natural talents, etc.). In those roles, you have some influence, but you do not have control. A metaphor of floating down a river might be apt. You can’t help but go downstream, but you can paddle about. Your intentions is your paddle, but you cannot change who and what you are; you can’t get out of the river.
In notions concerning improvisation, psychological presence, wu wei, authenticity, “being in the zone” (flow), engagement, hot (vs. cold) cognition, free play, mastery, spontaneity, being natural, and “Gnothi seauton”, . . . what we partially understand is that we should find ways to express who and what we uniquely are. To do that entails letting go, connecting to the wellspring of creativity (the unconscious), and quieting down monkey mind. The way to best control yourself is through your soul, your heart, your intentions. Seems woefully indirect, but it’s a straight path to grace, and with that, it seems, comes the power of the universe. (Woo-woo.)
I sit still quietly maybe once a day first thing in the morning.
1. I focus on something, anything ahead of me. Gently. Chill. I Relax.
2. My peripheral vision arises into attention after a while (a soft broad focus). My perception present broad canvases, sets of sounds, and arrays of feelings. My body is a sensing device. I try not to interfere.
Here I first began to discover openness, where objects are neither this nor that. Emptiness is hinted at.
3. What may come next to me is a sense of the emotions that are going on around me, to include that of animals, people, my next door neighbors, my wife sleeping in the other room, my own emotions. At first this sense was vague, nondescript, maybe even imaginary for me. Emotions appear to be energy flows, and they are difficult to say what they are as feelings—but they seem to be all over the place. (You’re feeling one right now, aren’t you?).
Paul Ekman’s and Joe Navarro’s works suggest how we can feel or sense the emotions of others, but they talk primarily about symptoms.
4. What shows up next for me is just being present. Experiencing the here and now. That’s all. Nothing more. I find my way here most of the time. At first this looked like being aware of place and time and activity. But after many observations, I got the distinct notion that “here and now” is simply a projection of mind. Whatever or wherever or whenever I think I am, I am mind.
Some people speak about the importance or usefulness of mindfulness (being present), and they focus on mindfulness in activity. These speakers appear to be trying to make us into better people, better workers, better climbers, better this or that. I’d say mindfulness is not about doing anything. It’s about being, and an openness to what an observer cannot avoid. What would that be? That would appear to be consciousness. When a person is truly mindful, they have an open (and empty) mind. Then I find I am connected to an energy source of creativity that might be the unconscious. Remarkable things—creative, insightful, lively, symbolic, unexplainable answers, interesting associations, etc.—pop up, unconnected to anything that I’m aware of.
Here, on and off the pillow, I am on automatic pilot. I’m not doing anything, but things are happening in wonderful ways. I have become a function. This seems the action of non-action, wu-wei, the Tao. I naturally find this mindlessness, this loss of control, this loss of self-consciousness in my area of professional practice as a teacher. There is a dignity about it.
5. Sometimes, presence next seems to drop away to leave just *being.* This doesn’t seem like much of a change from the previous sequence, but it is to me. Just *being* goes before consciousness; it supports consciousness. It is not an experience; there is no experience to point to in just being. There are no sensations or lack of sensations. It is a lack of a lack, an absence of an absence; the category doesn’t exist. It is spaceless and timeless. Just being . . . .
6. Finally (rarely, very rarely), *being* itself drops away and uncovers pristine awareness. Nothing of it can be said or described. This appears to be ground, “alaya.” This has been metaphorically described to be like space, pure potential, without instantiations. Some call this the dharmakaya.
(I should imagine that others might provide different views. I welcome them.)
For me, I don’t force things. I don’t look for the next phase. Each arises on its own. If it doesn’t, no matter. It tells me something about myself.
In my process, I observe obsessions, puzzles (paradoxes, curiosities, oddities) and come to understandings about thoughts, emotions, narratives, and instincts. I grok what control, autonomy, independence, free-will, etc. are. But all I CAN say is, what those objects aren’t. To me, they seem to be no thing at all—even through emotions, feelings, instincts, etc. manifest or appear to consciousness. (How strange that is.)
Detachment from the seriousness and concreteness of everyday conventional life started to show up for me a number of years ago, and I formed an intention that my detachment would not turn to indifference. With detachment, emptiness and bliss arose. For reasons I cannot articulate or fully understand, compassion is concomitant with, or identical to, emptiness, . . . somehow. (This seems illogical.)
Shifting intention changed my world. But what a slow process. At first, there was the mountain. With practice, the mountain began to disappear: there is no mountain; everything is empty—narratives, instincts, emotions, conceptualizations. They are just pointers. I’m told that it all comes around full circle back to everyday life. As it does so, I see it as a non-stop melodrama that has no end.
What’s the point? Peace, no fear.
This is a narrative.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
^^^ Yes, and what a Great one!
and too ur last 9999, all which have caused me introspection and a craving for language.
For this, i say;
Thank You!
also,edit; i have a hope for someday we shall share a rope and after a bottle of cab, interrupted by verbiage..
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2015 - 06:33pm PT
|
Said John: "The commentary Lovegasoline has posted is the best meditation writing I've seen on this thread. The analogy cited above and the material on perceptual thresholds makes so much more sense than all the babble about no-thingness, awareness fields, Hilbert spaces, raw awareness, no physical extent, etc."
That's because he wrote about meditation in terms of focusing awareness on some thing or idea (the present moment), and then one's threshold of observing and receiving a data stream from the present (outside world) increases in a measurable way, measurable with a gadget no less. So your discursive mind now has tangible stuff (a line on a wall or fill in the blank) and a concept - a much broader conscious threshold of ingesting things and stuff. Such information is accessible to our rational minds. It makes "sense." But don't think this is the end of the road. What was described is fundamentally what you have beginners do to anchor their attention - anchoring it on a mantra, a sound, a breath, anythng to keep the attention from wandering.
But what happens when you sit on the cushion long enough and exactly as Mike explained, "mind and body drop away," along with all the stuff available past a certain threshold, and there is just an inexplicable presence with no boundary or edge or data? No threshold. That's when no-thingness, awareness fields, raw awareness and no physical extent start to make sense. As mentioned, they will sound like woo till the game shifts on its axis. But not before, IME.
And don't be surprised that Fruity is posting jackass, faux scholorship on the humanities.
JL
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
For me, I don’t force things. I don’t look for the next phase. Each arises on its own. If it doesn’t, no matter. It tells me something about myself.
Boy i sure loved forcing things when i was a kid!
That sure tells me something now, about how i was then. Sure be it evolution.
i'm coherent with you on all that, except..
i condone ALL things to the Lord JC. and for that to have happened, i had to take a humungous punt kick to the erroneous scrotum. Causing humility. This by all means is a on-going complication. But through humility, one recognizes one's pursuit isn't as important as the whole's. When i often meditate and pray, on something particular, and then receive no insight. i'll resolve, that it didn't matter.(at that time, anyway) Which causes me to re-think my motives. This inconsequentially mandates me to be more open. Only if i really want to move forward. If i'm not able to be open,i'll stay stagnate. Which BTW shows up in my emotions, by way of outbursts from feelings.
and by "i", i really mean, the world. as "i" see it anyway. Maybe realistically this is just my intentions?
i wish this could have been a better retort to your fabulousness.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!