A challenge to show me wrong

[PolyHedral]

matter -> biochemistry -> cells -> organs -> brain -> psyche -> spirit -> rhys.

I do not understand the idea of rhys being immortal. As written there, it is eventually composed of matter.

 

[Storm]

I do not understand the idea of rhys being immortal. As written there, it is eventually composed of matter.

Not sure how you got that!

No, rhys is not composed of matter. It's a fundamental element of the universe equal to matter.

 

[doppelganger]

Not sure how you got that!

No, rhys is not composed of matter. It's a fundamental element of the universe equal to matter.

Akin to what philosophers might refer to as "substance"?

Substance (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Storm]

Akin to what philosophers might refer to as "substance"?

Substance (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

There could be said to be two rather different ways of characterizing the philosophical concept of substance. The first is the more generic. The philosophical term ‘substance’ corresponds to the Greek ousia, which means ‘being’, transmitted via the Latin substantia, which means ‘something that stands under or grounds things’. According to the generic sense, therefore, the substances in a given philosophical system are those things which, according to that system, are the foundational or fundamental entities of reality. Thus, for an atomist, atoms are the substances, for they are the basic things from which everything is constructed. In David Hume's system, impressions and ideas are the substances, for the same reason. In a slightly different way, Forms are Plato's substances, for everything derives its existence from Forms. In this sense of ‘substance’ any realist philosophical system acknowledges the existence of substances. Probably the only theories which do not would be those forms of logical positivism or pragmatism which treat ontology as a matter of convention. According to such theories, there are no real facts about what is ontologically basic, and so nothing is objectively substance.

The second use of the concept is more specific. According to this, substances are a particular kind of basic entity, and some philosophical theories acknowledge them and others do not. On this use, Hume's impressions and ideas are not substances, even though they are the building blocks of—what constitutes ‘being’ for—his world. According to this usage, it is a live issue whether the fundamental entities are substances or something else, such as events, or properties located at space-times. This conception of substance derives from the intuitive notion of individual thing or object, which contrast mainly with properties and events. The issue is how we are to understand the notion of an object, and whether, in the light of the correct understanding, it remains a basic notion, or one that must be characterized in more fundamental terms. Whether, for example, an object can be thought of as nothing more than a bundle of properties, or a series of events.
​

In the generic sense, yes.

 

[PolyHedral]

Not sure how you got that!

No, rhys is not composed of matter. It's a fundamental element of the universe equal to matter.

All but the last three arrows can be interpreted as the word "composes."

 

[Storm]

All but the last three arrows can be interpreted as the word "composes."

Ah. No, that's just an illustration of the spectrum. Do you think I should replace the ->s with <->s for clarity?

 

[PolyHedral]

Ah. No, that's just an illustration of the spectrum. Do you think I should replace the ->s with <->s for clarity?

To represent what? Matter and the brain clearly aren't the same object.

 

[Storm]

To represent what? Matter and the brain clearly aren't the same object.

TO illustrate the spectrum.

 

[PolyHedral]

TO illustrate the spectrum.

Of organization? I don't understand how to interpret that without concluding that rhys is composed of the predecessors.

 

[Storm]

Of organization? I don't understand how to interpret that without concluding that rhys is composed of the predecessors.

Of life. It's like any spectrum. Take color: you go through red to blue. That doesn't mean blue is composed of red.

 

[PolyHedral]

But matter is not life, and we've already said that rhys is immortal. Life (usually) dies.

 

[Storm]

But matter is not life, and we've already said that rhys is immortal. Life (usually) dies.

Right. The basic components (matter and rhys) at either end, with the elements of the seeming between.

 

[atanu]

the ability to do differently if one wished[/b].

Here's how I see it.

Our actions are caused (determined) by previous events and nothing else. Even our wishing to think we could have done otherwise is a mental event that was determined by all the cause/effect events that led to it. We think as we do because.

. . . And that "because" can never be any different than what it was. We have no will to do anything other than what we're caused to do. In effect then, the will does not exist, nor does choice, etc..

The free will issue exists because people claim "I could have done differently if I had wished." Problem is, of course, they didn't wish differently because . . . .

This, then, is my argument---a bit shortened to keep it brief---against free will as it stands in opposition to determinism.

Comments?

Skwim

With your definition of free will: the ability to do differently if one wished and the inescapable chain of 'because .......', we are indeed automatons.

But, suppose you were to start the chain from the point of 'mind-less existence'? That is if one exists beyond the cause-effect chain? To give an example: a form of moon on a water poodle may form and disintegrate but nothing happens to the real moon and it is not tied to the cause-effect happening in the poodle.

 

[atanu]

I don't think that there is a single "subconscious" mind. Rather, there are a lot of mental processes going on simultaneously all the time that are not the focus of attention. We can sometimes shift our attention to those processes quite easily when we want to--for example, functions of the autonomous nervous system that control breathing. Yogins practice techniques for gaining access to those parts that are not so easy to shift attention to. So I would say that the "unconscious" will is very open to conscious awareness. If you ask me why I chose to perform a certain action, I can usually tell you what I think motivated it. On the other hand, I might resist telling you--or even admitting to myself--what the strongest motivation was behind the action. In every mind, there are two sides to every decision--the winning side and the losing side. Both exist in the same mind.

Hello Copernicus

Surprisingly I can agree to this post, especially the blue highlighted part.

 

[Falvlun]

I see freewill as an aspect of conciousness. Genetics and environment serve to predispose us towards particular choices and actions, sometimes quite strongly. But, I believe it is a predisposition, and not inevitability. Conciousness provides a different cog to the whole machinery. The result need not be purely random or purely deterministic.

 

[Skwim]

Skwim

With your definition of free will: the ability to do differently if one wished and the inescapable chain of 'because .......', we are indeed automatons.

But, suppose you were to start the chain from the point of 'mind-less existence'? That is if one exists beyond the cause-effect chain? To give an example: a form of moon on a water poodle may form and disintegrate but nothing happens to the real moon and it is not tied to the cause-effect happening in the poodle.

Sorry but I don't understand what you're saying. Care to rephrase?

 

[Skwim]

I see freewill as an aspect of conciousness. Genetics and environment serve to predispose us towards particular choices and actions, sometimes quite strongly. But, I believe it is a predisposition, and not inevitability. Conciousness provides a different cog to the whole machinery. The result need not be purely random or purely deterministic.

And how does this consciousness operate so as to make a selection between A and B?

 

[Muffled]

After thinking about it and discussing these concepts with a good friend of mine, I have come to the following conclusions, which of course can change through further understanding on my part. For instance: was my becoming a disciple of the Left-Hand Path a free will decision or was it something I was compelled to do as a result of my seemingly natural inclination towards this path and a seemingly natural fascination by it by being exposed to it in the free society I live in? What if I was born into and lived in a society like that of the state of Iran? Would I have turned out the same way? Would I have become a Black Magician if I were raised in a fundamentalist Muslim state? I doubt it. I might have been naturally drawn to the beauty of the night and the darkness without ever knowing what it truly meant - I would have become a completely different person, a product of the strict fundamentalist Muslim society I lived in as I would have never been exposed to the sort of things that would have triggered that deeper Truth which lied dormant within my psyche.

Xeper.
/Adramelek\

Maybe you were a druid in a previous life. You could have become a black magician in Iran but you soon would have been a dead one.

 

[Mudcat]

@ the OP.

I haven't read through the entirety of the thread. But your position towards determinism as laid out in the OP is reminiscent of a friend I have.

When it boils down to it, either we are a bunch of meat robots or we aren't. If you are correct, it's not like we have any choice in the matter.

My argument against determinism is fairly simple. That being, we perceive making choices.

 

[Skwim]

@ the OP.

I haven't read through the entirety of the thread. But your position towards determinism as laid out in the OP is reminiscent of a friend I have.

When it boils down to it, either we are a bunch of meat robots or we aren't. If you are correct, it's not like we have any choice in the matter.

My argument against determinism is fairly simple. That being, we perceive making choices.

If your argument against reason is personal perception I wouldn't lay any more than lunch money on it.